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cxbe6q | why does coffee taste bad after only a couple hours? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cxbe6q/eli5_why_does_coffee_taste_bad_after_only_a/ | {
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"We talking cold in a cup or left on a burner to stay hot and burn?",
"The cause is oxidization. The molecules that make coffee smell and taste like coffee continue to oxidize after brewing(oxidization is also what makes coffee taste the way it does, but controlled), eventually turning it very sour and bitter.",
"Coffee itself shouldn't taste bad that quickly, but lots of people put sugar and milk and stuff like that in it which makes it go bad really quick.\n\nIf you leave it long enough, it'll eventually settle a bit, leaving a sludge of sediment at the bottom with thinner liquid above it, which is kinda gross, but that takes longer than a couple hours.",
"Oxidation, as well as sugar and milk, are what makes it go bad. Sort of like apples turning brown and mushy. I'd you have it black, you might be able to fix it with a bit of lemon juice, but I don't think that'd taste too good."
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3ooczr | what is the relationship between reddit and 4chan? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ooczr/eli5_what_is_the_relationship_between_reddit_and/ | {
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"4 chan hates reddit because it leeches original content from their website, this is a justifiable notion seeing as there is an entire subreddit r/4chan",
"Reddit:Massive self sustaining, extremely diverse group of communities on the website. Quite self-centered, believes it is the best internet forum, arguably true. Likes to think it's still underground and has a lot of in-jokes.Reddit is not one person, it is a collection of millions, but often is spoken about as if it is one entity. Partly where the so called hive mind comes in to play. Reddit is very left wing and perpetuates this attitude by the voting system.Reddit hates 9gag because that website is known for stealing most of its content from reddit, and that its a website that caters to cheap laughs and feels spammy much like the things you see on facebook. \n4chan:Also massive and self sustaining. And what I mean by that is it's driven by the people, and doesn't require much interference from Administration. Similar to reddit it is extremely diverse and has a lot of boards for different topics. Unlike reddit however, these cannot be created or managed by the users. 4chan remains underground because of the dirty reputation givento it by /b/. Most people are \"scared\" to go there and don't understand that there is so much more to be offered by 4chan than the random board.4chan users pretend to hate reddit while most users there are members of both.",
"4chan is a medium where everyone's opinion has equal value. If you are posting top quality content, you will not be treated any differently than someone who is shit-posting. Also, your posts will be permanently deleted after a few hours, so there is no incentive to \"Karma-whore\" or post generic content that appeals to a wide audience. People also usually post anonymously, which means that you will not have a reputation to uphold.\n\n\nReddit, in contrast, runs opposite to 4chan. Your posts are permanent (meaning that they are not regularly purged), and posting content with widespread appeal is very rewarding because you get permanent karma for it.\n\n\nYou can probably already tell from those differences that each website cultivates a very different crowd.\n\n4chan users tend to look down on reddit because the reddit system promotes behavior such as reposting old content and circlejerking to appeal to the majority userbase of reddit. At the same time, you usually won't see as much bizarre or degenerate posts from reddit, because the content is effectively \"filtered\" before it reaches the front page.",
"The short version. Full discosure: I have been a serious, daily 4channer since 2007. If you want to truly understand the relationship between 4chan and Reddit, you need to know the site's history.\n\n4chan has been around since 2004. The site itself is a weird throwback to the BBS (bulletin board system) days of the Internet where people just posed threads onto a main site page and commented. It's in its own category known as imageboards, of which several others have spun up since then (8chan, Masterchan, 420chan, etc). There is no user registration there. Every poster defaults as Anonymous unless they decide to use a tripcode-a temporary name which to differentiate themselves in specific threads. With the exception of the small \"tripfag scene\" as they call it, every comment is judged on its own merit. There is no post history, no weight being thrown around by \"respected posters\", nothing like that. Pure discussion with very little limitation. Most of 4chan's reputation comes from /b/-the Random board. No rules (except for no child porn), little moderation, nothing. \n\nReddit sprung up in 2008, after Internet culture began to fuse with the mainstream. It's very large and has a different model of userbase. Comments can be up and downvotes, which has an unfortunate side-effect of forum-member-politicking and generating a groupthink phenomenon. It works like a traditional Internet forum, except much larger in scale.\n\nThe Internet was a very different place in 2004. As far as individual websites and subcultures went, back then their mindsets were pretty tribal and this even reflects in one of 4chan's rules: \"If you enjoy similar sites, don't\". There was always a rivalry between SomethingAwful, 4chan, Newgrounds, Gaia, whatever back when most of those sites were relevant. They would launch raids on each other for shits and giggles instead of today, where it's because of actual hatred and desire to see the other wiped from the Net. 4chan is very much a relic of that time and still holds a similar attitude. It's also why every time some Tumblr subgroup or whatever that sprung up yesterday thinks it can take down \"big bad 4chan\" gets chased back into its hole and basically gets bent over a table until they get bored. 4chan has been raiding, doxxing, all that shit for over a decade and people tend to forget that or don't know how old that site is. It's basically the only site from that time period that is still relevant and active.\n\n4chan in particular is known for being a mass producer of Internet original content in the Western world and as can be imagined, is pretty chapped when it sees the \"normie\" world it despises latch onto the things their users created or brought to the Internet, claim them as their own and run them into the ground. The general opinion of Reddit over there is that it's a mainstream shitpile of karma-whoring groupthink garbage that just aggregates content from everywhere else and poses it as theirs (which has some merit, seeing as everything related to \"Internet culture\" today either came from 4chan, they had a large part in its creation or otherwise was somehow involved with them).\n\nGranted, the 4chan of 2015 is not the 4chan of 2004. There's much less OC being made and as far as /b/ goes it's basically just turned into a glorified porn board at this point. Reddit and 4chan these days have a pretty big overlap, despite the hatred. Every time 4chan gets into the news it gains a new influx of users and by this point, it's pretty mainstream itself. Still, despite that, at their cores, Reddit and 4chan represent two different eras of the Internet.\n\n"
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d8tr28 | why the earth is a geoid including the water when water forms a perfect sphere in space? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/d8tr28/eli5_why_the_earth_is_a_geoid_including_the_water/ | {
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"* stationary water might come close forming a perfect sphere, spinning water under the influence of multiple local gravitational fields does not\n* the earth is not made completely of water",
"The Earth does not only consist of water but most of it is rock. And solid rock takes a lot longer to form into a perfect sphere then water does. So the rock on our planet still have some lumps in it. These lumps of rock will itself have a gravitational field. This will pull the water close to it towards these lumps. This means that as long as there is mountains, valleys and uneven mantle on the Earth it will not be a perfect ellipsoid."
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22c9r4 | what is joule and why do we need that term? | Neither Google nor previous related questions could help me.
What I know so far is that Joule is mass times the distance it travels in a second or something like that.
But, what is it good for?
Why do we need to have a term for something that travels a distance in a second?
Why and how did people come up with it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/22c9r4/eli5_what_is_joule_and_why_do_we_need_that_term/ | {
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"It is a measure of work, or energy. The distance in a second is not what is being measured. It is what defines the Joule. The proper definition is \" the work done by a force of one newton when its point of application moves one meter in the direction of action of the force, equivalent to one 3600th of a watt-hour.\" Simplifying this, it means the energy required to cause that motion in that amount of time.\n\nWe need the joule just like we need all the other units of the SI. Engineers and scientists use it all the time to precisely define the energy they are talking about, or applying in real life. SI is the international system of measurements that define most of the units used today by the vast majority of the world, including all of science, technology, and engineering: joules, Watts, Ohms, meters, light-years, seconds, grams, Newtons, degrees Celsius, and the rest.\n\n",
"The joule is the unit of energy. \n\nAs to why it's defined how it's defined, consider the definition of kinetic energy:\n\nE = (1/2) mv^2\n\nNow, note that the mass m is in kilograms (i.e. kg), and velocity v is in meters per second (m/s, or m s^-1 ). So that means that energy must have units of: kg (m s^-1 )^2 = kg m^2 s^-2\n\nWe use the joule instead because it's just shorter to write.\n\nConsider other definitions of energy (or work done, in this case):\n\nE = F * d\n\nEnergy is force times by the distance over which that force is exerted. F is in newtons, and d is meters. We could probably make a good guess then that a newton is just another name for kg m s^-2 , and you'd be right! You can see that from Newton's second law:\n\nF = ma\n\nForce in newtons must equal mass in kilograms times by acceleration in meters per second per second (i.e. m s^-2 ), so a newton must be the same thing as kilogram meters per square second (kg m s^-2 ).\n\nUnits have the definitions they do because of how these quantities are related by physics. It's one of the reasons that SI units are superior to those of other systems; they have a rigorous scientific basis."
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60p9cz | how ships during the age of sail survived canon fire without sinking. | Just been wondering about this recently, especially with accounts of how some ships took multiple volleys to the broadside without sinking. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/60p9cz/eli5_how_ships_during_the_age_of_sail_survived/ | {
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"If you poke a hole in a ship above the waterline it doesn't really care. If you shoot into the water the projectile slows down very quickly and doesn't carry much force. The sides of the ship were thick and sturdy as well.\n\nThe overall result is that unless you hit right on the waterline a cannon shot probably wouldn't sink a ship. For example blowing a hole in the side 5 feet above the water doesn't bring water into the ship.",
"In order to sink, they'd need to have holes below the water line on the hull. That's fairly difficult to do; aim too low and the water mostly stops the shot, aim too high and you have a big worthless hole.\n\nTherefore, most battles didn't focus on sinking, they focuses on taking out the masts and rudder so the ship couldn't move. Then they'd board the ship or take pot-shots from far away in a position where the enemy guns weren't pointed at them.",
"* ships don't sink unless they have leaks below the water line, which is hard to do with a cannon\n* ships were worth a lot, so the object of a lot of combat was to disable and capture them, rather than sink them",
"There are good answers here. I would just add that you might not be aware of how thick and strong these ships were and the density of the wood. \n\nThe US has a really famous ship called \"old ironsides\" and it was stronger than the competition because it was made of white oak. Those trees could grow up to like a hundred and fifty feet tall and you gotta be made of pretty solid stuff to support that kind of weight.\n\nThis frigate in question had a layer of seven inch thick beams on the outside. Then it had it's ribs, (which like yours had gaps between). Then on the inside it had another layer of seven inch thick beams. \n\nThere is a picture of that in [this article](_URL_0_) from the hilarious-that-it-exists \"Wood Magazine\".\n\n\n\n"
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5boaoq | does the universe have a boundary? | Do photons that never get obstructed by whatever object or event ever meet this boundary?
I guess what I'm asking is does the universe have an 'event horizon'
and what would that look like from the inside of the universe? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5boaoq/eli5does_the_universe_have_a_boundary/ | {
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"No, it doesn't. The universe is expanding, but it's not expanding in to something else - it's just that everything is getting further away from each other. One common analogy is to picture ants on a balloon. As the balloon inflates, they are all moving away from each other. But there is no center spot from which they are moving, if you think about it two dimensionally. (the problem with this analogy, I've always found, is that the balloon is still expanding in to the air, so people still have trouble grasping this). Or, imagine there's a giant piece of cheesecloth, so huge that as far as you can tell there's no edges to it. And it's being stretched in all directions. You can tell the individual strands are moving apart, but there's no concept of a center to that.\n\nThere's two reasons people generally think there must be an edge, both incorrect. One is that we sometimes talk about the edge of the observable universe. That's not really an edge, it's just as far as light has been able to travel since the big bang.\n\nThe second is the concept of the big bang itself. People naturally think that it came from a single point, and expanded from there. But, it wasn't really that - all of space was filled with really dense energy/matter. The big bang just made it all start moving apart from each other."
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1xbv7o | what is the difference between aryans, iranians, persians, and parsis? | This has been confusing me for quite a while now.
Edit: I know what Farsi is as a language (though it's really supposed to be Parsi, but Arabs can't pronounce the P and after their influence on Persian culture, they changed that "P" to an "F"). Parsi is something different. There are a group of Zoroastrians I've met who are Indians and call themselves Parsi (See: _URL_0_). I know I can't really call them Persians even though they are descendants of Persians, but I just want to know what the differences are and what some of those "patriotic type" of Persian guys are really priding themselves over. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1xbv7o/eli5_what_is_the_difference_between_aryans/ | {
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"Aryan is no longer used in academia to describe people. It is a former name given to a people who were said to speak an archaic Indo-European language and who were thought to have settled in prehistoric times in ancient Iran and the northern Indian subcontinent. Iranian is a citizen of Iran (the country's name changed from Persia to Iran in the 70's, so it is especially used to describe citizen in the political sense in the modern day). Persian is a person of Persian descent regardless of citizenship. Farsi is the official language spoken in Iran. "
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4a059o | why does the american presidential race cost millions of dollars? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4a059o/eli5_why_does_the_american_presidential_race_cost/ | {
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"Travel, opening campaign offices in each state, television and radio ads, and paying everyone who works for the campaign, from those who research your opposition, to those who manage your website -- it's a year+ long process with a lot more than a few speeches and shaken babies.",
"It's advertising. You need to pay for TV ads and billboards and signs and for people to run phone banks and call people up. If you don't spend as much money on advertising as your opponent, they are more likely to win.",
"Making speeches and kissing babies doesn't win elections. Constantly being on TV, having media talk about you nonstop wins elections. You can have no real ideas, just superficial talking points and good marketing, and all of a sudden you're running away with the party nomination.",
"Ads cost [a lot](_URL_0_) of money if you want to reach millions of people\n\nAnd having offices and staff all across the country isn't cheap either. ",
"They hold rallies in thousands of places across the country.\n\nIn the primary they have to:\n\n- pay for airfare \n\n- rent out places for rallies\n\n- pay for busses \n\n- pay their staff\n\n- buy ad time which is extremely expensive\n\n- food \n\nEtc etc etc\n\nAnd then if they get the nomination, they have to repeat the process on a larger scale ",
"It is a very large country with a large population, making it expensive to run a nation-wide campaign. Compare the size of the US to the UK, for example.\n\n\nOf course, Citizens United ruling has eliminated most restrictions on campaign donations, and that makes it worse.",
"Not all of that money is ultimately spent either, but it's critical that you *raise* that money, because it's a major component of your credibility as a candidate.",
"I feel like this was a fake submission just for an excuse to say \"shake a few babies and kiss a few hands\"",
"If you're running around shaking babies, your insurance premiums alone are gonna gobble up those campaign funds in no time."
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43y0p4 | why are landfills still our best source of dumping trash? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/43y0p4/eli5_why_are_landfills_still_our_best_source_of/ | {
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"It's incredibly expensive to send anything into space. We're talking thousands of dollars per pound. Go lift your garbage can and figure out if you want your garbage collection bill to go up about $20,000 a month. \n\nSome places do incinerate garbage, but that causes a lot of air pollution. ",
"we recycle ALOT of our trash, whatevers economically worth recycling.\n\nWould we want to pay money to recover the material? why? not like we are running out of space for landfills... \n\nObviously no ones suggesting littering.",
"Burning = Pollution\n\nLaunching into space = costs lots of money\n\nThe only real option available that does not cost a lot of money or land is to attack the source. People need to recycle their plastic, glass, paper, etc etc responsibly WHILE eliminating waste. Find alternative uses for your junk and/or stop wasting food/random junk etc. ",
"Your trash is put into a geomembrane lined landfill. (Geomembranes are traditionaly polyethylene based liners. Their role is to achieve impermeabilty. They can be extremely resistant to many different chemicals). Once a landfill is filled, it is often capped with another geomembrane and then backfilled with locally available agregates. The liquid and gas of the system are drained out and recuperated (often even bought by private companies) to produce renewable energy! After many years the system becomes a \"dry tomb\" which basically means that there is no further risk of contamination to the earth.\n\n\"Burying stuff\" sounds awful said like that, but the techonology of geosynthetic liners surounding all types of waste management problems is a very detailed, studied and continuously improved science! \"Burying stuff\" has become a pretty good and green energy-recuperating solution!!\n\nMy company is one of many which distributes and installs liners to protect the environement (although landfill is the classic application, such liners are used in many other industries)! Checkout our website for more info and pictures! :) _URL_0_\n\n"
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44ghku | how do computer clock cycles generated? | What happens in deep levels, 4 billion times per second? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/44ghku/eli5_how_do_computer_clock_cycles_generated/ | {
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"The computer clock is generated by driving a quartz crystal. This [oscillates](_URL_0_) at a frequency set by the geometry of the crystal. \n\nIt's a very simple technique which has been in use for nearly 100 years."
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1bsxge | why is is considered socially unacceptable for men to carry purses? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1bsxge/eli5_why_is_is_considered_socially_unacceptable/ | {
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"Basically put, gender stereotypes are responsible for this social taboo. \n\nA man is supposed to carry a wallet, or something else considered a male thing to use. Purses are generally seen as a feminine item to use for carrying objects since so many women use purses. ",
"Because pretty much everything men wear have pockets, so there is always somewhere to put your stuff. Women on the other hand have many clothing options that do not come with pockets so them keeping all of their items in a purse allows them to obtain consistency.",
"Because a man-bag is called a satchel.",
"It is because of the oldest of all gender stereotypes.\n\nMen are the hunters and must travel light with only the bare necessities.\n\nWomen are the gatherers and must travel with some form of vessel to carry as much as possible.\n\nAlso look at how often a man of power has someone whose job it is to carry stuff for him and give him only the tools/weapons he needs at the moment. Knights had pages. Surgeons have nurses. Even golfers have caddies. The more you carry the lower your societal level, so it became much more fashionable for a man to be seen as having as little on him as possible.",
"TIL in the US, \"purse\" means handbag, not just a small pouch for coins.",
"Maybe the better question is, what ~~do you~~ does one perceive as a purse and why ~~do you~~ does one assume only women should carry purse-like objects."
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60aej7 | why did the concord stop flying ? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/60aej7/eli5_why_did_the_concord_stop_flying/ | {
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"basically, it was too inefficient. everything about it was just to make it go faster. the only reason it ever flew was because back then, people were willing to pay for that. with a full tank, it could barely fly from the uk to the east coast. compared to a 747 or an a380, which can go double the distance with the same amount of fuel and carry 4-5 times as many passengers, airlines just weren't able to make enough profits to keep it flying, which is why they took it out of business. I'm not really great at explaining things quickly, but hopefully you get the idea:)\n\np.s. my dad also told me a few years ago that it was because it was a very uncomfortable aircraft. he asked me \"would you rather spend an hour in a really cramped, uncomfortable aircraft, or two hours in a plane with lots of space where you can also get work done while you're at it?\"",
"For two reasons. \n\nFirstly, was the France disaster, where a Concord took off, suffered some major malfunction, and wound up upside down on the ground, with everyone onboard dead. While it was a genuinely magnificent plane (and I did get the chance to see one arrive at my local airport once, when I was a kid), such a well-publicized disaster occurring to one of the very few Concords in the world (iirc, there were only 12 in commercial operation) killed the brand stone-dead. \n\nWork was done go recover things. After years of investigation and reengineering, Concord was prepared and readied to fly once again. A press event was arranged, and a crew of press, enthusiasts, and airline senior bods were assembled for a flight from London to New York, which they hoped would reestablish the Concord as the premier choice for those who wanted fast, luxury travel. The flight was successful, the landing event for the press went exactly to plan, and everything seemed poised for success. And then, just thirty minutes later, the first plane hit the World Trade Centre. Concord's return was overshadowed by about the single worst thing that could possibly overshadow it. \n\nThe aviation industry took a long time to recover from those attacks. Concord's relaunch didn't stand a chance, and was given up on in mid 2002.",
"Cost more to fly the plane than they could get by selling tickets to fly on the plane. Sooner or later you run out of other people's money. ",
"On top of what other people have been saying, the relative time advantage of a faster flight disappeared.\n\nLet's say the flight is 3 hours vs 6 hours. That's twice as fast, that's a big deal. You could easily wake up in the morning, fly to Europe for an afternoon meeting, and fly back home in time for dinner with your family. Indeed, this is how they originally pitched it.\n\nOver the years, airports have become busier, security has become tighter. You can't just hop on a plane anymore. You need to show up for your flight a couple hours in advance. Factor in the extra time you spend getting to/from the airport because a lot more people fly these days. Pretty quickly, the whole advantage of having a flight that's faster starts to disappear.\n\nEven if you had the Concord available today, you couldn't really fly to Europe for your meeting and get back the same day anymore.",
"The Concorde was never a financial success. It cost as much as a 747 to operate, with a third of the passengers. And when you figure all the non-flight time involved in door-to-door travel across the Atlantic, it wasn't that much faster, you are still going to waste most of your day in transit. Finally, because of the sonic booms, it could only travel at full speed over the ocean.\n\nThen in 2000, Air France flight 4950 hit some debris on the runway during takeoff, ruptured a fuel tank, and wound up crashing into a hotel. Over 100 people died. The Concorde was grounded for a while, and by the time it returned to service, 9/11 happened, result in a decrease in air travel. The airplane was also badly outdated and due for a major upgrade. British Airways and Air France instead decided to pull the plug at that point.",
"When the Concorde first flew in the 70s it was more or less the same seating as upper class in other slower planes so it was actually quite nice for business executives to fly over the Atlantic ocean in less then half the time. But it was still really expensive, far more than the regular price, to fly and the Atlantic crossing was basically the only route it could fly with some advantages because it couldn't fly supersonic overland, didn't have the long range such as the 747 and the time margins for short flights are so small it wouldn't warrant the price tag anyway.\n\nWith the advent of much more luxurious regular and first class seating in 'normal' planes during the late 80s and 90s even those executives who could even afford the Concorde flights would decide to rather fly 8 hours in what is essentially a bed with tv instead of 3 hours in 'economy' seats. \n\nThe only ever reason for people to fly Concorde where out of pure curiosity and for the time saved and people decided it wasn't worth the time anymore because you could fly much more comfortably. Also, one day travel time to anywhere on the planet was accepted as you spend an hour at the airport anyways. By the late 90s many of those 100 seat aircraft flew half empty when the airline needed them to be almost full to make money and those passengers often just used saved up miles to fly it out of curiosity. Add to that the 2000 crash killing all passengers, even more increased airport time post 9/11, besides the fact that the first flight after the accident was actually on 9/11 and you understand why the Concorde was retired",
"I did a report on this is in college and it had a large part do to the safety concerns after the crash. Which was the only one to ever occur. But one reason I found was that it was too loud. NASA did a study on how the vibrations were very disruptive to the surrounding areas. One of the biggest problems was the economical cost of the plane, it what decommissioned because it wasn't marking much money, this was due to the fears of flying after 9/11. Many less people were flying so they didn't have the seats to fill required for them to make a profit. \nTL:DR- 9/11 a lot of people weren't flying. \n\nSorry about the format I'm on mobile. ",
"The short answer it is the crash of Air France Flight 4590 and 9/11.\n\nThe reality is the Concord program was essentially NEVER profitable, not when R & D is thrown in. Air France & British Airways kept the tiny fleet of 12 planes in the air basically as a lost leader advertising their brand and a fair amount of corporate ego. \n\nBut the double-whammy of the crash plus the plummet in air travel following the WTC attacks killed the the program. It would have have cost both airlines millions each *month* to keep the planes going. ",
"A new Boeing 787 which is one of the most efficient commercial planes has an mpg per passenger of about 104. The concord had 14.",
"Vox has a really cool video about the Concord: _URL_0_ \n\nIts only about 10 minutes and really well edited. It pretty much tells you everything the other responses have explained but just in case you want something pretty to look at :)",
"I asked a pilot this and one of the reasons was because they lost a significant portion of their frequent flier clients in the September 11th attacks. [Here](_URL_0_) is an article that cites the claim",
"Also relevant. It could only be used for trans Atlantic flight due to the Sonic boom. So the market for its use was pretty limited. ",
"Additional - Concorde was very unpopular because IT WAS SO FREAKIN LOUD!!! _URL_0_\n\nLike miles away from London Heathrow you would hear it, people complained about it all the time, and with noise regs. etc. tightening up, didnt help.\n\n",
"Wendover Productions YouTube channel has some good videos on the airline industry. They did one on the [Concorde] (_URL_0_) failure. \n\nPlane was really expensive to operate because it had horrible fuel efficiency. It also could only seat about 1/3 as many passengers as a typical transatlantic flight so tickets were very expensive for what was basically just a coach seat. Those who could afford it, opted to pay the same price for a luxurious first class seat on a slower flight.",
"Most of these answers sum it up pretty well, but just to contribute, my grandmother was upgraded to one before and she said that it was really cramped and uncomfortable.",
"As well as the excellent points raised here, there was another issue. The Concorde was essentially hand-built with 1960s technology. There was a limited (and reducing) stock of spare parts available to keep them flying and a limited (and aging) group of mechanics who knew how to maintain them. \n\nBoth British Airways and Air France knew that they couldn't keep Concorde flying forever and there were strong rumours that BA at least was seriously looking at shutting down Concorde operations even before the Air France crash. That just sealed the deal.\n",
"So [this](_URL_0_) is a really great video that covers exactly what you're asking! \n\nTLDW, Concorde planes did fly much faster, but because of the extra fuel demands of their engines, they were extremely expensive to operate. Their cabins were also small and cramped, so clients ended up choosing business class on the longer flight that at least had the ability to extend into a bed so they could get some sleep at a cheaper price. Airlines were also changing their business model during this time to attract middle class families instead of businessmen, so the cost ended up being the biggest factor in choosing a flight. Most people didn't have the money, so Concorde flights were flying with less than half the cabin full of paying customers.",
"Follow up question: will air travel ever be any faster than it is today? ",
"[This video](_URL_0_) pretty much sums it up. Also talks about planes speed in general.",
"They were hardly competing with first class on other aircraft. The Concorde experience started from the moment you reached the airport. Dedicated check in, dedicated security, dedicated lounge. Exquisite foods with fantastic pairing to expensive wine. It was for people who didn't need to look at or consider the price tag. They didn't need lie flat seats as there was little time to sleep. ",
"Folks have already answered about how it was super expensive, or not that safe.\n\nAnd that's all true, but there's more to it.\n\nFirst, it was very loud, and so it was only allowed to go supersonic over the ocean -- limiting the routes on which it could operate. Pretty much only operated Paris and London to NY (and reverse).\n\nYou could do a Europe to NY roundtrip in one day (most passengers did, in fact, return the same day). NY to Europe was less of a win -- you left after work, and arrived around midnight.\n\nBut, what really killed it was the advent of (comparatively) cheap airborne sleeping accommodations. The reason that it was worth paying to fly on the Concord was because you could travel to or from Europe without losing a day.\n\nBut it cost like $10k for a ticket. And it wasn't all that comfortable or luxurious. This is what the Concord cabin was like: _URL_2_ . I was never aboard, but I am told that it was loud, bumpy, and generally not super comfy.\n\nLooks great by economy standards, but not so much for $10k. By comparison, if you're willing to fly slower, you can have this for less than half the price: _URL_1_ (actual review starts at 8:30). That's British Airways, whose business class product is about average. Service like this is available to and from every major European destination.\n\nYou leave NY after work, and you arrive in Europe in the early morning. No time to sleep before your meeting -- but you can now get actual sleep aboard. The seats become moderately-comfortable beds. Which means you still don't lose a day -- you sleep aboard, shower in the airport lounge, and are ready for your morning meeting. \n\nTravel the other direction is also great -- you leave Europe at the crack of dawn, and land in time for mid-morning meetings. And, again, you can arrive relatively fresh, because you can have a good sleep aboard. And this is available for about $4,000 round-trip instead of $10,000 on the Concord.\n\nAnd if you're actually willing to spend that $10k, you can have something like this: _URL_0_ (This flight is from Sydney to Hong Kong, but it's a good quality video of a top quality first class product)\n\nIt turned out that the market for high-end travel went toward comfort instead of speed. It was cheaper to fill a slow plane with comforts than it was to fill a fast plane with simple seating.\n",
