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b7cmsg | they say our brains are fully developed at age 25... what are the implications of this in our day to day lives? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b7cmsg/eli5_they_say_our_brains_are_fully_developed_at/ | {
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"The part of the brain that doesn't finish development until about age 25 is very specific: the prefrontal cortex controls executive function -- the ability to choose what your next move will be. People without this lack impulse control, and are thus more likely to take stupid risks.",
"It's more related to decision making system.\n\nWithout going into too much detail (and I'm not that versed in the limbic system), until your early 20/mid 20's, you process information moreso with the amygdala (brain region really implicated in emotion and fear) than with the prefrontal cortex (brain region for the decision making, high cognitive function). \n\nAt around 25 you process more with your prefrontal cortex than the amygdala. That's (partially) why teenagers/young adults can act immature. "
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a2f0om | does dehydration cause nosebleeds? if so, how? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a2f0om/eli5_does_dehydration_cause_nosebleeds_if_so_how/ | {
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"Inside your nose is the mucous membrane - a slimy layer with little blood vessels going all through it. It has to be slimy to catch the dust and bad particles in the air you breathe, and keep them out of your lungs.\n\nWhen you are dehydrated, this slimy layer dries up (there's not enough water in your body to keep it moist), and the blood vessels in it get damaged."
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6lbbmb | why is flash point of gasoline(petrol) is at -43 degree celcius? | Wouldn't that make it extremely flammable? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6lbbmb/eli5why_is_flash_point_of_gasolinepetrol_is_at_43/ | {
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"Gasoline is extremely flammable. The flash point is the lowest temperature a substance *can* ignite at, not necessarily the temperature it will immediately burst into flames at.",
"The flash point is the point that you get enough vapor pressure and out gassing to provide an ignition _URL_0_ may not be enough to sustain combustion but at this point the fuel has warmed up enough to gain enough out gassing to initiate a flame.Gasoline will tend to be around -43. The more stable avgas used in aircraft has a flash point of -40. The fuel is very volatile and wants to go from liquid to a gas,this makes it flammable down to the low temperatures. Remember it's not the liquid that burns it's the vapor. Below the flash point temps the fluid tends to be stable and not wanting to boil off any gasses. ",
"While extremely flammable, another point to consider are the lower and upper explosive limits, which for gasoline is 1.2% and 7.1% by volume, respectfully.\n\nThis means that gasoline vapors are too lean or too rich to burn if they are outside of that range. As a comparison, hydrogen's LEL and UEL are 4% & 75%, so it will burn through a much larger range of concentrations",
"To add to others here, they make it that value, on purpose. You want the gasoline to vaporize in the cylinder even if the outside temperature is below 0C. Otherwise your car would not start in freezing weather."
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4cupo8 | what is phone banking and how does it work? | So today it seems like r/all has blown up with the SandersForPresident sub's call for people to go phone banking. I have no idea what this is and have never heard of it before, eli5? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4cupo8/eli5_what_is_phone_banking_and_how_does_it_work/ | {
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"Phone banking is just calling a bunch of people for a specific purpose. In this case, volunteers are calling people to get them to vote for Bernie, but almost every other candidate for president, senate, house, and local elected office uses phone banking as a way to reach out to the community and gain supporters. Phone banks can also be used for charities, non-profit organizations, and to raise awareness or gain support for any number of issues. Usually volunteers operate off of some sort of script or prompt, and try to make calls as fast as possible to reach many people. When done properly, it's a really efficient way to reach a large number of people.\n\nTraditionally, phone banks were rooms full of land-line phones that volunteers would operate, but now, it can just be a room full of people on their smartphones, or even a single person making calls from anywhere."
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bwgnja | how do we know the prehistoric art pieces we found were not just some back alley graffitis? | Every suggested meaning of prehistoric art is always either spiritual, proto-scientific, or socially meaningful.
How do we know they weren't just some random graffitis from random people back then, similar to the tons of shitty wall-arts we see in our cities?
I guess we find them in isolated caves because that's the only ones that were able to "survive" this long. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bwgnja/eli5_how_do_we_know_the_prehistoric_art_pieces_we/ | {
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"Graffiti has meaning behind it, whether religious or against a greater power. Its purpose is to send a message where many people can see it.",
"We don’t really. There’s a lot of evidence that suggests that ancient art found was literally no different from how we’d make it today. Even if you want to ascribe it some reverence a step above above “graffiti”, it’s equally likely that someone made a kind of mural and everyone was like “woah sick art Brad!”\n\nEverything we find has to be interpreted through our modern viewpoints, our modern culture, our own way of thinking. Most stuff gets filtered through the lens of archeologists first, some of which maybe take their job super seriously and don’t have much sense of humor about their finds. That’s kind of changing though, it’s becoming pretty common knowledge that things like penis drawings found in Pompeii are obviously not religious virility tokens and are the same thing as bathroom stall graffiti. Take scientific interpretation with a grain of salt.",
"You’re presupposing that back alley graffiti *isn’t* art. The idea of “real art” that is somehow more meaningful than just drawings is something that came long after humans first started creating representational images. The fact that quasi-humans were creating those images at all is what’s significant. It’s a huge step forward in our development as a species. Any additional spiritual or cultural significance beyond that is pure speculation.",
"Speaking about the cave drawings in southern France and northern Spain:\n\nSome of the art is extremely well-formed, like the ones in Lascaux. Those weren’t haphazardly drawn—there was training and practice. We also see stylistic differences by area and time, meaning there was communication about the art and learning involved—a spread of communication. The art also features specific themes, indicating subject matter wasn’t random. Dick and pussy drawings can be found at these sites, too. Interestingly, the earliest drawings are the most realistic when pornographic. As time goes on, the most recent images (still over 10,000 years old) are the most abstract and stylized, giving us insight into the artists’ mindset when drawing. A lot of stuff might be more casual—like a popular subject was handprints. Putting dye on the hand then pressing the hand onto the cave wall, or putting the hand on the cave wall and then blowing the dye onto the wall around the hand so we get a negative print. \n\nBut one thing that’s important to remember is that there was a lot of labor involved in creating these drawings, so they couldn’t have been done casually or haphazardly. While it’s easy to pick up a can of spray paint today, it was a laborious and skilled process to create the white, black, yellow, and brown shades of color used by the artists. There was experimentation to create the colors. grinding, mixing, and then transportation of all of the colors to the spot where the drawings were made",
"You might want to look for a copy of \"*Motel of the Mysteries*\", which is a parody of a paleontological study from the far future, in which future archeologists interpret the deep sociological and religious meaning of the structure of, and objects in, a 20th century motel room. As I recall, for instance, the toilet seat is interpreted as a sort of symbolic collar worn by the person seated on what is clearly a valuable ceramic throne. Very pertinent to your original question.."
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3r5lvh | why do companies bother to build/buy offices/properties in expensive downtown areas? | Especially with the current job shortage, why would companies put up with the high rent/cost? Prestige? Ease of travel? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3r5lvh/eli5_why_do_companies_bother_to_buildbuy/ | {
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"They want to attract top talent, especially talented millennials want to live in downtown areas and not have long commutes.",
"Their clients and employees prefer a nice downtown setting. That's really all there is too it. ",
"Our office costs a lot monthly, but we're also about a one minute walk from the train station and very near many of our business clients. That means we're easily accessible to our customers (very important!) and can solve problems with our \"business\" customers quickly -- both of these things make the high lease costs worthwhile. As a bonus, it's easy to get to/from as employees. ",
"Also a lot of corporate pride. Worked for a company where the CEO was set on moving us to a downtown skyscraper even though we were barely turning a profit in our dumpy suburban offices. I guess picture of a big building with your sign on it looks good on the website and annual report. ",
"It is a form of advertising/marketing. Companies always want their name to be known, if you put it on a building in a high traffic area you can get that. Flying in to major cities you will see the big companies from the airplane, some even paint the logo on the rooftops simply for this exposure. Marketing and company image goes beyond simply selling a product, companies are always working hard to attract new and good talent to work for them, having a good image can help with that. ",
"Many reasons. One is to take advantage of [economies of agglomeration](_URL_0_): it's usually valuable to set up close to where your suppliers, customers, and employees are. It's also valuable to set-up close to important infrastructure or services: transportation, shipping, servers, markets, courthouses, etc.\n\nAn office is usually a lot more than a building in a field."
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dsoyml | how does a yeti cooler keep things colder for longer than other coolers? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dsoyml/eli5_how_does_a_yeti_cooler_keep_things_colder/ | {
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"It doesn't. There are several good YouTube videos out there if people testing them. And in general while they are really good coolers they do about the same as a good igloo cooler at 1/4 the price. So if you buy Yeti stuff you are paying for the name."
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1tmp5f | why don't humans get a "winter coat"? | Many mammals get longer or thicker hair in the winter, why don't we? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1tmp5f/why_dont_humans_get_a_winter_coat/ | {
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"We evolved in a place that doesn't have cold winters. When proto-humans began hunting by running down their prey on the African savannah, they faced heat dissipation problems way more than freezing-to-death problems. "
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1j5zrs | why cant we build spaceships in outer space and save the enormous cost of launching something out of the atmosphere? | Couldn't we just make a ship building facility orbiting around the earth, like the ISS? We could mine asteroids or even the moon and get minimal supplies from Earth. [This](_URL_0_ omments/rfd2b/why_do_spaceships_and_telescopes_cost_so_much/) didn't help | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1j5zrs/eli5_why_cant_we_build_spaceships_in_outer_space/ | {
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"Because the materials for the rocket would each have to be taken up to space anyway. If you are sending the rocket up in one big part and then assembling it in space, it's just easier to make it on Earth, and avoid all the no gravity and air hassle whilst constructing it. If you are sending each part up separately on a different rocket, you are now talking about launching hundreds of rockets, each costing millions of pounds, and then all the assembly anyway, so again it's just easier to build it on Earth.\n\nIn terms of mining asteroids, all you would get from that is rock. I don't know of many space ships constructed of rock. There are likely metals and actual building materials in some of the asteroids, but to reach one you would have to travel past Mars into the asteroid belt anyway, which is further than any manned space mission has ever gone. And would be mighty expensive. Plus all the costs of mining the asteroid, i.e. mining equipment, which all has to be launched into space itself.\n\nSo we make space ships on Earth because:\n\n- It's easier to fix if anything goes wrong\n\n- It's cheaper\n\n- It's faster\n\n- All the materials are on Earth, and need to be launched into space anyway\n\n- We don't have enough space missions currently to justify a satellite just for constructing other space ships\n\nTo name a few reasons.",
"well the mining is extremely difficult and expensive then you have to smelt the ore into metal and manufacture the parts. All of that would require moving a lot of stuff into space and then there is the difficulty of getting the energy to perform that work to space. The reason the ore mined in Minnesota was smelted in Pennsylvanian was because moving the ore to the energy (coal) was much less expensive than moving the energy to the ore ",
"We will eventually get there - we just don't have the technology/resources/experience to pull off constructing stuff from scratch in space.\n\n[Here](_URL_0_) is an article explaining how one company is planning on pursuing this, with plans to send out prospecting satellites in 2015.\n\nSo basically, it is far cheaper to construct something in space, but we need a bit of time to develop everything to the point where we can start building things in space\n"
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2wvxh4 | what the reasoning is for store front businesses to leave one side of their double front doors locked? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2wvxh4/eli5what_the_reasoning_is_for_store_front/ | {
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"Working at a store gets dull. It's fun to watch people try to open/run into locked doors.",
"They are lazy and don't want to open the other door which may require the use of a tool. The Fire Marshal is also too lazy to check up on them and make sure they are opening all their doors as required by law.",
"We leave one locked out of pure laziness. The main door unlocks with the key/tumbler, the other door unlocks with pins at the top and bottom. To avoid reaching high and bending over, we just don't open it.\n\nMore importantly, the employee locking up would have to remember to properly re-latch the \"off\" door before locking the main door, or you could just pull them both open even while locked since there is no anchor to the frame. Employees always forget little stuff like that, and the last thing the owners want is to respond to an alarm at their \"locked\" store to find wide open doors and missing inventory.",
"possibly due to weather, strong winds blowing/holding doors open. most likely because the opening staff forgot to properly unlatch it and no one noticed it or bothered to fix it.",
"I've seen laziness on the part of the employee as the reason. I'd also like to add that a lot of times that locked door is one that contains information on store hours, especially for stores that don't have a completely glass store front. The door remains locked so that would be patrons can always see hours of operations, phones numbers, blah. ",
"Because employees would forget to lock them back up at night, since they lock with latches at the top and bottom rather than a key. If this side is unlocked, even if the other side is locked, then the doors can just be pulled open.",
"We leave one locked because there is a plate on the other door to prevent someone from jimmying the lock, and if you go out thru the second door, it does not close all the way due to the plate, this is very cold in the winter. ",
"The two I'm aware of are both maintenance issues. Doors/latches not working well and with the tight purse strings these days it cost more to fix than it's worth. I previously assumed it was to slow down crooks that would be moving to fast to read the use other door sign.",
"BeCause the wind catches one door and holds it open. Customers are lazy assholes and will happily let the door stand wide open in 0 degree weather even after looking back and realizing that it didn't close properly. ",
"Well for me as a gas station owner, it's to slow down/stop the dumber thieves (yes, they've literally run into the locked door and been thrown to the floor). Though, admittedly, the primary reason is liability issues.",
"If you have a thief trying to escape from your store in a hurry, you now have a 50% chance of knocking them out.",
"Probably to make me look like an asshole trying to open the locked side",
"Well we leave one door closed so that the cool air doesnt escape on really hot days",
"When I worked at my first job, we kept one set of double doors locked as traffic control and loss prevention. People would walk in the door (which was behind the registers) and the cashier wouldn't always be able to tell someone had come in. And more importantly someone could sneak out with stolen goods through that door.",
"ITT: people who don't know what side they should use. \n\nAt my school, every left door is locked on the outside. This is to *try* and control traffic. If you have people going into the right door while entering a building, they'll probably stay on the right side. Same for people exiting the building, if there's a bunch of people on their left, they'll stay on the right, unless they're a terrible person. This is to help keep the students on their respective side of the hallway instead of crammed into it all bumping into each other because they don't know they shouldn't be walking directly at each other.",
"Because they are lazy. Because they are lazy. Because they are lazy (Do defeat this shitty bot that doesn't let you give a simple answer.)",
"Where I work, we do it because the lock on our front doors is the only latch for the doors, so if we leave the left side unlocked then it is blown open pretty constantly and stays that way, which is bad during the lovely midwestern winter we are having. But, on the positive side we put a sign on the locked door that says, \"Please use other door.\", not that it actually helps, but we tried. ",
"From /u/foieyMcfoie\n > In olden days it was common practice to keep 1 door locked because of reverse piano burglars. Reverse piano burglars (RPBs) would often push a baby grand piano through a store's open doors and begin playing raucous ragtime music which would cause all manner of scandalous dancing by the young patrons of the store and left the owners in a complete panic.",
"Never attribute to malice what can be explained by laziness."