"Hello. Pilot here. There are a LOT of inaccurate replies to this post. Let me clear some things up.\n\nConcord stopped flying for a huuuuuuge range of reasons. No one factor or reason killed it by itself, but as a combination they mounted up and where eventually too much. I will list the main reasons that killed it off.\n\n**1. A tiring airframe**\n\nAircraft have a shelf life of sorts. Unlike a car, an aircraft is exposed to a lot of stresses and strains during its operational lifetime that weaken it's structure and components. Different parts of the aircraft have different life expectancies (The engines being the largest components with the shortest life expectancy) but generally an aircraft lifespan is measured in something called cycles. Depending on the aircraft, one cycle is either one complete startup and shutdown of the engine, or one take off and landing (Regardless of how long the aircraft is actually in the air). An aircraft can only do so many of them before specific maintenance has to be carried out to extend it's life so it can do more cycles. The more it is extended, the more expensive and in depth that maintenance becomes. Eventually there comes a point where it's just not worth it and it has to be retired.\n\nConcord was getting close to this point. She was an old aircraft and extending her life further and further would soon have come with complications like shortened flight hours, restrictions of movement/speed and all kinds of things that is undesirable in a commercial aircraft. I will allude to this more later, but many people view the Paris Air France crash as the end of the Concord. It wasn't. Her airframe cycle life would have killed her off a few years later regardless, but we will touch more upon that later.\n\n**2. A reluctant maintenance company**\n\nAirbus had a contract to maintain the Concord and it was said that they where somewhat reluctant to continue on with it beyond its renewal date. Maintaining the Concord required extremely skilled people and sophisticated facilities only a company like Airbus could bring to the table. When Airbus indicated they did not want to do it any more, that was a big problem that did not really have an immediate solution.\n\n**3. A downturn in it's economy**\n\nContrary to popular belief, Concord was always profitable. It can never be said to have been a huge source of profit for BA/AF and it might be fair to say it sometimes was closer to breaking even but it never ran at a loss. The reason for this was economy of scale. It ran on a schedule that allowed it to break even. Concord never flew with empty seats. The price of a ticket was astronomical and that reflected its operating costs. The upside of this was that flying on it was almost a zero wait experience that got you from London to New York in 4 hours 15 minutes once check in time was calculated. There where no queues at the airports or checking in three hours early or anything like that. Minimum check in was 45 minutes before the flight, it had it's own baggage check lines and security for only 160 people. Your time in the airport was kept to an absolute minimum. The downside of this was you couldn't book a flight to fit your dates, you fitted your dates round flying on Concord. An aircraft on the ground that isn't flying and carrying passengers absolutely haemorrhages money for an airline, but in the case of Concord the time spent on the ground was unavoidable so it was factored into the cost of a ticket.\n\nThat being said, there was a downturn in it's economy that began to pinch into this. As fuel prices and maintenance costs rose, the ticket prices couldn't really begin to keep up, high as they where already and it was predicted its maintenance costs would outstrip what could reasonably be claimed back in it's ticket costs in the near future. This meant at some point, the aircraft WAS going to begin operating at a loss.\n\n**4. A loss of confidence and increased safety measures after the crash of an Air France Concord in Paris**\n\nMany people like to believe that the loss of the Air France Concord in Paris was the final nail in the coffin for Concord. It wasn't. In fact all other things being equal it would barely have phased BA/AF in terms of worrying about the aircraft's future as the aircraft had a near flawless safety record at that time. At some point in time, every airframe has a crash for some reason. The fact Concord had operated for so long before it's first fatal accident was a testament to the aircraft.\n\nHowever it was just one of the factors that weighed up against the aircraft.\n\nA lot of safety measures had to be retrofitted to the aircraft after the crash. It's worth noting though if the crash had been directly to do with a fault in the airframe then Concord would likely have been scrapped there and then. It's no secret in the aviation world that the damage to the engine and resulting fire from the tyre debris striking the fuel tanks did not destroy the Concord. Had it remained on the ground and come to a stop it would likely have been possible to get some or maybe all of the passengers off. Sadly what destroyed the aircraft was that the plane took off before it's take off speed had been achieved and the aircraft basically stalled into the ground. Therefore BA/AF where confident that with the adaptions to the engines and fuel tank strengthening the aircraft would be as safe as it could be. However they where hugely expensive to implement and BA/AF where never fully sure of being able to recoup the costs against a potentially nervous and very small (Due to the cost of a ticket) customer base. Then 9/11 happened which further had a bad ripple effect across the airline industry and Concord unfortunately had to take some of the brunt of that as well (One of the huge impacts was no longer being allowed to visit the cockpit of Concord mid flight which was often a big part of the experience).\n\n**5. BA/AF did not want to share their toys**\n\nAfter it was announced that the Concord's would be retired, British Airways and Air France had a multitude of offers from several aviation companies to take or buy the aircraft and continue flying them. One of the most likely offers was from Virgin Atlantic. However Richard Branson did not believe he should have to buy them after they where basically gifted to BA/AF by the French and British governments. As it turns out BA where not willing to continue operating them but they sure as hell wheren't going to let anyone else have the prestige of operating them, and as they legally owned them, they said no. It was entirely feasible they could have had a few more years in them, but BA did not want them appearing in someone elses livery.\n\nHopefully this clears up the main reasons why Concord stopped flying. It was a shame she stopped flying when she did but make no mistake, her time was coming to an end regardless of any crashes.\n\n\n---\n\nFollow up comment with answers to some questions I have been asked as this post is too long.\n\n_URL_0_",
"I lived in Bergen Beach, NY, an area in Brooklyn that is right under the concord's approach path to JFK. She always announced herself when she was coming in over us. "
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ypj03 | difference in "sell by," "best by," and expiration dates? | How long does food usually last, and in what quality, up to these dates? I feel like they all mean something different if not similar, yet I only ever see one on something that I buy. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ypj03/eli5_difference_in_sell_by_best_by_and_expiration/ | {
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"Sell by is when the store should sell it to you by, which is somewhat before it goes bad. You have a couple days after the sell by date to use it, versus an expiration date.\n\nI believe best by means that it will taste better before the date, but will still be edible and safe to eat, just maybe a little dry or stale, after. Usually see it on something like chips, never on meat or dairy that can make you sick.",
"btw, if you ever want to know about something specific you should bookmark [_URL_0_](_URL_0_)",
"* A \"Sell-By\" date tells the store how long to display the product for sale. You should buy the product before the date expires. It is a stock control system for the stores. \n* A \"Best By (or Before)\" date is recommended for best flavor or quality. It is not a purchase or safety date. It is a guarantee for the consumer that if you use the food on or before the date listed, it should taste fresh. It is advisory only and says nothing about the safety (or lack thereof) of the food on or after a certain date. \n* A \"Use By\" date is generally a date at which food is no longer considered safe to eat. You might see something like \"Keep refrigerated and use within 5 days of opening\" on a carton of egg whites, for example. You should not get sick if you eat within 5 days - you may get sick after 5 days. ",
"There was just a story on NPR about this today actually. \n\n > \"I think we've lost some of our food knowledge,\" Bloom says. \"And we're not sure when something is good or not.\"\n\n > He says the USDA encourages manufacturers to put expiration dates on meat and dairy products, but that's only to indicate quality, not safety. The dates are only required on infant formula.\n\n > But somewhere along the line, Bloom says, expiration dates became a strict cutoff point for some consumers. \"Simply following those expiration dates is something that many Americans just do because it's clear to them and it's easy,\" he says.\n\n > Bloom says there are consequences to that kind of thinking. In the store, it means food gets pulled off the shelf well before its labeled end date. A supermarket doesn't want you to be horrified when you purchase nearly expired crackers. It wants you to keep coming back.\n\n[Link](_URL_0_)\n\nTL;DR\n\nSeems like those dates are way before the food will usually go bad, and a lot of it is just marketing.",
"You'd happily eat a bag of crisps 2 weeks past it's best buy date but not milk two weeks past it's use by date.",
"Long time guy from the grocery business here, also used to distribute meat products to grocery store chains.\n\nThose \"use by\" and \"sell by\" dates are, by and large, completely arbitrary. It's not like on that exact date, a switch is flipped and the food magically becomes spoiled. For any given product, it's true shelf life depends on a variety of factors, i.e. breaks in the cold chain, the seal of the package, exposure to light, etc. Rule of thumb, if it looks good, and smells good, it's probably safe to eat.\n\nI used to laugh at people who would have an unopened package of lunch meat in their fridge that had \"expired\" a day or two ago and just through it in the trash when really there is nothing wrong with it. Companies use dates that are usually well before the estimated time of expiration to cover their asses.\n\nGenerally there are no laws to regulate the date a company puts on their product. Now, that said, I believe there are some laws in various states regarding two commodities; eggs and milk. These have a much shorter shelf life that other foods and have a higher risk of making someone sick. If you live in New York, you'll probably notice they have a shorter expiration date on your milk than the rest of the country. That's because they have a law that the expiration date must be considerably shorter than the national average (I can't remember the exact date now).\n\nAnyway, that's my two cents."
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9fhai8 | how do we make reduced gravity chambers on earth? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9fhai8/eli5_how_do_we_make_reduced_gravity_chambers_on/ | {
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"You sit on a plane, it goes really really high, and then starts dropping altitude like a crazy SOB, that's how you get it. \nSearch it on YouTube, Casey did it too",
"Vomit Comet, as unseemly as that name is. You take a big plane and have it fly and do massive waves up the sky (up then down). When it goes down then you experience zero gravity.\n\nThey are inside that plane.",
"Airplane affectionately called the Barf Bucket. Fly high then freefall at the right angle for a while, and you experience the sensation of weightlessness. Essentially, you're falling at the same rate as the plane.",
"This is filmed inside an airplane, often called the Vomit Comet. It flies up and down in path like a wave and the people inside feel that as changes in gravity, kinda like the hills on a roller coaster. \n\n_URL_0_"
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6ulbei | why do aesthetic tastes (such as in clothing, furniture, car design) change so drastically and quickly? | It just seems so strange how something can be in style one day, and then a mere 20 years later it's not just outdated, but considered terribly ugly. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6ulbei/eli5_why_do_aesthetic_tastes_such_as_in_clothing/ | {
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"commercialism.\n\nif you were happy with your old stuff, you wouldn't need to buy new stuff.\n\nall the designers and manufacturers come out with new looking stuff and market the old stuff as ugly and new stuff as pretty in order to make money.\n\nour tastes are hugely influenced by others.",
"After ww2 industrialised societies needed a way to make money. Everyone was broke after spending so much money on war. The term \"planned obsolescence\" describes the approach. The idea was to rebuild the world's economy by selling lots of stuff. To shift society away from a \"needs\" based consumer model to a \"wants\" based consumer model. It allowed the world's economy to grow rapidly and fast tracked technological development. \nCheck out \"century of the self\" by Adam Curtis. It's on YouTube. It talks a lot about the birth of \"public relations\" focus groups, celebrity endorsement, product placement etc "
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eqmxfx | how do female bodies know to shed the lining of the uterus (menstruate) every moth? why doesn’t the lining just get thicker and thicker until pregnancy occurs? what are the biological processes that cause this? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/eqmxfx/eli5_how_do_female_bodies_know_to_shed_the_lining/ | {
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"A woman's monthly cycle is driven by two different hormones(estrogen and progesterone), both the absolute levels and the ratio between them. As estrogen levels rise and peak at ovulation, the uterus builds up its lining in order to nurture a fertilized egg. If no fertilized egg occurs within the next several days, the levels of estrogen drop and the levels of progesterone rise, which tells the uterus to shed that lining and flush everything out, which is menstruation. The level of progesterone falls back to baseline and estrogen levels begin to rise towards the next ovulation, restarting the cycle.\n\nHere's hoping this helps."
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7fkabb | how is binary read? especially the numbers. how is 10010 the number 18? is there an algorithm or is it more complex like learning a language with letters? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7fkabb/eli5_how_is_binary_read_especially_the_numbers/ | {
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"its very simply read in 'columns'. each column is worth a value. you add the values together anywhere there is a '1'.\n\n\n\n\nexample;\n\n\n\n\n10010 is actually like 16 | 8 | 4 | 2 | 1\n\n\n\nso there is a '1' in column 16, and a '1' in column 2.\n\n\n\n\nwhat is 16+2 = 18.\n\n\n\nthat's literally all it is.",
"You know how you have ones, tens, hundreds...etc, place with our base ten system? Binary has the same thing except its read like this;\n\n16 8 4 2 1\n\n1 0 0 1 0\n\n16 + 2 = 18. So the values being used are indicated with a 1 and not used is 0. The values increase by doubles as you go higher in numbers, so 54 would be:\n\n64 32 16 8 4 2 1\n\n0 1 1 0 1 1 0 \n\n",
"The fastest way to learn binary is to *really* learn base 10 (\"normal\" counting).\n\nWhen you count you go 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, *what*? What happens when you run out of digits for one-digit numbers? You wrap around to 0 and put a 1 in the next place, giving 10. Then you go back to incrementing the lowest place value: 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, *what*? You reset the last digit to 0 and increment the next digit again, giving 20.\n\nThat pattern continues when you run out of digits in the next place value: when you try to count past 99 you need to reset the ones place to 0 and increment the 10s place, but the 10s place is already 9 so you reset that to 0 and increment the next digit, giving 100.\n\nWhen you look at a big number, say 8,675,309 you can recognize that as 8\\*1,000,000 + 6\\*100,000 + 7\\*10,000 + 5\\*1,000 + 3\\*100 + 0\\*10 + 9\\*1. Each place value is worth 10 times the one before, since we're in base *10*.\n\nFor binary just forget that the numbers 2-9 exist. You start counting and you only get to 1 before you're out of digits. You have to reset to 0 and increment the next place value (the 2s place now). That gives you 10, then you count one more to get to 11 and you're out of digits again. Counting to 8 in binary looks like 1, 10, 11, 100, 101, 110, 111, 1000. With each step you increment the last digit by either turning a 0 into a 1 or rolling a 1 back into a 0 and incrementing next digit (following those same rules).\n\nAlso, like with base 10, you can find the value of a number by counting up the contribution from the individual digits. The number 10010 is 1\\*16 + 0\\*8 + 0\\*4 + 1\\*2 + 0\\*1 = 16+2 = 18. "
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3i1hj6 | for intel processpors,what do the numbers mean in the name? | for example:i7-4790K
can someone explain what each number means? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3i1hj6/eli5for_intel_processporswhat_do_the_numbers_mean/ | {
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"the number after the i tells you how good the processor is. i3 for online banking and reddit, i5 if you use your computer for work, i7 for gaming and video editing.\n\nnot sure for the 4790K but i think it just specifies a model number",
"i3 2 cores + hyperthreading smaller cache and doesn't run as hot\n\ni5 4 cores with no hyperthreading (unless it's a mobile i5 then it's 2 cores + hyperthreading), better on board graphics\n\ni7 2-8 cores (most desktop varieties have 4 cores) + hyperthreading, more cache and improved onboard graphics\n\ni7-x000\n\nx is what generation the CPU is\n\nhere's intel's guide\n_URL_0_"
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aesi4g | when a person is tired, why does a hot shower make them feel reenergised afterwards? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/aesi4g/eli5_when_a_person_is_tired_why_does_a_hot_shower/ | {
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"I very much think this is a personal thing. Hot showers make me relaxed and sleepy. Same with the majority of my friends (the ones I know about because of casual conversation). Generally cold showers are thought of as energizing. \n\nThe only thing I can think of is forcing yourself to stand can wake you up a bit.",
"Raising your core body temp by a hot shower or bath increases the body's metabolism by a significant margin, meaning that you have access to more energy more efficiently. \n\nThe term \"warm up\" isn't just a generic term, being warmer makes it easier to generate energy at the cellular level. ",
"Possibly part of the mammalian dive reflex. Basically, when mammals became a thing, we evolved a reaction to being in water where we'd relax, so we wouldn't thrash or gasp and drown. Pretty much all mammals experience it, it's why even splashing water on tour face is refreshing. "
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5e7brg | why do cacti grow in american deserts but not in africa's? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5e7brg/eli5_why_do_cacti_grow_in_american_deserts_but/ | {
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"There is one species of cactus that grows in Africa, but it is believed it was brought there by migratory birds. \n\nCactus evolved in the \"new world\" sometime after the continents split, which is why they are only found here. ",
"Probably the same reason as to why Africa has Elephants and the Americas don't. Because they are there, and not here. Really is as simple as that. Life evolves differently everywhere.",
"Cacti evolved in the New World after the continents separated. Euphorbs in Africa occupy the niche cacti occupy in the New World."
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1u5wwd | the trigger in our brain that switches us from laying awake and the instantly asleep. | I hope in explaining this right. Pretty much as we lie in bed in night one moment we are awake and then like a snap we are asleep. What triggers this action and also how come sometimes it's instant or sometimes we toss and turn for hours before we finally go to sleep? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1u5wwd/eli5_the_trigger_in_our_brain_that_switches_us/ | {
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"Ok so not to be like \"you're wrong\" but the process for falling asleep is actually kinda long. As you lay down and close your eyes your brain slows down its processes and shuts down certain parts of your brain so they can rest and regain energy. And it's at this point i'm starting to forget the mechanics. I'm pretty sure that your vision center begins to send signals to your motor center to make your eyes seem heavy so you close them. Damnit i wish i could explain this a little better.\n\nAs for part b of your question, you can be going through the stages of falling asleep while doing other things. If you're watching a movie and then turn it off and fall asleep it crosses alot of wires. Your visual center is firing but alot of your other sense are like \"Hey go to sleep so we can too!\" So once the stimuli is gone your brain is like \"Ok everyone go to sleep now\" Even though some parts are still taking their time shutting down (like your visual center) so then it feels like you're awake when really you're about to fall asleep. So that feeling really just comes from certain parts of your brain still running while you're trying to sleep. ",
"How does this work in a fatigue type situation? I remember many times in Iraq when I was working a gate guard shift (15hrs on 9hrs off, 7 days a week) that I would be sitting in a machine gun tower wide awake and alert and then the next instant asleep for what seemed like an hour but was really only 1 or 2 minutes, then jolting awake and alert again. ",
"This question is better suited for askscience. Regulation of sleep and wakefulness is quite complicated."
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2e1ks7 | why can't we tell our bodies to ignore pain during torture? | We have a very advanced brain, why can't it understand that we are under going unavoidable physical pain? I know during extreme circumstances the body CAN choose to ignore broken bones until you know you are safe. So why can't we do that during torture, which unfortunately we have done to one another for as long as we have existed.
Seems like the brain has some very specific criteria for pain blocking. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2e1ks7/eli5_why_cant_we_tell_our_bodies_to_ignore_pain/ | {
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"I imagine it has something to do with the fact that if we're being tortured, that is ALL we have to focus on. Whereas, say, if you're running away from an abusive man, you're in fight or flight, and you are focusing on running away, not the pain in your right ankle.",
"Pain is your bodies way of telling you something is wrong. When you're being tortured your body is being damaged, so your body is letting you know. If people were able to turn off pain then the body could be seriously damaged and can cause death",
"We can but it takes a lot of mental training and meditation to accomplish.",
" > We have a very advanced brain, why can't it understand that we are under going unavoidable physical pain?\n\nIt can and does - if it didn't we'd never be able to think it.\n\nWhat it doesn't have, however, is such conscious though controlling the sense of pain. Pain is a very primal thing controlled in a different more basic part of the brain.\n\nThe brain isn't a single entity working together, it's a complex system of interconnected sub-systems that was sculpted by evolution to work, not an engineering team aiming for what made the best design decisions or added the best features.\n\n > I know during extreme circumstances the body CAN choose to ignore broken bones until you know you are safe.\n\nOnly when you're in the act of escaping from something you at least believe to be a bigger threat than the injury. Generally being tortured you're tied down or something, and in that situation feeling pain fully makes sense because it prompts you to do anything in your power to flee or make it stop.\n\n > Seems like the brain has some very specific criteria for pain blocking.\n\nIt's not perfect at it but the brain has a single goal given to it by evolution: continued survival.\n\nYou feeling comfortable is thrown out the window readily if making you really, really want to run or give up your secrets - made up ones or otherwise - is going to prevent more grievous damage. \n",
"Pain is subjective. Most people don't believe that, but think about it for a second. \n\nTwo guys: each separately smash their own finger with a hammer with the same force and weight. One is feeling more pain than the other, guaranteed. One's crying, the other is laughing.\n\nEver been in a situation where you had a stomach ache, heart ache, head ache and then you got distracted by a movie or a friend and you forget about your physical ailment for a while? That's willful ignorance of pain. That's because your brain can only process so much information at a time, including pain. \n\nYour body is a scumbag who literally likes to bug your brain with every little nuisance, \"Hey you brain--we got an itch, do something.\" \"Yo, we got a slimy feeling, DO SOMETHING!\" \"We're feeling extreme discomfort--alert all pain receptors. NOW!!\"\n\nHowever, your brain can be trained, on purpose or by chance, to have higher pain tolerance. The best example of what's possible with focus is Thích Quảng Đức. He was a Bhuddist monk who burned himself alive as protest and held the upmost composure. Read the **Self-immolation** section here: _URL_0_\n\nThe issue with torture is that most people that are tortured are not in control of their environment. To be able to get the most out of our brains for focus, we need good nutrition, good rest, good hydration, and a stable psychological state. All these things are taken from most prisoners and torture victims. Thus, that leaves very little room for channeling the brain into Burning Monk focus. (It's still possible, but most people break long before Thích Quảng Đức capabilities. Also, take into consideration that Thích Quảng Đức meditated for decades to gain that level of skill, it wasn't something he willed at 18 years of age just because he wanted it.) \n\n",
"Why Is Every Word Capitalized. ELI5.\nAlso, P1 - We have an advanced brain. That's a loaded statement. Evolution doesn't imply advancement, we evolve to compete for niches. Many features of our brain to do with pain are highly protected from mutation and therefore very, very old. Children who can not sense pain are at high risk of injuring themselves. In modern instances these children often burn themselves without realising what damage is being caused. \nThere is also a mind/body presupposition that might be confusing you. Mental states are physical states at all levels and that our conscious experience has a relationship of supervenience with what is physical. \n_URL_0_\nAll that being said, there are examples of people suppressing pain responses during tortue. Hitchens article in Arguably about waterboarding talks of jihadis able to resist the urge to end the torture and let themselves die. Their motivation here was to humiliate their american torturers. \nA slightly more scientific answer maybe be to do with how negative feed back loops react in the brain. I am less of an expert here than I am on the previous points, but imagine the ability to ignore stimuli is always there, but is being blocked down the chain to sensation by something that is natural and always happening. Now imagine this blocker was removed, and the pain ignoring pathway was allowed to operate. Thats my best guess on the how of pain suppression. "
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23pzm1 | what happens when you go to a website and it comes up as plain text on a white background instead of the normal layout and graphics? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/23pzm1/eli5_what_happens_when_you_go_to_a_website_and_it/ | {
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"short answer: the call to load the style page (.css) took too long to respond so the site is loading without it. There are a lot more steps involved but that's about it",
"the language of the web is HTML/CSS (HyperText Markup Language and Cascading Style Sheets).\n\nHTML handles all the data on the website, while CSS handles the styling of the website. If there is an issue loading the HTML, you won't see anything but a blank page. If you see all the stuff on the page, but without any style, its due to the CSS not loading correctly.\n\nThere are many different reasons as to why that occured, server timeouts, improper linking, deleted files, etc. "
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1osvkg | my dad said,' the universe has a finite size ' how does it work? | When i questioned this, typical what happens when you get to the edge, whats beyond it, i thiught the universe was infinite. He (my dad, a physicist) then said, 'Space and time exist only where you are '
I'm not questioning this, although that being deciphered is a bonus, but more how big is the universe? What happens when you get to the edge? Is there even an edge? What's beyond that? Can my little brain not contemplate nothingness.... | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1osvkg/my_dad_said_the_universe_has_a_finite_size_how/ | {
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"I highly recommend watching this and other videos in the series: _URL_0_",
"Your dad (hopefully) didn't mean that the universe has a finite size, because our current understanding is that the universe is infinite in extent ([source](_URL_0_)). Essentially, you could travel in any direction you wanted for an infinite amount of time, and you'd never hit an \"edge.\"\n\nIt's possible that your dad either doesn't agree with the conventional understanding (that's okay, there are valid reasons not to), isn't aware of the most recent data (less likely), or you didn't really understand what he meant fully. You might want to just ask him."
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8g2o3b | how do defamation lawsuits work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8g2o3b/eli5_how_do_defamation_lawsuits_work/ | {
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"It depends on the jurisdiction.\n\nIn the US to prove defamation you must prove that someone knowingly and maliciously made false statements of fact about you, and that those statements caused you specific damages. If you can prove that the judge hearing your case will render a judgement in which the defendant (who did the defaming) must pay you to compensate you for the damages he caused.",
"In order to be defamation, and statement has to be:\n\n* untrue\n* known to be untrue to the author/speaker\n* damaging\n* something a reasonable person would believe to be true (i.e., not a joke or parody)\n\nThe lawsuits work like any other civil lawsuit, they are filed in some court, and the defendant has to defend it. Being president makes it a little more complicated, as they can invoke executive privilege to delay the proceedings. There also the practical matter of enforcing a warrant on someone surround by armed agents.\n\n\n\n"
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3kdr9r | why are proteins of meat considered better than proteins of other sources (like soy protein)? | I get kind of confused by this as it seems not very logical. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3kdr9r/eli5why_are_proteins_of_meat_considered_better/ | {
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"I would hazard that concentration of protein per gram plays a factor. That, along with less carbs, fat etc in the total nutrition scale. \n\nA good meat protein will have a lot of the kinds of protein, amino acids and micronutrients the body naturally needs, if done right.\n\nSoy and tofu is generally known to have some oestrogen, which is why its not ideal. \n\nLentils are great apparently, but may not be the best pound for pound.\n\nMilk, milk products are good too. But they come with added fat etc which a good piece of lean protein won't have.\n\nsource: I am vegetarian. Meat is better for you nutritionally.\n",
"I beleive it has to do with the profile of the protein. Complete protein has all essential amino acids in one hit. Most animal product contains all essentials to be a complete protein. There are vegetable sorces that also provide them too.",
"Proteins in meat are complete proteins. It has all the amino acids that your body needs. \n\nPlant proteins are not complete. You have to eat them in specific combinations and ratios to get all the correct amino acids, and you will get some proteins that are not easily broke down or that can cause problems for people like oestrogen. ",
"Most of the answers so far appear to be very misinformed. The whole 'plant proteins are incomplete' thing originated from bad science in the 70s, and was even recanted by its original source in 1981. Not sure why it still plagues the world as if it was common knowledge decades later.\n\nThat said different foods do have different amino acid profiles -- but regardless of this essentially any old plant has enough of all EAAs to provide for human needs:\n_URL_0_\n\nThis is probably the best website I've found to illustrate this point. As the site itself is pro-vegetarian I understand any concerns with bias -- but there are plenty of citations and most importantly it's the only place I've found that's taken the EAA profiles of various foods and conveniently graphed them."
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2hd0vh | how can most electronics work immediately when plugged into a power source but not phones? | Example: I have a WiiU (don't judge me) and when the gamepad dies I can plug it in and it immediately will boot up. I imagine a device like that can't take much less power than a cell phone, which has to be plugged in for upwards of 10 minutes before it can turn on after dying. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2hd0vh/eli5_how_can_most_electronics_work_immediately/ | {
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"phones are usually designed to only run off the battery. so the battery has to charge a certain amount before it can boot. when you plug a phone in it's still running off the battery, but the battery is charging at the same thing. \n\nsimple test. remove battery, does the phone boot when plugged in? do the same for the wiiu controller. ",
"When you first plug the phone in (when the battery is dead) the power is directed straight to charging the battery first. It is possible to design a phone to run directly off the power source like other appliances, however it is seen as more important to bring the phone up to a minimum charge level first. This may partly be because some battery technologies can suffer long-term damage (to battery life) and completely stop functioning if they are totally depleted (reach a zero charge), so ensuring the battery receives at least some charge is definitely a priority."