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1p5u7t | hawaii falls into the same time zone as anchorage, alaska. yet it's 2:30 in hawaii and 4:30 in alaska. why? | I know that from the website i'm on now with an interactive time zone map, it shows Honolulu, Hawaii apart of UTC/GMT with no daylight saving time and the standard time is -10, but Anchorage, Alaska also falls in UTC/GMT with a standard time of -9, with daylight saving times making it -8.
Why do certain areas within the same time zone have different times and how can only certain areas be affected by daylight savings times?
Link to the site i'm using: _URL_0_ | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1p5u7t/eli5_hawaii_falls_into_the_same_time_zone_as/ | {
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"UTC is \"Coordinated universal time\" and GMT is \"Greenwich Mean Time\". They are roughly the same and represent time in a town in England (Greenwich). Time zones are usually represented as an offset from that. All times are UTC/GMT something.\n\nIn Alaska's case they are currently in AKDT (Alaska Daylight Time) while Hawaii is in HADT (Hawaii-Aleutian Daylight Time).\n\nSo to answer your question: They are different time zones, =)\n\nEditing to answer the second part of your question since I know this quite well after doing a TON of research.. So in the United States the process of setting time is controlled by the Interstate Commerce Commission: _URL_1_\n\nThe law as it is stated now is that local states can opt out of daylight savings times, however the ICC is responsible for defining time zones, setting up who is in which time zone, etc. See the actual law here: _URL_0_ For a long while there were all sorts of random time zones and such out there. Round about 1970 they all got folded into what we see now except a few minor changes.",
"1. They are in different time zones.\n2. Hawaii does not observe daylight savings time."
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1r6o5w | can dogs be mentally challenged? | Is it possible for dogs and other animals to have a cognitive disibilities like humans, making them actually derpy? Thinking along the lines of autism, down syndrome, etc. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1r6o5w/can_dogs_be_mentally_challenged/ | {
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"Of course. Many mental conditions are genetic in nature, and animals are by no means exempt from genetic diseases. ",
"I know too much inbreeding can have that effect. I went to a animal sanctuary when I was younger and they actually had a cat with Down Syndrome (so she claimed). It was the one and only time I've ever seen something like that. "
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5e8v10 | why does a carbonated beverage that has been frozen and then thawed out again lose its carbonation? | Bonus: How many more times do I need to put a beer in the freezer before I remember to set a stupid timer to get it out? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5e8v10/eli5_why_does_a_carbonated_beverage_that_has_been/ | {
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"Carbonated drinks are created by having a large enough quantity of gas (CO2) dissolved into a liquid. How much CO2 will dissolve into the liquid before it is saturated is a function of the liquids pressure and temperature.\n\nThe CO2 becomes *edit:* ~~less and less~~ more and more soluble as the liquid cools far enough to become a solid. Once it freezes however, the CO2 will entirely separated from the solidified frozen liquid. depending on how full the container is and how it freezes, you'll get a solid with bubbles of CO2 gas in it, or a solid with all the CO2 at the top of the container.\n\nProvided the added pressure doesn't make your bottle explode, when you thaw out your bottle you get a liquid and a bunch of CO2 gas, which escapes when you open it. If you left it for several days, the CO2 and the liquid would slowly reach an equilibrium and you would get a fairly carbonated drink, though if it is over-saturated to start with or even completely saturated you'll lose some carbonation.",
"Carbonation occurs when a gas goes into solution inside of a liquid that is under pressure. By raising the pressure inside the liquid, the gas is forced in between the molecules of the water and other substances in the liquid. When the pressure is released the dissolved gas starts working its way out of solution and we see this as carbonated bubbles. There are other gasses than carbon dioxide which may be used to make something bubbly including nitrogen. \n\nNow much like dissolving sugar in something, the higher the temperature, the more of a substance you can dissolve in solution. But as a liquid starts to cool, the amount of gas it can dissolve drops. If the liquid is in a pressurized container like a can, bottle, or keg, then the process stops once an equilibrium is reached. But if the pressure is allowed to escape, then the liquid will become flat and this happens at a greater rate as the temperature gets lower and forces more gas to leave the solution. \n\nA really good example of this is the 2 liter bottles of soda you can buy anywhere. Once you open the bottle and pour some out, you create an open volume of air in the bottle which allows more of the carbon dioxide to dissolve out. And if you put the soda in a refrigerator, it will go flat quickly even with the cap put back on. But if you leave the soda bottle out on the table or counter, and cool your drinks down with ice, it will stay carbonated much longer. Learning to store open soda at room temperature was a great life hack as even weeks after opening a 2 liter, it was still fizzy where as the refrigerator would make soda go flat in a few days after opening. ",
"The freezing should expand the can. When the liquid goes above the freezing temperate, the can's distortated expanded shape means there is less pressure on the carbon dioxide, which means more of it escapes the liquid."
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bsh4y8 | how are muscles supplied with oxygen during exercise? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bsh4y8/eli5_how_are_muscles_supplied_with_oxygen_during/ | {
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"The right ventricle of the heart pumps blood into the lungs, where it releases carbon dioxide and absorbs oxygen. And then goes back to the heart and is pumped out by the left ventricle enter the arteries, and from there into the capillary beds. These capillary beds run through everything that needs to be serviced, including muscles. Then the blood, depleted of oxygen and rich in carbon dioxide, flows from the capillary beds into the veins and back to the heart again.\n\nSo the muscles merely work, producing carbon dioxide that they released into the bloodstream through those capillary beds, and absorbing oxygen through those capillary beds."
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4gv7b7 | why aren't there solar/wind farms in the ocean? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4gv7b7/eli5_why_arent_there_solarwind_farms_in_the_ocean/ | {
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"There are. It is a thing that can, and is, [being done](_URL_0_).\n\nThere are definitely other considerations that can make it more or less difficult, such as creating stable footing, and what impact it has on the location (tourism, aquatic life, seabirds, shipping).",
"There are two reasons for this, a scientific one and a political one.\n\nThe scientific reason is entropy of systems. Due to the distance the power would have to travel from open ocean to residential or commercial area, there would be a lot of loss over the distance. This being coupled with solar and wind already being high in front-end entropic cost [this is to say that a lot of energy is already lost when the wind turns the turbine or the sun hits the panel] this would not be cost efficient. There's also a great deal of additional engineering cost for travel out to the mechanisms for maintenance, as well as water- and storm- proofing that is not necessary on land. Without additional advances, it is unlikely that this would result in end-user savings.\n\nPolitically, it's a matter of who is allowed to put things out in the ocean, since international waters are shared domain. Early on it would not be much of an issue, but as more oceanic real estate is used, countries will begin to argue about who can place their facilities at a given location. \n\nOther concerns involve the addition of obstructions for shipping traffic, disruption of oceanic ecosystems and plain lack of necessity at this time, though the last may need to be readdressed in the future."
]
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[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offshore_wind_power"
],
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6m3uic | why do polarized lenses make backlit screens look black when turned sideways? | [picture of effect](_URL_0_). | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6m3uic/eli5_why_do_polarized_lenses_make_backlit_screens/ | {
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"LCD panels have two crossed polarizers with a variable polarizer in between (the liquid crystals). By design, the light leaving is all vertically polarized. Your sunglasses block horizontally polarized light. So if you rotate them 90 degrees, they block the vertically polarized light from the monitor. ",
"It has to do with light polarization. This is when all of the light waves coming from the source (your LCD screen) are wiggling in the same direction. Non-polarized light sources have waves at a bunch of random directions. [Here's a picture](_URL_0_)\n\nYou can have linear polarization (horizontal, vertical, or some angle between) or circular polarization, where the waves are going either clockwise or counter-clockwise. If you view the light coming from an LCD screen through polarized glasses, it will block any light that doesn't match its polarization.\n\nYou can tell what the polarization is by changing the orientation of the lenses. If the image turns black as you tilt your head sideways, the light is linearly polarized. If it's circularly polarized, the image will disappear depending on if you're looking through the lens from one direction or the other.\n\nFun fact: this is how 3D video works. The images meant for each eye are different polarizations, and the lenses only let through the proper image for each eye."
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2ng5r9 | are there adverse affects when you swallow coughed up mucous/phlem? | I have a wicked cough and am not always at a place where I can spit it out. Just wondering... | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ng5r9/eli5_are_there_adverse_affects_when_you_swallow/ | {
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"Nope, swallowing is what you are meant to do with it. If you have a lot of it it can cause minor indigestion.\n\nSwallow away.",
"Swallowing it just starts it on the journey out of your body. Typically if what you swallow will cause harm, your stomach will be good about rejecting it and sending it back out.\n\nI can think of more adverse effects from coughing and spitting it out... Most of which involve scarring memories of seeing dried up, crusty, green muccus in the bathroom sink that I shared with my disgusting, asshole of a brother growing up. Ironically, my stomach thought the visuals would cause my body harm and tried to throw them up."
]
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[],
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1qb2vd | how does photoshop's "x-ray" works ? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1qb2vd/eli5_how_does_photoshops_xray_works/ | {
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"If by Xray you mean the idea that photoshop can turn a regular photo of a chick into a nudey pic then it doesn't exist. Photoshop can't just create picture data that isn't there. \n\nIf you mean the effect that renders part of their body transparent, in short: layering. "
]
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[]
] | ||
4l2p2j | how can i hear sound if i am covering my ears? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4l2p2j/eli5_how_can_i_hear_sound_if_i_am_covering_my_ears/ | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"Since sounds are just vibrations your ears translate into signals your brain interprets as sound, you can still hear things as long as vibrations can reach your ears. Covering your ears blocks out most airborne vibrations, , so most other sounds you hear come from the vibrations it leaves on your skin and flesh and travels to your ears.\n\nPlus a lot of other technical things that I can't word or say correctly, period. Plus, some of this is probably a bit wrong, since noise-cancelling headphones exist."
]
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[]
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d8aw8j | how did cornbread become the staple of southern comfort food? | As stated above. As I understand it, corn originated in Mexico about 7,000 years ago and eventually became a staple crop. During the colonial era, I was told that corn became a very common part of the diet because it's easy to grow, especially in the Northeast.
Now, my friends tell me that I can't have BBQ without cornbread (Korean so no experience in this regard). Why?
PS: Also, what the hell is Texas toast and how is it different from other buttered toast? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/d8aw8j/eli5_how_did_cornbread_become_the_staple_of/ | {
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"text": [
"Corn grows well in that climate, better in many cases than wheat does. So it became a staple food.",
"Corn was a staple grain/source of calories in the American south, especially among the rural poor. Cornbread was such a staple, some form of corn would have been served at almost every meal (cornbread, corn cakes, grits, this could go on forever). Texas toast is just big, hearty toast, or a piece of toast “the size of Texas”",
"Corn is a native crop to most of North America, not just Mexico. It being a staple crop means that it is commonly consumed in various forms. Bread is just one of the common forms. That said cornbread is not common with BBQ (at least here in Texas). It is more common to be eaten at just a general meal, or with something like beans or chili. BBQ is normally served with common white bread. \n\nTexas Toast is a specific preparation of Toast where the bread is roughly twice as thick as a normal sandwich slice. It is generally baked or pan fried as it does not fit in a traditional toaster (though it will in a bagel toaster), and you sometimes use spiced butter on it similar to what you would use to make garlic bread. Its name comes from being large.",
"Southern stereotypical food is just the cheap food that was available around 1900 in the south. Corn, watermelon, greens, catfish, crawfish, and pecans were readily available and cheap.",
"For future reference, questions about the US are generally better in r/askanamerican."
]
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353qdl | why are unions called "locals"? and are the numbers assigned randomly, and are they the same in every state? | For example, is a Local 1 the same thing in Vermont as it is in California? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/353qdl/eli5_why_are_unions_called_locals_and_are_the/ | {
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"\"Local Unions\" are regional subdivisions of larger national or international unions. These \"locals\" handle issues related to the general area, or specific shops (businesses / companies) if most of the local is involved in that one shop. They form part of the larger network of unions and are helpful in organizing smaller groups of workers, disseminating information from the larger network, or appealing to the larger network for help if needed. Additionally, someone looking for work from a specific union in an area would contact the local to solicit workers. Workers can then go to the union hall, ask for available work, and find a job in their area.\n\nFor example, near me is the IBEW (International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers) Local 915. They cover the Tampa, FL area of IBEW members.",
"Apparently there's only one IBEW Local 915 and it's in Tampa FL. OTOH, there may well be a Local 915 in other unions, but still, only one per union.\n\nAnd this comment was too short, according to the bot. So, I Googled IBEW Local 915 and found that it was only in Tampa. I Googled Teamsters Local 915 and the doesn't seem to be one, though there IS a 916 (dunno why). Not sure how Father Haggarty's rule would apply, but I'll let /u/sveitthrone deal with that one. I didn't realize the IWW was still around."
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2ch95w | the cross walk signal noises. how do they help the blind? | I get that hearing a noise can let you know when to go, but how do you know which way is clear? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ch95w/eli5_the_cross_walk_signal_noises_how_do_they/ | {
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"You can tell which direction a sound is coming from.",
"At my university, when you press the button at an intersection it says \"wait to cross ___ street\", so then when you hear \"now cross ___ street\" you know that the street you pressed the button for is now safe to cross. I hope that answers your question, and I assume it's like that in many other places as well."
]
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29yrd5 | what makes an owl fly silently? | I have always wondered what makes an owl have silent flight as opposed to other birds that you can easily hear. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/29yrd5/eli5what_makes_an_owl_fly_silently/ | {
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"text": [
"The leading edge of owl feathers is tattered instead of smooth, reducing noise from the type of turbulence caused by other birds' wings. Also, their extra soft downy leg feathers absorb sound a little. "
]
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[]
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ahpwxg | the accusative case in linguistics | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ahpwxg/eli5_the_accusative_case_in_linguistics/ | {
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"It should be said first of all that not all languages use the Accusative case equally. What I mean is, one language's verb for \"to teach\" might put the word for \"students\" in accusative case, while another language might put the students in dative case. \n\nBut in general, Accusative case is the case of transitive verbs (a verb that does an action to/on something or someone *else*) and direct objects (the something or someone that is the recipient of that action).\n\nWe define things almost entirely with \"objects\" in English.\n\nI kicked the ball - \"the ball\" would be a *direct* object of the verb; \"kick\" is a transitive verb (it affects something else) and \"the ball\" is the thing being directly affected. \n\nIn languages with grammatical case structures, \"the ball\" would generally be in the Accusative case. "
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266mxn | if i run while in the carrige of a train, am i running faster than the train? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/266mxn/eli5if_i_run_while_in_the_carrige_of_a_train_am_i/ | {
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"No. And yes. \n\nIt depends on how you define 'faster'. The velocity you are traveling by running alone is less than that of the train; if you were side-by-side the train would pass you easily. However, while inside the train your total velocity is that of the train and yourself, so technically you are 'faster' than the train. \n\nSo in short: yes, but its nothing special. ",
"It depends on relativity. For you to have a speed you must compare it to something that is stationary. So relative to the train you are not faster. Relative to the earth yes. ",
"Yes, indeed. because you are running. even though you're not, you're still inside that train. And a competition isn't fair unless both participant meet certain condition."
]
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c8ub0r | why did china ban imports of plastic waste? isn't recycling the plastic cheaper than making more plastic? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c8ub0r/eli5_why_did_china_ban_imports_of_plastic_waste/ | {
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"China has extremely high levels of corruption and the rule of law is practically non-existent there. Once the waste is in the country, the national government is almost powerless to determine what happens to it and so it gets disposed of in the most profitable way possible. \n\nPlastic is extremely expensive to recycle and the recovered plastic has very little value. Because of this, the most profitable way to deal with plastic waste is to charge the person sending you the waste a \"recycling fee\" and to then dump the waste in a river or on an open field. In fact, that was what was happening and the overwhelming majority of the waste imported for \"recycling\" to China was being dumped.\n\nBecause the Chinese government can't stop the dumping once the waste is in the country, its only option is to stop the waste from coming into the country at all by banning its import.",
"Plastic is the most cheaply made materials humanity has ever invented. It's *ridiculously* cheap to make. Recycling it, however, requires a lot of manpower and energy to do properly. Recycled plastic is more expensive and it's too low quality to actually make use of for most goods. You can't use plastic bottles to make plastic bottles, for instance.",
"So there’s no such thing as recycling? And we have recycling bins for no reason, as all our garbage is taken to the same place and buried in the same hole together as one..60 minutes did a story on it.."
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2mk6v7 | why do westerners prefer black tea while asian countries prefer green tea? | It seems to me green tea only recently began to become popular in the US. Is there a historical or economic reason why black tea is traditionally more poplar and available in Europe and the US? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2mk6v7/eli5_why_do_westerners_prefer_black_tea_while/ | {
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"Green tea and black tea come from the same plant. When Europeans visited Asia a long time ago they drank some green tea and thought \"wow, this stuff tastes nice, let's bring some back to jolly old England.\" Because it was a long journey, by the time they got back the tea had oxidised and turned black. This lead to westerners putting milk and sugar in black tea to counteract the bitterness that comes from oxidation. ",
"I'm chinese and have found that black tea is served far mroe often then green. ",
"There are two big reasons for this phenomenon. One is economic, the other is palate-based.\n\nFirst is how tea got introduced to the western world. Tea trees (Camellia sinensis) came from China, and even today the largest producer of tea is China. When Britain was expanding its empire, China was an important trade partner, and tea became a hot commodity. To compete with Chinese tea producers, the British tea companies took cultivation practices and seeds and created competing plantations in India. The teas that became most popular to import back in Britain happened to be black teas, partly because green teas would tend to oxidize anyway on the long journey by ship. Then the opium wars happened, and then the Communist revolution happened, and then there were trade embargoes and bans from both sides that choked the tea trade with China. These have only relatively recently been lifted.\n\nPerhaps one of the reasons that black tea has found such great popularity in the western world is its greater similarity to coffee to the palate, and the ability to prepare it in a similar fashion (with sugar and milk or cream). In fact, sweet tea was one of the most popular varieties in Britain when the tea trade with the India colonies was booming, and if you've been to the southern US, it is the de facto preparation for tea.",
" > why black tea is traditionally more poplar and available in Europe \n\nEuropean here. Black tea is more popular in UK, but elsewhere it seems to be equal. There's a large variety of both green and black teas in all stores. Choosing one or the other is like choosing red or white wine: it's all a matter of personal preference. \n\nI like both, I simply look at them as different beverages. ",
"I think you are mistaking your own personal experiences as the norm.",
"I don't think its about who actually drinks what. Black tea is common everywhere but in western society we are told that green tea is popular in Asian cultures (Asian restaurants, cultural appropriation, television shows etc), and I think this makes many Western consumers believe that green tea is more popular throughout the east. ",
"Simply because once you go black, you don't go back.",
"Asian countries don't prefer green tea. I don't know where you get your information. I grew up in an Asian country and have visited many others. Black tea is the most common choice when it comes to tea.",
"Japan != Asia. Most of the traditional teas drank in the rest of Asia is black tea...",
"In my experience, green tea is mainly a Japanese thing. Mainland Asian countries tend to prefer black and oolong tea. I've heard that most Chinese tea connoisseurs drink oolong at home and consider it the \"premium\" tea.\n\nAnd that's basically reason you mostly see black tea in the west. Japan has never really exported tea - even today only about 2% of the tea produced there ever leaves the country. The British and Dutch got their tea from China, India, and other countries that mainly produced black tea. To this day the standard tea throughout the world is Assam tea, because Assam (in India) was the first place the British Empire cultivated it. Assam tea is almost always black.\n\nEdit: Missed some words.",
"I'm American and far prefer green tea, as do most of my friends.",
"My guess is that black tea is fermented and the West wasn't able to get their hands on fresh green tea- so tea in the west is generally black (fermented tea leaves)- while tea growing counties can use fresh tea leaves (green). Black tea is still popular in Asia though."
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7tjttb | how come our eyes rotate smoothly while following an object, but jitter when we scan side to side? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7tjttb/eli5_how_come_our_eyes_rotate_smoothly_while/ | {
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"Previously answered [once](_URL_2_), [twice](_URL_1_), [three times a lady](_URL_0_)."
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[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/42au32/eli5_how_come_our_eyes_can_scroll_when_focusing/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3hn07y/eli5_why_cant_we_move_our_eyes_in_one_smooth/?utm_term=e51e6fc8-5519-4328-bf92-5eb3ab0bd700&utm_medium=search&utm_source=reddit... | ||
2dc8kq | what determines how powerful and what specs a computer needs to be to run games/programs? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2dc8kq/eli5what_determines_how_powerful_and_what_specs_a/ | {
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"What it does. If you need to cache 1.5GB of textures for things to load fast enough so as to not be interupting then you need 1.5GB of RAM free to run it. (Plus some extra for other stuff.)\n\nIf you need to perform 70 GFLOPS worth of math to run without noticeable lag then they'll find popular models on the market up to that standard and list them as the minimum. \n\nBasically they just benchmark it and figure out what it needs, then put that down as the minimum specifications.",
"Former game dev here,\n\nThe studio chooses a target hardware spec and builds the game to run on that as the reference minimum. If the game is too slow and they need to optimize, they optimize until it runs adequately on that machine. Everything that is determined to be \"not good enough\" is targeted to be improved is in reference to this machine. They'll actually have this machine in the office to test on. Plus a few other configurations to ensure compatibility and scalability.\n\nHow they pick that target is up to market research and reading chicken bones. They're trying to pick a target the majority of the market is likely to have."
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1my2a9 | how can supermarkets sell 70 percent beef and 30 percent things like pink slime as "ground beef"? how is that not false advertising? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1my2a9/eli5_how_can_supermarkets_sell_70_percent_beef/ | {
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"Because \"pink slime\" **is** ground beef. It's basically beef trimmings that have been exposed to ammonia gas (a process that virtually all ground beef goes through) to kill bacteria. \n\nIt is really no different than other types of ground beef. Thank the media for the spooky title and reputation.",
"I always thought 70/30 means 30% is fat."
]
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3xmuyl | in the case of video games, why is there more than one company on the box and what do each of them do? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3xmuyl/eli5_in_the_case_of_video_games_why_is_there_more/ | {
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"I am not in the industry by any means, but I think what you are referring to is the development studio and the distribution company. Just as a quick example, Call of Duty: Black Ops III was developed (programmed/made) by Treyarch, but it was published (sent to press, advertised, pushed, etc.) by Activision. That's why you see more than one company; one is the developer, the other is the publisher. ",
"There a lots of logos from different companies. When a game is developed the developer will not just use one type of technology to develop nor will they develop every aspect of the game from scratch. What you see are the companies that make technologies such as 3D graphics engines, sound engines, physics engines and all sorts. These are software development kits that come together to help produce the game. From a developers point of view it is pointless writing technology that already exists so they buy it in under license. When they publish the game, they put the logos on the box."
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5swve9 | what is the difference between "fake news" and "spin?" | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5swve9/eli5_what_is_the_difference_between_fake_news_and/ | {
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"Spin is looking at crime stats from 50 cities and saying \"Crime is up in Chicago and Reno\", without mentioning it is down in the other 48.\n\nFAKE NEWS is saying \"Crime is up in every big city in America\" when it's only up in Chicago and Reno. ",
"Fake News is \"made up\" it does not relate to any real event trend poll etc. Though it often involves real\nPeople or places.\n\n'Spin' or what we can call bias, is a story that takes true events and presents them in a way that leads the viewer towards a certain conclusion, without actually falsifying anything.\n\nEx. A story about a protest that never happened is fake news\nBut\nA story that describes a vile, mean spirited, group of ugly people protesting something is just spin (provided it is referring to an event that really happened)\n\nIf the spin is extremely heavy it may feel fake, but in reality its just poor journalism.",
"The term \"fake news\" came into popular light late in the 2016 Presidential campaign to describe the creation of totally fictional, made-up stories that have no basis in fact masquerading as news on sites designed to trick people into thinking they are media outlets. \n\nThese were not actual news organizations creating this fake news. The intent behind such news stories is typically financial, not political -- or journalistic. These fake news stories are designed to appeal to a particular population's biases to get them to click through to a website where ads are served. These are trolls, not journalists: they don't care about what they say or whether it's accurate; they're just trying to incite a reaction that drives people to a site where ad views generate revenue. The Washington Post [did an interview with one of these trolls](_URL_0_) in November.\n\nSince the inauguration, the Trump administration -- and the President in particular through his tweets -- has tried to warp the meaning of \"fake news\" to mean news stories that are negative or critical to the administration or news stories that focus on events or on aspects of stories that the administration doesn't want highlighted. \n\nIt is valid -- and expected! -- for an administration to criticize the media for what they elect to cover or not cover, the depth of that coverage, perceived bias, or for just plain getting facts wrong. Some of those things could be considered a \"slant\" or \"angle\" or \"spin\" -- i.e., bias in *how* the facts are presented or _which_ facts are presented. However, even with a story that has a definite spin or angle, what is being presented are still _facts_. \n\nThat is not fake news. That is _empirically_ different than Internet trolls intentionally writing fiction and trying to trick people into thinking it is factual news by putting it on websites that are designed to appear to be media outlets. \n\nThis behavior of the Trump administration of labeling media stories that they don't like or agree with as \"fake news\" or \"alternative facts\" is both frightening and dangerous. It either reveals\n\n* that the administration believes it has a monopoly on truth and facts, which would reflect a systemic narcissism that is pathological, or\n* that they are intentionally trying to create confusion around the terms \"fake news\" and \"facts\" to make it more difficult for the population to distinguish actual fake news (fiction made up, with no basis in facts, and masquerading as news) from news that the administration disagrees with, which would reflect a maliciousness that is downright evil, or\n* that they think that criticizing the media with the subtlety of a 5-year old throwing a tantrum will motivate the media to shift or change their coverage, which, if true, would reflect an unprecedented level of White House incompetence.\n\nWhatever is actually going on with the administration's war on the media, it reflects remarkably poorly on the administration and the President, and is far more likely to increase the President's already historically bad approval ratings. "
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"https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2016/11/17/facebook-fake-news-writer-i-think-donald-trump-is-in-the-white-house-because-of-me/"
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b1h5fu | why do out brains release endorphins when we eat refined-sugar products, but don’t when we eat nutrient-rich vegetables? | I understand refined-sugar foods are a tremendous source of energy, and we need energy. But what about the micro nutrients that our bodies supposedly need that are in vegetables? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b1h5fu/eli5_why_do_out_brains_release_endorphins_when_we/ | {
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"Your body has long-term stores of most vitamins and minerals. You can survive for months without like B9 for example (which is found in leafy vegetables). Not to mention that one of the biggest benefits of vegetables is fiber, which your body can’t absorb and is only of benefit because it makes you poop more easily. In general, it’s hard to become deficient in vitamins/minerals, but relatively easy to become deficient in calories.",
"Good sources of energy had been harder to come by throughout human evolution. Vegetables grow everywhere, so they're not as important to seek out -but energy-packed sugary and fatty foods were scarcer, therefore it was an evolutionary advantage to seek them especially.",
"when we evolved in the wild, food itself was scarce, calorie (energy) dense food was even more scarce. When we gorge ourselves with sugary foods its because a leftover evolutionary trait tells us that we need to take that energy while its available. We use it then when we first digest it if our body needs it. Or if it doesnt it will store it later as fat.\n\nWhen eat sugar its like going to a gas station to get gas for our car, its energy for us to live, breathe, move, everything.\n\nVegetable vitamins are like oil for cars, necessary for function in a secondary, supportive way. \n\nIn this context gas (sugar calories) (primitive era) is rare and oil is abundant, stock up on gas at all possible times, oil up (get nutrients) as needed.\n\nIn the modern world sugar is abundant, but our innate desire to eat because of scarcity is a leftover now unnecessary evolutonary trait.",
"Our bodies and insticts are meant for near starvation hunter/gatherer lifestyle where getting enough calories is the different between life and death. Other nutrients were secondary, because you wouldn't die immediately from not getting them.\n\nIn fact getting enough calories to live continued to be an issue for the majority of people up until the 20th century in Western countries and still is now in some places. It's why famines were so common. Most societies had a single source of dense calories, such as wheat or rice and losing that one source through a bad harvest or natural disaster meant mass starvation.\n\nNow calories are easy to come by, but our instinct are still geared up for calorie scarcity."