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1rfgnx | why are there so much violence and crimes that occur in low income neighborhoods? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1rfgnx/eli5_why_are_there_so_much_violence_and_crimes/ | {
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"Lots of unfulfilled desire, free time, lack of other opportunity, and lower opportunity cost.",
"Quality of life sucks ass. If you're poor and uneducated there are only so many ways to make money. Most go to illegal dealings to make cash. \n\nReally no need to sell drugs and gang bang when you're on a yacht traveling to the Bahamas. That's how I see it at least. ",
"There isn't a single well agreed upon reason, but there are a number of associated factors, such as the following:\n\n* Lack of opportunities\n\n* Peer pressure \n\n* Lack of law enforcement\n\nThere are probably a lot of others, but the point is that each of them individually raises the risk of crime, but together they have an added effect that makes it significantly more noticeable. ",
"Watch the show [Shameless](_URL_0_). It answers this question pretty perfectly.",
"Many crimes are crimes of necessity. This may not just be Aladdin robbing the merchant of an apple, but a young kid who wants to enjoy his life and sees joining a gang as the only way of accomplishing this. In higher income neighborhoods there are better schools and in turn more opportunity to have a happy life without crime. Law enforcement is certainly part of it too. New York City turned around its high crime rate in the 1990s due in part to an aggressive policing campaign in low income neighborhoods. But think of the reason why you (likely) do not commit crime. Chances are your life isn't terrible. But if it were, you may look for the easiest way to improve it, and often for low income residents who see no easy opportunities to make their life better, that involves criminal activity. ",
"One factor not touched so far is the lack of self esteem building opportunities.\nCrime rose in the early '70's in a response to the loss of urban blue collar jobs. Many sociologists claim that the lack of opportunities (@leftnuttriedtokillme) lead young men to prove themselves in any way they can: sports, music and crime are all examples. This also explains why crime peaks between the ages 14-22, when young men are struggling to find a self-identity."
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8m9can | canned tuna. why does it stay good for so long? why is light tuna low in mercury? | How is canned tuna cooked, and why is storing it in a can with a bunch of water keeping it good for so long, whereas without the can cooked fish goes bad pretty quickly? And what is light tuna, and why is it lower in mercury than, say, white tuna? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8m9can/eli5_canned_tuna_why_does_it_stay_good_for_so/ | {
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"Light tuna is typically made from [skipjack ](_URL_2_)tuna that are usually about 10lb or so and only a couple years old. White tuna is only from Albacore, which grow to almost 3\\-4 times that size, and have a much higher mercury content because of their size and life span.\n\nFor how long and why it lasts, I'll cite an old reddit post from /u/ethornber. [_URL_0_](_URL_1_)",
"I don't know about tuna specifically, but canned food in general lasts a long time because the canning process kills all the microorganisms that were in it. Usually you put the food in the can and seal it, then heat it up, cooking the food inside and sterilizing it at the same time. Without the bacteria and fungi breaking things down, the food takes a lot longer to decay.",
"Water does make things go bad easier but it needs a \"seed\". In canning, high temperatures are used. Id eat canned food even months after its supposed \"expiry\" date.",
"Light tuna is usually skip jack instead of albacore or yellow or blue fin. Part of the reason why skip jack is lower in mercury is smaller fish, eats fish further down in the food chain than larger tuna. And reaches market size sooner than the larger tuna, so it doesn't live long enough to accumulate as much mercury.\n\n",
"Mercury build up in older and larger oragnisms is due to a process known as bioaccumulation: _URL_1_\nIf you are worried about mercury from fish, studies have shown that the benefits of eating fish far outweigh any potential negative impacts: _URL_0_\nThere are a couple species to consume in moderation though.",
"Light tuna is usually made from skipjack tuna, a different species than albacore. Skipjacks are smaller, and less susceptible to the process known as \"bioaccumulation\" which is responsible for mercury getting into tuna. Skipjack eat smaller prey than albacore, and those smaller fish are lower down on the food chain than the larger fish that albacore eat. Bioaccumulation amplifies at each level of the food chain, so this means that skipjack consume food with lower mercury content, making them themselves have less of it. This is also why canned sardines and other small fish have very little mercury at all compared with larger predatory fish.",
"So canned/pouch tuna goes through a retort process. \n\nMost times it is checked for histamine at the time it hits the facility. This is important because histamine can withstand the cooking process. Then it is often frozen till it is time to be processed, it is then thawed out and the actual process begins. Let's fast forward to the end and talk about the retort process. All tuna is put into a retort machine that controls the pressure and temperature of the product and gives it a 12-log reduction making it commercially stable. ",
"From my understanding, fish are lighter in mercury when they’re lower down on the food chain.\n\nFor your ELI5, imagine a series of matryoshka dolls (otherwise known as Russian Nesting Dolls), the smaller one fitting inside the larger one going up and up, the largest one holding all the others. This is how mercury build up works. The small fish have a tiny amount from their environment, but the slightly larger fish gets all the mercury the smaller fish it ever ate had, and so on and so on.",
"Canned food in general lasts so long because it was sealed when completely sterile. When canning the contents are heated inside the open can to a sufficiently hot temperature to kill any microorganisms inside. Once the temperature has been reached and maintained for a period of time, the can is sealed. Air expands when hot and contracts when cold, so as the can cools the air inside contracts, pulling the lid down tight to make a seal. That's why the tops of cans pop out when opened. If a can is unopened, but the top is bulging out, it means the seal was compromised and the contents were contaminated with micro organisms. ",
"Light tuna is usually skipjack tuna. This species is lower on the food chain and doesn’t consume food that is at risk of mercury unlike the larger Yellowfin and Bluefin Tunas.",
"I can guess about the Hg content.. light tuna comes from skipjack/yellow fin tuna. Which is a smaller fish than albacore tuna. A larger fish gets to ingest more Hg over its lifetime because they eat more and generally live lonnger because they are bigger... also it is possible Hg is lipophillic? (Hang out in fats) as white tuna has more fat than light tuna.. "
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21gpfu | various star wars things | 1) So, what exactly were the Techno Union, InterGalactic Trade Federation, and Banking Clan?
2) Were they a part of the republic's senate, or a part of the CIS? If they were a part of the republic's senate,
a) Why were they allowed to be a part of the republic senate if they supported the CIS.
b) Why were they allowed to have senators if they were only companies (at least thats what I think that they are)
3) Why was Count Dooku the leader of the CIS, and not Darth Sidious?
4) What was the capital planet of the CIS?
5) Did the systems part of the Confederacy know that Dooku was a sith lord? If they did, then why did they follow him, seeing as the sith were always put forth as evil?
6) Why are the Kaminoans the only people with cloning technology? Wouldn't it be smart for the CIS to find a clone template better than Jango to make clones from?
7) Though it's clear that the B-1 battle droids were quite inferior to the clones, how did other CIS technology stack up against the GAR's? Were their tanks or capital ships/frigates any good? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/21gpfu/eli5_various_star_wars_things/ | {
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"Okay, here we go:\n\n1. The Techno Union, Trade Federation, and Banking Clan are interstellar corporations, trade alliances, if you will, that seceded from the Republic, sparking the Clone Wars\n\n2. Each member world of these groups had a representative in the Senate, but the unions themselves were not.\n\n3. Darth Sidious is the leader of the CIS, didn't you see them take orders from him in Phantom Menace and Revenge of the Sith? Dooku is Sidious's enforcer, general, and physical presence, since Sidious is rarely available. \n\n4. There is no established capital of the CIS. It's a \"Confederacy of Independent Systems\". Each individual planetary system has significant autonomy, and they are united only in their armed forces. \n\n5. I don't know this one, sorry. I consider this a plot hole in the Prequel Trilogy: Lucas presents these people as disgruntled rebels, yet has them side with the Sith who are universally acknowledged as evil and launch attacks against Republic worlds, because secession wasn't enough, or something. \n\n6. The CIS didn't hire the Kaminoan cloners, Dooku did, under the pseudonym \"Jedi Master Sifo-Dyas\". Dooku was in on the plan, remember? He performed an extensive sequence of tests to find the most effective template for the clone army, and Jango was the one to pass all of them. It is said that Kaminoans are known for their cloning technology, not that they are the only ones who have it. \n\n7. Well, their military seemed to hold up well enough against the Republic. In the few battles that we see, they seem evenly matched. ",
"1. In brief, they were businesses so large that they functioned like constituent nations within the Republic.\n\n2. They were part of the Republic, then left. Had they never been in the Republic, their cessation would've been pointless and not have sparked the Clone Wars.\n\n2a. Like I said, they once were. The Trade Federation's representative is seen 10 years before the CIS was a major player, much less cessation was in talks.\n\n2b (or not 2b). They're *that* big. That's about it.\n\n3. Dooku already had the political views that he espoused as the leader of the CIS. It was no secret that that's why he left the Jedi Order. Besides, Sidious always operated in the shadows. If he was out and about as a well-known public figure, somebody would easily put together the secret identity bit.\n\n4. I don't know that they had a capital planet. I know they were based out of Geonosis for a time, but I'm under the impression that the leaders met in a council that moved from planet to planet as the war demanded (such as when they were on Utapau, but Greivous shipped them off to Mustafar).\n\n5. No. He always presented as a former Jedi, nothing more. Even so, the only reason Sith are thought of as evil is because they're heretics to the Jedi Order. The Separatists weren't concerned with such a religious debate.\n\n6. Kaminoans weren't the only cloners, but they were the best. When you consider the monumental amount of money and time it would take to create their own clone army in the midst of the war, it makes sense that the Sepratists' strategy consisted of building as many relatively cheap Battle Droids as they could to overwhelm the enemy with sheer numbers.\n\n7. That's out of my element. Sorry.",
"And people say these films were for kids...."
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4nreb7 | how did lords of old know when to trust the authenticity of messages they received? | If you were the lord of a particular region in England, how would you know that the summon you received from the king was truly from him, and not a forgery? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4nreb7/eli5_how_did_lords_of_old_know_when_to_trust_the/ | {
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"Messages would be sealed with wax. Impressed in this wax was a seal that would identify the sender. These seals were often rings that the sender would wear on their hand. So you knew that if a message had the seal of someone, that person sent that message or at the very least authorized it.\n\nEdit: [Wikipedia article](_URL_0_ on seals.",
"Noblemen have seals, which they can impress into wax to show something is from them. Wax is very fragile, so it's hard to transfer a real impression to fake document or otherwise meddle with it. Technology of the time made it difficult to accurately recreate the seal from an impression. The royal seal is kept by an official to ensure that only documents issued under the proper authority receive the seal.\n\nThis is still done today with notaries public or public seals, e.g. the Department of State will use the [Great Seal of the United States](_URL_0_) on official appointments. It retains its function as a formal symbol of authorization, though it is less useful to prove authenticity.\n\nThat said, there are many notable historical forgeries. Current seals would be hard to fake, but it was difficult to verify older seals. There are many ancient land grants, etc. which people used to make claims that are now thought to be fake.",
"the wax seal is known to you. and the penalty for forging a noble seal is most definitely death by torture. so unless you're a forger that is very good at escaping the king's men, the price is rarely worth it. but then...sometimes it is. "
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4062kc | if a circle in a two dimensional plane has 360 degrees, how many degrees would a sphere have in three dimensions? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4062kc/eli5_if_a_circle_in_a_two_dimensional_plane_has/ | {
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"Degrees measure what proportion of the circumference of the circle a given line around the outside of the circle takes up. \n\nIf we want to talk about how far around a sphere a line goes, we can just chop the sphere along that line to get a circle, and measure it out of 360 degrees.\n\nWe can also measure portions of a sphere using [Square Degrees](_URL_0_). Instead of measuring what proportion of the circumference of a circle a line is, these measure how much of the surface area of the sphere an area occupies. There are 41253 square degrees in a sphere.\n\n",
"Degrees are generally only a two dimensional unit of measurement... so when we want to define the entire surface of a sphere using degrees, we need two circles at right angles to each other... one for \"around the equator\" and one for \"around the poles\". Then, technically speaking, you could define any one of 129,600 whole-number points on the sphere that would act kind of like degrees...\n\n(incidentally, if you throw in the radius of the sphere, you have yourself the *spherical polar co-ordinate system*... a useful alternative to the x,y,z system you often see)\n\nHowever, we generally use \"solid angles\" measured in \"steradians\" in order to define how much of a sphere we're referring to, where there is 4pi steradians in a sphere. "
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5sp4cw | why do north and south contain 5 letters and end in "th", but east and west only have four letters and end in "st"? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5sp4cw/eli5_why_do_north_and_south_contain_5_letters_and/ | {
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"Just a trick of evolving languages. North used to be Nord (which spread to other languages where you'd see Norte), South used to be Sud (which is still the word for South in many languages like French and Spanish)\n\nEast, for English, came from the germanic aust, which meant \"toward the sun\"\n\nWest hasn't changed much in a long time, but probably came from the latin Vesper or \"evening\" (like it's evening when the Sun is in the west)",
"As well as the other answers it's worth looking at what was 'in print' for those who could write to copy the spellings.\n\nShakespeare, for example, used many different spellings when he wrote his plays - they were handwritten. Caxton (the printer) tended to spell words the same and then along came the first dictionaries. [Cawdrey's](_URL_0_) in 1604, when Shakespeare was still alive.\n\nMore information about dictionaries here _URL_1_ "
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koonx | why are most career military personnel republicans? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/koonx/eli5_why_are_most_career_military_personnel/ | {
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"Like you're Five: When we have an election or Congress has a vote, we count up how many people agree, and how many people disagree, and use that to decide what we should do. However, people figured out that if you get a bunch of people together who can agree to support each other you can get the things you want much easier. It would be kind of like if some of your class wanted Dodgeball cancelled, and some of your class wanted Healthier Snacks, and even though they would lose separetely, if they work together they can both win. This is how political parties work - you agree to work together to get what is most important to you.\n\nOne of the groups that make up the Republican party is the Military-Industrial Complex. America spends a lot of money on the military, but most of that money goes right back to Americans - wages and benefits for soldiers, weapons and vehicles from American companies (who employ Americans) and lots of other things that basically put that money right back into the economy. The Democrats give lip service to the idea of peace and diplomacy, but there is honestly too much economically depending on military spending to actually give it up.\n\nSo, in a big way, Republicans support the military. Even if the rest of their policies are not something the average soldier agrees with, it's hard not to join the party that is supporting your cause.",
"Like you're Five: When we have an election or Congress has a vote, we count up how many people agree, and how many people disagree, and use that to decide what we should do. However, people figured out that if you get a bunch of people together who can agree to support each other you can get the things you want much easier. It would be kind of like if some of your class wanted Dodgeball cancelled, and some of your class wanted Healthier Snacks, and even though they would lose separetely, if they work together they can both win. This is how political parties work - you agree to work together to get what is most important to you.\n\nOne of the groups that make up the Republican party is the Military-Industrial Complex. America spends a lot of money on the military, but most of that money goes right back to Americans - wages and benefits for soldiers, weapons and vehicles from American companies (who employ Americans) and lots of other things that basically put that money right back into the economy. The Democrats give lip service to the idea of peace and diplomacy, but there is honestly too much economically depending on military spending to actually give it up.\n\nSo, in a big way, Republicans support the military. Even if the rest of their policies are not something the average soldier agrees with, it's hard not to join the party that is supporting your cause."
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65qplz | how is work divided in a communist country? | What happens when someone decides not to work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/65qplz/eli5_how_is_work_divided_in_a_communist_country/ | {
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"Depends on the country. in pre 1990 Russia, not working was illegal so if your non work was persisted you been thrown in jail.",
"**In theory**.....Under communism, the end result of socialism, work is voluntary and lacks any material incentives. The number of mentally and physically healthy people who would not want to work, especially when work has become less alienating and less strenuous, is minuscule. A post-scarcity society can more than support them. Apathy is often a sign of mental illness, such as depression and many forms of psychosis, and the mentally ill would receive the necessary support as well.",
"In the former socialist GDR (east germany) people could choose what Job they wanted to do. Most of the time. If your parents where not fully in line with the system you wouldn't be allowed to study. In all companys only people in line would get promoted. If you were considered to be a weak link you might not get a car, don't get a bigger apartment even after you have a family. The state would make you feel his power. A real dissident would lose his job and maybe end up in jail.\n\nPeople who refused to work, were considered as anti-social punks. (Sometimes they really where punks; pop culture, youth movement)\n\nThey could even be prosecuted. \n\n",
"Work was divided by central planners. In Soviet Russia there was quite literally an office of several thousand people who planned out the economy.\n\nWorkers were given quotas to fulfill. For example, a car factory owner would be told to make X amount of cars. He and his workers would be reimbursed with rations and housing. Not only this, but the government officers who enforced quotas were themselves subject to quotas. Those who did not meet quotas were threatened with years of imprisonment. This applied to every single area of the economy, from farming to clothes making.\n\nAn economy requires many interactions between different enterprises. If factory A required materials from factory B, the owner of factory A would place an order with the central planning office who would issue quotas to factory B. Any distribution of resources required goverment approval.\n\nThis resulted in many inefficient situations, for example tonnes of food rotting away while people went hungry, simply due to the difficulty of managing an entire economy and distributing resources.\n\nThe theory of communism plays on quite subtle understandings of economics. If you read Marx's theories, it is not immediately obvious how flawed they are. Unfortunately it has taken practice and the suffering of millions to show the problems with communism. If you're interested in further reading on this topic, I recommend reading some of economist Dr. Thomas Sowell's works.",
"Follow-up question: why would anyone elect to do menial or unpleasant labor, like picking strawberries or cleaning toilets or washing dishes? The kind of work that's usually done by the lowest socio-economic strata in a market economy? ",
"If someone in your family is in power you get a good job\n\nIf not you get a bad job \nIf you are stupid or look strong \nOr are very smart military takes you \n\nIf you live in a country that is being occupied by Russia you work mining the natural resources to be stolen by Russia. \n\nIf you don't work they shoot you.",
"Also depends on if you're talking the contemporary social communism we have come to see in countries, or Marx's ideal of communism in form of a perfect social connection to our species being? "
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1kpewm | is adblocker legal? and if so, how? | I used Adblocker in the past but as I started to watch more Youtube channels with smaller subscriber bases I felt bad taking away what little revenue they should have been making. But it never occured to me, isn't cheating someone out of their money like that a bit illegal?
Edit: Alright, the last sentence has proved a little controversial. What I was trying to say is, using Adblocker is indirectly stopping content providers and website owners from gaining revenue. It's questionable morally, but I'm curious to the actual legality as well. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1kpewm/eli5_is_adblocker_legal_and_if_so_how/ | {
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" > isn't cheating someone out of their money like that\n\nHow is it cheating anyone out of money?",
"It's not illegal. They still sent me all the data they intended to - ads included - I just had a script remove advertisements out of that data.\n\nIt's much the same as throwing your junk mail out without looking at it."
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9332m0 | why isnt demi lovato being charged because of her drug use? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9332m0/eli5_why_isnt_demi_lovato_being_charged_because/ | {
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"There aren't many laws against using drugs. Drug laws in the US are focused on possession. ",
"Charging people who have overdoses discourages people from getting treatment. It endangers their lives.",
"Because there is a drug possession charge immunity to a person who has oversosed or the people around the person so long as they seek medical help and not obstruct the medical help they recieve."
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3ah8zq | how are for-profit colleges such as the university of phoenix, itt tech and devry able to get government accreditation and sustain themselves despite multiple lawsuits and charges of fraud? | Why do students go to these places despite the bad reputation and fraudulent charges? How are these institutions able to provide financial aid, federal or private to its students? Do people who graduate from these colleges actually find jobs in their field? How are these colleges able to expand to such a large scale? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ah8zq/eli5_how_are_forprofit_colleges_such_as_the/ | {
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"*While I believe these colleges to be scams, I will not inject bias into the following answer*\n\n\n\nA university can get accredited as long as they can show proof that their students are actually learning. University of Phoenix is able to provide that proof and so, they continue to be accredited.\n\n\nFinancial aid is agnostic of where you attend. If you qualify for $10,000 worth of aid, you can take that aid anywhere that the government allows. For-profit colleges are one of the places that the government does allow you to take your money.\n\n\nSome people do find jobs in their fields.\n\n\nThese colleges are able to expand due to their marketing, as well as the fact that they give people who can't attend a regular college a chance at getting a higher education. For-profit colleges aren't aimed at 18 year old high schoolers, but at middle-aged workers looking to change professions. They are more flexible, more lenient, and more accessible than your typical college. If you have a full-time job and a child, those things are super important as you can't quit your day job to attend school full-time.\n\n\nSource: Myself. I'm a branding/marketing specialist that just did a rebranding for a For-profit college (unnamed, of course)."
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25exxo | how can someone who is not allegic to anything have terrible seasonal allergies? | I am curious as to how this is possible. I have horrible allergies but am not allergic to anything
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/25exxo/eli5_how_can_someone_who_is_not_allegic_to/ | {
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"Each allergy is separate from other allergies a person has. Being allergic to pollen while not allergic to peanuts is just like being allergic to, say, shrimp, but not being allergic to peanuts. \n\nPollen allergies are very common because pollen grains are really spiky so they can stick to flowers better. The spikes irritate respiratory membranes and can cause immune reactions. ",
"I have been tested for allergies several times, and they keep coming back negative. However, I constantly have post-nasal drip, watery eyes, a runny nose, and an itchy feeling in my ears. My doctors keep telling me I have allergies despite the negative tests. "
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f6mlnb | what was canada's motivation to legalize cannabis if they didnt have an incarceration problem like the us? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/f6mlnb/eli5_what_was_canadas_motivation_to_legalize/ | {
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"Law enforcement is funded from taxes. When a police department looks at how it is spending the money, they have to ask themselves \"Is this the most effective use of the public's resources?\".\n\nCanada has many sparsely populated areas, and a few densely populated urban ones. The consistent law that minimizes cannabis enforcement cost in both areas is national legalization."
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3cy85q | why don't the laws against opening others' mail apply to digital content? | Title.
Also, as relates to government spying. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3cy85q/eli5_why_dont_the_laws_against_opening_others/ | {
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"The laws were put in place before things such as text messaging and e mail were even invented, they are outdated and have loopholes to exploit ",
"Because digital content is not mail. The laws were put into place before the digital content existed and the laws have not been expanded to include digital content. ",
"The Constitution specifically says papers and effects. But the government REALLY doesn't like the Fourth and \"forgets\".",
"18 U.S. Code § 1702 - Obstruction of correspondence\n\n\"Whoever takes any letter, postal card, or package out of any post office or any authorized depository for mail matter, or from any letter or mail carrier, or which has been in any post office or authorized depository, or in the custody of any letter or mail carrier, before it has been delivered to the person to whom it was directed, with design to obstruct the correspondence, or to pry into the business or secrets of another, or opens, secretes, embezzles, or destroys the same, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.\"\n\nYour email isn't controlled by a government entity like the U.S. Post Office, otherwise there'd probably be a law about it. ",
"Mail actually set precedence for digital data in some ways. For example metadata not needing a warrant, there was a time where all information on the envelope was recorded as it went through post offices. This applied to dialed phone numbers and times and later digital metadata, which is the bulk of data collected. Nothing has changed, what has changed is it is no longer technically difficult to accomplish these things for *everyone*. This is not something thought of by legislatures anywhere. \n\nWith a warrant mail is able to be intercepted, with a warrant mail filed in your desk is able to be seized. It's also discoverable in a civil case. This is the content of the message and not the metadata. A warrant is needed to ensure rights are not unduly being violated. The problem with this is that around the turn of the millennium some political things happened where a huge part of US congressional power was deferred from congress to the executive branch where it went to 3 letter agencies, secret courts and review processes. It is claimed that what they do is so important it must be totally secret and has given them defacto impunity. Warrants get handed out like candy under this system, and it's not just the US where this is happening. So it's all \"legal\". ",
"I would say that your mail is also handled by the federal government. That could also have something to do with it",
"Has anyone considered that min the US, the postal service is a federal entity? So of course the government will have laws to protect it. I bet if the US had its own email domain, that'd probably get protected too.\n\nGmail and the like are private entities. No more entitled to this legal protection than their employees are to the benefits packages of federal employment. \n\nThink of a highschool. If I pass a note to Jimmy in class because I think he's super cute, no one is going to come help me out when my friend Bobby intercepts the note and reads it. It was a risk I took when I trusted that asshole Bobby. But if someone clips the lock on my locker and takes my books, the school is going to get involved (in theory) because my school endorses the security of my locker under most circumstances. \n\nAside from that, as previously stated, probably also an outdated set of rules.\n\nThe conspiracy in this thread is getting out of hand.",
"While the laws that protect mail are separate, there *are* laws that protect digital content - the Stored Communications Act, the Computer Fraud & Abuse Act, the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, etc. Individuals and corporations that illegally access people's online data can and are prosecuted.\n\nThe government spying issue is different. Many folks think the NSA is breaking the law by accessing people's electronic data without oversight like a warrant or subpoena. In a similar vein to how the police can get a warrant to go through your mail, the government has permission to do this under the PATRIOT and FREEDOM acts. The government has spent a lot of money figuring out how to do this very efficiently, and scoops up data that does not directly relate to ongoing investigations. Imagine if the police thought a terrorist lived in your neighborhood, but they didn't know the name or address, so they got a warrant for John Doe terrorist and started going through *every* piece of mail that got delivered to anyone near you. While opening a letter addressed to a terrorist would be legal, opening *all* the letters going to your neighborhood probably isn't, and yet that's what people accuse the NSA of doing.\n\nSo why don't the police investigate government officials involved in potentially illegal surveillance? Because there are very few people who actually know what's going on in the surveillance programs, and those few people who do know usually agree with what's happening. So while the laws exist, they aren't enforced against the government.\n\nTL;DR: There are laws, but the government doesn't think those laws apply to itself.",
"Because there are not laws about opening other peoples mail. There are laws about tampering with mail before it is delivered or otherwise hindering the process of delivery, but its not usually a crime to open the mail once the postman has delivered it.\n\n/u/pushmonk gives the full text:\n\n > 18 U.S. Code § 1702 - Obstruction of correspondence: Whoever takes any letter, postal card, or package out of any post office or any authorized depository for mail matter, or from any letter or mail carrier, or which has been in any post office or authorized depository, or in the custody of any letter or mail carrier, before it has been delivered to the person to whom it was directed, with design to obstruct the correspondence, or to pry into the business or secrets of another, or opens, secretes, embezzles, or destroys the same, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.\n\nMost of this law is concerned with the mail while it is in possession of the US Postal Service. The only clause that might apply to the mail after it is slipped through your door is \"before it has been delivered to the person to whom it was directed\" so ostensibly this would apply to misdelivered mail, ***HOWEVER*** the very next clause \"with design to obstruct the correspondence\" makes it clear that the individual has to do something to cause the misdelivery. You have to have an intent to prevent the delivery, its not enough for someone to just be the accidental recipient.\n\nSo its not illegal to read your neighbors mail if the postman accidentally slips it in your box, its just being a jack-ass.\n\n-------------\n\nSimilarly its not illegal to read that email which was intended for john.t.doe@gmail.com but was instead sent to john.r.doe@gmail.com.\n\nHowever it is illegal to hack into the google servers and start messing around with how google delivers emails. That would be computer fraud.\n\n----\n\nTL;DR; Its no more or less illegal to mess with email delivery than it is to mess with regular mail delivery. (There are some important distinctions regarding the governments ability to read and search email which are must stronger than the governments ability to read and search regular mail.)",
"You're getting lazy incorrect answers from clueless people guessing.\n\nIt's called Third Party Doctrine- the tl;dr idea is that as a result of your email being handled by a long chain of intermediaries (google, Time Warner, cloudflare, whoever else along the way) they were never private to begin with. The logic is pretty stupid, and I pretty much fully expect it to be struck down as an obvious relic from the days before the internet was so integral to everyday life as soon as it gets challenged, but this is the law as it is today."