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2p2x09 | why do videos included in online news articles take so much longer to load than videos from other sites, like liveleak or youtube? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2p2x09/eli5_why_do_videos_included_in_online_news/ | {
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"Think of YouTube and other large video hosting websites like they're Walmart or Kroger. The videos you want to watch are the products stocked on the shelves. \n\n\nWhen you want to buy a product, there are several large grocery chains to pick from, and each one has multiple locations. Each of those locations stocks thousands of products, and likely several dozen of each individual product. Furthermore, each of these large chains also have huge warehouses that store more product and are able to replenish stock quickly and efficiently. These chains also have large, well-funded stores that have had decades to work out the best type of shelves, registers, scanners, refrigerators, etc. \n\n\nSmaller grocery outlets have only a single location. They are typically smaller stores that have limited selection. They order their products direct from the manufactures or from wholesalers, and typically they do not have dedicated warehouses that can easily replenish their shelves. These smaller locations are also limited by their smaller budget when purchasing a store location. They cannot afford the best real estate, registers, and refrigerators.\n\n\nYouTube is like Walmart. They have hundreds if not thousands of servers in multiple locations hosting their video content. When you want to watch a video on YouTube, the video can be streamed from any one of these servers, reducing the total bandwidth load on any one individual server. These servers are also part of an enterprise infrastructure that consists of high bandwidth internet connections and very fast, very redundant hardware. They have also had years to improve and optimize the code running their web players, and they have the capital to pay the best developers to continually these improvements.\n\n\nSmaller video hosting websites likely have only a handful of servers in one location. Everyone who wants to watch that video streams the content from the same location. These servers and internet connections are not as fast or redundant as the servers and internet connections used by the big guys. They probably didn't develop their own web player, and if they did, they probably can't afford to pay a team of developers to continually upgrade and optimize it. \n\n\nSo, when you want to watch the latest Taylor Swift music video on YouTube, it's like driving to Walmart to buy your kids the new Lego Millennium Falcon they've been begging you for. Walmart has tons of them in stock, and if they don't, they probably have another Walmart location nearby that does. They also have the capacity to restock their inventory from their own internal warehouses quickly, so if it's not available right now, it will be soon. \n\n\nWhen you try to watch a video clip on your local news website, that's like going to Papa Steve's General Store to buy the same toy. They probably only have a couple of them, and they're going to sell out quick. If you have a dozen sleep deprived moms all trying to push and shove one another through the front door to fight over the limited quantity, it's going to take longer than the walking through the huge, automatic sliding doors at Walmart and picking it up off the tower of Lego boxes piled up in the the toys department. "
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1wjbf8 | what's the big deal with very old/aged expensive alcohol? | I'm sure we have all seen in movies where some rich guy brings out a bottle of their most expensive alcohol, but why does aging alcohol make the drink better? With a drink that was made 50 years ago, wouldn't it have expired? Are there any benefits for aging alcohol to drink later?
Edit:
More questions!
It appears that most people refer to the aging process inside a barrel. So say for whiskey and rum, the drink is aged in a barrel and the length and time is then stamped onto the bottle?
Also, what about cases of wines that are 100+ years of age inside the bottle? Does anything special happen and is it even safe to drink? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1wjbf8/eli5whats_the_big_deal_with_very_oldaged/ | {
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"Whiskeys and rums are aged in barrels -- the longer the spirit sits in the barrel, the more complex the flavors get from the wood.\n\nMany people believe that the longer the spirit ages, the better it tastes.\n\nAlcohol doesn't really expire, and unless you leave it in the barrel it doesn't really age any further.",
"It is true most wines (and some beers) improve with age in the bottle over time but this also means that they can also spoil with age. Note I say most wines, some are made to be drunk young (most notably Beaujolais Nouveau).\n\nHowever I presume you are talking about spirits though, which on the other hand tend not to change (for better or worse) once in the bottle the worst that happens is they evaporate. When you see a bottle of spirits with an age on it that is the typically the least time that the raw spirit that makes up the blend (not all spirits are blends) has been sitting in a barrel. The barrels impart a flavour to the raw spirit which most people prefer to the raw spirit. Essentially the extra cost of \"expensive\" older spirits comes from a number of factors\n\n* The time and effort put in by the distillers, generally the good stuff will go through more processing than their standard product\n* Cost of the Barrels\n* Cost of the storage space to store the barrels for 50+ years and have enough stock to make a meaningful amount of product\n* The angel's share (the amount of spirit that is lost from the barrels over time through evaporation)\n* Scarcity\n* And most importantly the customer's willingness to pay. If you could sell out your entire stock at $600 why would you sell it for $500",
"An older bottle isn't necessarily a better bottle. However, some types of alcohol gain more flavor the longer they sit in wood barrels, and the complexities of the flavors become more and more delicate. ",
"Wine, unlike whiskey, can age in a bottle. Most wines are meant to be consumed right away, but some are bottled in such a way that they improve in flavor over time.\n\nMore realistically, old booze is a status symbol.",
"To answer your additional questions - yes, spirits are aged in the cask and then the age is printed on the bottle. So if a whisky says it is 18 years old that means 18 years in the cask, not that it was made 18 years ago. An 18 from 1994 and one from 1974 are both still 18.\n\nA 100 year old wine would most likely be gubbed. People buy these things as collectors not for drinking generally. ",
"So, wines can and will age in bottle. What's actually happening is that small amounts of oxygen leak in through the cork, and small amounts of liquid evaporate away. So an aged bottle of wine has actually been oxidized very, very slowly. Some people prefer the flavors that certain wines develop over extended aging. Others prefer fresh, young wines. Aged wines will typically have mellower, less aggressive flavors and aromas, and will see a softening of tannin, or the acid that creates the \"Bite\" on the back end of a sip of wine.\n\nOld wine is not necessarily better, but collectors prize wines from years where the weather was particularly suited to produce good wine grapes. The best wines are long-lived and can be enjoyed for decades.\n\nLiquor on the other hand does not oxidize in bottle, and should not age on the shelf. Aged liquor almost always refers to time spent in a barrel, which infuses the liquor with barrel flavors (oak, char).",
"So alcohol is actually a preservative. Whiskey is nice to drink, but it's also a way to store extra grain without spoilage. There's about 75 lbs of grain in a standard 53 gallon barrel of bourbon; rats won't drink whiskey, and it won't rot or be invaded by fungus either.\n\nAlcohol causes certain flavors to come out of oak barrels and go into the booze. Some barrels are charred or toasted, leading to toasty flavors; the oak itself has tannins and vanilla-tasting compounds and they can take years to leach into the spirit or wine inside the barrel. This is why you never see aged vodka or aged gin; the so-called 'white spirits' are not kept in barrels and so they are not thought to profit from the years. \n\nAnother thing that happens is evaporation; the 'angel's share' of bourbon flies away into the air over the years. Another thing that happens to booze that sits around is oxidation, a chemical reaction, which destroys some flavor compounds and modifies others.\n\nSitting a barrel around for 2 or 10 or 17 or 35 or 300 years requires real estate and the maintenance of some kind of business operation. That takes money! However, rarity is also an issue. A lot of people like to have something that's rare and will pay extra money just to get it and show it off. [Wikipedia has more on Veblen goods, luxury items that people want more if they're more expensive.](_URL_0_)",
"I would say there is a smoothness to older alcohol that isn't present in younger stuff. This is especially easy to detect in single malts. Try a Laphoraig 10 and a Laphoraig 18 and the difference is immediately apparent. "
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1mv8x2 | the differences between the tint, brightness, and contrast settings a television | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1mv8x2/eli5the_differences_between_the_tint_brightness/ | {
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"Tint: Red/Green \nBrightness: How dark or light is your black \nContrast: How dark or light is white ",
"Tint alters the color of the screen from red to green, which helps make sure the pixels are balanced (pixels are dots made of red, green, and blue lights that create the picture on a screen)\nBrightness is how bright the screen is.\nContrast is how distinct white is from black. Low contrast makes everything look gray, while very high contrast eliminates gray and shadows."
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2qomjb | why is it that a "not guilty" verdict cannot be appealed, but a "guilty" verdict can? | What's the legal / philosophical / moral reasoning behind this principle? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2qomjb/eli5_why_is_it_that_a_not_guilty_verdict_cannot/ | {
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"Because we in the USA threw off what we felt was tyranny, and we wanted to ensure that people would be free of unfair persecution from the government. If the government could just keep re-charging you with, say, murder, you could spend a life in prison even if there was zero evidence connecting you to the crime. Hell, there wouldn't even have to be a corpse, they could just keep appealing, or charging you again.\n\nThis isn't fiction, it really happened. So we set up our system to prevent it. If you are found not-guilty, then you are free and that's the end of it.",
"It's a constitutional protection against government abuse. If prosecutors could take people to trial more than once, then they could put anyone in prison for anything. They would just have to keep trying until a jury agreed with them. Or they could punish someone by taking them to trial over and over until they are emotionally and economically drained. "
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5p0igq | why is the safest thing to due during a tsunami climb a high tree or high building? | Surely if you climb a high tree it will be knocked over, and possibly the same outcome for a really tall building. Wouldn't the safest thing to do to survive be grab some oxygen tanks, diving gear and go deep under the water so the tsunami goes over the top of you? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5p0igq/eli5_why_is_the_safest_thing_to_due_during_a/ | {
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"A tree may or may not be knocked over. Yes, if it falls, you're in trouble. But its better than the option of being dragged through the water. Buildings are a safer choice as they'll likely not be knocked down unless you're facing a significantly large tsunami and/or in a weakly made building.\n\nAs for diving under it, access to scuba equipment in the moments between knowing a tsunami is coming and it hitting is going to be extremely limited. Even if you were near a dive shop, it takes precious time to locate all the various parts and piece them together to be useable and so that you won't be torn away from it when the water hits. Which brings us to the next problem, that being you have to also deal with the extreme force of the water. It will push you helplessly into debris and push debris into you. It's be incredibly disorienting and very likely to knock you unconscious and drown. And then you could be pulled out sea where the current of the water pulling back from the tsunami may put you so far that you can't get back to shore. In short, it's better to just not be in the water if you can avoid it."
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4rrtrr | what is the difference between investigations by the state department vs the fbi? | What are the legal definitions of each group of investigators (state department vs FBI) and the difference in legal consequences? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4rrtrr/eli5_what_is_the_difference_between/ | {
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"You are of course referring to the State Department's investigation into Hillary Clinton's e-mail server?\n\nThe FBI was in charge of investigating criminal violations of the law punishable by fines or imprisonment. \n\nThe State Department is conducting an investigation to see if its own internal rules were violated and what the remedy should be. It has no power to arrest, charge, or imprison anyone. The State Department can only issue administrative punishment, such as a warning, a written reprimand, revoking security clearance, or termination.\n\nIt's the difference between getting investigated by the police for something, and getting investigated by your boss for something."
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2t4r34 | how can authors legally use a pseudonym that gives them something like "dr."? | I've been reading Dr. Seuss to my daughter a lot lately, and I started to ponder how he could use that pseudonym legally. How did he get paid? What are the legalities?
He wasn't actually a doctor, he never got his doctorate. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2t4r34/eli5_how_can_authors_legally_use_a_pseudonym_that/ | {
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"Just type \"Dr.\" In front of your name. No law against that. Just don't try to practice medicine without a license or try to get a job in academia without the credentials. \n\n",
"The term \"Doctor\", by itself, doesn't have any legal protections.\n\nTrying to provide medicine by lying about your credentials, OTOH, is an issue.\n\nDr. Seuss never offered anyone medical advice.",
"As long as he's not holding himself out to be an actual doctor or practicing medicine without a license, there's no rule that prevents him from using the title. It's just a title.\n\nThere are several options for getting paid. He can create a business or dba using that name and have that organization cash the checks. Alternatively, he can make arrangements with the bank to allow him to cash the checks using a specific pseudonym. Or, most likely, the people paying him put his real name on the checks."
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z6q3o | kindle e-ink technology | I'm curious as to how the Kindle and other such ebook readers work. I hear a lot of talk about e ink and I've seen my kindle last months without a charge, and I don't understand. Brilliant minds of reddit, explain! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/z6q3o/eli5_kindle_eink_technology/ | {
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"Inside the screen are whole bunch of little, magnetic balls. On one side of these balls is painted black, the other side white. By creating a magnetic field, you can make these balls rotate and control which side faces up. Once they are rotated to the correct position, you don't have to have to use any more power. That's why the battery can last so long. It only has to power the screen when something is changing.\n\nAs a side note, [here](_URL_0_) is a neat picture of them real close up."
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4n43ho | why do healthier versions of a food items cost much more than the unhealthy versions? | This seems rather counter-intuitive. For e.g. whole wheat products are almost always significantly costlier than those made with plain flour. I would think using the whole grain would reduce processing costs involved in turning it to plain flour. Another one - Rolled oats are so much more expensive than instant pre-cut oats. At times soda is cheaper than bottled water. Junk and other fast food items are often cheaper than whole fruits and vegetables.