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4jlt2v | why does microsoft excel only have the capability of 15 digit precision even with the advancement of modern day computing abilities? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4jlt2v/eli5why_does_microsoft_excel_only_have_the/ | {
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"The short answer is that the average user doesn't need that level of precision, so Excel doesn't have it. \n\nMost users of Excel are businesses, who rarely have the need to go out beyond a few decimal places, much less 15. The calculations simple don't require that level or precision. What they _do_ need are volume of calculations - I often work with sheets that are doing tens of thousands of calculations across cells. Each level of additional precision requires just a bit more processing power and at a point its just wasted effort. Rather than use that processing power for things that the user doesn't need, the programmers decided to use it for other functions.\n\nIf you need a calculation program with a higher degree of precision, there are options out there.",
"Computers use something called *floating-point arithmetic* to represent real numbers. Floating point numbers store a certain number of binary digits, and an exponent as a power of two. You can think of floating-point numbers as scientific notation, such as 6.02214×10^23, where the significant digits are 6.02214 and the exponent is 23. The only difference is that computers use binary digits and powers of two instead of decimal digits and powers of ten.\n\nThere are two common sizes for floating-point numbers: single-precision floats (which need 32 bits of space to store), and double-precision floats (which need 64 bits of space). There is also an 80-bit format that actually dates back to very old Intel chips, but that format is all but obsolete and nobody really wants to use it any more (though it is still an option).\n\nDouble-precision floating point numbers have 53 bits of significand precision (53 binary digits), which amounts to about 15 decimal digits. You can, in fact, create a larger floating-point format that has more precision. However, single-precision floats and double-precision floats are special in that the operations to work with them are baked right into all moderm CPUs. These CPUs can, say, add two floating-point numbers in one instruction. In fact, modern CPUs can even do things like multiply two set of 8 floating-point numbers together (in pairs), and add yet another set of 8, all in one instruction.\n\nExcel could be modified to use higher precision floating-point numbers, but calculations on those numbers would have to be performed by code that processes them in chunks and deals with all the carrying, digit shifting, and adjustment needed, in several steps, similar to a human working out an operation by hand, step by step. This both complicates the code and makes it much slower. By sticking to double-precision floats, Excel can take advantage of the CPU's native ability to deal with those numbers in one go, extremely fast.\n\nThere are in fact scientific applications that use higher precision numbers. Also, programs that work with much larger *integer* numbers (whole numbers with no decimals) are common, and underpin things like modern cryptography. Some programming languages, like Python, automatically deal with larger integers and never round them out, so you can have as large a number as you want (as long as it fits in memory). However, in all of those cases, the code has to deal with the numbers chunk by chunk, which is always much slower than having the CPU do it natively all at once."
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cs3lar | how does proton therapy for cancer patients actually work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cs3lar/eli5_how_does_proton_therapy_for_cancer_patients/ | {
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"The doctor has a machine that fires high energy protons in a precisely controlled beam. When those protons hit the atoms inside a cell, they cause all sorts of mischief. Enough protons hit enough atoms in a cell, and the cell can be killed.\n\nDepending on the energy in the protons, they go farther into the body before their energy drops to the ideal level for interaction. After that, they don't do much. By controlling the beam, coming from many different directions, the doctor can make more of the cell-killing interactions occur within the tumor than the healthy cells around it. Not all of the interactions, mind you, there will be side effects just like other forms of radiation."
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2xnfnl | since the concept of time is man made, what exactly are we measuring against for accuracy? | I could very well be overlooking something obvious or just not thinking about it correctly...started thinking about it after reading the atomic clock post | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2xnfnl/eli5_since_the_concept_of_time_is_man_made_what/ | {
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"Why do you see the concept of time as manmade? I think it's pretty clear that time is a feature of the universe, with or without people to talk about it. \n\nAs for what we measure against, it depends on how accurate you need to be. You can measure against how long it takes for the earth to go around the sun, or how long it takes for the earth to turn on it's axis, or how long it takes for a pendulum or a spring to oscillate, or how long it takes for quartz crystal with a current running through it to vibrate a certain number of times, or how long it takes for a radioactive metal to decay and release radiation. All of these methods are pretty constant, and can be precisely measured. ",
"A second is defined as 9192631770 oscillations of a Cesium 133 atom. Because we have defined this as 1 second, nothing is more accurate. We expand from there. Ex- 1 minute=60 seconds, 1 hour=60 minutes, 1 day=24 hours, etc",
"Perhaps my [answer](_URL_0_) on the atomic clock post will be helpful. What people mean by the *accuracy* of a method of timekeeping is its stability and consistency, *not* its closeness to some Platonic Clock. The method can always be recalibrated faster or slower to match existing time standards.\n\nThe *units* of time are man-made. The laws of physics don't dictate that one second is 9192631770 oscillations of a Cesium 133 atom. The fact that atomic clocks are more stable and consistent than the quartz oscillator in a wristwatch is dictated by the laws of physics, and it can be empirically verified without reference to True Time as I explained in my linked post.",
"In most practical senses, we are measuring time against the rotation of the earth on an hour-to-hour basis, to measure a single day. Since our bodies are very responsive to sunlight, and our work patterns have been driven by the daily rising and setting of the sun for thousands of years, sunrise and sunset are our first measurement of time.\n\nSimilarly, we measure the revolution of the earth around the sun, which causes the length of day to change, and because of other stuff, also causes the seasons. The Egyptians, for example, noticed that the Nile would overflow at the same time each year. Couple this with the setting of the sun over some other landmark (like a nearby hill, or prominent building in a city) enabled us to first measure a \"year\".\n\nAs we have needed more precision in our measurement of time, we have developed more and more specific units of time (hours, minutes, seconds) and then even more specific units, like the oscillation of a cesium atom, which is precise enough to measure small quirks in time that occur with high-speed motion like space travel, or to measure the distance between the earth and moon with precision down to the inch.\n"
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6ef43g | why does the government and the central bank have to be different entities? what different agendas do they pursue? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6ef43g/eli5_why_does_the_government_and_the_central_bank/ | {
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"Usually to prevent politicians from being able to force the central bank to pursue short term good, long term bad policies. Politicians are forced by their position to always be quite concerned with the next election. Central bankers are usually given some independence, to allow them to pursue policies they believe will result in a better economy a decade from now, even if it means a worse economy at the next election (note that incompetence in the central banker, still allows them to be very wrong). ",
"Central banks are concerned with long-term economic stability and growth. They're supposed to be entirely focused on that long-term objective. If a banker at the Federal Reserve can enact policies that improve the economy over 20 years, they've done a good job.\n\nGovernment is often run by people who may have long-term goals, but very often have huge incentives for short-term gains even at the expense of long-term stability. If a politician can manipulate the markets to make it look like they're producing huge amounts of growth within a 2-, 4-, or 6-year span, they look like they've done a good job and might get re-elected. However, that same plan may destabilize the economy long-term, leading to big losses. Who cares as long as they got re-elected last term, right?\n\nIf government controlled the central bank more strictly, who knows what the agenda of either would be, who stands to gain from which policy, are the policies actually helpful to the economy or are they helpful to a certain politician's constituents, etc.? Having separate entities with separate goals makes it a bit easier to trust that each seeks to accomplish different things for different reasons, and the *argument* between them is what usually produces sound policy on both sides when they can reach an agreement on something."
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bwwwwk | how does a minecraft computer work? | Like how does it have memory, and be able to run applications and and what sort of functions can they do and how? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bwwwwk/eli5_how_does_a_minecraft_computer_work/ | {
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"Minecraft has something called redstone, which is able to simulate most logic circuits and electrical circuits. So you could theoretically build anything electronic that doesn't include audio or video circuitry. (Although there are sound blocks, so there is a limited midi type music capability.)",
"Computers work by performing mathematical operations (addition, subtraction, and so on). However, computers don’t understand numbers as us, they translate our numbers (decimal numbers) into binary numbers (1s and 0s). For example, the number 4 is 0100 in binary. So, the computer needs an input from the user to make these calculations. What they do in Minecraft is utilize switches to represent those 1s and 0s. Then, the player creates the logic gates (the physical parts of the computer that carry the inputs) and then the Minecraft computer is able to come up with an answer"
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6sbbgd | why humans can grow adult teeth, and knee caps, as well as repair broken/fractured bones, but can't regrow them if they get removed? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6sbbgd/eli5_why_humans_can_grow_adult_teeth_and_knee/ | {
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"Both teeth and knee caps are things that we are born with. Specifically, if you didn't know, we are actually born with all our adult teeth. When they \"grow\" in they're actually just shifting out from their little storage zones in our skulls - there are plenty of kinda spooky pics on google showing both baby and adult teeth in xrays/skulls (RIP) of kids.\n\nBasically, the simple ELI5 answer is that the various parts of our bodies have the instructions for growing them stored in their genes. So our fingers know how to grow more finger-meat, our leg bones know how to grow more leg-bone, etc. But if the entire thing is removed, then the instructions are gone. So our body can't figure out how to grow it back.",
"There is research under way in to [tooth regeneration] (_URL_0_): planting a stem cell \"seed\" in the jaw, from which a new tooth will grow. ",
"When you break a bone, what basically happens is a band of bone grows over the fracture to bridge the gaps and 'fix the bone' same idea with flesh. It isn't a perfect fit, hence we have scars and we may be able to feel where our fractures happened many years after.\n\nSort of like patching over a ripped material with a bit of small cloth. \n\nNow to extend the analogy. Anyone who can hold a needle can patch up a tear in a shirt, but that doesn't mean you could make the whole shirt from scratch again. \n\n",
"The only body part that I heard you can regrow if removed, well around at least 75% gone, is the liver. If fully removed, you're screwed. But at least a significant amount of removal won't hurt you as much forever. It would be hard pressed to find if anything else you mentioned would grow back the \"same\", at least almost as good as before in terms of as large of a surface area/density as the liver. Why it can regrow, I'm not sure. Somebody else, maybe in the medical field can chime in. "
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yqugo | american football? | Last winter I found myself easily amused by college football and I picked up on the scoring system and the basics while watching. In preparation for the upcoming football season I am inquiring about the different positions, the rules that bring the game to a halt, the ranking system and also – the bowls, how are they determined?
TLDR: the workings of football (mainly interested in the collegiate version)
**Edit: Thank y'all for the flow charts, videos and especially the group effort /u/rawrgs began. Truer ELI5 answers were delivered as well!** | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/yqugo/eli5_american_football/ | {
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"[This might help.](_URL_0_)",
"I'm interested in this as well.",
"This is going to have to be a group effort. I'll start with the offensive line.\n\n**Offensive line:** These are the guys that line up on the line of scrimmage in the middle of the field. Generally these are your physically largest and strongest players on the team, but typically not as fast as the opposing defensive line. They block the opposing defense through either pass-blocking or run blocking. Pass blocking involves simply staying in front of a defender and giving ground slowly, absorbing the defender's charge to allow time for the quarterback to throw. Run blocking involves a coordinated scheme to separate defenders to create a \"running lane.\"\n\n*Center:* Middle position on the line. Responsible for snapping the ball off of the line of scrimmage and then blocking. Can be, but is not always the long snapper for special plays like punts and extra points.\n\n*Guard:* 2 guys outside the center. They block in various forms.\n\n*Tackle:* 2 guys outside the guards. They block in various forms. You'll often hear about the \"blind side\" tackle. This is the tackle on the offhand side of the quarterback, so if you have a lefty QB, your right tackle is the blind side tackle. This is usually your most talented blocker, as you don't want your QB to get drilled from behind while throwing a pass, as it is an extremely vulnerable position.\n\n*Tight End:* 1 or 2 guys outside the tackle depending on the formation, you can run \"double tight\" and have 2, or you can run with none and put a receive out on the end on the line. These players are usually large, well over 6' tall, beefy and quick. They have to be able to block effectively, but also they are eligible receivers, so they need to be tall and have good hands. Some tight ends are very fast, but most passes to tight ends are dump passes (short passes in traffic) intended to get just a few yards before they're tackled.\n\n**Offensive Backfield:** These players are the ones directly behind the offensive line. They are usually smaller, stout and fast. They do most of the ball handling on a team, so they have to be strong enough to be able to take the abuse of being tackled often, and they have to be fast enough to avoid defenders. The names of the players, quarterback, half back, full back, referred to the old formations that people used to run, but today offensive formations are very varied. You can have formations with no running backs, or 4, depending on what you're trying to accomplish.",
"Obviously there are a huuuuuuge, almost overwhelming amount of penalties. The most basic ones you'll encounter are:\n\nOffsides or a variation of it. There are different kinds, but the gist of it is crossing the line of scrimmage (where the ball is placed) before the play begins. This results in a penalty for the offending player's team.\n\nHolding is also an extremely common penalty. While you can push and knock down your opponent, you're not allowed to actually hold onto them unless they have the ball. Frequently, the offensive line will be at fault for this penalty as they'll hold onto their opponent in hopes that the defender wont reach the quarterback and tackle him for a loss of yards.\n\nInterference on the part of a receiver or corner back/safety are also important. A defender (or receiver) are not allowed to impede players to a large degree before they have the ball. Within the first 5 yards of the line of scrimmage you can knock the receiver around, but after that it's basically hands off. Similarly, the receiver can also not push or shove their defender in order to create distance or it is also a penalty. \n\nLastly, a personal foul is just a generic term that usually results in a 15 yard penalty when a player attempts to harm another player. This can happen after or during a play. Kicking or punching is obviously a huge no-no or being overly aggressive after a play is over can lead to this being called.",
"Each side consists of 11 players.\n\nThe offense will always have 6 players who are constant: The 5 linemen and 1 quarterback.\n\nThe other 5 players are interchangeable which makes this game of strategy so appealing. Each coach brings a different type of philosophy and strategic scheme.\n\nPeople behind the offensive line are called backs. You've got the quarterback, halfback (also known as a running back), and fullback.\n\nQB - Before each play, the offensive coordinator tells the QB the play. QB executes it.\n\nHalfback - Runs the ball. Can also catch it.\n\nFullback - Hybrid between a halfback and a linemen. Mostly there to pave a way for the halfback. \n\nOffensive Linemen: LT LG C RG RT\n\nLeft Tackle - One of the highest paid players on the field besides a quarterback. Protects the quarterbacks blindside since most quarterbacks are right handed (won't be able to see to his left unless his rotates his hips.) LTs are big guys who are light on their feet.\n\nLeft Guard - More emphasis on pass protection. Guards are meatshields. Can often pull to the right side (Right side of the line is the strong side where most runs will target. Pulling simply means he runs to that side to be an extra blocker for the running back.\n\nCenter - helps the QB read the defense. helps his fellow linemen know who they're assigned to block\n\nRight Guard - More emphasis on run blocking.\n\nRight Tackle - Run blocking as well.\n\nTight end - Hybrid between a linemen and a wide receiver. Must do both well.\n\nWide Receivers - Catches the ball.\n\nDefense: No one is a constant. Can mix or match to disguise/fool the other side.\n\n4-3 Defense means 4 men on the line and 3 linebackers. Anything more than 4 people rushing the QB is called a blitz. the 4 men are usually the one trying to penetrate while the 3 linebackers play their assignments.\n\n3-4 Defense means 3 men on the line and 4 linebackers. Harder for the offense to read since they don't know which of the linebackers are going to attack. They also don't know how many linebackers will come.\n\nBehind the defensive line and linebackers = the secondary.\n\nCornerbacks = the anti-WR. Small and fast guys who's sole purpose is to cover the WR.\n\nSafeties - There's a Strong safety and a Free safety. \n\nStrong safety - plays closer to the line. Hybrid between a linebacker and a cornerback.\n\nFree safety - Ball hawk. Way in the back and denies passes.\n\n-- Hopefully this helps a little about positions.\n",
"/r/CFB and /r/nfl are great places for football knowledge and discussion.",
"I've heard that playing Madden, a football video game really helps someone understand the game. It has been pretty much the same game for the past 4 years so you could probably find a real cheap old copy. Also as someone else on here has mentioned, r/nfl has the best football discussion on the internet IMO, with lots of knowledgable fans who love helping new fans.",
"Credit goes to [xiaodown](_URL_1_) for making [this](_URL_0_) helpful guide specifically for people like you. Also, check out /r/cfb for more college football info. ",
"Google BCS ranking system. This is how the bowls are determined....the funny thing is that almost EVERY. SINGLE. PERSON. knows this ranking system is totally fucked. Its become pretty apparent that college football has just turned into a money making scheme. Focus on the NFL where at least theyre honest about making money being their #1 priority. ",
"American Football is the name of a rock band about 12 or 13 years ago or so from a town in Illinois that's not Chicago that was created by three guys after they decided they didn't want to play anymore with their previous band. Their music was very pretty and they had a very good drummer who played all these weird sorts of beats. They only played together for about 3 years so they never got popular. And that's okay because sometimes that's what happens. ",
"Play some madden. What systems do you have? Buy a copy used for $4. You'll learn quick.",
"Like you're 5:\n\nThe Team With the Ball gets 4 tries to advance 10 yards. If they do this they get another 4 tries to go another 10 yards. Once they make it to the end of the field, they score. The Other Team tries to stop them.\n\nAfter 3 unsuccessful tries The Team With The Ball will typically Kick the Ball, either to try and score three points (between the yellow uprights, if they're close enough, which is called a field goal) or to make the Other Team start their tries from further away (a punt) - because after 4 unsuccessful tries, the Other Team will get the ball right where you left it.\n\nIf, during any of those tries, the Quarterback (main guy) of the Team with the Ball accidentally throws it to a member of the Other Team, the Other Team gets the ball. Ditto for if someone drops it (a Fumble), though this requires further explanation.\n\nDefinition of terms:\n\nThe Team With The Ball - The Offense\n\nThe Other Team - The Defense\n\nTries - Downs\n\nSuccesful Try - First Down\n",
"Polls: \n\n**AP = Associated Press**. Selected members of the American press (sports writers) cast votes on the teams, points are assigned to teams based on the vote order, and they are ranked by those points. \n\n**USA Today** (a.k.a. **coaches poll**) = the coaches of the various teams vote on how they think the teams should be ranked. (USA Today is an American newspaper that I guess sponsors this poll). This poll is often criticized because the coaches really don't have time to pay attention to the other teams, as they are extremely busy managing their own teams. Also, coaches will sometimes vote politically, overranking their own team, or over or under ranking teams whose rise or fall in the poll would help their own team.\n\n**BCS** (Bowl Championship Series) poll: a combination of many factors, including ~~the above two~~ human polls, and computer analysis (judging \"quality\" of wins, strength of schedule, etc). This is instituted by those in power, and is *extremely* criticized, and is currently being re-worked. This system has a flaw that lends too much weight to previous winners, creating something of a vicious circle. (The Southeastern conference, just one of many conferences, has now won 6 consecutive national championships).\n\nIn 2014, the NCAA will finally institute a 4 team playoff for the top 4 teams at the end of the season. NCAA division 1 (top division) football has for many years been the only major American sport without a playoff of any kind. In some seasons, the champion is pretty clear cut, but usually there is great controversy about who the champion should be after all games have been played. \n\n",
"There are some good answers here, but I'll provide a less technical one, if you want basic understanding of the game.\n\nA game is comprised of four 15-minute quarters, divided by a 20 minute halftime. The clock stops for incomplete passes, if a player steps out of bounds, or if a team calls a time out (each team gets 3 per half).\n\n**Offense:** You have 11 players, including your offensive line (used for blocking), running back (takes handoffs and runs around), wide receivers (they catch passes), and quarterback (he throws the ball and hands it off). Now, the number of receivers, running backs, and whatnot can vary (e.g., you could have 2 RBs and 3 WRs, or 1 RB and 4 WRs, etc) depending on the type of offense that is run. But you don't need to worry about that right now.\n\nA field is 100 yards, with an endzone at either end. Once you get the ball (at the 25 yard line by default), you need 10 yards to pick up a first down. You have four downs to make it. So you could run the ball for 3 yards, run the ball for 3 yards, and pass it for 5, taking you to the 36 and picking up a first down. **The goal is to keep picking up first downs until you score**. It can be methodical, or it can be fast-moving. High-scoring teams can create big plays (picking up 20+ yards every play) and score in 3-4 plays. \n\n**Defense**: The defense's job is to stop the opponent's offense from scoring, obviously. Their goal is to get after the QB, or stop the running backs, or stop the receivers from catching the ball. Anything being this is kind of technical on *how* it is done. \n\nIn short you have your defensive line (the three or four guys at the line of scrimmage), your linebackers (faster guys who play in the middle of the field), and defensive backs (guys who play 10+ yards back to guard deep pass plays).\n\n**Special teams and scoring**: This is your kicking game. You kick the ball to begin each half, every time you score, or if you are punting. We'll get to that in a second.\n\nWhen you score a touchdown (6 points), you get the chance to kick the \"extra point.\" It's an easy try, from the three yard line. You have to kick it through the yellow goal posts. Most teams can make this, meaning the total points scored for a touchdown is **7 points.** If you are UNABLE to score a TD, and you are close enough, you can opt to kick what's called a Field Goal. They are worth 3 points (i.e., half a touchdown).\n\nIf you are unable to pick up a first down after three downs, you are on fourth down and can opt to either go for it, kick a field goal, or punt. If you go for it and you do NOT make it, the opponent gets the ball at THAT SPOT. meaning if you are on your own 25 yard line, your opponent only has 25 yards to go to score. You can choose instead to punt, in which you kick the ball deep to them, giving them the ball but in worse field position (for example, their own 15 yard line). \n\n**Rankings **are determined by human voters, who (theoretically) watch the game and determine who is the best each week. They rank the top 25 teams in their eyes. These rankings are all calculated into one big poll, like the AP Poll.\n\nCurrently the BCS poll is what determines who plays for the national championship. The BCS is a computer poll that calculates the average ranking based on every human poll, then factors in a bunch of other formulae to determine who the top 2 teams are. They then play in a bowl game for the national title. As you can imagine, leaving the national championship up to comptuers/numbers is controversial. Starting 2014, there will be a four-team playoff determined by a committee.\n\n**Penalties:** There are a ton. Here are the most common:\n\n* Offsides: if the defense lines up across the line of scrimmage (the imaginary line dividing the offense and defense). \n\n* False start: your offensive line has to remain stationary until the ball is snapped. If they jump around, it creates a \"false start\" to the play, and it is whistled dead.\n\n* Holding: you cannot grab someone's jersey and hold them back, you have to \"block\" them. It's not always easy to spot when you are first starting out, but it's considered an unfair advantage.\n\n* pass interference: on defense, if you push a receiver down before they have a chance to catch the ball, you are interfering and will be penalized. You either have to bat the ball away or tackle the receiver after they touch the ball. The idea is that **you are making a play on the ball, not the player**.\n\n* Delay of game: you have 25-ish seconds to snap the ball to start the play. If you exceed that number you are penalized five yards.\n\n* Facemask: if you pull a player down by their helmet/facemask. It's dangerous and could hurt them, so it's for player safety.\n\n* Late hit: if you hit the quarterback after he's thrown the football. It's to prevent injuries.\n\nThere's a lot more to it, and it's a deep and intricate game, but please let me know if you have questions. Football is kind of my thing, ha. (I've been an assistant on teams in the past)",
"I'm not sure that anyone actually cares, but I am a football official and would like to provide some information on what each of us do on the field. I hear a lot of criticism against officials, some even claiming that we call things for one team more than the other. I can say with confidence that the majority of officials could care less who wins or loses. College and NFL officials get observed and rated by other officials every game. High school officials occasionally get observed and rated. We want a good observation and rating, our future as officials depends on it. With that said here is a rundown of what we do.\n\nOfficials in the middle of the field\n\nReferee: This is the guy with the white hat. He is in charge of all the officials and makes the final decisions on matters pertaining to the officiating crew and the administration of the game. He has a ton of responsibility. Before the play he counts the offense and makes sure they have 11 players. When the ball is snapped he watches the offense, especially the quarterback, and makes sure the play is clean. Many times you will see him watching the quarterback after the pass is thrown, even when something is happening near him but behind. This is because the protection of the quarterback is one of his main responsibilities on a passing play. He also has to remember all of the signals for penalties, as well as the enforcement for each of said penalties, no matter how obscure. \n\nAll other officials wear black hats.\n\nUmpire: This is the guy in the middle of the defense. He stands behind the linebackers, usually 7-10 yards off the ball. (in the NFL he is behind the offense opposite the Referee, college still uses the umpire behind, though that may change.) You will see him bent over on many plays so that he can see through the defense and watch the ball and line of scrimmage. His main responsibility is to watch the line of scrimmage at the snap and make sure no player is holding or hitting another in the face or blocking illegally etc... Holding calls usually come from the umpire. He also moves to the line of scrimmage on pass plays to make sure the pass is thrown from behind the line of scrimmage. \n\nWing officials (guys on the sideline)\n\nHead linesman: This is the official on the sideline on the line of scrimmage with the orange (or yellow) and black poles. We call these the chains and they consist of two poles connected by a chain that is 10 yards long, so that when the poles are pulled apart they are always 10 yards apart. The pole with the down numbers is called the box. This is placed on the line of scrimmage. The guys who work the chains are under the direction of the Head Linesman. He is in charge of this crew and directs them when and where to move. He also tells the guy who controls the box where to place the box. We use the box to remind us where the ball was in case it needs to go back there. The head linesman also watches down the line of scrimmage and looks for illegal shifting, an offside player or false start. Many times you will see a flag thrown from the sideline and an official run in to the center of the field. That is either the HL or the line judge. \n\nLine Judge: The LJ is opposite the HL and watches for the same things the HL does. He does not have a chain crew next to him (in the NFL he does but not college). Both the HL and LJ have a box they watch, a zone of coverage. ON a seven man crew (which is used in college and NFL) the zone is fairly small and usually the HL or LJ will only cover about 15 yards down field and watch to the middle of the field. The responsibility is then given to the Side or Field Judge.\n\nSide Judge: Stands about 20 yards deep in the defense on the side of the field the HL is on. He watches to make sure there is no pass interference, no defensive or offensive holding down field, no funny business happening down field at all on pass plays. \n\nField Judge: Stands opposite the side judge and does the same thing.\n\nBack Judge: Stand in the middle of the field even with the side and field judge. He does essentially the same thing. \n\nThe back, field and side judges count the defense and makes sure there are 11 players. They confirm this by holding a closed fist up in the air, some will give a thumbs up. The Umpire and referee count the offense and do the same. The HL and LJ also count the defense on most crews. They also count how many players are on the Line of scrimmage on the offense (there have to be at least 7 every play). \n\nWhen the plays get into the red zone (the zone 20 yards from the goal line) responsibilities start to shift. This is especially true for the area inside the 10 yard line. At this point the side, field, and back judges all run to the back of the end zone and the HL and LJ run to the goal line. This is to make sure we have all corners covered. \n\nMany people think that with all of these officials on the field it is hard to miss a call. I can say thats not true. Humans make mistakes, sometimes angles are bad, sometimes we are looking at something else. Officiating is one of the hardest things to do on a football field. The game moves very fast and you can't always see everything. Hope this helps you enjoy the game more!",
"One team kicks the ball the other team. The offense has four attempts to advance the ball ten yards, the defense tries to stop them. Once the offense successfully surpasses the ten yard requirement, they are allotted 4 more chances. If the offense uses three attempts & doesn't think they surpass the ten yard requirement, they can dropkick the ball away to the other team. Or, if they are close enough to the big yellow posts, they will usually on the fourth attempt kick the ball after being placed on the ground--if it goes through the big yellow posts, it's three points (a field goal). If the offense successfully crosses the goal line, it's worth 6 points (a touch down). An extra point is added after the score if the ball is kicked through the yellow posts. A defense can score two points (known as a safety) by tackling an offensive player carrying the ball in their own scoring territory (endzone).\n\nTL;DR-- offense has 4 tries to reach 10 yards and tries to score by either crossing the goal line into the opponents' endzone which is worth 6 pts. if the offense gets close enough but can't cross the goal line they can kick it through the yellow posts worth 3 pts. If the defense tackles an offensive person with the ball in their own endzone, it's worth 2 pts.",
"I'm not sure anyone has addressed how bowl matchups are decided, so:\n\nAbout **Bowls** and **conferences**\n\nThe top two divisions of college football are (confusingly) called the **Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS)** and the **Football Championship Subdivision (FCS)**. The Football Championship Subdivision is the lesser of the two and has a postseason playoff, while the FBS (currently) has a championship bowl game between the top two teams according to the BCS poll, as well as quite a few other post season bowl games, which are essentially meaningless outside of bragging rights.\n\nBoth the FBS and FCS are made of individual conferences. Conferences consist of something like 8-16 Universities who play each other anually, or in the case of large conferences, semi-anually. Usually conference membership is based on geographic proximity and historical rivalries, although this is increasingly not the case. It is worth noting that unlike many Association Football leagues, there is no yearly promotion and relegation between conferences and subdivisions, so the movement of teams within this structures happens at a much slower rate if at all. \n\nUnlike the FCS, the FBS further subdivides its conferences into **BCS conferences** and **non-BCS conferences**. BCS conferences have their conference winning team (and possibly runner-up) automatically invited to one of the BCS bowls. It is possible for non-BCS conference teams to be invited to BCS bowls, but in practice this is usually between 0 and 2 out of 10 teams that take part in the BCS bowls. You will often hear non-BCS conference teams refered to as \"mid-majors.\"\n\nTeams typically play 11 or 12 games per season depending on whether or not the play in a post season bowl game. At the start of the season teams play 3 or 4 non-conference games (it is possible, however, for non-conference games to occur later in the season). As the name would suggest, these are games against universities outside of your conference. While these games don't directly affect conference championships (but may be used as tie-breakers), they are important since the quality of the opponents you play directly influences the subjective ranking of your team. Everything is subective in CFB rankings. There is a tight-rope to be walked here among BCS conference teams between playing non-conference games against teams that you're sure you can beat and playing teams that are actually good (it doesn't do you much good to have 4 wins against universities like Northern Deleware State Barber College or whatever....). Non-conference scheduling in fact, is currently a whole prisoner's dilemna-stlye clusterfuck that is beyond the scope of this reply. The remaining games on a teams schedule are composed of 7 games against teams in their own conference. Increasingly, conferences have conference championship games between the two winningest teams in that conference. \n\nSo to sum up, a team's final BCS rankings (which again, are subjective) is influenced by 4 main things\n\n1. W-L record\n2. Scoring margin\n3. Quality of non-conference schedule\n4. Quality of conference opponents\n\nOnce all of this has been sorted out at the end of the season and conference champions have been decided, then the bowls begin. Each year one of the BCS bowls is designated as the championship bowl. The other 4 bowls take teams from the conferences they are affiliated with. For instance, in years in which the Rose Bowl is not the national championship bowl, it always takes the champion of the Big Ten conference and Pac-10 conference. \n\nAside from the BCS bowls there are tons of other bowls, and even teams that only win half their games are frequently invited to a bowl game. There is a hierarchy among bowls based on conference affiliation, and e.g. Bubba's Pawn Shop Bowl may get the 6th best team Ouachita Creek Valley conference against the 7th best team team from the Western Mountain Sun Athletic Conference of America. In practice however, although there is a hierarchy among bowls, there is no requirement that bowls select the best teams available, so if Pine Bluff Seminary A & M is 6th but Joplin State College of Dentistry is 7th and everyone knows that Joplin has 10 times more alumni and fans who will buy tickets, then the bowl is under no obligation to take Pine Bluff.\n\n**Bonus Editorial**: If this all sounds insanely subjective and idiotic, its because it is. The argument against having playoffs is even more moronic in light of the fact that the FCS has a playoff system. The whole system is further corrupted by the existence of pre-season polls. These are the rankings that are released before the season starts. Ideally, these would be informed by how a team performed the previous year, along with how many of their best players have left or graduated, along with how good their recruiting classes have been in previous years. In practice however, these tend to lazily reward historically good teams. For instance, in the current preseason polls, the University of Texas is ranked 15, despite being 8-5 last year. One might argue that historically 8-5 is a very bad year for Texas and they usually finish ranked 15 or above. On the other hand, in the outlier years where a team like Texas has a bad year, it makes it that much more difficult for other, not as succesfull schools to achieve a high ranking since they begin artificially low due to the reputations of more succesfull schools. "
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1vxwsn | how would you explain computer programming to a 5-year-old? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1vxwsn/eli5_how_would_you_explain_computer_programming/ | {
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"I'm unsure about it is what you want here. Do you want an ELI5 on computer programming, or do you actually want an ELI5 on how computer programming could be explained to an actual five year old?",
"Play the \"robot\" game. Have the 5-year-old give you step by step instructions on how to do something, and follow them absurdly literally. For example, if the task is to make a bowl of cereal, and she tells you to \"pour the cereal into the bowl\", you pour *all* of the cereal into the bowl."
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cbwxsz | why do shirts often have the big grand decal on the back and a small logo on the front and not the other way around | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cbwxsz/eli5_why_do_shirts_often_have_the_big_grand_decal/ | {
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"For non-interacting people, you're going to have your back seen more than your front. Walking on the sidewalk, people coming towards you will pass quickly while people walking the same way as you can potentially be seen for a while. Same if everyone is focusing on a common place such as a concert or sports event, you'll see way more backs than fronts. Thus putting a logo on the back is better advertising.",
"In addition to advertising it is generally more comfortable for the wearer, certain styles of putting the logos on clothes can make them stiffer or more irritating to skin and backs are less sensitive.",
"Further, if a person with breasts is wearing the shirt it often disrupts the big logo due to the contours of the person, as well as said folks not generally enjoying people staring at their chests."
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5gy9ce | does a stronger sound wave eliminate weaker sound waves? | If I'm talking to a person in normal conditions, I'b be able to hear him perfectly, but if someone would turn on a speaker with music at max volume, I would not be able to hear the other person anymore. Does the sound wave of the music eliminate the sound wave of the other persons voice, or would my ears be the ones filtering the sound waves and giving priority to the loudest?
Note: I'm really high and English is not my first lenguage, so this was really hard to do. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5gy9ce/eli5_does_a_stronger_sound_wave_eliminate_weaker/ | {
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"This is a rough principle of noise canceling headphones. So yes sound waves can be disrupted by other soundwaves.\n\n ",
"It can't really eliminate sound, but it can drown it. Our hearing has a very high dynamic range, meaning that there is a huge difference between quiet and loud sounds. The speaker in this case could easily have 1000 times as much sound pressure (30 dB more), and your ears would adjust to that. The voice would suddenly appear extremely quiet in comparison. ",
"Ok let's get down to the definition of a sound wave. A sound wave is a mechanical wave that propagates through a fluid (air, water, wood). That means sound needs matter to propagate.\n\nNext we need to look at what the wave looks like.There are two types of wave, longitudinal and transversal. Sound waves are longitudinal waves. It's a little bit hard to explain what is the definition but let's just say that transversal waves propagates like a spring and longitudinal ones move like a wave at the surface of water.\n\n\n\n\nLongitudinal : /\\\\/\\\\/\\\\/\\\\/\\\\\n\n\nTransversal : l l l lllll l l l lllll l l l l\n\n\n\nWhen two waves meet each other and they are going opposite directions, two phenomenons can happen. Constructive or destructive interference. It will be really hard to explain without a video showing you what's happening so here you can see what's going on : [here](_URL_0_)\n\nThe black wave is the one resulting of the meeting of the two waves.\nThe green should also be moving but here it is stationary so you can see the two phenomenons\n\nSo yes, two sound waves can completely negates each other but they can also get twice as high. The higher the spike, the louder the sound.\n\nSo it's not only about a question of loudness but also of frequency/wavelength (the two are proportional).\n\n\nThose phenomenon are true for any wave so it means you can also make light from a laser for exemple \"disappear\". \n\n\n"
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a28xae | is there a reason the reverse gear is before drive in an automatic car rather than all the way down. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a28xae/eli5_is_there_a_reason_the_reverse_gear_is_before/ | {
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"It actually goes back to Ralph Nader, who wrote a famous book called *Unsafe at Any Speed* about various deficiencies in American cars. Among them was the arrangement of settings in an automatic transmission car.\n\nIf a driver *used to* a stick shift car habitually manipulated an automatic's gearshift at highway speeds, the previous arrangement had a tendency to put it in a gear that would cause a violent accident. He said that PRND(L) was a safer arrangement, and as many of his suggestions, that was implemented. Even though technological improvements *might* have reduced the risk anyway, the arrangement has become a *de facto* standard."
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2kf21r | why do i always get tired when i read a book or drive for longer than 30 minutes but when i quit i immediately become wide awake? | Nothing on google addresses this | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2kf21r/eli5_why_do_i_always_get_tired_when_i_read_a_book/ | {
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"Probably concentration. Switching tasks stimulates different parts of the brain",
"Had the exact same issues, i fixed this by walking around room or my house while reading and would often read aloud. It made it so I never got tired and could actually finish a damn book. ",
"Repetition is annoying to some people, and the brain's goto response is to shut down. When you start doing other things, you feel better."
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273jko | how come there is no issue about the possession of nuclear warheads by india and the fact that they never signed any nuclear proliferation treaties? | So India has explicitly accepted its possession of nuclear weapons, but however it refuses to sign any nuclear proliferation treaties like the other countries that possess such weapons (USA, UK, France etc) do. India claims that they will use it only if they are provoked or in immediate danger. Doesn't this allow other countries to do the same too? Isn't it unfair that we are focusing and blaming on other countries on which we 'assume' to have nuclear weapons but we still have no proof whatsoever. However India has confirmed to have nuclear weapons and has refused to sign any treaties against the use of such weapons. So isn't the immediate danger from countries like this? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/273jko/eli5_how_come_there_is_no_issue_about_the/ | {
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"India doesn't have any history of being particularly belligerent and attacking other countries so it isn't seen as a pressing issue. They have an ongoing dispute with Pakistan, but neither side seems likely to start a major war over it.",
"India had to have a nuclear weapons program because China had nuclear weapons and is known to have had proliferated its this technology to Pakistan which helped them go nuclear. Therefore, India's nuclear program is to act as a deterrent and it has a strict no first use policy against the use of nuclear weapons as well as having a policy against proliferation to other countries.\n\nAlso, India is a stable democracy and has a strict procedure on who gets to press the nuclear button when the time comes. So the probability of a misuse of this program by India would be the same as the US or UK and other nuclear powers.\n\nThey haven't signed any proliferation treaties because they consider the treaties to be discriminatory against them and other non-nuclear powers. They feel that the treaties effectively divide the world into nuclear \"haves\" and \"have-nots\" i.e. the five nuclear powers expect everyone to disarm while keeping their own weapons. They want to have a total commitment to disarmament by all countries before they ratify the treaties. \n",
"Oh the big guys in politics and the military are kind of concerned and most likely monitoring the situation closely. But since there is not a chubby man with a crazy haircut constantly threatening to use them so you don't get to hear about it in the news every day."
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1ou1gy | why is the usage of the peace sign such a common pose in anime? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ou1gy/eli5_why_is_the_usage_of_the_peace_sign_such_a/ | {
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"It's not just anime, it's a really common pose in Southeast Asia in general.\n\nI know from my limited experience of Korean culture (ie watching Starcraft) that it's often a celebratory gesture. I don't think they really think of it as a \"peace sign\" like many Westerners would.",
"I thought they did like..V for Victory. Not a peace sign. Cause that would make more sense if you look at what this one guy here somewhere said....",
"It has nothing to do with western peace sign. Its been a pop culture thing"
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6lhrcd | why haven't any open widely supported vector video formats taken the place of flash on the web? | It just seems like a space with an obvious need. Whenever I'm watching a YouTube video of some simple animation that's super pixelated I wonder why it can't be vector. It would be much smaller, saving everyone bandwidth, and as far as I understand HTML5 video players can support multiple formats, so there isn't any reason they can't have a vector option. Thanks! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6lhrcd/eli5_why_havent_any_open_widely_supported_vector/ | {
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"The only reason to have a vector format is to display media that originates in a vector format. Moreover, if you want to display anything more complicated than wireframe pictures, you need a ton of raster data to paint onto your wireframe.\n\nWhen you're writing a 3d video game, it makes sense because the installation came with all the raster data you'll need for the game and the game itself has to render the information dynamically. But when you're just trying to show funny cat videos, transmitting all that unique raster data is essentially the same as sending it in a conventional format - and that's if, for some unknown reason, your funny cat video was originally rendered in a vector format.\n\nWhich, unless it's CGI, it wasn't."
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33kw4e | how the genome-editing enzyme known as cas9 works | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/33kw4e/eli5how_the_genomeediting_enzyme_known_as_cas9/ | {
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"Cas9 is an RNA guided enzyme that associates with a CRISPR system and works to create blunt end cuts in a chromosome in a specific place. The role of Cas9 is as simple as that--CRISPR is the complicated bit. \n\nThe CRISPR complex is composed of a small fragment of the target RNA and tracer RNA. These two fragments are put together using specific primers in a PCR process. The target RNA will complement a fragment of the chromosome--linking the entire CRISPR/Cas9 complex to the chromosome so that it can be cut. The tracer RNA binds to the Cas9. Since the Cas9 is just a nuclease, it needs the target RNA to guide it to the DNA, and the tracer RNA just provides a means for linking them together.\n\nThe way it actually makes the cut is by recognizing a \"PAM\" sequence in the protospacer region of the DNA that it's bound to, and it makes a blunt end cut 3 base pairs upstream of that sequence.\n\nThe Cas9 complex just makes the cut--the editing comes after in the mechanisms employed to repair the cut. There are 2 main ways that editing goes on: nonhomologous end joining, generating deletions/insertions that vary in length, and homology directed repair, a more controlled method that can generate precise point mutations.\n\n\nQuestions?"
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8uqf9c | how does abusive behavior/mentality develop in the first place? | You always hear about abusive behavior being modeled or effectively inherited generation to generation. So how did it originate in the first place? Why would it even originate as it seems detrimental to survival of a family or tribal | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8uqf9c/eli5_how_does_abusive_behaviormentality_develop/ | {
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"Life is dynamic, in that despite a lot of common threads many behaviors can originate in isolation. Much of the time it’s due to some form of trauma. A young mother may be doing just fine but, the death of her own mother or her husband may damage her incredibly, enough to affect her parenting. Not to mention, many psychological problems and mental illness are poorly treated and understood by even those they affect. Now many behaviors as you have mentioned are learned and instilled from parents but other kinds simply happen as a part of life. "
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lpoas | a note from your friendly, eli5 mods: please, no more meta, "what eli5 is/isn't" posts or arguments. we'll be removing them. | Hey guys! Just wanted to say a few words here.
In just a few months, ELI5 has turned from a crazy, middle-of-the-night idea I had during this past summer off from teaching...into an explosively popular subreddit that's now bigger than I had ever hoped (hitting 50,000 subscribers a few weeks ago.) I'm still amazed by that -- but I'm even more amazed at what an amazing community this has become, and how much knowledge is being shared. This could not have been possible without all you amazing subscribers -- as well as our truly dedicated and fantastic mod staff. I'd dare anyone to browse around ELI5 for twenty minutes and not come away having learned something new - or been taught to think of something in a new way. That's pretty awesome.
Having said that, I want to clarify what myself and the rest of the mods believe ELI5 exactly is and is not. And while we understand that the idea and subreddit itself will continue to grow and evolve, there are some things we would like to clarify:
-- As we say in the sidebar, ELI5 is a place to receive simple explanations to complicated issues. "Simple explanations" **does NOT ALWAYS HAVE TO BE an allegory or metaphor.** (However, if this works best for the explanation, great!) Point is: *As long as the explanation is simple and as thorough as possible, it belongs in ELI5.*
-- A word about the whole "five-year-old" thing: Yes, I named this place "Explain Like I'm Five", but really, it's more of a title to be catchy. **Please, please stop arguing about what a five-year-old would understand...or would ask about.** We all know most five-year-olds wouldn't ask questions about politics, or sex, or economics -- but those are some of our best posts, and fall wholly within the spirit of ELI5. Believe me, I work on a campus where there are actual five-year-olds running around, and trust that you would NOT want this subreddit to be dominated by those kinds of questions (or answers.)
-- For goodness sakes, if you disagree with a submission, please use the downvote button. We don't need to continue the infighting about what belongs here and what doesn't. If you disagree with the LOGIC behind an *answer*, please feel free to reply with a rebuttal! But...we don't need to argue here and be uncivilized. It's "Explain Like I'm Five"...not Act Like I'm Five.
Remember, subreddits work because they're ultimately controlled by YOU, the community. YOU ultimately decide -- via upvotes and downvotes -- what's good content and what isn't. It's not our job as mods to police you -- and you honestly don't need it. You've proven yourselves to be an incredibly intelligent community. The VAST majority of content in ELI5 is awesome, in terms of both questions and answers. This is, at its heart, a place to ask questions without fear of judgment or ridicule. That means ANY question. Think it's better suited for AskReddit, another subreddit or maybe not even Reddit at all? Cool. Downvote and move on. I say again: **If you don't like a submission, downvote and move on.** Enough infighting. Allow the system to work. It really, truly does as a whole.
On another note -- **if you LOVE a submission or answer, don't forget to submit it into our ongoing compilation**, ["The Five Year Old's Guide To The Galaxy!](_URL_0_) You can find a link to submit and view in the sidebar any time you visit ELI5.
I want to thank those of you who have contacted us recently and asked for a statement such as this to go out -- as well as those of you who've made the meta posts to begin with, too. Your mods will always be here to listen to each of you who've made this place so great, and hopefully this note lets you know that our non-interventionist stance on most posts does NOT mean we're not keeping an eye on this place. We're right here, loving this subreddit as much as the crazy day it started. We appreciate every message and every post, and will continue to strive to do our best to keep ELI5 a place of learning and discovery.
**To that end: As of today, we will be removing any meta, "what is the nature of ELI5" posts. Questions -- and the occasional "unsolicited explanation" posts -- only, please.**
I hope this note has cleared up things a little, our mission, our goals, all of that. As always, feel free to message the mods as a whole or me personally if you have any questions or comments.
**Thank you guys for being kick-ass ELI5'ers.**
With gratitude,
bossgalaga | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/lpoas/a_note_from_your_friendly_eli5_mods_please_no/ | {
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"Thank you, those posts honestly get in the way of my enjoyment of the subreddit.",
" > A word about the whole \"five-year-old\" thing: Yes, I named this place \"Explain Like I'm Five\", but really, it's more of a title to be catchy. Please, please stop arguing about what a five-year-old would understand...or would ask about. We all know most five-year-olds wouldn't ask questions about politics, or sex, or economics -- but those are some of our best posts, and fall wholly within the spirit of ELI5. Believe me, I work on a campus where there are actual five-year-olds running around, and trust that you would NOT want this subreddit to be dominated by those kinds of questions (or answers.)\n\nTHANK YOU. \n\nI'm so tired of the 'OMG A 5yo wouldn't understand this!' posts and comments. ",
"Thank you!\n\nLike much of reddit, these metaposts were more annoying than the thing they were kvetching about.",
"A meta post saying no more meta posts! Doesn't get more meta than that.",
"YESSSSSSSSSS\n\nI'm tired of people taking the subreddit name way too literally when people are just trying to do their best to give really sincere answers. \n\nThanks!",
"Thank you!!!!\n\nI was so close to unsubscribing due to having those sort of posts on my front page. Upvotes for decent mods :)",
"That's fine, but can you guys please start enforcing the rules as described in the sidebar? The whole \"No bias\" thing is pretty much completely ignored from my experience, and the top comments on politics/religion related questions are usually in line with the circlejerking drivel normally found on r/politics and r/atheism. It's the biggest thing ruining this subreddit, IMO.",
"Amen!\n\nHowever, one of the reasons I love this sub is that I actually have a 5 year old, and I like to read the answers as though I were explaining it to her, and I have a fair idea of what she'd get or not (as I'm constantly explaining things to her ANYWAY).\n\nThat being said, I enjoy giving my own renditions as to what I believe my daughter would understand, but I try my best not to chastise people for posting something obviously well over her head -- it's not hard, she's only 5!!",
"I don't like that this subreddit has turned into r/answers. If I want complex explanations which assume prior knowlegde, I turn to r/answers.\n\nThis subreddit used to be about great, simple explanations about complicated concepts, explained through analogies a 5-year old would be able to relate with.\n\nNow it just seems to be people asking questions which have straightforward answers, easily solved by a Google search, or people asking complex questions and getting complex answers.\n\nI'll just stick to r/answers to avoid duplication of effort.",
"Then why does the very first instruction in the sidebar say *\"A friendly place to ask questions and get **elementary school-level** answers*\"\n\nWhat was really intriguing about this subreddit is that it **wasn't** /r/askscience or /r/answers\n\nObviously there are difficult subjects asked on here -- **that** should be the challenge -- to explain even those like you were talking to a five year old! \n\nMaybe I'm biased because I have a 9-year-old and a 7-year-old and I've had a number of challenging conversations with each of them when they ask about a complicated subject. If I just gave them the grown-up answer anyway they'd get frustrated and say \"I don't get it\"\n\nWhen somebody asks about Credit Default Swaps here it's **way** funnier when somebody has to liken it promising somebody 10 pretend Oreos if their Oreo gets run over than if somebody actually explains it the way you would in /r/answers. But hey, it's your subreddit, so more power to you.\n\n",
"I don't think there is supposed to be a comma between \"friendly\" and \"ELI5\" in the title. Bothering my OCD. Too....many......commas.....must.....change. ",
"I am firmly in support of this.",
"Another subreddit with bad mods that pulls a bait and switch.\n\nAnother subreddit that I leave to its own filth.\n\nSeriously, reddit is going down the tube so fast it'll soon be the new MySpace meme.",
"Thank you, those posts honestly get in the way of my enjoyment of the subreddit.",
" > A word about the whole \"five-year-old\" thing: Yes, I named this place \"Explain Like I'm Five\", but really, it's more of a title to be catchy. Please, please stop arguing about what a five-year-old would understand...or would ask about. We all know most five-year-olds wouldn't ask questions about politics, or sex, or economics -- but those are some of our best posts, and fall wholly within the spirit of ELI5. Believe me, I work on a campus where there are actual five-year-olds running around, and trust that you would NOT want this subreddit to be dominated by those kinds of questions (or answers.)\n\nTHANK YOU. \n\nI'm so tired of the 'OMG A 5yo wouldn't understand this!' posts and comments. ",
"Thank you!\n\nLike much of reddit, these metaposts were more annoying than the thing they were kvetching about.",
"A meta post saying no more meta posts! Doesn't get more meta than that.",
"YESSSSSSSSSS\n\nI'm tired of people taking the subreddit name way too literally when people are just trying to do their best to give really sincere answers. \n\nThanks!",
"Thank you!!!!\n\nI was so close to unsubscribing due to having those sort of posts on my front page. Upvotes for decent mods :)",
"That's fine, but can you guys please start enforcing the rules as described in the sidebar? The whole \"No bias\" thing is pretty much completely ignored from my experience, and the top comments on politics/religion related questions are usually in line with the circlejerking drivel normally found on r/politics and r/atheism. It's the biggest thing ruining this subreddit, IMO.",
"Amen!\n\nHowever, one of the reasons I love this sub is that I actually have a 5 year old, and I like to read the answers as though I were explaining it to her, and I have a fair idea of what she'd get or not (as I'm constantly explaining things to her ANYWAY).\n\nThat being said, I enjoy giving my own renditions as to what I believe my daughter would understand, but I try my best not to chastise people for posting something obviously well over her head -- it's not hard, she's only 5!!",
"I don't like that this subreddit has turned into r/answers. If I want complex explanations which assume prior knowlegde, I turn to r/answers.\n\nThis subreddit used to be about great, simple explanations about complicated concepts, explained through analogies a 5-year old would be able to relate with.\n\nNow it just seems to be people asking questions which have straightforward answers, easily solved by a Google search, or people asking complex questions and getting complex answers.\n\nI'll just stick to r/answers to avoid duplication of effort.",
"Then why does the very first instruction in the sidebar say *\"A friendly place to ask questions and get **elementary school-level** answers*\"\n\nWhat was really intriguing about this subreddit is that it **wasn't** /r/askscience or /r/answers\n\nObviously there are difficult subjects asked on here -- **that** should be the challenge -- to explain even those like you were talking to a five year old! \n\nMaybe I'm biased because I have a 9-year-old and a 7-year-old and I've had a number of challenging conversations with each of them when they ask about a complicated subject. If I just gave them the grown-up answer anyway they'd get frustrated and say \"I don't get it\"\n\nWhen somebody asks about Credit Default Swaps here it's **way** funnier when somebody has to liken it promising somebody 10 pretend Oreos if their Oreo gets run over than if somebody actually explains it the way you would in /r/answers. But hey, it's your subreddit, so more power to you.\n\n",
"I don't think there is supposed to be a comma between \"friendly\" and \"ELI5\" in the title. Bothering my OCD. Too....many......commas.....must.....change. ",
"I am firmly in support of this.",
"Another subreddit with bad mods that pulls a bait and switch.\n\nAnother subreddit that I leave to its own filth.\n\nSeriously, reddit is going down the tube so fast it'll soon be the new MySpace meme."
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9iuhgj | what's the difference between symptoms of the common cold, and symptoms of the inflammation my body is producing to fight the virus attempting to cause the common cold? | I looked for a similar response before posting, but couldn't find one. So right now I'm a coughing, hacking mess of a person. I was curious about why we react this way when we contract rhinovirus, and it sounds like my body is experiencing inflammation in order to kill the virus. Is that all the symptoms of a cold are, just our body's physical reaction to the virus? What are the actual symptoms of the viral infection? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9iuhgj/eli5_whats_the_difference_between_symptoms_of_the/ | {
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" > symptoms of a cold are, just our body's physical reaction to the virus\n\nYep. It's very frustrating. A lot of the time people who have the cold virus won't have any symptoms at all and will recover from the infection just fine. It's just a massive overreaction of your immune system to a very minor virus.",
"The immediate (acute) symptoms are primarily caused by your immune system trying to make your body a difficult environment for the virus to reproduce and inhabit while actively fighting off the infection.\n\nA symptom directly associated with an infection such as the common cold can be sepsis, which occurs if your body is not able to eliminate the pathogen and toxic by-products/waste before accumulating to chemically unstable levels. \n\nTrue symptoms of viral infection are typically latent and affect a host through secondary effects. This is because viruses are basically parasites, and generally, parasites can't thrive if their host is dead. However, diseases caused by viral mutation of host tissue can cause things such as cancer (ex: cervical cancer, etc.).\n\n",
"Rhinovirus is a particularly simple and relatively harmless virus. Don't get me wrong, the common cold is plenty dangerous, but only if you're immunocompromised, very young, very old, etc. It, like all other viruses, is destroying your cells in order to replicate. With a simple virus like this, that's pretty much the only effect the virus is actually having; destroying some cells. \n\nYou're right in that, when it comes to the common cold as caused by a rhinovirus, practically all of your symptoms are simply the immune response at work. They are all designed to either dispose of virus or virus-infected cells, or otherwise destroy them. Your body heats up in order to destabilize the viral replication process, causing fever. You are expelling mucus containing viral particles and the immune cells they were doing battle with via a sneeze. Et cetera, et cetera.\n\nThis isn't the case for every virus, though. Virtually every virus causes damage by destroying some kind of cell, which varies in severity. HIV, for example, is so dangerous because the cells it destroys are supremely important in the body. Other viruses have direct effects on the body, typically as a means to disable or hamper the immune response: Ebola is particularly deadly because it does such a fantastic job suppressing the immune system. As for the bleeding out of every orifice, well, that doesn't happen in every Ebola patient and we kinda still don't know why it does happen sometimes."