edit: extra 'a' in title. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4n43ho/eli5_why_do_healthier_versions_of_a_food_items/ | {
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"Depends on food, but most junk food has less content of what you want to buy than what you would get from buying fresh from farmers, etc. Same reason why jerky is so expensive, it's content is 80% or more meat.",
"It's a mistake to think that the price of something is determined only by the cost incurred by the seller or manufacturer.\n\nThe price of something is determined partially by the cost, but also by whatever people are prepared to pay for it. Another way of saying this is that items are sold at whatever price the seller can get away with charging and still have people buy at that price. After all, they want to make as much money as possible from the sale.\n\n A Lamborghini might not cost its manufacturers a great deal more to make than, say, a Ford, but it sells for a much higher price because it is perceived as a luxury item and people are accordingly prepared to pay that price. Similarly, health food is considered a luxury item (compared to pile-'em-high lower-quality foodstuffs) and so sells at a higher price.\n\nIn addition, junk food sometimes costs less than healthy food to manufacture if it is made of cheaper ingredients. Soda is just water, sugar, carbon dioxide and flavouring.",
"This is an assertion often made, but rarely with data attached, and I don't know where it comes from.\n\nTap water is practically free (and drinkable in most of the west, may not apply in Flint MI). Basic bottled water is ridiculously expensive at 17p for a 2 litre bottle. Own brand coke/pop starts at about 25p for the same, brands at 80p for the same size. A single banana is 10-20p, an apple about 30p, a mars bar 60p. ",
"In the US the government heavily subsidizes corn and soy products, so things made with them or animals that feed on corn/soy products can be made into foodstuffs on the cheap.\n\nFruits and vegetables do not get those subsidies, in fact they are considered \"Specialty crops\" in the Farm Bill. Combine that with them being more difficult and more expensive to grow, and that will lead to a greater cost to the consumer.",
"The comments here are all good but miss one point; 'healthier' foods generally do not have very long shelf lives thus increasing the likelihood of waste for the store. To balance this, they increase the price. This is just one factor, the others have already been mentioned. ",
"Supply/demand of unhealthier foods is greater than that of healthier options so despite being more complex they have economies of scale on their side.",
"It mostly comes down to the expectation of the customers. If only reasonably well off people, who expect to pay a premium price for premium products, are interested in whole grain flour, they get a premium price for it. If bread baking becomes more main stream, they'll eventually stock the whole grain flour for a cheap price.\n\nThis applies to many food items. You've got the cheap products and premium products, which don't really cost much more to produce, but cost 2-3x as much to buy. People are willing to pay more for a bag of sugar, flour or salt, simply because they feel better about a supposedly better product.",
"1) Processed foods have preservatives. This means there is less spoilage when it is sitting on the shelf so there is less loss.\n\n2) Healthy foods often use manufacturing processes that are more costly. You can grow a lot more GMO corn with synthetic fertilizers on a lot less land than you can non-gmo corn using manure. Admittedly this is a bad example because GMO corn grown with synteic fertilizer is just as healthy, even if the non-gmo corn is marketed as healthier, but I think the idea gets across. \n\n3) Unhealthy food is indirectly subsidized. The government basically foots the bill for almost all the costs of corn production, for example, which artificially lowers the price of a candy bar (and a surprising number of processed foods) because it reduces the cost of ingredients, specifically high fructose corn syrup, but also things like xanthan gum.\n\n4) Healthy foods are usually natural foods and therefore subject to the whims of nature. That is to say every candy bar coming off a line will look the same, but every carrot coming out of the ground wont. The less appealing fruits and vegetables must be sold at a discount which means the perfect ones you as an average Joe actually see in most store have to account for this.\n\n5) Some things are more expensive simply because a manufacturer can charge higher prices. My roommate, for example, buys quinoa, but instead of buying it in the aisle with all the healthy food, he buys it from the Hispanic food section where it is called something else and 1/2 the price.",
"I do hope people don't forget that \"healthy\" food aren't necessarily any better for you than the cheaper foods. I'm not comparing the high ends to the super low ends, but differing foods in the middle to high pricing spectrum.\n\nPeople who are willing to pay a higher price for quality often are actually unable to distinguish that same quality they sought out for, so they rely on price and marketing to determine if they're eating better than their colleagues.\n\nThis is how you get all those organic foods that are actually less healthy than the traditionally farmed variety: the marketing says they use a more expensive \"natural\" process, and while they're technically right that it's all naturally sourced, there's a reason why the ads never mention that it's actually healthier, just for health-conscious people.\n\nI won't say all organic food is bullshit, but you do need to actually look up that particular producer's production system. Are they using a dangerous but naturally sourced pesticides? Are they properly sterilizing the fertilizer, or just throwing it around and hope that they can cover up any potential e-coli outbreaks?\n\nDo your own research, and don't rely on TV ads.",
"\"Healthier\" is a term that doesn't really have a meaning.\n\nIf I am starving to death and significantly malnourished a week of all-you-can-eat mcdonalds is probably the healthiest option for me. If I am obese low calorie-high fiber is probably my best bet.\n\nGMO is perfectly healthy, pesticides and growth hormones are perfectly healthy, meat from cows that grew up in tiny cages and every morning had a farmer whisper \"i hate you\" in their ear, is perfectly healthy meat.\n\nSo when you say \"healthier\" what you are actually saying is \"food that has been specially marketed as being healthy\" which is the first step of the answer to your question - specialty products have a price premium because 1) the higher price makes people believe they truly are specialty and 2) the associated higher marketing costs and ROI on investment for same.\n\nFrom there, whatever your food fetish is, whether that is GMO free, pesticide free, cruelty free, etc. almost certainly adds a cost to the base production cost of the food. A free range chicken farm that is a square mile in size can produce X chickens a year, while a pen farm of the same size can produce 3X chickens a year - thus it is more efficient and cheaper.\n\nTo take one of your examples \"Soda is cheaper than bottled water.\" Both of which are VASTLY more expensive than the virtually free tap water you have available at your home, work, and most restaurants in the country. Tap water is in fact even \"healthier\" than bottled water by any objective standard yet you ignore it from your analysis - why? Marketing.\n\n98% of the time when you are eating healthy foods you are really just eating marketing bs. The real trick to healthy eating is to match your body's nutritional requirements to your food intake and you can do that very cheaply at any walmart in the country.",
"Any particular requirement is likely to increase price just because it reduces choice. If you deliberately searched for the *unhealthiest* kind of a given product (or the reddest, or the one made closest to Chicago, or the one most closely resembling a bunny) it would probably also not happen to be the cheapest. ",
"Government subsidies on corn is a large part. If you look up all the products that have corn in it you will shit yourself. ",
"As you can tell from the responses so far, there are a myriad of factors that go in to this, and the factors will be different depending on which specific food we could discuss.\n\nA general principal which covers most, if not all, of the foods is simply mass production.\n\nThe price of pretty much anything can be driven down by mass producing it. With food, the means to make it mass producible often results in that food being far less healthy, if it could even be considered food at that point.\n\nTake bread for instance. If you look at the [FDA regulations](_URL_0_) on what is allowed to make up bread, you'll see that there are a TON of ingredients. This was not always the case. Until a few decades ago, \"Bread\" was defined much more simply as water, flour, salt, and maybe one or two optional ingredients like maybe eggs.\n\nBread made this way is not mass producible, so companies like Wonderbread lobbied the FDA to redefine \"Bread\" to allow the inclusion of the newly developed, highly processed instant yeast, as well as a large number of preservatives, and a whole new process called \"enrichment\".\n\nSo now when you go to the grocery store and buy bread, you won't be buying what our civilization has fed itself on for millennia, you'll be buying some distorted monstrosity masquerading as bread. You may even feel ill after eating some and illogically blame gluten for that since it's a lot easier to construct a demon totem and blame that then it is to insist that the \"Food\" in the grocery store is in fact food.",
"If more people use a product then it can be produced in larger quantities which will reduce the price, if it's niche then companies can't afford to do that.",
"You have to take crop yields into account. One of the major factors on things like 'organic' versions of crops. The yields then is graded. Grapes for example. The biggest get sorted out for premium lines, then smaller for consumption, and the lowest grade can be processed into products that appears isn't a factor (in your fruit bar for example). Despite the lower grade, once processed the resulting product margin covers the processing cost. The better yield of a particular crop, the more high, medium, and low grade product your get and the lowest grade, once processed, is still usable.\n\nFunny that people praise ancient tribes that used the whole animal with minimum waste, yet when we do it to make hot dogs people lose their shit...",
"I want to add on the supply and demand aspect in to this. There was a thread a long time ago asking why white sugar was more expensive than brown sugar which had less processing. The answer was something like this:\n\nIf you had a bag of white and a bag of brown sugar. Each at €1. With the processing cost of white at 75 cents and brown at 25 cents. You would think there would be more incentive to sell the brown as the profit margin is higher. \n\nHowever the demand of white sugar is such that if they still 2 million white to 200,000 brown they're taking in $500,000 compared to $15,000. If demand was equal then it would make sense for the less processed food to be cheaper but for whatever reason the more processed things became higher in demand. I blame the rich toffs wanting to stand apart and show they had money myself. Then as it became the standard the smaller profit margin didn't matter anymore. When you're selling so much more of the processed item that your profit skyrockets then you're going to push it. Hell, even dropping your profit by 1% to encourage more people to buy won't have a negative affect. \n\nGranted that was to do with sugar. But I imagine it translates well to the likes of wholewheat and wholegrain foods at the moment when they're not as popular. ",
"Market economics. People who value food identified ax \"healthy\" based on current popular understanding will pay more for it. The major food producers/providers are corporations that need to show return on capital equivalent to the other corporations in the stock market. That 8% growth has to come from somewhere and since the IS population isn't growing that fast, and it's hard to get people to eat much more food than we already do, the alternative in convincing people to pay more for food by marketing/labeling.",
"Supply x Demand = Price.\n\nKeeping supply the same, people will generally demand healthier foods more. Thus, price is higher.\n\nKeeping demand the same, supply may be shorter due to shelf life, costs in production (non-GMO = more pesticides; higher rent due to free-range instead of factory farming, etc.), and difficulty to grow (think avocados vs. corn). So higher costs means that for a given demand, supply would likely be lower (though not guaranteed, of course).",
"Items that are made to avoid allergens like gluten, peanuts, dairy, and the like, are required to be produced in a facility that is completely void of that allergen. This means they most operate with no chance of cross contamination from machines, etc. Many companies (take General Mills and their cereal products, for example) profit from a variety of product lines that use the same machines, so they must dedicate an entire facility to a product(s) that is labeled \"gluten free\" or \"nut free\". It is more expensive to operate facilities such as these because your product line is limited. With that being said, those items aren't all necessarily \"more heathy\", but some are. \n\nTL;DR Products that are made to accommodate food allergies must be produced in a facility that is 100% free of that allergy. More expensive.",
"I think there are a lot of good answers already here but I wanted to address this part of your question:\n\n > whole wheat products are almost always significantly costlier than those made with plain flour. I would think using the whole grain would reduce processing costs involved in turning it to plain flour.\n\n\"Whole Grain\" foods like bread still use flour, they just use \"Whole Grain\" flour. \n\nIf you have the time, [here's a really interesting article on modern flour production](_URL_0_) from the New York Times Magazine.\n\nAn excerpt:\n\n > A grain of wheat has three main components: a fibrous and nutrient-rich outer coating called the bran; the flavorful and aromatic germ, a living embryo that eventually develops into the adult plant; and a pouch of starch known as the endosperm, which makes up the bulk of the grain. Before roller mills, all three parts were mashed together when processed. As a result, flour was not the inert white powder most of us are familiar with today; it was pungent, golden and speckled, because of fragrant oils released from the living germ and bits of hardy bran. If freshly ground flour was not used within a few weeks, however, the oils turned it rancid.\n\n > Roller mills solved this problem. Their immense spinning cylinders denuded the endosperm and discarded the germ and bran, producing virtually unspoilable alabaster flour composed entirely of endosperm. It was a boon for the growing flour industry: Mills could now source wheat from all over, blend it to achieve consistency and transport it across the nation without worrying about shelf life. That newfound durability came at a huge cost, however, sacrificing much of the grain’s flavor and nutrition. In the 1940s, to compensate for these nutritional deficiencies, flour producers started fortifying white flour with iron and B vitamins, a ubiquitous practice today. \n\n > And most whole-wheat products sold in supermarkets are made from roller-milled flour with the germ and bran added back in. According to the F.D.A.’s standards, flour labeled ‘‘whole wheat’’ must retain the germ, bran and endosperm in their native proportions, and ‘‘whole-wheat bread’’ must be made with whole-wheat flour, but the agency does not verify products’ composition before they hit the market.\n\n > It’s also unclear how industrial mills add back the oily germ without significantly shortening shelf life, a topic they are hesitant to discuss. David Killilea, a nutrition scientist at the Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute in California, says big mills might deactivate the living germ by steaming it or exposing it to gamma rays.\n\nSo producing shelf stable whole grain flour takes more steps than just bleached flour. ",
"Price isn't based on costs. Price is based on demand.\n\nThere is still enough demand for \"healthy\" versions at higher costs",
"OP I believe you are speaking about America. It's not like this in other countries. In fact, the stuff that is worse for you costs more, like a snickers or kitkat, but the healthier local organic stuff costs a lot less. They don't even have to label food organic in other countries because they don't have this strange dual system that America has.",
"Short answer: Because people are ready to pay more for healthier products.\n\nIt's an error to think that the price of most product is a relation of the production cost. They are more often the result of market studies that define how much people are ready to pay for the product.",
"Because death and disease associated with obesity is important to keeping a balance throughout America ",
"I dunno about you, but my fiancé viciously calculates the price per oz of everything we buy, and fresh fruits and vegetables are far cheaper than unhealthy snacks and microwave meals/ fast food. It's actually generally far cheaper to eat healthier in that regard. I think there's a bit of a misconception about that. \n",
"because to the companies, somehow it takes more time and money to not put tons of unnecessary chemicals and preservatives into things, than to just make it the way you'd do it at home.\n\ni have now idea why, but that's how it got. someday everything will be real again"
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69ap2b | why can you see sunlight only so far underneath the oceans surface? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/69ap2b/eli5why_can_you_see_sunlight_only_so_far/ | {
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"because the water filters out the sunlight, like the air except since it is 300ish times more dense it is filtered out much more quickly",
"The light is scattered and absorbed as it passes through the water. As it descends, there is less available for your eyes to pick up."
]
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[],
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9ic01r | what is it that give rally cars that distinct "rattling" quality to their engine for want of a better word? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9ic01r/eli5_what_is_it_that_give_rally_cars_that/ | {
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"The exhaust system on a rally car is designed differently from a normal road car. (Prioritizing performance over acoustics/emissions) \n\nThe sound I think you’re referring to is unburned fuel traveling out the exhaust. When exiting the tail pipe unburned fuel is introduced to oxygen in the atmosphere and combusts; producing an (oh so satisfying) “popping” sound. \n",
"You might be hearing the anti-lag system in action. [This](_URL_0_) video will explain what it is and how it works."
]
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[],
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"https://youtu.be/l3fWANi_SsE"
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astj8o | does color really exist or it's just reflection? how the world really is? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/astj8o/eli5_does_color_really_exist_or_its_just/ | {
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"Colour is basically the part of the spectrum that is reflected back off an object. So if something appears yellow, it means all the other wavelengths have been absorbed. ",
"What we call color is a perception of a fairly narrow band of electromagnetic radiation. The way the world \"really is\" would be a histogram of the wavelengths of light hitting things, without the interpretation our brain does. The color we see is really just a way of mapping EM radiation of something our brain can \"see\", it's not fundamentally special in any way, and you could \"see\" with different colors and in different frequency bands. Visible light is fairly useful for vision, though, because it's mostly blocked by solid objects and is plentifully coming from the sun without being largely absorbed by the atmosphere and without being high enough energy to be ionizing. ",
"Color is the product of specific wavelengths of light interacting with the retina in our eye, and the resulting nervous system impulse being interpreted by our brain.\n\nSo color definitely objectively exists in the context that light reflecting off of (or emitted by) an object is consistantly the same pattern of wavelengths which is consistently interpreted a particular way by each of our brains.",
"Very complicated question your asking but the way your individual self perceives the world is based on your culture and beliefs. When you let go of your culture and your beliefs as well as the beliefs that society conforms to, for example gender norms that shouldn’t be normal but are Becuz we conform ,then you will see the world in raw form.",
"\"Color\" is a word with several meanings.\n\nThe colors of a rainbow in the sky after a storm are \"real\" colors. Red is 680 nanometer light, violet is 400 nanometer light. Each band is a wavelength, separated by their unequal refractive index in water.\n\nIn this case, the color is directly related to a physical property of light. Humans have biological photoreceptors to observe 400-680nm, but light is not limited to this range. Many wavelengths exist that you cannot see. Some animals have larger or smaller ranges or different eye designs that perceive color intensity and shade differently. We know this because they have different receptor cell designs.\n\nNow what you *see* as color is a product of how you eye is built. If you know TVs, you know that they can only display three colors. They're relying on the three different color reception cells in your eyes to misinterpret that signal and perceive \"purple\" when no purple light wavelength is present.\n\nSo when you see something neon purple, could be a true 400nm light source or it can be a fraud - a collection of other wavelengths that your eye sees as purple.\n\nHuman eyes are all roughly the same (we've dissected and studied a lot of them) but the reception bands are different across different species. The TV's trick doesn't work on all animals, but we know it works on humans."