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2p8afn | if each of the representatives at the united nations speaks a different language, how are they translated among the different countries? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2p8afn/eli5_if_each_of_the_representatives_at_the_united/ | {
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"Back when I wanted to be an interpreter, working at the UN was my #1 goal.\n\n[Here's a video](_URL_0_).\n\nThe interpreters sit in soundproof booths overlooking the general assembly, with headphones on, and work in pairs. One person interprets while the other listens along and watches for signals that essentially mean \"Look up this word, I don't know it.\"\n\nThey switch off.\n\nThere are a number of different languages interpreted to and from. Delegates generally have an earpiece. So if you watch a UN address, you'll see that the person generally speaks a few sentences, then pauses. This is often to allow the interpreters to catch up, so the audience can stay roughly with the speaker.",
"There are humans who translate. \n\nSomeone says something, a human edit: interpreter ~~translator~~ hears it and speaks the translation into a microphone which goes to headphones of the people listening. \n\nThere's a slate article here: _URL_0_\n\nAnd a Wikipedia article about the service here: _URL_1_",
"You got some great answers already, but I want to note: not every representative at the UN speaks a different language. Each one of them probably knows one of English, Spanish, Russian, Mandarin, German, French, or Arabic, and at least one probably knows two. In fact, I would be really surprised to hear any language other than those seven in the UN"
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303ocu | in movies where criminals are transferring money, why is it always to a swiss bank account? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/303ocu/eli5_in_movies_where_criminals_are_transferring/ | {
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2v6g3c | sigma significance in science? | From what I understand, the sigma system is supposed to help scientists when conducting experiments. I.E. A sigma 1 is very unlikely and Sigma 6 is "guaranteed" result. So if Sigma is meant to rule out probabilistic errors and so on, why is it that it fails spectacularly at its task?
Let's take 2 recent events:
Neutrinos are faster than light, oh wait, they aren't, there was a hardware error. So why didn't Sigma pick this up?
Gravitional waves have been confirmed by BICEP-2. Oh wait no it was cosmic dust.
Both of these results had Sigma 5 > , so wtf? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2v6g3c/eli5_sigma_significance_in_science/ | {
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"A sigma (Greek letter) is often used to represent standard deviation in probability.\n\nFor normal distributions (which statisticians love), we can say 68% of points are within one standard deviation (one sigma) of the average. 95% are within two sigma, ..., and 99.9999% are within 5 sigma.\n\nWhen scientists say their result is 5 sigma... It means there is only 0.0001% chance that you would get the same experimental results randomly. \n\n\nFor example say you have 100 coins, and you believe that one of them is a trick coin with two heads. You can test this theory experimentally. Maybe the first time you flip them you get 55 heads... The second time 48 heads... Etc... But if you keep flipping your 100 coins many many times, you might end up with statistics that say the average is 51 heads, with a standard deviation of 0.2\n\n51 is 5 whole standard deviations away from what you'd expect if the coins were all fair (an average of 50).\n\nYou can now say with 99.9999% confidence that something is fishy with your set of coins."
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24cc99 | how is a straight line a circle with an infinite radius? | I searched and cant wrap my head around this one. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/24cc99/eli5_how_is_a_straight_line_a_circle_with_an/ | {
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"Math gets wonky when you deal with infinities. You can have all kinds of crazy things like a construct (Gabriel's Horn) with an infinite surface area but finite volume.\n\nKinda sorta like the 0.999...=1 deal.\n\n0.333...=1/3\n\n0.666...=2/3\n\n0.999...=3/3\n\n0.999... is infinitely close to 1, ergo, it is exactly 1.\n\n",
"If it makes you feel better, there's not a lot of situations where looking at a line that way makes sense or has a practical use. I'd file it away with one of those things like \"black isn't a color\" that smart-asses repeat to make themselves sound smart.\n\nWhen you start working with infinity, math gets weird. Often, you need to fall back on **limits** to get meaninful answers. This is because **infinity is not a number** - it's the *abstract concept of a number that's bigger than any number you can think of*.\n\nIn short, if you start with the equation defining a circle & set the radius equal to infinity, you can do some clever tricks to show that equation is equivalent to the equation for a straight line.\n\nIt doesn't make sense because infinity generally doesn't make sense & it's only really useful for when you're already talking about infinite things."
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u7oj7 | the marvel universe | After seeing The Avengers on the weekend I've gotten fairly interested with the complexity and depth of the Marvel characters, but having never read any of the original comics and even missed out on some of the lead-up movies to Avengers, there are still some big holes missing in my knowledge of them.
So my questions in particular: what iconic comic book characters other than the Avengers are from Marvel, and not DC?
What are the main differences between Marvel and DC?
How much of The Avengers and related content was directly thought of by the director, and how much was original story line from the comic books?
Are all of the Marvel characters set in the same time-frame? Something I was wondering in specific: why didn't Spiderman ever make an appearance in The Avengers considering it was set in NYC?
What made the Hulk the way he is? I've never quite been clear on that.
How does Captain America get away with so much stuff, in particular the scene in which his shield blocks Thor's hammer? I didn't see the Captain America movie, but I was under the impression that he was just a human on some sort of super-steroids, but would still withstand the same sort of damage and pain of a normal human.
And just any other information you feel necessary to add! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/u7oj7/eli5_the_marvel_universe/ | {
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"I can answer a few of these questions: \n > what iconic comic book characters other than the Avengers are from Marvel, and not DC? \n\nSpiderman, Punisher, Fantastic Four, the X-men, the list goes on. \n\n > Are all of the Marvel characters set in the same time-frame? Something I was wondering in specific: why didn't Spiderman ever make an appearance in The Avengers considering it was set in NYC? \n \nIt depends on the story arc you're talking about. For example, some of Cap. America comics are set in the 40's while some of the Spiderman arcs are set in the distant future. There are some story arcs that contain a lot (if not all) of the Marvel characters: Civil War and Marvel Zombies. I believe the reason that Spiderman didn't make an appearance was because Sony still owns the rights to the movies.\n\n > What made the Hulk the way he is? I've never quite been clear on that. \n \nBruce Banner (Hulk in human form) was blasted with Gamma rays, which altered his DNA. \n\n > How does Captain America get away with so much stuff, in particular the scene in which his shield blocks Thor's hammer? I didn't see the Captain America movie, but I was under the impression that he was just a human on some sort of super-steroids, but would still withstand the same sort of damage and pain of a normal human. \n \nHis shield is made of Vibranium. It's basically impervious to all attacks. Even Wolverine's claws can't penetrate it. (In fact, the metal for Wolverine's claws, Adamantium, was accidentally created when scientists tried to duplicate vibranium). \n\nWikipedia is a handy tool for anymore questions on Marvel (or DC) characters. Personally, I can spend a long time reading characters' backstories and such",
" > what iconic comic book characters other than the Avengers are from Marvel, and not DC?\n\nSpider-Man, Wolverine, the Fantastic Four, X-Men, Daredevil, Doctor Strange, Ghost Rider, Deadpool, the Silver Surfer, etc. Lots and lots of characters.\n\n > What are the main differences between Marvel and DC?\n\nIt's a matter of opinion, but I find that DC's heroes such as Superman, the Green Lantern, the Flash, Wonder Woman, are largely less complex as characters than Marvel's. Iron Man struggles with alcohol; Superman struggles with Kryptonite. Marvel also tends to make more relatable characters like Spider-Man; he's an ordinary nerdy teenager who has to deal with problems in his life while still being a superhero. I don't find as much of that in DC. On the other hand, I find that DC fans can be more drawn to the over-the-top powerful nature of many of its heroes. DC heroes are ridiculously strong compared to Marvel characters with similar abilities (for example, the Flash vs. Quicksilver). They also have more of a \"traditional\" superhero look, since they more commonly wear capes and spandex and such things. So it's really just a matter of personal taste.\n\nExcept Batman. He's the goddamn Batman.\n\n > How much of The Avengers and related content was directly thought of by the director, and how much was original story line from the comic books?\n\nWell, there are similarities in that the Avengers had (mostly) the same characters in the comics and the movie (although the comics had Ant-Man and Wasp, Hulk left very soon after the beginning, Captain America didn't join until issue #4, Hawkeye not until #16, and Black Widow until even later), and that Loki was responsible for causing a chain of events that brought the team together in the first place. The exact storyline didn't happen in the comics, though.\n\n > Are all of the Marvel characters set in the same time-frame? Something I was wondering in specific: why didn't Spiderman ever make an appearance in The Avengers considering it was set in NYC?\n\nIt differs. The \"main\" Marvel Universe is one time period (modern day) and one set of characters. Marvel has a large amount of alternate universes, though, some of which are set in other time periods - like Marvel 1602, which had similar characters set in Elizabethan Europe.\n\nSpider-Man didn't join the Avengers until recently (during the Civil War storyline about 7 years ago, if I remember correctly), and even then it was a separate team called the New Avengers. So that's one reason. I also think that the film rights to Spidey are still owned by Sony, so they couldn't put him in for copyright reasons. But a lot of Marvel's characters are based out of New York, including the Fantastic Four; they just couldn't put all of them in the Avengers.\n\n > What made the Hulk the way he is? I've never quite been clear on that. \n\nBruce Banner was a genius physicist until an experiment involving gamma radiation went wrong. His body's chemistry was altered by the particles so that he turns into this monster when he's angry. The upper limits of his strength are not known; it is often said that \"The madder Hulk gets, the stronger Hulk gets\".\n\n > How does Captain America get away with so much stuff, in particular the scene in which his shield blocks Thor's hammer? I didn't see the Captain America movie, but I was under the impression that he was just a human on some sort of super-steroids, but would still withstand the same sort of damage and pain of a normal human.\n\nThe shield is made of a fictional metal called Vibranium, with the property that it absorbs all vibrations. Basically it's the strongest material in existence.\n\nI highly recommend reading Marvel comics. Maybe do some research and figure out what characters interest you, then buy some trade paperback collections to start.",
"I think people have covered a good deal here, so I will just add a couple of notes. DC comics have a tendency to make their characters pretty black and white in terms of morality. There is an absolute right and wrong. This is not universal, Batman comes to mind (even he falls into that sometimes). DC tends to focus on what it means to be a hero. Marvel, on the other hand, deals a lot more with the grey. Ironman was an alcoholic. Antman beat his wife. Hulk had his rage come from his father abusing him. Don't get me started on Wolverine. The very first thing Captain America did after the super soldier experiment, not even a few minutes later, is kill a man. These are your Marvel heroes. Marvel tends to focus more on what it means to be human, and how people deal with powers they don't necessarily want. Just look at Spiderman. I think there is room for both styles of story telling, and there is some cross over in that style at both companies. \n\n\nOne of the hardest things for the non reader is where to start reading. If, say, you were interested in Superman, there really is no good place to start. Things that were true a year ago are not true today. It's one of the pitfalls of comics. Superman, Batman, Captain America, Green Lantern, these guys have been around since the 30s. Much of the more prominent Marvel characters were around in the late 50s into the 60. My only advice is to start with trade paper backs.For the most part they are self contained, and even if they are told in an alternate timeline or universe, they can give you a good way of seeing if you like the character and want to keep reading.\n\nAnd as far as the movies are concerned, I would take them as self contained stories independent of the comics. While they for the most part keep the spirit, they are really their own little world. Take for example Hellboy. His movies deviate greatly from the source material, and the movies are better for it. If they had followed the comics, it would have been a good story, but they took advantage of the movie medium to make a good movie, not a good retelling of the comic story. Most of the better comic book based movies do that. Avengers did as well, they kept the spirit of the Avengers without copying word for word what happened in the comics. Comics were meant to tell a certain type of story, and movies tell a different type. Slow pacing in a comic can be fine, but not so much for a movie. A lot of fast action and explosions works well in a movie, but in a comic it can make the panels crowded and harder to read. I would say enjoy them both for what they are, but don't sweat the details to much.",
"Most of the questions have been answered, but I'd like to add a little more. The main difference I've noticed with DC and Marvel heroes is this: DC heroes represent ideals. They're like standards that we should all live up to. Superman is of course the best example of this. What would Superman do? Batman of course has all that willpower and determination, Wonderwoman doesn't take no shit from men, etc. Marvel heroes are much more flawed. Spiderman is one of the better examples. He's always incredibly busy and stressed with jobs, caring for his aunt, relationships, school, and of course saving the city. All this combined with the fact that he's not at all the strongest or most conventional or seasoned hero shows how Spiderman is taking the world on his shoulders. Then Ironman is an alcoholic, The Thing obviously looks like a monster, and Captain America living with the fact that everyone he's ever known or loved is now dead. This is what sets Marvel apart from DC.\n\nDon't get me wrong, I love DC too. The way they've handled metahumans vs the government is some story arcs is incredibly awesome. However, I am biased seeing as I prefer Marvel myself.",
"In regards to how much of the movie is original, the movie is licensed material whose source is the comic books, and therefore has much leeway to deviate from the original canon and create its own (which it does to an extensive degree).\n\nThe reason why Spider-Man doesn't make an appearance is exactly this difference in canon as well as licensing rights; Spiderman already has a canonically (and logistically) separate reboot dropping sometime this summer.\n\nThis [timeline infographic](_URL_0_) explains the film canon very well from the series of films leading up to *The Avengers* to the point directly prior to the film itself.",
"Play Marvel Ultimate Alliance 1 and 2. I've never read a comic book before and these games have A LOT of info in it. You basicly play as a giant collection of Marvel Superheros, but in 4-man teams. It's really fun and informative. IIRC, there's a version out for all current and previous gen consoles. ",
" > What are the main differences between Marvel and DC?\n\nBesides the obvious corporate ownerships:\n\n* Marvel heroes tend to fight each other, then team up. DC heroes simply team up.\n\n* Marvel makes great use of real world locations as their backdrops. DC places many fictional capitals in their universe (Metropolis, Gotham, Coast City, Keystone City etc).\n\n* Marvel Universe attributes the influx of super powered individuals to Mutant-hood, an evolutionary step forward in humanity that the greater populace fears. DC Universe calls this \"the metagene\", a gene you either do or do not have which has the potential of activating during a time of trauma (eg. getting hit by lightning).\n\n* Marvel's heritage mostly comes from the 1960s 'Silver Age' of comics. Those versions are still pretty much what we see today. DC's heritage predominantly comes from the 1940s 'Golden Age'. Many of these heroes were reinvented for the Silver Age but the Golden Age versions were acknowledged as being a previous generation of heroes that inspired the later ones.\n\n* The Marvel Universe tends to introduce alternate versions of its characters (Spider-Man 2099, Days of Future Past, Age of Apocalypse) via alternate futures and timelines. The DCU is a 'multiverse' of 52 parallel universes that can be traversed by certain charatcers or technologies, usually containing variant versions of the standard DCU characters with their own continuities.\n\nThere are exceptions to all of the above but these are what I see as the defining traits between the two.",
"Here's the thing about superheroes and superhero comic books: the majority of these characters were created simply to appeal to kids. It's not a value judgement, it's just true, especially of the DC characters, which were created to be bright, easily reconginsable and iconic characters that would appeal to children on a rack in a drug store.\n\nFurthermore, when they were created, there was more to comic books that just superheroes. There was romance, horror, pirates, detectives, all kinds of stuff. But sometime around the second world war, in a grim period of uncertainty, people started to look to these characters, superheroes specifically, to sublimate the woes of the time, like the holocaust, the war and the depression, and lot of these other genres kind of fell to teh wayside. Many of the creators and editors of superhero comic books of the late golden and early silver age were eastern European, generally from the Jewish diaspora, and it was a key theme of a lot of this work that feelings of powerlessness about what was happening in Europe at the time were being worked out by proxy in these books; the heroes from DC's books in particular were invulnerable, morally unshakeable literal supermen (in the Nietzchean sense of the word). Michael Chabon's *Kavalier and Klay* gives a great (albeit fictional) account of this.\n\nFlash forward to the 1960's and two more men of Jewish descent, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, asked the question \"what if rather than being titanic godlike figures, what if these superheroes were more like real people, with real people problems on top of being superheroes?\". In doing so, they modernised a genre that up to this point was still very much focussed on entertainment for kids. Of course, this was wildly popular and opened up comic books (specifically superheroes) to an older audience, with more naturalistic characters and adult situations.\n\nHere is where things start to go a bit wrong, because the kids reading these books of the late 50's and 60's, these are the kids that go on to work in the comic book industry by the late 70's and 80's, and by this time, the audience for these books has been steadily decreasing. What's worse, the people now making these books are no longer making them for kids, instead they are almost making for one another. More correctly, they are making the kinds of books that they imagine they would have liked to read when they were kids, but injecting their own adult sensibilities into them. So by the eighties and nineties you now have comic books that are too adult for kids, but still burdened by characters that were originally created for kids in the first place, with only a very small audience of man-children interested in reading them.\n\nThis is the biggest tragedy of American comic books; being dominated by strong superhero trademarks has saddled an entire medium with characters and stories that are stuck in a perpetual adolescence, too valuable to kill and too difficult to change.\n\nThen comes Hollywood, and sees a rich vein of subject matter that they can essentially reinvent and market as new to millions of people who have aperipheral awareness of these characters (like yourself) but are not burdened by 80 years of nonsensical continuity.\n\nI'm sorry to say it, but watching the Avengers movie is about as good as it's going to get. You're getting a distilled essence of 80 years of creativity, the best of the best without all of the dross that burdens a serial format. Barring one or two storylines like The Ultimates, the push for modern (superhero) comic books to reasssert their relevance in the mainstream has been clumsy at best, often by trying to appeal to more mature audiences by making their characters more \"realistic\", a fundamentally absurd notion for what are essentially children's characters.\n\nI'm sorry this was a bit off-topic, but I feel quite strongly that the sooner superheroes are divorced from comic books in the mainstream consciousness the better; the entire American comic book industry has been in creative decline for almost thirty years because of the power of these trademarks. It would be as if you went into a cinema and could only watch movies about nurses. Of course it will never happen, a character like Superman or Batman is to valuable, and any talent that exists in the industry is going to get sucked up and repurposed to serve these trademarks or just simply go elsewhere (artists and writers can make a lot more money working for Hollywood than they will ever get out of the comic book industry). It sad, because comics are a great way to tell stories, just like films, or novels, or television, but my never become a mainstream medium as long as they are associated with superheroes."
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3qax8m | the latter part of the periodic table | Why are the lanthanides down there? Why are some masses in parentheses? And what's with the elements like Uuo and stuff? How are elements being made with a specific amount of protons? If we have that control over protons how come we can't make materials like gold or silver? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3qax8m/eli5_the_latter_part_of_the_periodic_table/ | {
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" > Why are the lanthanides (and actinides) down there?\n\nBecause it's easier to print on a page than [this](_URL_0_).\n\n > Why are some masses in parentheses?\n\nSome large elements are really unstable and aren't observed in nature. Instead of putting a weighted average of the atomic masses of the isotopes we observe in the wild, we just list the atomic mass of the most stable isotope we've produced.\n\n > And what's with the elements like Uuo and stuff?\n\nSome elements have been made and observed but haven't received their fancy pants names from the IUPAC yet. They just have systematic names denoting their number on the table as a placeholder.\n\n > How are elements being made with a specific amount of protons?\n\nWe launch smaller elements (of the appropriate size) in particle accelerators and ram them together.\n\n > If we have that control over protons how come we can't make materials like gold or silver?\n\nWe can, but it's more expensive than just digging an equivalent amount out of the ground.",
"[Read this](_URL_0_), it's pretty short and you'll learn just how much information is packed in the table. I don't know why some numbers are in parenthesis, that depends on the table you're looking at and how it's formatted, most like it's because the value is approximate.\n\nWe can make elements by smashing nuclei together in particle accelerators and hope they stick. We can make gold and silver, but the energy costs are not economical, it's by and far cheaper and easier to mine it. Any one flake you find will be more gold than has been created by particle accelerators.",
"I'll go through one by one.\n\nFirst off, the reason the lanthanides and actinides are at the bottom is really just for the sake of keeping the table looking nice. In reality, it would look like [this](_URL_0_). Since the lanthanides and actinides aren't often used, and you can easily make everything more tightly packed, they get thrown underneath.\n\nMasses are in parenthesis if no stable isotopes exist of a specific element. Generally for stable elements, the mass is the average of all isotopes of an element. An isotope is just the same element with a different mass. This can occur because an element is defined by the number of protons, but the number of nuetrons can vary.\n\nThe Uuo type elements have never been synthesized, and so may not be able to be made. Doing some funky stuff in a lab, it may be possible to make them eventually, but for now they are just defined by their number on the table. As such, Uuo is Ununoctium (one, one , eight). If they are ever made they will get real names.\n\n~90 elements occur naturally, with the rest being man made. These are generally only able to be formed inside particle accelerators and other through complex nuclear reactions. Essentially, it is very difficult to make them, but it can be done by smashing things together really fast.\n\nWhile we do have control over protons in the sense that we can make new elements with the previously mentioned smashing, we can't do it in bulk yet. As such, we probably could make gold or silver, but it would cost so much money that it would never be worth it.\n\nHopefully that helps. Let me know if you have any other questions."
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482mag | how do most fast food places have such a consistent product? | In most fast food places, I can order something, and I know it'll taste exactly the same as when I last ordered it, even if I order it at a different location in a chain. Personally, when I cook, in order to get that level of consistency, I'd have to be quite careful, if I put something together as quickly as a fast food restaurant, it will taste somewhat different every time. What methods do they employ to do this? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/482mag/eli5how_do_most_fast_food_places_have_such_a/ | {
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"They use the same supplier for meat which is the same cut and they use the same cooking process. Just like at home when you make a burger it should taste the same as you're used to unless you change where you bought the meat or cook it differently.",
"All the food is prepared at central distributors and shipped out. The franchise just does the final cooking. The things that are really giving that consistent flavoring are the sauces and spices, which the franchise gets in bulk from corporate. Mcdonalds franchises aren't prepping burger patties or chicken nuggets, they are getting them just as you could from the freezer section at the grocery store. Even stores that do a bit more work at the franchise will follow this pattern. For example, ChickFilA batters the chicken at the franchise, but they probably get batter mix from corporate. \n\nCook times and methods are also standardized. For example, everything deep fried has a specific oil temp and cook time that are built into the frier controls. The franchise doesn't need to even have anything special to track it, they just press start on the frier and the timer starts. \n\nFor grilled things, it is a bit harder to standardize, but not too bad. There is generally just burgers and chicken being grilled. The burgers are always cooked medium well+ which is an easy mark to hit. Consistently hitting perfect medium rare is tricky, but medium well to well is easy to hit without going drastically over. \n\nEdit. One other thing is large batch sizes. Lets say you make fries at home in a small home frier. It is easy to over/undersalt them because 1 extra shake of salt is a significant fraction of the total salt. But when you cook 10 lbs of fries or however much at once, one extra shake is hardly anything in comparison. ",
"Consistency does not happen by chance, it's the whole idea. Everything is measured precisely, cooked on the same equipment for the same duration, sourced from the same supplier, and packaged accordingly. This is done to increase the likelihood that you'll go to their restaurant. It might not be the best burger in the world but you know that Big Mac you buy at LAX is going to taste just like one bought from the McDonald's down the road from your house in New York. You're less likely to be disappointed if you get exactly what you expected. Knowing the consistency is there makes the choice to eat at that restaurant far easier. ",
"When McDonald's came to the UK they brought their own breed of potatoes because the current British ones couldn't be used to make McDonald's chips taste the way they do in America.\n\nThey are on top of everything.",
"_URL_0_\n\nThey blind taste test ingredients from every supplier."
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c1tkth | why does our body begs for junk food (sugar, ice cream, chocolate, etc.) when we are sad? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c1tkth/eli5_why_does_our_body_begs_for_junk_food_sugar/ | {
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"From prior research so this might be wrong. The compounds in them make our brain release oxytocin, the chemical that is responsible for happiness"
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7q9re2 | if we get an icbm alert, and it’s real, what’s the best course of action for the average person in a city? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7q9re2/eli5_if_we_get_an_icbm_alert_and_its_real_whats/ | {
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"You'll want to have a plan beforehand because half an hour or however long you'd have is not long enough...\n\nI would recommend figuring out where designated public shelters are (you'd probably have to contact local city administrative offices or a police department for this) so you know where your safest options are for if you're at home, work, etc. At worst, sheltering in place is possibly a valid option. \n\nTry to cover yourself in many layers of clothing to help protect against radiation. Won't help too much but anything can be better than nothing.\n\nThere's not much else you can do except get out of the blast area as soon as everything clears, except there's going to be so much radiation it might not make a lot of difference.\n\n",
"If you have a basement then go to the basement. If not go to an interior doorway. Once you're in the basement or doorway bend over as far as you can and kiss your ass goodbye. But officially Hawaii says \"get inside, stay inside, and stay tuned\".",
"It depends on who is attacking us. Russia will drive the world into a nuclear winter if it launches everything it has at anything. No matter where in the world. But that will take years to kill you.\n\nChina probably has tragetable ICBMs with nuclear weapons. But they are smart enough to know they cannot win a nuclear exchange. Russia too. If Iran developed nuclear weapons they should know this too.\n\nThat pretty well leaves North Korea. They probably do not have an ICBM with a nuclear weapon. If they did they do not have the technology to target a precise point. This is a big country. They have few weapons.\n\nRussia would probably target military sites, not cities.",
"put your head between your knees, and kiss your ass goodbye. if a nuke goes off, nothings going to save you besides a deep shelter witha blast door. ",
"if you are in a city that was around during the 50s there is a good chance that there are old fall out shelters in places like schools or some office buildings. look around and try and find the one that is closes to where you live and the closest one to your work. ",
"Go into a bank vault and read a book. Come out and discover everyone else dead and the city in ruins. Think about killing yourself but discover the local library. Stack up books to read for the next year. Don't be concerned that the stacks are outside in the weather. But whatever you do, do not bend over without holding onto your glasses. Be really careful with your glasses. There is time now. There is time.",
"The CDC guide for what to do in the even of a nuclear attack.\n\n_URL_0_",
"Despite what the media portrays, the odds of it actually happening are pretty unlikely. MAD Doctrine keeps a lid on it, plus the current situation with NK is mostly just a big dick waving contest. But let's say hypothetically... \n\nSo there's three ways a nuclear bomb can kill you. Fireball, shockwave, and fallout. In the case of an ICBM, you probably won't have enough time to evacuate a city. Your best bet is going to head to your local civil defense fallout shelter. Problem is, most of those got shut down after the Cold War ended. So now you're in a dilly of a pickle. Your next best bet is to find a deep tube subway station. \n\nBombs are usually detonated at altitude above ground. It's not like Fallout, with these big craters. That's a really inefficient way to detonate an atomic bomb, as all you're really doing is just creating a ton of fallout (radioactive dust and debris) in a small area. Most of the damage is done by the shockwave. So going underground is a sensible idea. \n\nDeep subway systems, as the name suggests, are buried deep underground, as opposed to cut and cover subways, which are just a shallow trench that's been covered over. With these deep stations, there's a lot of dirt above you to absorb the blast, so there's less risk of cave in. Radiation also can't penetrate that much soil and concrete. Many metro stations in the former Soviet Union as well as North Korea were built deep with this purpose in mind. \n\nIf you don't have that, underground car parks and sub-basements of office buildings will work in a pinch. But the risk of collapse is greater, especially if it's a direct hit. \n\nIn more suburban areas, you're pretty much screwed unless you have access to some kind of underground bunker that can deal with fallout. Again deep basements with reinforced concrete ceilings are your best alternatives, but not ideal. Caves or deep mines are good options too. However, hiding in lead lined fridges is definitely a bad idea despite what \"top men\" claim. If you are far enough away in the suburbs though, you might have time to evacuate by car. \n\nOf course, regardless of what option you pick, the biggest problem is not so much the initial blast but finding safe food and water. Old time shelters were well stocked, but subways and subbasements not so much. Fallout is also a huge risk since breathing in radioactive dust will cause lung damage. Which is why so many Cold War era shelters had to have air filters. Which is another thing a lot of modern alternatives lack. \n\n",
"1. Get low. A basement or other underground area is ideal. If that isn't available you want to be in an interior room on the ground level. If you're caught outside you want to be flat on the ground, in a ditch or other depression, or behind something VERY solid.\n\n2. Stay away from windows, or anything else that's going to shatter or become a projectile. Light objects will fly at very high velocity when struck by the shockwave of an explosion.\n\n3. Have a plan! Know where you are going to go in a disaster. How you are going to get out of your house, or job, what you're going to take with you, and where you're going to stay. Remember that hotels are going to be full, public transit won't be running, and the roads are gonna be a mess.\n\n3. Have a bug-out-bag. Don't go full prepper and try to bring 10,000 rounds of ammo, food for a year, and a full surgical kit. Do bring some basic first aid, a couple water bottles, some cash (cards dont work with no power), copies of your ID, and a list of phone numbers and addresses. No power means no Google, and your phone probably won't last more than a day or two without a recharge, so write the important stuff down!\n\n",
"Step 1 Find someone you're attracted to. \nStep 2 Use a pick up line, should be fairly easy due to ya know.\n\nStep 3 Get laid\n\nMight as well have fun before dying right?"