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36ca0f | is there anything fundamentally wrong with simulation theory? | Every time I hear about this theory, the scientists defending it or speaking about never seem to provide a downside to the theory. Are there any major missing parts to this theory? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/36ca0f/eli5_is_there_anything_fundamentally_wrong_with/ | {
"a_id": [
"crcp5qs"
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"text": [
"There's no such thing as simulation theory, so that's a pretty major weakness. (There are people who *say* \"whoa, maybe we're in a simulation\", but that's not the same as a scientific theory.)"
]
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[]
] | |
6mdpwr | why does dieting effect your alcohol tolerance? | I'm on a calorie restricting diet. And suddenly the amount of booze that I can drink before I get drunk has halved! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6mdpwr/eli5_why_does_dieting_effect_your_alcohol/ | {
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"There are multiple things that is going on. First of all your body mass have decreased and since all parts of your body have blood your blood volume have decreased. So you need less alcohol to get the same concentration of alcohol in your blood as before. There are also several other things happening with the liver and psychologically as your body have not adjusted to how it works. Your body is reacting to the different inputs it gets the way it have learned to best handle it. However suddenly your body is reacting to things differently. So after a period of dieting, exercising or even just being sober your body will have to relearn how to cope with alcohol. So it is back to square one and your first sip of beer that caused you to vomit all over the carpet before you got to the party."
]
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[]
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73l25s | how does walking long distances help raise fund? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/73l25s/eli5_how_does_walking_long_distances_help_raise/ | {
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"It's an organized publicity event for the charity. Each person who will be walking gets sponsors to agree to donate $X to the charity for each mile that they walk. Walking is done - is a great social event, and the donations are made by those who agreed to sponsor a walker. \n \nFor walks done around town, individual amounts raised might be small - a few friends and family giving $25 or $50 dollars each. \nThe Make A Wish walks that I have seen are a bit different. There is a minimum each walker must raise in order to participate ($5000 or more - if I remember correctly), but these are big trail hikes, and participants meals and hotel rooms for the event are covered."
]
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1x2uuy | why do we sometimes like someone without any warnings? | As the title suggests, why do we sometimes start liking someone without knowing anything about her/him?
Like for example when your still in school about 16-17-18 years old and there's a girl/boy in your class that you never really talked with, that's not a friend of yours or anything just another ordinary student in your class and then a few years later you start liking her/him, you start developing romantic feelings for her/him. Why is that? Is there any explaination for this? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1x2uuy/eli5_why_do_we_sometimes_like_someone_without_any/ | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"Despite how people act towards one another online, we are very loving creatures. If one goes without giving that love to another person, we will easily be infatuated by people we don't even know. \n\n"
]
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b5ro9k | what does "breaking up a corporation" actually mean? | I've heard a lot about breaking up large corporations like Xfinity, Amazon, etc but don't really know what that would look like in practice. Would they essentially have the "top" level cut out and be forced to operate as smaller, regional systems that aren't allowed to collude? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b5ro9k/eli5_what_does_breaking_up_a_corporation_actually/ | {
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"It depends on the specifics of the case. One option is to break a large corporation up into smaller, regional companies like you suggest. In addition, companies can be broken into smaller units based on the services/products that they offer. For example, Amazon has its retail service, but it also hosts a massive amount of the content available on the web.\n\nBoth methods were used when AT & T/Bell were broken up in the '80's. AT & T retained control over services like long distance (among other things) while local services were broken up into regional companies (known as the Baby Bells).",
"It means to enforce antitrust laws to prevent them from engaging in anti-competitive activities, and the only way to do this is to split the company up.\n\nAs to what it would look like, it would vary from company to company, and even then, no one can really predict what would happen. With Xfinity, it would probably work a lot like the AT & T split up of the 1980s, where it was broken up into a long distance provider and a bunch of regional phone companies. Amazon would be harder to predict, but it would likely be by business function rather than region. Maybe something like a cloud computing company (AWS), an electronic device and services company (Kindle, Echo), and a retailer (everything else).\n\nNote that this is all talk right now, nothing is in motion, and it isn't clear this companies are even breaking anti-trust laws.\n\n & #x200B;"
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7zpxep | travel sickness | Why can't the vast majority of people read books or an amount of text while in a car or other moving transportation without feeling sick, but can watch videos on screens like a phone, tablet, etc. without getting any nauseous feelings. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7zpxep/eli5_travel_sickness/ | {
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"The problem is the disconnect your body feels between your senses. In the case of motion sickness, the issue is that your body feels the movement of the car in your inner ear, but, because your eyes are focused on the page, it doesn't *see* any movement. These conflicting signals actually lead your brain to assume that you've been poisoned, and that's why many people get nauseous. It's your body attempting to cure the \"poison\" that it thinks is killing you.",
"Many parts of your body including your eyes and ears help you sense motion and detect your relative location. \n\nWhen you're reading a book, you're likely to be much more focused on the text and nothing else. Your eyes will signal to your brain that you're sitting still. However, when the car speeds up or down or hits a bump, your ears will tell your brain you're moving along. Your brain gets confused from these mixed signals, and as a result you get motion sickness.\n\nWatching videos tends to require less intense focus and processing power than reading a book. Video screens are also placed further to the eye than books, so you are more aware of what's happening around you. Your eyes will thus still be able to sense that you're moving and send to your brain the correct signals. \n\n"
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6c0ldl | if water is so easily effected by no gravity how does blood flow through our veins instead of staying still? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6c0ldl/eli5_if_water_is_so_easily_effected_by_no_gravity/ | {
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"Well, your heart tends to push it along. There are also back-flow preventers in our veins that keep blood moving in one direction"
]
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3c6nbp | how does vicks and other vaporizing rubs help you get better when you're sick? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3c6nbp/eli5_how_does_vicks_and_other_vaporizing_rubs/ | {
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"They don't really help you get better (I guess menthol as an antibacterial agent might have some minuscule effect on bacterial infections, but coughs and blocked airways are more commonly viral in nature), but they can help alleviate the discomfort by keeping your airways clear - usually through some chemical that either breaks down excess mucus or inhibits the production of mucus. ",
"Menthol evaporates from the gel thanks to the heat of your body. The menthol dissolves into the mucous that is causing congestion and changes it from a thick viscous substance to a thinner more watery consistency which can move through your body or be blown out the nose. \n\nNow they don't actually help as a cure. What they do is relieve the symptoms of being congested by clearing mucous but you're still sick, you just feel better. "
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j6slx | why germany decided to go nuclear-free | I remember reading about it post-Japan tsunami/earthquake. Is that really why? Seemed kind of ridiculous considering it's in a rather seismically inactive part of the world, but there's probably more reasoning behind it than that. So yeah, ELI5. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/j6slx/eli5_why_germany_decided_to_go_nuclearfree/ | {
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"Well, although Germany is not as seismically active as say Japan, there is seismic activity there which can be a cause for concern.\n\nOverall, I would say Germany made the decision because there is a strong environmental movement in Germany. Germany has already started building wind farms and is big on solar technology both because they are a technological and industrial powerhouse. Germany already had a law on the books to phase out nuclear energy until the lifespans of the nuclear reactors were lengthened by the current government. The lengthening of reactor lifespans was highly controversial here with a huge segment of the population being unhappy about it. When Fukushima happened, the government made an about-face on their plans. Since the reactor life extension was already unpopular the government figured it could try to save face.\n\nAs to why the anti-nuclear movement in Germany is so large, there's a simple answer. Chernobyl. When Chernobyl exploded the radioactive cloud went right over Germany and Europe triggering the movement.",
"Well, although Germany is not as seismically active as say Japan, there is seismic activity there which can be a cause for concern.\n\nOverall, I would say Germany made the decision because there is a strong environmental movement in Germany. Germany has already started building wind farms and is big on solar technology both because they are a technological and industrial powerhouse. Germany already had a law on the books to phase out nuclear energy until the lifespans of the nuclear reactors were lengthened by the current government. The lengthening of reactor lifespans was highly controversial here with a huge segment of the population being unhappy about it. When Fukushima happened, the government made an about-face on their plans. Since the reactor life extension was already unpopular the government figured it could try to save face.\n\nAs to why the anti-nuclear movement in Germany is so large, there's a simple answer. Chernobyl. When Chernobyl exploded the radioactive cloud went right over Germany and Europe triggering the movement."
]
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d7xusu | why did the nes (nintendo entartainment system) managed to save the progress of some games, but not others? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/d7xusu/eli5_why_did_the_nes_nintendo_entartainment/ | {
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"Its a feature of the cartridge, not the console. Some have a battery to maintain the save data in its internal memory.",
"The NES did not have any permanent storage onboard, once you powered it off everything in memory would be lost.\n\nGames that could save state like Zelda 1+2, Final Fantasy, etc have an NVRAM chip in the cartridge. By \"holding reset when you turn the power off\" you would enable a watch battery to keep a charge on the NVRAM chip to maintain the save data.",
"It's very similar to RAM in a computer. It is a storage system that contains data until it loses power. Since there is a battery in the cartridge, it may power the RAM even when the system is off.\n\nHopefully this is distinguishable from the other posts :)"
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elzknl | what makes solid state drives boot up so incredibly faster than hard disk drives? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/elzknl/eli5_what_makes_solid_state_drives_boot_up_so/ | {
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"No moving parts. No really, that's it. \n\nWith a spinning platter drive there's two actions. First, the read/write head has to move to the right location over the platter (think needle on a vinyl record). Then, the platter has to spin to the right location to start reading bytes (think moving the vinyl record forwards/backwards in the song by rotating the record). \n\nNow, once you've reached the start of where you want to start reading data, the bytes can be read as fast if not faster than the disk can spin (which is why 72,000 or 10,000 rpm drives are faster than 5,400, more common, drives). So for a single contiguous read operation, hard drives aren't much faster than solid state drives. But the move of the read/write head and the rotation of the platter to the right location takes time. Still very quick to you and me, but AGES for a computer.\n\nSolid state drives don't wait - they dial in the address of the start of the data and just start reading. \n\nA so called hybrid drive is a regular drive with fequently used files on a small solid state 'cache' drive. If frequent files (like windows boot files) are here, basic operations can get quite a bit quicker.\n\nAn operating system bootup is lots of reading of lots of relatively small files. Which depending on where (physically) they are on a disk means lots of time spent moving read/write heads and platters. Cutting that time out with a solid state drive == very fast."
]
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b0hupj | how do drinks like la croix and soleil manage to taste sweet without having any actual sweeteners in them? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b0hupj/eli5_how_do_drinks_like_la_croix_and_soleil/ | {
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"La Croix tastes sweet?",
"They are flavored with real fruit extracts, the phytochemicals which contribute to fruits' unique flavors but aren't sugar and don't contain any calories. When we eat real fruit, we get the fruit sugars plus the phytochemicals, and we associate the phytochemicals with sweetness since they're always present together in natural fruit. So when you drink la croix or similar beverages, your brain is \"tricked\" into thinking that since you're tasting fruit flavors, you must be tasting sweetness as well.\n\nThough on the other hand I'm not sure everyone would describe la croix as sweet. \"Floral\" or \"fruity\" might be a more apt word."
]
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4yw207 | why are people so angry about bank bailouts after the gfc, wouldn't they lose all their savings if the banks had been allowed to fold? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4yw207/eli5_why_are_people_so_angry_about_bank_bailouts/ | {
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"Those big banks have insurance against such things, so even if they went under, the people would still be able to withdraw all of their money (up to a certain limit). \nYou, me, and Joe Schmo across the road would still have access to all of the money in our accounts, but Bill Gates would be out billions of dollars.\n\nYou'll see mostly the common citizen like you and me getting upset about the bailouts, and not millionaires and billionaires, because we wouldn't be affected if the bank crumbled. \n\nWe get angry because that bailout money could have been spent in other areas; local schools, roads, hospitals, or renewable energy. Instead, the CEOs of those big banks that were bailed out still gave themselves their gigantic end-of-year bonuses, using our taxpayer dollars.",
"* typically in a bank failure, the gov't steps to make sure depositors get all or some of their money back...in a bailout, the management of the bank stays in place, ever if their mistakes led to the failure \n* not all depositors are sympathetic working folks tending to a nest egg...some are speculators who knowingly put money into high risk investment\n* not all banks fail, only some...some people don't want their tax dollar spend saving some one else's money\n* it sets a bad precedent, telling banks they can be as irresponsible as they like, the gov't will come in and save the day if they fail",
"As others have said an individual account in a savings banks is FDIC insured up to $250K; you can even have multiple accounts insured that way at different banks (rich people were doing this during the crisis). Many of the high profile banks in the crisis were investment banks especially initially. They do not keep deposits for average citizens. There are so many reasons to be mad, I don't even know where to begin. This is one of the defining moments in recent America history where America has shown itself to be systematically and functionally corrupt at an unprecedented level. Remember how \"we\" (Wall St connected government officials) saved these people and their institutions, and they turned around and immediately gave themselves HUGE bonuses? The process will happen again too - there was next to zero accountability.\n\n",
"The banks messed up and government had to pay for it out of taxpayer's money. It's a moral hazard. They are not having to pay for their own mistakes which means that they might continue to make them in future. It's unjust."
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2goiio | why is monster energy zero ultra bad for me? | I really enjoy this particular energy drink, but the general consenus is that they are bad for you. If so, what is in this drink that is detrimental to my health?
**NUTRITION FACTS** (Serving size 8 fl oz (240ml))
**Calories 0 Kcal**
Calories from Fat 0 Kcal
**Total Fat 0 g**
Saturated Fat 0 g
Trans Fat 0 g
**Cholesterol 0 mg**
**Sodium 180 mg**
**Total Carbohydrate 1 g**
Dietary Fiber 0 g
Sugars 0 g
**Protein 0 g**
**Vitamin A 0 IU**
**Vitamin C 0 mg**
**Calcium 0 mg**
**Iron 0 mg**
**INGREDIENTS:**
**carbonated water, citric acid, erythritol, sodium citrate, natural and artificial flavors, panax ginseng root extract, taurine, sucralose, caffeine, sorbic acid, benzoic acid, acesulfame potassium, l-carnitine, l-tartrate, niacinamide, d-calcium pantothenate, sodium chloride, d-glucuronolactone, inositol, guarana seed extract, pyridoxine hydrochloride, maltodextrin, pyridoxine hydrochloride, maltodextrin, cyanocobalamin.** | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2goiio/eli5_why_is_monster_energy_zero_ultra_bad_for_me/ | {
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"It's not, when used in moderation. Regular energy drinks are unhealthy for four main reasons 1. Sugar 2. Calories when used in excess 3. Caffeine when used in excess 4. Potentially questionable ingredients\n\nYour monster zero has no sugar and no calories, off to a good start. Your only concerns with Monster Energy Zero are that you need to be careful with your caffeine consumption, and understand potential risks of artificial sweeteners. For caffeine, the general guideline for maximum healthy consumption is under 400 mg a day while a can has 140 mg, so multiple cans a day should be avoided. Caffeine in the evening is also unhealthy as it can disrupt sleep. There is no solid evidence that currently used artificial sweeteners pose any health concerns at normal consumption levels. But of course, listen to your body. I say drink away!",
"I should also add to these good comments; the sugars and acids present in this drink will bathe your teeth in a wonderful, corrosive meal for bacteria.",
"Anecdotal, but energy drinks make me shit blood. Nothing else makes me shit blood."
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d32325 | how does hacking through wifi really works? we know that data can be stolen but what are the hackers actually seeing on their screen that have access to our information? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/d32325/eli5_how_does_hacking_through_wifi_really_works/ | {
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"When you're on a public WiFi and sending data unencrypted they can read all your data. They're looking for usernames/passwords, usually with programs. So they're usually watching a visual stream of data packets (Google Wireshark and check the images for an example) and waiting for their search finds a hit.",
"First, all data on an unencrypted Wi-Fi network can be received by all parties, like people talking in a public room.\n\nSecondly, they don’t see your screen but what you are sending and receiving over the network. For example, if you use an unencrypted protocol (like HTTP) then they can capture the packets and see what your browser is asking for and what the server is sending back. If this includes logging into a site then they can get your hashed password and run decryption attacks against it. The real danger there is that people tend to reuse passwords, so they can try your credentials against multiple popular sites. If they crack it, they can log in as you. This is why HTTPS is important to use (and why all banks, etc use it.)",
"When I was in college, we learned about hacking WiFi but were told that with current encrypted WiFi networks and https, purely getting packet traffic would not be helpful.\n\nOur campus shared space with a university, so my study group went over there and realized that their WiFi was unencryted. What was worst was their site to manage your courses and enrollment was also not using https.\n\nWe literally watched as a student logged in and could see his password and username (which happened to be his email).\n\nFrom that, we could unenroll him for his course in a matter of seconds. The worst thing is with more digging we found he was using the same password for his Facebook.\n\nIt was scary as hell to realize it could literally be that easy to hack someone\n\nThis was 2008 so hopefully it has changed.",
"It’s still scary how much is unencrypted today such as DNS requests. When you perform Air-Pcaps (sniffing packets in the air) near hotspots You can usually see all the domains people are resolving and can build a profile of their internet usage.",
"When you go to a website, you send a request to a server for information. For example, when you go to [_URL_0_](https://_URL_0_), you send Google's server a request asking for their homepage. Their server sends that information back to you, and your web browser formats it correctly. \n\n > [192.168.0.3](_URL_6_) wants to access [_URL_7_](_URL_4_); please send the homepage code.\n\nWhen you log in to a website, like your bank, you have to send some extra information to the server so that it knows who you are. That's usually your username and password. When it's not encrypted, that information is sent in plain text, right alongside of the website that you're trying to get to.\n\n > [192.168.0.3](_URL_6_) wants to access [_URL_1_](https://_URL_1_), their username is [john@example.com](mailto:john@example.com) and their password is hunter2; please send the transaction list.\n\nOnce you've told the server who you are, they sometimes send back a session key; this is similar to a coat check. When you go to the website later, you don't have to give your username and password again - you just give your coat check, and they can identify you from that. That keeps you from having to send the password repeatedly, and saves the server from having to re-authenticate you every time. However, just like in real life, if that coat check gets stolen, anyone can pick up your coat (your data) with it.\n\nOn a public wireless network, anyone else can scan the network for these requests, and they'll see [every \"packet\" of information being sent over the network](_URL_3_). From there, they can search the stream of data for patterns, such as looking for e-mail addresses. They can then see your password in the same request, and voila - they have your information.\n\nIf you're interested in how encryption works, I'd highly suggest [this video](_URL_8_) which explains the protocol really well and in an easy to understand way.\n\n**Edit:** It looks like I removed the part about encryption while I was editing my comment last night. Encrypting these requests is incredibly easy nowadays, so most websites will encrypt the data that you send it and the data that it sends you. It’s explained better in that video I linked above, but you and the server basically agree on a shared secret phrase that people scanning the network can’t figure out. That way, only you can see the data that you’re being sent and only they can see the data that they’re being sent.",
"What they visually see is a list of network requests. Most of them are not interesting, because it's just establishing a connection and finding the correct device to go to etc. Like others said, it gets dangerous when they can see what you sent over an unencrypted connection like HTTP. There they can see the payload in unencrypted form, aka plain text (even files get converted to plain text representation so by decoding it hackers can also see what images you downloaded, for example). Also, even if everything is encrypted, packet sniffing leads to valuable information nonetheless: patterns. If some requests and responses always look the same or come from the same location, this information can help the attacker \"spoof\" a legitimate responder by spamming the network with responses that look similar to those they observed. If they get lucky, a client browser / device mistakes them for a legitimate response, possibly leading to the user sending sensitive information to the hacker instead. This is pretty unlikely though and most hackers won't go through that amount of work just to potentially get to sensitive data of one person. But given enough time and effort, it can happen.",
"Many of the answers here answer the \"what they are seeing\" portion really well. However more or less all of these answers talk about public/unencrypted WiFi networks.\n\nThere are two ways to \"hack WiFi\":\n\n- Eavesdropping the communication between your device and the WiFi network.\n- Pretending to be the WiFi network and making your device communicate directly with the hacker.\n\nEavesdropping works with unencrypted communication. Encrypted WiFi or encrypted communication (HTTPS) both defeat this to large extent (there are still things a hacker might learn on unencrypted WiFi, but if you are using HTTPS to read your e-mail, the hacker should not be able to read those).\n\nHowever if the hacker manages to trick your device into connecting to their WiFi network, they can now start messing with the communication in other ways as well. Not only can they achieve everything they could do previously by eavesdropping the communication, they can now also change it. They might try to change an encrypted connection in ways that makes it easier for them to break the encryption, they might completely alter the pages that you are seeing over unencrypted connection or they might even try to instruct your installed applications to do something the applications normally wouldn't do such as \"send all local files to us\" or \"install this totally-not-a-virus on the device\".\n\nThe scary thing is how easy it is to have your device connect to a hacker's WiFi network. If you have your phone set to connect automatically to your HomeWiFi, CoffeeShopWLAN and UniversityWireless, it will keep calling for those when you are walking down the street. Essentially it will keep yelling \"Is MyHomeWifi, CoffeeShopWLAN or UniversityWireless around?\" the whole time WiFi is on and it's not connected to a network. At this point the hacker can just listen for those calls and then start advertising their own WiFi network as \"MyHomeWifi\" for example. Your phone can't tell the difference and will happily connect to the hacker's network.\n\n(At least few years back the devices didn't even check if the original network had been encrypted and the new network is now unencrypted. Not sure if this has changed in the last few years.)",
"Top comment right now doesn’t really answer the question and I’m curious as well. \n\nWhat does the screen of a hackers computer actually look like when they are doing this?",
"Another method is to spoof the wifi network and make you connect to their device instead. This is usually done to capture your cookies, then they can spoof your device and log in on the sites that you use.",
"I worked in Information Security company that demonstrates exactly this. Good question. it has been answered in some ways, I'll go a different take:\n\nThe \"Wi\" in WiFi stands for Wireless, that is, Over-the-Air (OTA) communication via electromagnetic signals in the radio band, more specifically around 2.4GHz. To answer what a hacker might see, let's take a look at the several layers information goes through in the process of accessing the Internet:\n\nThe OSI Model describes an abstract method of communication between two (or sometimes more) parties. Broadly speaking, a 5 layer model will look like: (merging layers of 7-layer model)\n1. Physical layer - the actual signal\n2. Link layer - \"neighbors communication\", i.e. between adjacent devices\n3. Network layer - communication within a network of devices (e.g. The Internet)\n4. Transport/Session layer - responsible for handling \"full conversations\" (opposed to single packets of data)\n5. Application layer - basically anything software adds on top of communication. (e.g. custom server applications, protocols, etc.)\n\nBack to what a hacker would \"see\": it all depends on which layer he is able to tap to!\n\nStarting with layer 1 - Physical:\nThese signals are not much different than light we see, other than, well, we can't see them. But light is a great analogy for this. Think of a flashing light bulb - using the intensity of the light, the color or the frequency of flashes, it is possible to encode messages. Just imagine your friend sending you morse code using a flash light!\n\nA person or device (not necessarily malicious) who would tap to that layer would be able to measure the physical difference in the magnetic field, which when plotted over time - produces a signal. This is a whole story within itself, so without going into too much details, just think of a line graph - sort of like heart monitor or lie detector. The transceiver (transmitter-receiver, e.g. WiFi chip) would know how to decode these messages and pass them to the next layer.\n\nNow let's skip ahead to the last layer - application. One thing I have yet to mention is encryption! While this can be done in any layer, let's focus on the Application layer. Assuming a hacker was able to tap to your wireless communication, a good encryption would still prevent him from eavsdropping or modifying the underlying data. Unfortunately, in practice, much of the data is poorly encrypted, suffers from flaws or completely absent at times. In such a case, whatever you see in your browser when you browse the web, may be replicated and mirrored to the hacker and even modified.\n\nHacking is a whole topic within itself, so to summarize:\n\nTL;DR: a hacker might see anything from meaningless signals to those \"cat videos\" you thought was secure to download in Incognito mode through VPN within a Virtual Machine; all depending on his attack vector.",
"I know that I'm late to the party, but in reality when someone hacks in a network they are not necessarily looking to eavesdrop on your web traffic since the good stuff is encrypted nowadays. What they do instead or in addition is attack the computers on the network with various types of exploits. For instance if they can hack into your computer or your router or server on your network they would prefer to do that then just to listen to encrypted traffic floating back and forth.\n\nIn recent years even so called IOT devices like Wi-Fi cameras are useful for hackers to break into. They do various nasty things once they have control of these computers. They can see what your type on your computer, and then can install programs that are useful to them. For instance they can install programs that will attack other computers in a distributed denial of service attack.\n\nThey do this because they can get paid to do this.",
"Your computer sends little envelopes of information to the other computer (out on the internet usually) that it wants to talk to.\n\nIf you are on a wi-fi network with no password, that means the envelope's send-to address, and sent-from address are clearly visible. Because there is no password to lock it with.\n\nNow is where encryption should come into play. If you have an \"encrypted\" connection to the other computer (like HTTPS, where you see the lock icon in your browser), it means the two computers both agree to scramble the letter in every envelope with a secret code. Only someone who knows the secret code can un-scramble the message your computers send to each-other. (Hackers can \"guess\" the code, but it might take a while, depending on how good the code is.)\n\nIf you use wi-fi with a password, the send-to and sent-from addresses are also scrambled, and the content is scrambled (potentially a second layer of scrambling if you are using HTTPS underneath), so it's harder for hackers to even know what envelope they are looking at and what its purpose is. (Again, hackers can guess this secret code, but it should take them a while if the secret code is good enough.) This is why it's good to use a password with wi-fi, so your messages are hard to identify. And why it's good to use secure networking underneath, like HTTPS (green lock in the browser), so that if someone CAN identify what the messages are for, they can't read what's inside the envelopes.\n\nAny computer security can be overcome with enough effort, or else even the intended user could never use their computer. That said, some security measures are both convenient to use, AND slow down hackers enough to be worthwhile most of the time.\n\nAnswering your direct question: When hackers read your messages over wi-fi, they see who sent the message (your computer's IP address, but maybe also your computer's name like Jenny-PC, your username on a website, your login session ID, which can be copied and used to pretend to be you!!!), who the destination was (what website, what page of that website, what your search terms were on that website...), and what you were sending back and forth (photos you looked at or uploaded, text you read or entered in, including passwords, your chat messages, your searches, enough info to know what things you clicked on, etc...).\n\nWhat shows first on the screen, in packet analysis, is usually metadata that the computers use to identify every message in an organized way (this can be revealing in and of itself! Don't be reassured when the NSA says they just collect \"metadata\" -- that is often the most valuable info for data analysis anyway, since it is neat and orderly enough to be sifted through by machines, not having to listen to each message in its entirety).\n\nThen the actual \"payload\" is shown in the packet analyzer -- what main pieces of text, or image, or video, etc. is being sent from one computer to the other. If you submit a comment to reddit, the comment text is probably the payload, whereas there is metadata attached to that payload so the computer at reddit's data center knows who posted the comment, and what thread it was posted to, and so on.",