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3oboro | how can some people get addicted to exercise, yet no matter how hard i try it feels like torture to me? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3oboro/eli5_how_can_some_people_get_addicted_to_exercise/ | {
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"All I can suggest is stick at it. Once you get fitter, it stops feeling like torture, then you might find you enjoy it.",
"I've been running for about 2 years. I would say that the entire first year the first mile felt like torture. I would literally run the entire first mile thinking \"why the fuck did I think this was a good idea??\" Then I would settle in to a steady \"ugh, this is terrible\". The good feeling/sense of accomplishment/insufferable smugness came only after finishing. \n\nNow that I'm in my second year I am starting to enjoy it on its own but partially thats because I've started to suck a tiny bit less (I actually have two speeds, \"slow\" and \"less slow\" whereas last year I had one speed which was \"as fast as I goddamn can\" aka \"very slow\".) I enter races to keep up my motivation because I'm externally motivated like that. There is nothing wrong with being externally motivated. Its a long slow process. Whatever works, embrace it. \n\nOverall I'd say the idea that exercise is usually or always enjoyable is a bit of a myth. I'm not a huge fan of exertion and you have to push yourself in exercise, a sensation many people find unpleasant until they learn to associate it with emotional rewards like pride, accomplishment, etc. I have sports that I like to play but to be honest, they aren't very strenuous and I don't consider them exercise the way I do them. \n\nFYI, Couch to 5k running plan. It really works. ",
"It is torture, because it is \"work\" very often with no tangible result in the short term but feeling shitty and tired.\n\nIncentives are hard to come by because we're typically paid for work, and we couch it in terms of \"by the hour\", even people on salary often break it down to a 40 hour work week so it is an understandable in the short term(I just earned $44 in that hour!). \n\nOur minds have a harder time latching onto long term goals because historically/evolutionarily, we didn't have or need long term goals, surviving the day was enough.\n\nVideo games play upon this desire for reward, many are specifically engineered to do this and end up being quite manipulative.\n\nExercise, not so much, as it takes weeks or months to see any effect, and that's from an outsiders perspective. Our ability to adapt to slow change makes it less noticeable to us.\n\n The key is to find something about it that you do like, to form positive associations. Accomplishment is a big one, whether you take pride in that you did it, or that you can now fit into nicer clothes or live longer or being healthier in general(or healthier than other slobs, sounds bad, but a lot of \"fit\" people do get awful smug like that).\n\nA lot of people will contrive rewards for themselves with diet or exercise to manipulate themselves, to stimulate their reward centers. While you can't sit down and eat a gallon of ice cream...you can reward yourself with activities that you really enjoy. You can only watch your favorite TV shows after X, or go buy yourself something nice when you achieve Y.",
"Also there is a HUGE HUGE difference between exercising with passion and without passion.\n\nMy example is this: I am a gymnast and for 1 year I worked 3x a week on building strength for my 1 arm chin up. Each session I would dread it and I skipped a day a week probably every 2.5 weeks. \n\nAfter I got that skill I switch my focus to tumbling, specifically getting my double back flip on floor and I am practicing with vigor 4x a week and while it is still hard work, I don't find it difficult to make myself commit to it.\n\nAnother important part is being social while working out. When you can take a breather and talk about your workout, or the weather, or anything with someone friendly it makes a huge difference compared to being your own lonely sources of energy.\n\nSo it may be hard to find something driven by passion or a nice social group but try to think outside the box, dance class, ultimate frisbee or something and you will find as passion and social aspects of exercising increase, so does enjoyment and effort will decrease.",
"my take on it:\n\nI think exercise is an acquired taste. And you should have aquired it in the time growing up, and now as an adult you should feel fit, healthy and strong. To the human body, a simple jog should not feel like torture. It's only become possible to grow up without any exercise because we have equipped ourselves with the option to do so. There is a bus to school, there is less physical education, there are cars. Jobs have become less phyically demanding on average. \n\nBut your body isn't used to it, it needs time to adapt. A lot of programs and advice you read or hear want you to believe that you can be \"in the best shape of your life\" in a year, half a year or a month. Fitness and enjoying it is a lifelong endeavour. I still feel a big difference between those people who have always exercised and trained and someone who exercises but has only done so for a year or two. I feel like there is more to it than just muscle growth, strength or stamina.\n\nI think anybody can enjoy exercising, it's in our nature. We want to move. I couldn't begin to describe the feeling I have when I finally get to move, to run or to fight someone in the ring after a long day of sitting around. Give it time. Make the decision to get fit and stick with it. It's not a phase, it's a way of living. If you keep pushing yourself everytime, it will always hurt. And pushing yourself is necessary for progress. But then you go on a run at a leisure pace and fuck me is it great. Recovery time obviously is also important.",
"There's a huge variation in the way your body reacts to exercise. Some people get that awesome boost of endorphins and less pain. Others don't get that \"rush\" or it's much lower. Those people are just a little bit screwed and have to work much harder and past the suffering part of it.",
"Some people might hate all exercise. I find that most people enjoy SOME kinds of exercise activities and others just don't appeal at all. \n\nI, for one, cannot stand the gym, or running, or anything that is only done by yourself. \n\nOn the other hand, I can't get enough of badminton, tennis, hockey, touch rugby etc.! When I play those sports, the adrenaline just makes time go by and the physical exertion is only apparent after the rush has gone. \n\nMany of my friends enjoy doing dance classes, hillwalking, even archery! (There's a surprising amount of walking back and forth to fetch your arrows from the target - they aren't easy to pull out either). It can be difficult to try things out, but it's well worth it once you find a passion for something! At that point you're exercising without even meaning to. ",
"Find something fun, that is also excercise.\n\nFor me it was climbing, I find climbing so fun that it is a reward in its own for me. If I've done good, I'll reward myself with an extra session this week or something (I climb about once a week normally).\n\nI don't climb mainly to exercise, but it is still exercise, so I get to have fun, and also work out at the same time.\n\nI'm sure most people can find an activity that ticks the same boxes.\n\n\nSame thing with ski-skating in winter. The activity is a reward in itself. I usually don't think about the exercise benefit I get, its just fun!\n\nJogging is boring as all fuck. I still do it now and again, but I have to force myself",
"i bet it has to do with how few activities you truly enjoy enough to make the physical exertion worth it. purely based on anectodal evidence, all the people in my life who don't work out do so because 'traditional' methods are 'boring' and they haven't found a physical activity that can be a hobby. me, on the other hand? i love lifting weights and hiking. boom my physical activity is fun for me, so it happens more often.",
"For most people the body rewards exercise with endorphin's that make you feel good afterwards. I imagine the amount is different for different people. People who are addicted to it probably get more of them than most and someone such as yourself probably gets very little. \n\nBut basically the people who do it a lot do it because they get the same high feeling some people get when doing drugs afterwards. ",
"I'm naturally competitive and I think that has something to do with it. All about attitude. The fatigue can be a good thing, or a bad thing. Instead of thinking of it as Torture use it to remind yourself why most people cannot do what you are doing. From that thought draw strength to keep going even harder and soon it'll all be over and you'll be feeling good and having fun, especially if it's some competition that you've won. ",
"Different bodies produce different amounts of endorphins. People like you and me get very little which is why we feel less a sense of accomplishment and more a sense of burning. Other people get a literal high from exercise because their body produces those chemicals in much greater quantities. Having said that, don't let your genetics beat you! Come up with a way to incentive yourself to exercise, make a plan, and stick to it! ",
"I have a different philosophy compared to most people in this thread about how exercise should feel when you start, which I derived from the Terry Crews AMA earlier this year [(the specific comment I'm talking about)](_URL_0_). It's also a complete 180 from how I believed exercise should be for most of my life (played water polo all the way through college and have been subjected to work outs that were closer to torture than exercise).\n\nYou are trying too hard when you exercise for someone starting out. When people start back up again, they think they have to torture themselves and do everything much harder than their body can handle. Then they're sore for weeks and are more prone to quitting working out because, let's be real, being super sore sucks ass, especially when you're not used to it. \n\nThat's where the acquired taste comes in. If you start light and easy, by the time you start really getting sore from working heavy, you'll be used to the feeling of working out and it won't be unexpected. \n\nThink of it as swimming in a cold pool. If you just jump in, the shock to your body from the freezing cold will make you not want to jump in next time, and every time is torture until you quit or get used to it. If you ease in inch by inch, you'll be comfortable enough, and the next time you'll have no trouble getting in. Then maybe the next time you ease in quicker. And the next time you jump in. Because you're used to the cold now and the hurt of the cold doesn't hurt anymore.\n\nSame with exercise. Take it easy and start slowly. You'll be up to speed in no time and will wonder how you ever had issues starting in the first place.",
"No idea if this changes things over what others experience, but growing up I did a lot of heavy farm work and other physical labor. It's really good exercise too, I was probably in the best shape of my life back then.\n\nNow though, exercise is nothing but a chore and I hate it. There is no good feeling or anything associated with it. Just like then I had to haul heavy stuff around all day, it is all work and no reward.\n\nI just can't understand how some people get something out of it.",
"All these answers suck, you're probably not doing something you enjoy\n\nso find a sport or activity you do enjoy! I like running, but I moved to Florida and it's a little hot to run 5Ks when I want exercise\n\nSo I play soccer at night\n\nYou just have to find something you do enjoy then it isn't torture, swimming's a great workout once you get the form down, hiking, rock climbing, fencing\n\nstop lifting weights and go have fun, or lift weights if that's what you really wanna do",
"One time mike judge was on Howard stern, and he was really buff, and stern goes, \"wow so you lift weights huh?\" And judge goes \"no, I hate working out, I surf.\" So I'm thinking about getting a membership at a rock climbing place or something cuz I hate working out too",
"Ive been working out daily and seriously for about a year. Honestly, once you get past the point of where you feel sore and tired, you start to get a high off of getting a pump and want to experience it all the time. I love it ",
"Exercise is therapeutic for some and the noticeable rewards of exercise makes you want to keep going.",
"I've worked out all my life, and everytime I stop (because of work, sickness, etc) starting back up is a painful process. It sucks for 2 weeks before the addiction starts to kick in. And also, its worse if you're overweight. You need to be non-obese before starting to work out. (Losing weight is a mostly diet thing, another hell, another story).",
"Everyone's brain is different. Just like a straight person feels pleasure from having sex with the opposite sex and revulsion from having it from the same sex, a gay person can be wired the opposite way. People also vary in how much reward chemicals their brains release in response to exercise. Someone who produces lots will be prone to getting \"runner's high\" and will be naturally more motivated to exercise. ",
"This is actually very closely linked to the reason just paying people more to do creative jobs gives poorer performance, and why people try so hard to get karma here on reddit. We are all truly motivated by two things above all else: Prestige and Mastery.\n\nPrestige - everyone likes thinking that other people think they're good at something, they want the recognition. This kicks in for people who are really competing at the highest levels obviously, but it also happens when your friends start asking your opinions on things that they perceive you as being good at. For most people trying to get hooked on exercise, this isn't the really important one, by time you're achieving prestige, you're hooked.\n\nThe one that matters for getting hooked on exercise is the second.\n\nMastery: the sensation of feeling ones capabilities increase is one of the most intoxicating things in the world. Think about that sense of satisfaction you feel when you manage to nail a tricky level on a computer game, or when you finish making a difficult meal. It's all the same really. The difficult part for those starting exercise, is that you can't see the improvement immediately, you don't have the eyes for it, so you don't get that pay off. You don't get that sweet sweet dopamine hit.\n\nMy experience of watching others go through this, and having done it myself at a young age, is that there are two really powerful techniques. \n1 . Document yourself - record your distances, your times, how you feel afterwards. \n2. Delay the moment - when you think \"Fuck this is awful, what the hell am I doing?\" say to yourself, well yeah it's bad, but I just need to get to that lamp post, and then just before you get there, think \"well, I guess that additional 5 metres to that next lamp post can't be that bad\" and next thing you know, you'll have passed 50 lamp posts and you'll be done.\nIf you speak to olympic athletes, they both employ this trick all the time. They keep training diaries, and if you speak to a rower in a 2000 metre race, they'll have divided it up in to 25m sections, sometimes even just 10m sections in their head. If they thought about the whole thing in one shot, they'd give up, but just doing another 10m is never that bad.\n\nI'm aware that's a little rambly, but I hope there was the odd piece of useful information in there for you.",
"Not sure if you want this advice but here is some tips from someone who has multiple times strted from bein super out of shape to going to the gym daily. If you are currently out of shape working out/running feels absolutely terrible. The key is to not focus on doing a lot of excersize but just doing something you are comfortable with on a schedule. Start out walking 3 times a week for 20 minutes. Do not try to going all out when you first start it will just make you associate pain and discomfort with excersize which it sounds like you aleeady do. As long as you stick to your schedule and keep doing more weight/time/speed/days you will see resaults and eventually feel really good everytime you excersize."
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3kn113 | why should we fear self-aware robots? why do we? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3kn113/eli5why_should_we_fear_selfaware_robots_why_do_we/ | {
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"We are afraid of intelligent AI because we project our own human frailties onto it. Humans are intelligent, creative, motivated and highly-competent. We know that machines can surpass our thinking in certain tasks such as calculation already and we anticipate others in the future. This doesn't leave much room for inferior human thinking if an AI is better in some respect.\n\nAs well as this, humans are aggressive, vindictive, violent. How will a machine which is highly intelligent act towards its own possible motivations of violence and aggression? \n\nAs our current society is structured, if machines begin to phase out various parts of the labour force, humans will be left without jobs. If AI is incorporated into the military then we fear that a machine will not factor in our own species bias when making strategic decisions about preserving life and defeating an 'enemy'. We worry that machines won't feel the way we do - watch the I Robot film.\n\nWe also worry that machines will act towards us the same way that we act towards minorities in society. If AI has an 'anti-human' bias then we are under threat.\n\nHowever, as it stands we have no idea what AI will emerge as. We can only make predictions based on things we already know and try and make preparations for problems which we may encounter. \n\nSeeing the many discussions about AI on reddit, you need to understand that these are ideas that are filtering down from the current best minds working on this to the general public via the media. Experts can weigh in, but generally, we are left with a somewhat diluted and sensationalised perspective which we perpetuate because it's scary and tantalising. "
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p4zch | n2 vs air for my tires. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/p4zch/eli5_n2_vs_air_for_my_tires/ | {
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"Air itself is 78% nitrogen by volume, so it's kind of silly to go out of the way to find pure N2 for your tires. Don't waste your time."
]
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b4ym3b | how do movies get “frozen/still” shots of an action scene with everyone perfectly still, but the camera panels around the room? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b4ym3b/eli5_how_do_movies_get_frozenstill_shots_of_an/ | {
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"The Matrix (1999) pioneered this filming technique.\n\nThey used a line of cameras arranged in a circle around the action scene. At the \"freeze\" moment, all the cameras capture an image at once. When you play each of the camera images in the circle in sequence, it shows the same point in time but at different angles.",
"They use multiple cameras and merge the images - sometimes touching it up with CGI if the cameras miss a spot.\n\nOften nicknamed \"bullet time\" after a famous scene in the Matrix which is when it was first used (on a serious scale - people had played around with the technique for a while)\n\n",
"This effect, known as bullet time, was first shown in The Matrix, where it was done mostly in camera. A series of as many as 120 still cameras was setup around a chromakey volume, each pre-aimed and prefocused to catch one frame of the bullet time sequence. Then the stunt is performed in the volume, and the cameras are triggered remotely in a precisely timed manner by a computer.All the images were developed, then sequenced into a strip of film. Nowadays you can do this with DSLRs, where the files are placed into the proper sequence in a computer and rendered out into up to 5 seconds of film.\n\n_URL_0_",
"Cameras. Lots of cameras. \n\nThanks /u/whosthedoginthisscen\n\n_URL_0_\n\nAs others have said, its a technique popularized in The Matrix as bullet time."
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23ujoq | why would a baseball pitcher use pine tar? | In light of the Yankees pitcher being ejected from the game for having pine tar on his neck, what's the advantage of it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/23ujoq/eli5_why_would_a_baseball_pitcher_use_pine_tar/ | {
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"It also sticks to the ball and makes it spin wobble.",
"A lot of pitchers do this to get a firm grip on the ball, especially on windy days. When a pitcher is singled out and thrown from a game, it's usually because he's being obvious and obnoxious about doing so; such was the case in yesterday's game. Pineda was caught using tar in a game against the Red Sox on April 10th and shrugged off allegations, though he knew that the Sox let him off with a warning. Blatantly running his hand across his neck less than a month later was a middle finger towards his opponents ... So they called him out on it.",
"It allows the fingertips to retain traction on the ball. This gives the pitcher the advantage of making the ball spin, curve, or do whatever he wants. It's not grip for the entire hand but just the fingers. It basically just allows more manipulation.",
"TLDR - 'cuz he's cheating which is obviously illegal in any sport. \n\nSo if you do a quick search on how a curveball works you can see that it's based on how the ball spins in the air as it approaches the plate. In the majors, all pitches have movement. Some are more pronounced than others and the really good pitchers can alter the spin just enough that you can see two curveballs in a row from them and they'll break differently, at different times and have different speeds. They can be very hard to hit.\n\nBy using pine tar, a pitcher can not only get a better grip on the ball and thus spin it easier, but the pine tar itself alters the aerodynamics of the ball. It's the same reason a spitball is illegal. A major league pitcher who is allowed to put pine tar on a ball can make it do all kinds of ungodly things that blow the minds of major league hitters. It gives him an unfair advantage, therefore it's illegal. ",
"Pine tar scuffs the surface of the ball and makes fly in different directions when it is thrown. Sometimes the pitcher cannot control which way it flies after he has scuffed it, and people can get hurt, which is why it's a banned practice. "
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8awt7s | why does the temperature of gases decrease when compressed? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8awt7s/eli5_why_does_the_temperature_of_gases_decrease/ | {
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"The temperature of gas does not decrease under pressure. It _increases_. But so does the temperature required for gas to become a liquid. Since compressors usually aren't good insulators, the temperature gained by the compression escapes again from the gas until the gas has the same temperature as before, which might now be below the condensation point. Thus the gas becomes a liquid.\n\n\nThe reason why gas is cold when you e.g. spray deodorant is because the reverse happens when you decompress gas: It looses temperature. Since the gas has cooled down to room temperature already, decompressing it brings it _below_ room temperature. This is also how fridges and some heating systems work. "
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96vlt9 | so why are some sites declared as not secure? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/96vlt9/eli5_so_why_are_some_sites_declared_as_not_secure/ | {
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"Recently google decided that any website not supporting https would be labeled by them as not secure. Which is generally true given that s tacked on to hppt is a set of encryption protocols that help keep web traffic from being intercepted and modified. "
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6fqs79 | that sudden odd, but thrilling, feeling that my heart is moving upwards out of my chest when a plane suddenly changes altitude (descends) when it's a few minutes from landing. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6fqs79/eli5_that_sudden_odd_but_thrilling_feeling_that/ | {
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"Part of it is the sensation of the blood actually shifting and changing its pressure but more of it is your heart actually moving. Besides the Aorta and Superior Vena Cava (the main artery and vein) there is nothing holding your heart in place. This is why some vehicle accidents are instantly fatal, the heart experiences so much force that it snaps loose."
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3gcxmd | how does raising millions of dollars during a political campaign directly correlate to that candidate getting elected? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3gcxmd/eli5_how_does_raising_millions_of_dollars_during/ | {
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"The more money you raise, the more money you can invest in putting (high quality) political ads on TV, the more you can invest in other media appearances, the more you can invest in contacting people by telephone to get them to vote, basically, all ways of getting your name and message out there. And that is what gets you elected. Most people decide who they are going to vote for based on what they see on TV. They don't actively try and hunt down every political candidate's viewpoints and compare them. They let the media feed them some stuff and decide based on that. ",
"It doesn't. Even though more money puts more advertsiments infront of the voters, studies have shown that polical ads have little effect on elections."
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b7f0ag | what's the difference between all the fruit classifications? eg, pomes, drupes, berries etc. | Ok so first off we're going to exclude vegetables entirely. By vegetables I mean the simple definition that if it doesn't have seeds it's a vegetable and if it does have seeds it's going to be considered a fruit. But past that I get confused with the different types of fruit groups. Like a strawberry isn't actually a berry but a tomato is? Peach is a drupe because it only has one seed in the center but a mango isn't a drupe, why? What's a coconut supposed to be? How can I tell which fruits are what type? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b7f0ag/eli5_whats_the_difference_between_all_the_fruit/ | {
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"There is no definition of vegetable. A vegetable is simply any plant-based foodstuff that isn't something else. \n\nThe world of fruit taxonomy is strange and very, very stupid. I recommend simply not thinking about it too hard. Because fruits share very little evolutionary ancestry, categories of fruits are rather nonsensical and fickle at the best of times and there's a whole world of misinformation out there about it. Even I'm not entirely sure what I'm writing here is correct that's how much misinformation there is.\n\nMost fruits actually belong to multiple categories, cos there's a lot of overlap. The actual contents of a category vary wildly too in terms of anatomy, because of the fact they're grouped by the way they grow rather than by evolutionary links. Drupes for example does include plums and peaches, but also includes mango *and coconut* - a coconut is actually a very large pit, and when you eat one you're essentially doing the equivalent of eating the inside of a nectarine stone. Nuts are also fruits, as are legumes and even wheat. Oranges are berries, too, but strawberries aren't, and raspberries are actually many very small drupes stuck together. \n\nTelling what a fruit is easiest when you have access to google, and outside of that you may as well be guessing. \n\n"
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2xntcp | tires for speed need to be thin or thick? | Why do bikes have thin tires to get more speed, but formula 1 cars have thick ones for the same reason? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2xntcp/eli5_tires_for_speed_need_to_be_thin_or_thick/ | {
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"Thin for speed, thick for control. Roads tend to curve and this is bad at the higher speeds bikes can never reach.",
"Bike wheels rotate much more slowly than F1 cars. There are thin to cut down on friction, weight and air resistance. \n\n\nF1 cars need traction. The bigger wheels give them far more grip on the road and allow them to drive very fast with far less wheel spin. \n\nThis is my understanding, could be wrong. ",
"The forces put through tyres by fast cars are so large that you need very large tyres to achieve the required performance and endurance. In many circumstances grip is the limiting factor rather than power. Rubber, and even the road surface, is only just so strong so you need a large contact area. I understand the Bugatti 400km/h car has an absurdly short tyre life during high speed runs.\n\nCyclists have very limited power so speed is limited by friction and weight much more than by grip. Thin tyres weigh less and cause less air resistance and, for cyclists, still have enough grip.\n\nWeight at the wheel rims is twice as bad as weight anywhere else when it comes to acceleration. This is because the wheels have angular momentum as well as the linear kind. Another reason why cyclists want to minimise tyre weight and also why they have \"mag\" wheels on cars. Saving weight in the wheels (by using low-weight magnesium) has more benefit than in the body of the vehicle because of angular momentum.",
"The thing which makes F1 cars so fast is actually not their top speed. There are road cars which have higher top speeds than F1 cars.\n\nThe reason F1 cars get around tracks so fast is because of their phenomenal acceleration, deceleration and cornering. All of these required big, fat tyres.\n\nF1 cars to get from 0-100mph, *and back to 0mph again*, all in less than 4 seconds. (To put this in context, only the very fastest road cars can do 0-60mph in this time, let alone 0-100mph, and that doesn't include braking.)",
"I can't speak for bicycles, but I can speak for cars.\n\nThe contact patch of a tire is a function of the weight on the tire and tire pressure.\n\nFor example, say that the weight on the tire was 900lb, and the tire pressure was 10 psi. That internal pressure means that each square inch of area can support 10lb, so, in this case, the contact patch will be 90 square inches. If the tire pressure was 30 psi, the contact area would be 30 square inches, and if the pressure was 90 psi, the contact area would be 10 square inches. This has been found to be almost exactly correct for most tires (the exceptions being so-called run-flat tires, or tires with extremely stiff sidewalls). For most other tires, carcass structure will have an effect, but by far the major factor is tire pressure.\n\nSo, as you can see, the size of the contact patch of a tire is not related to the width of the tire - it is, in fact, proportional to the tire pressure. What will change with the fitting of a wider tire is the shape of the contact patch - it will get wider, but shorter longways.\n\n---\n\nVery close to 100% accuracy, the size of the contact patch is irrelevant to traction.\n\nThe grip a tire can generate is dictated by the coefficient of friction of the rubber compound. The higher the coefficient, the more grip which can be generated. The relation that is used is called Amonton's Law, and the equation is:\n\nF=uN\n\nwhere F is the force generated, u is the coefficient of friction, and N is the weight on the tire.\n\nSo, if you increase the weight on the tire, then friction will increase as well in proportion - but the coefficient of friction will remain the same. Notice none of this makes any mention of surface area of contact. I'm intentionally ignoring suspension, because that's a different problem solved by a different solution (of actually keeping the tire in contact with the road surface).\n\nThis is why downforce is so important. You're increasing the weight on the tires without increasing the weight of the car.\n\n---\n\nWhy not simply have narrow, high profile tires? Heat (I'm ignoring handling as that includes suspension). To get a contact patch of a certain size on the road, you need a certain portion of the tire to be flat on the road surface. The area of that patch is basically it's length times its width. Now, for a narrow tire, the contact patch will be quite long compared with a wide tire.\n\nTo get that long flat section to give the required contact patch, the sidewall needs to deform quite a lot. This deformation bends and then unbends the sidewall as the tire flattens and then the tread curves again as the tire rotates. This flexing results in a lot of heat being generated. The more and/or more often the flex, the greater the amount of heat generated.\n\nA longer vs. wider contact patch will have a greater percentage of the tread in contact with the road. This reduces the amount that the tread can cool. Also, there is a greater percentage of sidewall at any given time that is actually under bending stresses, again resulting in less opportunity to cool.\n\nI'll use an example from the internet:\n\nTake a 155-width tire compared with a 225 tire of the same circumference. Our assumptions:\n\n* The unloaded circumference is 60cm\n\n* The pressure is 30 psi\n\n* The weight on the wheel is 600lb, giving an area of 20 square inches (or 129 square cm)\n\nAssuming that the contact patch is rectangular to make the math simple (in reality it's an oval), the wider tire patch will be 5.73cm long, and the narrower tire patch will be 8.32cm long. The circumference of the tire is 188cm, so the 225 is heating for 3% of its cycle, and cooling 97%, whereas the 155 is heating for 4.5% of the cycle and cooling for 95.5%. The narrower tire is generating heat 50% longer than the 225, and is not spending so much of its cycle cooling.\n\nAs far as heating of the tire is concerned, the 155 tire bends by 0.29cm and the 225 bends by 0.14cm. Assuming that the heating of the tire is roughly proportional to the deformation (for simple math), we multiply the deformation by the percentage of time the tire sidewall is under stress, and divide this number by the percentage of time that the tire is being cooled. Multiplying the resulting numbers by 100, we get a figure of 1.37 for the 155 tyre, and 0.43 for the 225. Dividing the 155 tire's number by that of the 225, we find that the heat generation of the 155 is 3.2 times that of the 225, given that the 225 is only 45% wider than the 155.\n\nAs a result of this increased generation of heat and the reduced capacity for self cooling, the narrower tires need to be made of a harder rubber compound that is more able to resist heat. This harder compound will, of necessity, have a reduced coefficient of friction, particularly when cold. The wider tires can have a softer compound with better frictional properties. Due to the reduced bending stresses and greater cooling opportunities, the tire will tend to stay within a narrow temperature range, giving greater cold grip, and have a reduced propensity for overheating. This makes for a better performance tire.\n\n---\n\nIncreasing the tire diameter is beneficial because the tire will not have to deform so much to get the required contact patch length and the percentage of the tire tread in contact with the road will be less than a smaller diameter combination.\n\nFor wet weather driving, despite what you may have heard, it is better to increase your tire pressure. There is a relationship between pressure and the speed at which there is the onset of aquaplaning. The equation is 9 times the square root of the tire pressure. So, if your tires are at 25 psi, if you drive into a puddle that is deeper than your tread depth, you will aquaplane at 45 mph whereas if your tire pressure was 36psi, you would aquaplane at 54 mph (87 km/h).\n\nAs far as tire profile is concerned, the main benefit is handling - the lower sidewalls give reduced sidewall deformation under lateral loading, which results in improved steering response and a more stable contact patch."
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2cwd7z | why does our skin have a delayed reaction after absorbing sun rays? | I let the sun 'tan' me for 2 hours a few days ago. After it I was fine, I even went for an 8k jog in the 2 hours following it, and got a really good time. But teh following morning, as expected, the heat and burn had kicked in, and days later it is gradually beginning to normalize.
Why does our skin not respond more directly to sun, and to the burn. Why does it take a good few hours to feel the pain and the burn? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2cwd7z/eli5_why_does_our_skin_have_a_delayed_reaction/ | {
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"The energy from ultraviolet radiation can damage molecules in the skin, most importantly DNA. One consequence of this is the synthesis of different proteins and enzymes. The effects of these proteins lead to dilation of blood vessels and recruitment of inflammatory cells. This, in turn, produces a sunburn's characteristic redness, swelling and pain. Once the signal of excessive radiation exposure is initiated, it generally takes four to six hours for these proteins to generate. Sunburn symptoms thus don't appear until well after exposure. (DNA damage can also result in the destruction of the involved skin cell. This is one of the reasons why skin peels after a bad sunburn.)"
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9ugvd9 | why are insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies so profitable? and how? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9ugvd9/eli5_why_are_insurance_companies_and/ | {
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"This is definitely 2 different questions.\n\nInsurance companies: profits are made by charging premiums from millions of people in order to pay settlements to a small minority. Essentially, those that have insurance do not have their house burn down in a fire, pay the bill for those that do have their house burn down in a fire. Insurance companies back on the fact that more people will not have their house burn down than those that will, and charge premiums according to an individual's risk, and the general risk if the pool of those insured. They charge an amount in excess of the minimum required to offset liabilities to convert executive pay, advertising, and all other necessary costs of doing business.\n\nPharmaceutical companies typically create a drug. Get a patent for that drug. Start fda testing on that drug. Once the FDA approved the drug, the company has a patent that will prevent any other company from making the drug for 20 years. During that time, the company can sell the drug for whatever cost they feel like attaching to it. Recently a lot of these patents have been bought out by companies that have doubled or tripled the costs for the drug. There is nothing the U.S. government can currently do about this price gouging because Congress refuses to act on capping profits."
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1u3cnw | why do the largest nuts rise to the top but the raisins sink to the bottom when you shake their respective containers [of mixed nuts or cereal]? | Has this been studied seriously or is this not an important issue in physics/materials science/ < field applicable > ? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1u3cnw/eli5_why_do_the_largest_nuts_rise_to_the_top_but/ | {
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"Even solid objects as long as held within a closed container follow the laws of fluid dynamics, the largest will rise up and smallest will sink down.",
"When you shake the contents of the container, you're separating the objects apart, creating gaps. The smaller objects will fall into these gaps, and as the space is consumed by the smaller objects, the larger objects are pushed to the top respectively.",
"If you're still having trouble understanding, think of it like this:\n\nThe big nuts have nowhere to go down because they are resting on each other. [Pic 1](_URL_0_).\n\nWhen you shake it, the nuts move but because they can't go lower, the raisins fill the spaces the nuts make.\n[Pic 2](_URL_1_). (The yellow lines represent the movement)."
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6nrtgn | how do certain foods bring out the taste in alcoholic drinks? | Tonight I had some coronas while relaxing at home, and as I scrolled through Reddit I've been snacking on almonds. It struck me that the beer I was drinking has a subtle sweet flavor to it, something which I had never noticed before tonight. I've drank coronas a good number of times and never had this taste. Is it something to do with the food I was snacking on? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6nrtgn/eli5_how_do_certain_foods_bring_out_the_taste_in/ | {
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"If the almonds you were eating were salted, that would bring out the flavour just like salt does with food. In many cultures strong alcohol like Swedish snaps are paired with very salty fish like pickled herring, not only does this hide the harsh alcohol burn but also brings out the flavour in both the alcohol and fish.\n\nBeyond that, pairing alcoholic drinks, especially wine, is basically an art form that people study years and years to master. "
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6knzwn | how do pool tables know which ball is the white ball? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6knzwn/eli5_how_do_pool_tables_know_which_ball_is_the/ | {
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"There's more than one method, but the most common are: \n\n * the white ball is *slightly* larger, and so doesn't fall down the same holes as the other balls\n\n * a magnet inside the white ball trips a switch when passing a certain point on the rails.",
"The ball is a different size from the other balls and has a magnet on the inside. [Here](_URL_0_) is a video explaining how a pool table works",
"The cue balls are normally no longer larger for 8, 9 and 10 ball pool - \"According to WPA/BCA equipment specifications, the weight may be from 5.5 to 6 oz (156–170 g) with a diameter of 2.250 inch (57.15 mm), plus or minus 0.005 inch (0.127 mm). These are often referred to as 2 1⁄4 inch balls.\"\n\nCoin operated tables sometimes have a larger ball, but usually the cue balls have a magnetic core",
"_URL_0_\n\nalso search pool cue ball "
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532eii | why are only certain xbox 360 games backwards compatible on xbox one? | If the Xbox One can emulate the 360, then shouldn't it be able to play any 360 game? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/532eii/eli5_why_are_only_certain_xbox_360_games/ | {
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"One of the major reasons why only certain games are playable on Xbox One is because it is up to the developers to determine whether or not they want their Xbox 360 title on Xbox One now.\n\n\nI know that you might think that they could just port over all Xbox 360 games and just ask for permission from each developer as needed; however, there's something that you have to take into account. When Xbox 360 games were developed they/most didn't have any idea about the Xbox One's physical capabilities or features. The easiest example I can think of is the Xbox 360's Kinect. Now the Xbox One's Kinect is more powerful and I'm sure that there are key differences between the two versions. That being said, the game software never knew how to use the new Kinect (because why develop a way for Xbox 360 games to use the new Kinect when Microsoft said that they wouldn't be doing backwards compatibility?)\n\n\nTL;DR: It's up to the developers to decide if they want their game ported over, and the differences of hardware between the Xbox 360 and Xbox One."
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6c6nm4 | why does the outside smell different when i've been drinking? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6c6nm4/eli5_why_does_the_outside_smell_different_when/ | {
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"By \"the outside,\" my drunk self means being outdoors.. \nEverytime I step outside when I'm drunk, everything smells so much different. Cleaner, crisper, different."
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5i4z6a | why did lgbt rights have such advances only in the last few decades even though homosexuals have existed since early society? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5i4z6a/eli5_why_did_lgbt_rights_have_such_advances_only/ | {
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"I imagine it was the grip that religion had on the world. Religion was taken as law for a long time. To be homosexual was seen as an abnormality. Luckily, most people are more educated and we've advanced to realize that sexuality just doesn't matter. Gay or not, you are still a human being, deserving all the rights as everybody else. ",
"Same sex relationships are opposed by Christianity (and likely western religions in general, but I say that with some hesitation because I'm not an expert so you should fact-check me if you want to know for sure), so while the world was influenced heavily by those religious beliefs, practices like homosexuality were seen as sinful. But people's collective sense of right and wrong changes over time and the LGBT community has been proactive in convincing the general public that their lifestyle should be accepted. As a result, we've entered a period where society is far more inclusive when it comes to the LGBT community, although they still do face challenges.",
"You're confusing LGBT rights in modern Western culture with LGBT rights as a whole. For example, in ancient Greece, homosexuality was common and accepted. ",
"One of the biggest reasons is the declining importance of legacy and increased gender equality in the past century or so.\n\nIt used to be that men worked and women kept house. If a man was successful, he would leave his property, his reputation, and possibly even a title to his son, who would carry on his legacy.\n\nThat made having sons very important. Sons were encouraged to marry start families, and daughters were married off so they could bear sons for other families. Not being able to have sons was something of a disaster, because it meant a family business built up over generations would come to an end.\n\nThat made things difficult for open homosexuals. It was less about morality, and more about the perceived betrayal of family by refusing to have children. Discrete homosexuality was tolerated, so long as you \"did your duty\" and had children at some point.\n\nIn the 19th and 20th Centuries, employment shifted away from farmers and artisans and towards factories and services. People could make a comfortable living without owning a business or property, and legacy became less important. And with the rise of gender equality, legacies could pass to daughters as well as sons.\n\nThat made easier for openly gay people, but also lead to a backlash against them. Tolerated in the closet, many people used to the old societal norms labeled openly gay behavior as immoral, even after the old reasons for it no longer existed. This lead to a cultural struggle, with homosexuality slowing gaining acceptance, until it reached that ~50% tipping point in the 2000s. ",
"Throughout most of history in most societies, childbearing/rearing was significantly more important to the viability of a society than it is today. As a result, sexual/romantic love was considered more of a delusion of youth than anything else. Marrying for 'love' (or even 'lust') was foolish because you were making a critical life decision that impacted not only yourself but your entire extended family based on irrational criteria.\n\nIf you can understand this reality, it becomes a lot easier to see why homosexuality was a non-issue. You weren't marrying based on sexual attraction *anyway*, so the fact that you were generally attracted to one group of people more than another wasn't meaningful.",
"I don't think we can separate \"LGBT rights\" as we know them from a relatively modern context.\n\nThroughout history there have been many times and places where same gender relationships were permitted or even celebrated under certain circumstances, but the concept of \"sexual orientation\" as a social category was entirely foreign. E.g., Alexander the Great evidently preferred the sexual company of men, but \"gay\" was not a social category that existed in his world. To make a distinction between homo/hetero/bisexual in his world would have seemed as pointless as making a distinction between \"dextropedal\", \"sinistropedal\", or \"ambipedal\" based on whether someone is more proficient with their right foot, left foot, or both. And the idea of two men marrying would have been unfathomable to him, because in his world \"marriage\" was the process of transferring ownership of a woman from one man to another.\n\nMoving into Europe from the middle ages onward, religion did play a major role, but not the only one. There was still no concept of \"the homosexual\" as a category of person, or \"homosexuality\" as a personality trait. There was only \"sodomy\", defined not by one's personal nature but by one's actions. A \"sodomite\" was like \"an adulterer\" or \"a thief\", and it didn't matter if you committed \"sodomy\" for love or money. Likewise, if one *didn't* engage in M/M sex, one was not a \"sodomite\" no matter how much one might want to do so.\n\n\"LGBT rights\" as we know them are based on the concept that LGBT are distinct social categories based in immutable traits, and that it's unjust to withhold rights from people based on the circumstances of their births. Both of these concepts are relatively modern. The concept of \"sexual orientation\" as an innate aspect of one's personality dates only to the late 1800's, and the idea that everyone should be born with the same basic rights is something that dates only to the enlightenment.\n\nWith marriage in particular, it wasn't until heterosexual marriage changed from male ownership of women to a free and voluntary union between equals that the concept of marriage between two men or two women was conceivable. This didn't happen until the mid-20th century. And it wasn't until the 1967 *Loving v. Virginia* case that marriage was recognized as a basic right in the US.\n\n**What happened in the last few decades:** the culmination of about a century of change. On top of enlightenment ideas of universal rights, we had both the emergence of the idea of \"homosexuals\" as a distinct category of people, the slow growth of a group self-identity and conscious activism among LGBT people, and the massive changes to heterosexual relationships and marriage.\n\nThe modern gay rights movement started in the late 60's, but even that didn't appear from nothing. It emerged from the interactions between the sexual revolution, and the [**\"homophile movement\"**](_URL_5_) that started in the late 19th/early 20th century.\n\nThe early movement was based primarily in Europe, particularly Germany, where it was pioneered by activists like [**Magnus Hirschfeld**](_URL_3_) and [**Karl Ulrichs**](_URL_0_). The first institution that we might recognize as a gay rights organization was the [**Scientific Humanitarian Committee**](_URL_7_), founded in Berlin in 1897. This was the start of the idea of \"the homosexual\" as a type of person, and \"homosexuality\" as a personality trait inherent to a person's nature.\n\nThese early efforts inspired movements elsewhere in the world, including the US based [**Society for Human Rights**](_URL_1_) in 1924, and the [**Mattachine Society**](_URL_6_) in 1950. These organizations operated in extreme secrecy because of the intense persecution at the time. This allowed them to survive, and in secret gay people started to organize and develop a social and political group identity. \n\nFollowing WWII, gay communities and culture in the US grew vastly. Basically, a bunch of people who might otherwise have never left the farms were drafted or moved to cities for war manufacturing jobs, and met other gay people for the first time. When the war ended, they weren't going back. Many stayed where they were dropped off when the war ended - often in San Francisco or NYC. This was the start of the \"gayborhoods\" that came to prominence in the mid/late-20th century.\n\nAfter the sexual revolution, the start of the African American civil rights movement, the growing group consciousness of gay people, and the Stonewall riots of 1969, more direct political action came into favor. The biggest factor in this was the emphasis on \"coming out\", which had the slow but successful effect of dismantling assumptions that gay people were intrinsically disordered and same gender relationships were inherently destructive and dysfunctional.\n\nUntil the mid-90's public opinion stayed basically the same, but gay life changed massively. A combination of increasingly effective activism, more positive media representation, and the early internet changed everything. Through the internet, gay people could easily find information and support from other gay people even while still closeted. People started coming out both younger and far more publicly than ever before, and gay people suddenly became a lot more visible.\n\nThis reached a [**tipping point**](_URL_2_) after which public opinion started changing rapidly. This was also the time during which the first governments started recognizing non-marriage \"domestic partnerships\" (or other similar unions) for gay couples, starting with the Netherlands in 1989, and in 1993 the first major [**US gay marriage case**](_URL_4_).\n\nBetween 1996 and 2000, public attitudes towards gay marriage went from 70% opposed to 27% support, to 59% opposed and 35% support. It plateaued in the early Bush administration and post-9/11 era, then began changing again in 2004. It is probably not a coincidence that 2004 is also the year Massachusetts became the first state to recognize marriages between same gender couples, following Belgium (2003) and the Netherlands (2001). While there was a lot of outcry at the time, it quickly became apparent that the sky wasn't going to fall. Public approval for same gender marriage equality crossed into majority support in 2011.\n"
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3bkszb | why eyes roll back into the head as a pleasure reflex | Why do our eyes roll back in our heads when experiencing extreme pleasure? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3bkszb/eli5_why_eyes_roll_back_into_the_head_as_a/ | {
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"When experiencing extreme pleasure, our nervous system is under complete parasympathetic (rest and digest) activation. so not only do our skeletal muscles relax, but the muscles that control our eye movements also. When our eye muscles are NOT active, eyes are not being pulled into their normal resting position, so they roll back Into our head until we regain some sympathetic activation of our nervous system. ",
"Contrary to the ~~above~~ below answer, here's the real one. (It's partially correct, as you'll see, but the mechanism is all wrong.)\n\nWhen you faint, your body experiences a loss of muscle \"tone,\" also known as continuous postural tension. Your eyes are naturally rolled up, and it's just the tone of the oculomotor muscles that keeps them down. Yes, this happens even while sleeping. (Same for your eyelids -- fully relaxed = 90% closed, not 100% closed. That's why syncope caused by drugs has the distinct half-lidded look rather than other forms of fainting, which reflexively tighten the eyelid muscles to keep them shut.)\n\nFainting and experiencing extreme pleasure activates similar pathways, as the body starts to ignore or shut down certain parts of the body to focus on pleasurable sensation. Your eye muscles lose tension (since you don't need your eyes to orgasm), so your eye naturally rolls back.\n\nWatch someone blink in slow motion when they're not focusing intensely on something. You'll notice their eyes roll back slightly as the oculumotor muscles relax during the blink. (Intense focusing can overcome this reflex.)\n\nSidenote: parasympathetic innervation is involved with sexual intercourse (it's nicknamed \"feed and breed,\" after all) but it doesn't cause the eye roll reflex since it doesn't innervate the oculomotor muscles. The parasympathetic response is in full force on the initiation of coitus anyway...\n\n**Edit:** change \"above\" to \"below\" since the other answer got downvoted below mine."
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1jhlod | why do companies always push for more profit, no matter how much money they have in the bank? | Maybe I'm an idealist but I don't understand why profits are so important beyond a certain point. For example, a company could be making billions of dollars every year, and still feel the need to make redundancies, freeze pay rises, or raise prices. As long as everybody at the company is earning a good wage and the company is well in the black, shouldn't that be enough? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1jhlod/eli5_why_do_companies_always_push_for_more_profit/ | {
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"Publicly traded companies are legally required to maximize profits for their shareholders. \n\nAlso, people are greedy, and to some, nothing is ever enough.",
"Corporations have a duty to return as much money to their shareholders as possible. This is still the dominant theory of the corporation that is taught in business schools today. I believe it is the law as well. Every decision that managers make must be viewed through the prism of \"will this decision increase shareholder value?\" Managers that fail to uphold this vision of the corporation are at risk of being fired or worse.\n\nThat means that theoreitcally there's no limit to how much money a corporation can or should be making. A company could be making $100 billion dollars per year in profits, but if there is an opportunity to increase that to $101 billion, the managers of the company are duty bound to seize that opportunity, because it increases shareholder value.\n\nFurthermore, the companies are owned by shareholders. Most corporate shareholders are actually not people, but large institutional investors. Think public pension funds, hedge funds, university endowments, foundation endowments, etc. The people who manage the portfolios for these organizations are also duty bound to maximize returns for the people whose money they manage. Their portfolios also tend to be large and diversified, so they don't just own one company, they probably own hundreds. In this context, its very important that the companies they own all keep increasing in value, because it means the pension funds can keep paying their pensioners, the university endowments can grow, etc. It's not all just about growing individual wealth.",
"Not ***all*** do. Newman's Own is my favorite good company. _URL_0_",
"I think you're muddling two issues together here. Because they are separate issues... Being a profitable company is totally independent of being an ethical company. There are very generous large companies that have hundreds of thousands of employees and who give boatloads of money to charities and worthy causes all around the world. There are also really tiny companies that are total dicks to their employees.\n\nThere's nothing inherently wrong with being profitable. \n\nIt's also important to remember that 'corporations' aren't these nebulous constructs that exist to screw people and pollute. Corporations are groups of people - some good and some bad. "
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5ely25 | how do the people of hawaii go about protecting themselves or preventing damage from the active volcanoes? | Or say a volcano were to erupt aggressively, are there any ways to go about preventing damage from the lava? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5ely25/eli5_how_do_the_people_of_hawaii_go_about/ | {
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"GeoLocational avoidance. Aka don't be where the hot lava is. Nothing can really stop thousands of tons melted rock at thousands of degrees other than millions of gallons of sea water.",
"Volcanoes aren't as \"kabooomey\" as cartoons would lead you to believe.\n\nThe only island with an active volcano is Hawai'i (aka \"the big island\"). All the other islands have extinct volcanoes. The largest human settlements are on Oahu, home to Honolulu (and Disney!) (and no lava!).\n\nThe big island's volcano *is* erupting regularly, a decade ago I was fortunate enough to go on a helicopter tour and see it spewing lava into the ocean. Freaking incredible. The thing is though, it's not a huge bang, it's a continuous lava pour that just nobody goes near, the most it's ever destroyed is a two-lane road and a few bus stops. If a volcano were to form an underground pocket that could potentially build in pressure and go bang, we have the technology to detect that.\n\n**EDIT: Wait wait, clarification.**\n\n**There are FIVE active volcanoes.** But the threat is still low.\n\n**Kilauea** - this is the one on the big island, and the one I was alluding to in my previous words. It's regularly barfing lava on the south side of the island, and has no civilizations near it. No risk of dramatic eruptions.\n\n**Mauna Loa** - also on the big island, it hasn't erupted in a while and is overdue. Nobody's built on top of it lol. \n\n**Hualala** - also on the big island. It hasn't erupted since 1801 but is expected to go sometime in the next hundred years. Again, ain't nobody setting up shop on this.\n\n**Lo'ihi** - this volcano is located offr the south coast of the big island. It's erupting underwater, building up, and if the tectonic plates stay put, will eventually erupt into a new island.\n\n"
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5u9avg | do magnets damage phones!? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5u9avg/eli5_do_magnets_damage_phones/ | {
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" > She examines the package and says \"cute, but I heard magnets damage phones\"?\n\nAsk your wife for a source. If she can't, then you are probably fine. (hint: she won't be able to find any)"
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8jymdt | why is destruction and killing in video games (think doom and destiny) so fun? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8jymdt/eli5_why_is_destruction_and_killing_in_video/ | {
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"Because you can't conduct yourself in that fashion any other time in any other place. It isn't that you desire to kill, it's just an experience that 99% of people don't allow themselves to partake in and so when you let your instinctual fight or flight take over on purpose you are stroking a part of your brain that evolved for a purpose but never gets used anymore because of peaceful society. \n\nIn short, it's cathartic."
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1s35yd | why do i need a lather when i shave? and does it matter what product produces the lather? | Is there any real difference between a shaving cream, shaving gel, shaving soap or whatever when it comes to results?
Mostly interested in the context of shaving the face, using a disposable razor like the Gillette Mach 3 or Schick Quattro. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1s35yd/eli5_why_do_i_need_a_lather_when_i_shave_and_does/ | {
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"The purpose of lathering is to moisturize the skin and provide a protective barrier between you and the steel blades that are millimeters away from your throat. If you've ever tried to shave without it you'll find that it can result in a rougher shave, more frequent nicks and discomfort. As for what's best, it's mostly a matter of personal preference. Some will have better hydrating and properties for your skin, but I don't believe it is exclusive to any one medium.",
"_URL_0_\n\nYou might want to ask the shaving community! There are lots of enthusiasts here who can explain in detail.",
"I wet my face with warm water, and rinse the blades a couple of times while I shave. Buying into other products seems like a waste of money. ",
"It is lubrication. There are certainly differences between the products and how you will react to them...but on a basic level, they are just lubrication."
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3lygo6 | what exactly is the utc time zone? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3lygo6/eli5_what_exactly_is_the_utc_time_zone/ | {
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"UTC is basically an arbitrary timezone which we chose to be the \"reference\" timezone. Every other timezone is a + or - number in reference to UTC.\n\n > Also, how do I figure out when to tell someone a time to meet? For example, if I'm on the east coast and I want to meet at 10am EST and they are on the west coast, what do I tell them?\n\nYou specify the timezone, or say \"10am your time\". It's probably best to use the timezone of the area in which you are meeting."
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6jqdhx | why does the sound of my alarm trigger sleepiness? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6jqdhx/eli5_why_does_the_sound_of_my_alarm_trigger/ | {
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"When you wake up naturally, it's because you want to. The sound of the alarm is probably associated with you having to get out of bed, even when you really don't want to and are still tired. Hearing that alarm after you've already woken up probably brought you those feelings because of this."
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4j3lkk | sometimes when they launch big ships they just violently drop them into the water at a 45 degree angle. why? | I'm referring to something like this: _URL_0_
Why do they just DROP it off the side of the dock like that? Why don't they use a longer ramp and just let it slide gently into the water like a boat ramp at a lake.
I understand they couldn't put it in long ways because it would crack in half. But they could still slide it in sideways rather than just drop it into the water a 45 degree angle.
| explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4j3lkk/eli5_sometimes_when_they_launch_big_ships_they/ | {
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"text": [
"Just dropping it in requires very little engineering, lets gravity do the hard job of moving the ship, and totally works. Why go to the trouble of doing it any other way? Ships this big are built to withstand the violence of the open sea, so this sort of thing is no problem, even though it looks spectacular.",
"It's the most cost effective option. If I told you that the ship was designed to tolerate huge forces from water impacts (eg hit by a huge wave in a storm) and could easily withstand three foot drop into the water, and then also told you that it would cost an additional 10-50 million dollars to build a deployable underwater ramp system capable of supporting that kind of weight, would you spend the extra money?",
"How did the cameraman survive that shrapnel? Holy cow.",
"This was already answered on another thread long back\n\n > You need to effectively have the entire ships weight distributed evenly along the hull, sliding it in sideways ensures that no one part is under more stress than another.\n\n > Going forwards down a slope would focus the ships weight on either end of the hull and result in damage up to and including actually crushing the middle of the ship in on itself.\n\n > Besides the other benefits of being able to launch into a smaller area, any slip forwards would need a much bigger deployment area, seeing as most dock yards are in built up areas (like Glasgow for example) space is usually at a premium already.\n\n > Though some ships do launch forward if theres enough room\n\n _URL_0_",
"That's common, but not as common as longways. USUALLY they do it like you said, but sometimes the way the body of water they are launching into doesn't permit a longways launch, so they side launch instead. See how many of the waterways in [this](_URL_0_) video they launch into are long and narrow? If you see a video that doesn't show wood flying at high speed towards the camera, you might see it isn't as violent. ",
"I thought they typically built boats in a \"dry dock\" which is like a giant canal gate - when the boat was complete, water was let into the closed off area again floating the boat",
"I know nothing about launching ships but as someone who works in QA this seems like a prime example of testing in a production environment."
]
} | [] | [
"https://i.imgur.com/CvSQBPm.gifv"
] | [
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/h7a5f/how_to_float_large_ships/c1t56eh"
],
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcKAWj7xqrE"
],
[],
[]
] | |
808eub | why does an engines power output drop above a certain amount of rpm? | When you look at the power graph for a car’s engine, it peaks at a certain amount of revs (e.g. 5500) and then drops off, even if that amount of RPM is not at the redline. Why is this the case? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/808eub/eli5_why_does_an_engines_power_output_drop_above/ | {
"a_id": [
"dutpu54",
"dutqfpi"
],
"score": [
5,
2
],
"text": [
"The amount of internal friction in the engine starts to interfere with its efficient operation. The more times per second it goes up and down, the more rubbing there is, and lubrication and heat control become difficult.",
"it's usually because the engine's piston's air intake requirements have exceeded the intake manifold's flowrate. the intake manifold has a running/pipe for each cylinder of a specific diameter. bigger diameter allows more high rpm flow but has poor low rpm performance. you're always going to be balancing high rpm high flow and low rpm flow. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] | |
bxnee3 | - what makes james bond themes instantly recognisable as a james bond theme? | I’ve always wondered what in particular makes the JB themes sound so similar and instantly recognisable. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bxnee3/eli5_what_makes_james_bond_themes_instantly/ | {
"a_id": [
"eq8hq5h"
],
"score": [
9
],
"text": [
"It is called a [Leitmotif](_URL_0_)\n\nA short melody, chord progression or rhythm accompanies a certain character or event that appears on screen (or on stage, as the term leitmotif and its use originated in opera) making the audience associate them together. \n\nLots of composers use it. The James Bond one is famous, but you can (probably) easily recall the Lord of the Rings music accompanying the heroes whenever they start chopping up some orcs, or the Star Wars theme whenever Darth Vadar does his thing for the same reason."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leitmotif"
]
] | |
4ysj5d | why does a broken mirror show many tiny images instead of one image with lots of cracks? | It's not what regular glass does, and it's not what other shiny things do. It's never made sense to me. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4ysj5d/eli5_why_does_a_broken_mirror_show_many_tiny/ | {
"a_id": [
"d6q3v59"
],
"score": [
43
],
"text": [
"The glass is all pointing in slightly different directions, and so the light reflected off of each little surface is coming from a different place before being reflected to your eye."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
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