"I understand you want to know what a hacker sees on their screen, which I believe nobody here is showing you. I sympathize with this desire, I remember thinking the same for game designers - but what do THEY PHYSICALLY DO to make the game go???\n\nSo, here are some screenshots of tools \"wifi hackers\" use. \n\nFrom a blog post by Julia Evans. _URL_0_\n\nHere is a screenshot of a packet capture. \n\n_URL_1_\n\nVery busy. \n\nThe most important part, surprisingly, is the \"Apply a display filter.\"\n\nWireshark is a tool that you run on your computer. You click a button and it \"records\" network traffic (say, on wifi). Everyone's network traffic (if you have it configured right and the people configure their wifi network stupid). You do this for, like, an hour, and then sit down and analyze the packets you have captured. \n\nPackets are data exchanged between your computer and the internet. \n\nWhen you want to see a picture of a dog, you send a request to google. That request is \"I want to see pictures of dogs.\" \n\nIn order to tell the internet this, your computer breaks up the message into equal parts:\n\n1. I wan\n\n2. t To s\n\n3. ee P\n\n4. ictur\n\n5. es of\n\n6. dog\n\n7. s.\\0\n\nThose are packets. Sometimes, they really do look just like that, a simple message that a human can read. These are called human readable, plaintext, raw strings, etc. Often you will here security professionals say things like \"those idiots were storing passwords plaintext.\" That means the message was unencrypted, so instead of looking like this:\n\n* jaasdfas8fa8sf9ya98h29f283hjf23fj\n\nIt looked like this:\n\n* username:bobpassword:hunter2\n\nSO back to the packet capture screen:\n\nThe light blueish middle part are PACKETS, which wireshark is smart enough to lump together into requests when it can (the entire \"I want to see pictures of dogs\" message). You can see various information about the packet, like when it happened, what protocol it used, how big it is, and then misc information. You can use this view to determine what in front of you might be interesting, combined with filters. Maybe you want to try to read people's emails, so you switch \"protocol\" to the email protocol SMTP. Or you want to hack into someone's email yourself, by getting their username and password, so you look for requests against the gmail website, under the protocol HTTP (actually HTTPS but whatever). You have to filter very well to find the most useful information because you've captured tens of thousands of packets, most of which is encrypted, or useless spammy bullshit. A good hacker is a good filter writer. \n\nWhere the GOOD SHIT IS: The pink box below. See those random < .... n ... > .EE things? Those are the packets translated straight into text. It's encrypted, so it looks meaningless. But sometimes down there, you'll see raw text. Straight up \"username:bobpassword:hunter2\". And that's hacking.",
"Imagine that you want to send a message to someone. You write it down on paper and you give it to another person (your phone) who yells it at someone standing in a corner in a different room of your house (your WiFi router). This third person hears the message being yelled, writes it down, puts it on an envelop and mails it to the destinatary. In the other end, everything happens in the opposite order: Router-person receives the letter, reads it, yells it to your phone-person, it writes it down again and you get the little paper with the text being sent.\n\nThe problem is, yelling is not a very private way of communicating stuff. Your neighbor can probably hear it through the walls. If you are in a public park, everyone would be able to hear! So, since air is a shared media of communication we scramble the message so that the router-person can unscramble it and send it but without anyone hearing being able to understand. So, since everyone in this city speaks only English, the yelling will be done in French and your data is safe from eavesdroppers, right?\n\nWell, no, because here's this guy who took classes and learnt French so know he can understand everything being said out open in the air. So we change the method and instead of French we are going to encode the message using Math Magic. Since both your phone-person and your router-person know Math Magic, they can yell everything they like without being understood by other people.\n\nBut then, a Math Warlock lvl 120 enters the room and suddenly he can understand what is being said! Again we go back and find out a better more complex method, that is easy to use but difficult to crack. Like, it would take you a million years to crack a single message and every message is different. Now it is acceptably secure.\n\nBringing this down to real life, in the beginning WiFi used to be open (everyone could hear and understand everything being transmitted in the air), then we started using WEP encryption (French) but it was quickly cracked and it was pretty much the same as not using encryption at all, then other methods such as WPA2 came in and we feel somewhat safe that our transmissions are secure.\n\nBut hey, since we are really paranoid, I'm not giving my phone-person the messages in plain English. I also have my own special encryption system, and the person on the other side of my communication understands this method. So now we have multiple layers of encryption being used one over the other. This is what is happening when you are using a homebanking site with HTTPS over a WPA2 wifi connection.",
"There's multiple ways to \"hack through wifi\", one being a type of a so called man in the middle attack.\n(There's also multiple ways to make these man in the middle attacks).\n\nLet me explain one way.\n\nLet's say that you and the hacker are in the same restaurant.\n\nWhen you arrive at the restaurant you notice a note on the table saying \"wifi password is abc123\"\n\nYou open up your smartphone and you see two wifi networks named \"restaurant name\" and \"restaurant name 2\". You assume both belong to the restaurant. You open the one with strongest signal.\n\nBoth networks are encrypted. All good right? Nope.\n\nWhat you didn't know is that the hacker is sitting on a table near you and he has created the wifi access point that you just connected too.\n\nHe can see everything you send and receive. \nBecause he is in full control of the network.\nEverything you send goes through him. Everything you receive goes through him. He is the one encrypting the data sent to you, so ofcourse he sees the unencrypted data before sending to you. And the data you encrypt and send to him he can decrypt because he gave you the keys, he created the keys.\n\nYou see encrypting works like this. So called keys are used to make readable texts into unreadable scrambled mumbo jumbo and then the keys are used to unscramble the mumbo jumbo into something readable.\nA person that has the keys can scramble and unscramble.\n\nNow hold up! The hacker only had control of the wifi encryption. He doesn't control the web encryption! Wait what? There's different encryptions for the web and the wifi?? Yes! \nYou have one encryption between you and the wifi access point. Between you and the hacker. And this encryption is ofcourse already useless.\n\nBut there is another layer of encryption between you and for example Google!\n\nThis other layer is much harder for the hacker to get around! \n\nThis is how it works. \n\n\nYou enter _URL_0_ in your browser and hit enter. \nYour browser sends a message over the WiFi network to access _URL_0_, _URL_0_ responds by saying that Google is encrypted and that they have a signed certificate that you can check to make sure it's them.\nThe signed certificate is like a cop showing a badge. When you see the badge you can tell that it looks real and if you are unsure you can Google how a badge is supposed to look and verify that it's the real deal. This is a real cop. You can even check the badge number and call the police station to ask if this badge number is real and compare it to the cops name. \nGoogle has a badge, and it has a badge number, and your browser is like a police station in that it can look up if a certain certificate belongs to Google. \nYour browser does this automatically in the background.\nOnce the certificate has been checked, you can now trust that you are communicating with Google. \n\nYou and Google Also exchange some keys for encryption and then you start communicating safely and nobody can see what you and Google are talking about because you use encryption.\n\nBut wait, how can you and Google send keys to each other without the hacker seeing. You need the keys for encryption. But if someone sees the keys they can decrypt your communication. \n\nThere's two types of encryption. Asymetric and symmetric. \nLet's say you put a secret message in a box and lock it with a padlock. Anyone that has the key can open the padlock.\nSymmetric encryption is when you and somebody you trust both use the same box with a lock and you both have a copy of the key that opens the box.\nYou write a message. \nYou put it in the box.\nYou lock the box with your copy of the key.\nYou send the locked box.\nYour partner opens the box using his copy of the key.\nHe can then do the same process to send a message to you.\n\nAnyone in the post office that sees the box is unable to open it.\n\nThe above is called symmetric encryption.\n\nThe problem with symmetric encryption is that you need to meet your partner in private to give him the copy of the key. \nBut what if you can't meet? If you send the copy of the key with the mail then someone at the post office could copy the key and use it next time when you send the box. He could then open the box and read what is inside and even change what is inside!! \n\nAssymetric encryption to the rescue.\n\nIt works like this.\n\nYou and your partner both buy a padlock each.\nYou keep the key to your padlock but you send the unlocked padlock to your partner.\nYour partner does the same for you.\n\nWhen you received your partners unlocked padlock you can do this.\n\nWrite a secret message for your partner.\nPut it in a box.\nLock the box with the padlock that you received from your partner.\n\nNow remember , only your partner has the key to that padlock. Nobody else can open the box now. Not even you!\n\nThis is assymetric encryption, and this is what you and Google use to talk to each other.\nThe wifi hacker that sees everything just sees unlocked padlocks and then a bunch of scrambled stuff. He can never unscramble the stuff because he doesn't have the keys to the padlocks. Only you and Google have those.\nSo what can the poor hacker do?!\n\nHe has to trick you into believing that HIS padlock is Google's padlock.\nWhen he does this your browser will complain and warn you saying that this is not Google. But if you say \"I don't care, I trust this is Google\" then he can see everything you do with Google. \nHe does this by pretending to be Google to you.\nHe is the man in the middle.\n\nAnother way he can do it is to trick you into thinking that Google doesn't use encryption. He pretends to be google and says that Google doesn't use encryption. Again your browser will warn and insist that Google Always uses encryption. But some other websites may be easier to trick you using this, because they are not configured to always insist on encryption.\n\nHow can the hacker pretend to be google? Simple, he is your access to the internet. All the traffic to and from the internet goes through him. So as soon as he sees that you want to access Google he doesn't send the real response from Google to you but I stead sends the fake pretend response."
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3eq8bi | why is dismantling social security supposed to be good for corporations? | Been seeing a lot of random posts about Koch-funded think-tanks trying to dismantle social security, and I'm just curious what the purpose of doing that even would be. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3eq8bi/eli5_why_is_dismantling_social_security_supposed/ | {
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"text": [
"The argument isn't that we should leave old or poor people out to starve. The argument is that we should replace public social security with a private system. This will benefit corporations in two ways:\n\n1. Social security accounts only earn 2% interest yearly. If we invest the money in a Fortune 500 company, we would earn 7-9% interest each year. It's much more profitable to invest privately, and corporations benefit from increased investment in their companies. As long as people are only allowed to invest in large mutual funds, the risk is only slightly higher than investing in government bonds (at least that's been true historically.)\n\n2. Social Security is unsustainable at the current rate. When it started, 17 workers funded 1 retiree. In about 20 years only 2 workers will fund each retiree. When the baby boomers retire, there won't be enough money to support them unless we decrease benefits, increase taxes, increase the retirement age, or borrow a lot of money to support them. Corporations will likely have to pay the lion's share of the increased taxes.\n\n3. If people invest in their own retirements, they own the accounts. There is no risk that you will spend 50 years working and then some politician will cut the benefits when it's your turn to finally collect social security checks. The increased security helps corporations by providing a more stable workforce. People will work hard until they want to retire, and there will be less risk of people needing to come back out of retirement.\n\n4. Social security is the largest government program in the world, and the single greatest government expenditure. Social Security alone represents a fifth of the entire US budget. A lot of corporations feel like it represents added bureaucracy in the government, and can be better managed privately.\n\nThere are cons of this argument too, but since you didn't ask about them, I'll leave them out. Don't let anyone fool you into thinking that canceling social security is about screwing over poor people. The goals of a private social security system and a public one are the same, there is just a disagreement over the best way to accomplish caring for the elderly."
]
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[]
] | |
71k4cv | what, exactly, is freud's position in modern psychology? | I know he's out-of-fashion and that a lot of the modern trends in neuroscience don't gibe well with his theories, but is he still actually in use at all? My sense is that, while psychoanalysis as a technique is mostly on the outs, his basic ideas--repression, id, ego, superego, sublimation, and so on--are still taught. I know they're taught in literature, but are they taught in actual psych classes? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/71k4cv/eli5what_exactly_is_freuds_position_in_modern/ | {
"a_id": [
"dnbaz0n",
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"text": [
"He's not out of fashion. His ideas have pretty much been discredited. \n\nHe's acknowledged as one of the fathers of the field, but in reality he wasn't actually a psychologist (obviously, since no such thing existed yet) and his approach was not the same as modern psychology, in a scientific sense. \n\nAnd psychology **is** a science. It might not be a hard science like physics, but it does rely heavily on the scientific method. \n\nFreud is still taught *about*, but so are many things that we know now are false. This **is** pointed out while studying. You need to know where we came from to understand where we are. ",
"Freud made contributions to the field which basically everybody accepts as both true and immensely important. \n\nHe popularized the idea that a great deal of human thought is unconscious, which almost nobody believed before him and everybody believes now.\n\nHe also was an early advocate for communication-heavy methods of therapy, where the clinician encourages the client to explore their life and memories, with the assumption being that the client can improve their mental state by exploring it. This idea has branched out, but most clinical psychologists buy into some form of it.\n\nBasically nobody uses the Superego, Ego, and Id in the same way Freud did, although they will still be casually used for illustrative purposed in some settings.\n\nFreud's issue is that his models for how the mind works were impossible to prove. The idea of the Oedipus Complex can be extremely useful when dealing with somebody who's too close to their mother, but good luck to anybody who wants to build an experiment around it.\n\nBecause of Freud's tendency to extrapolate really far from his observations, he ended up as *the* textbook example of pseudoscience and his reputation never recovered.\n\nHis methods have also been shown to have low success rates when compared to others.\n\nIn a way, Freud plays the same role to modern psychologists that Alchemy played to chemistry. Very few of his conclusions are taken seriously, but in making them he laid a foundation for a more sophisticated psychology to develop."
]
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[],
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62dyp0 | why does apple cider, unlike most fizzy drinks, always throth its way out of the bottle/can, no matter how carefully you move it? | It even happens if I open a can at the store very carefully without taking it off the shelf. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/62dyp0/eli5_why_does_apple_cider_unlike_most_fizzy/ | {
"a_id": [
"dflr365",
"dflt652"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"Different beverages have different ability to build and \"conserve\" foams. This has to do with proteins and other stuff. They build chains that stabilize CO2 bubbles in a way that they build foam. Much like tiny soap bubbles that are all interconnected. I think in Apples its the pectin that stabilizes the foam. ",
"Throth? you mean froth right?"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] | |
3rxqir | why does american bacon always seem to be "streaky bacon" whilst in the uk and other countries, back bacon is what people think of when the word "bacon" is mentioned? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3rxqir/eli5_why_does_american_bacon_always_seem_to_be/ | {
"a_id": [
"cws85cv",
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"text": [
"Back bacon is called Irish bacon or Canadian bacon in the US. They are both eaten and sold here in super markets but they are not the most popular. Neither get as crisp as belly bacon, and both have lower fat contents meaning they have less flavor. To many those two points make those other kinds of bacon inferior. \n\nAnd the etymology of the word bacon means that it is meat that comes from the back half of the pig, not the top half of the pig. The original terms would apply to the pork loin (where the back bacon cuts are from), the ham, the belly (where belly bacon is from) and several cuts from the legs and innards that would be considered scrap by modern butchers. ",
"Ordered bacon and eggs when visiting Ireland. Got ham and eggs. They call ham \"bacon\" over there. Otherwise a great place to tour. "
]
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[],
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6iie68 | when the electricity goes out for an extremely short amount of time (1-2 minutes). what causes this and how does it 'fix itself' so quickly. | Currently riding out the beginning of a tropical storm and the lights keep going in and out. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6iie68/eli5_when_the_electricity_goes_out_for_an/ | {
"a_id": [
"dj6hhp5"
],
"score": [
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],
"text": [
"A branch or something shorts the power line and trips a breaker. This smart breaker then tries to test the line to see if the short still remains by connecting power, but then detects the short remains and switches off."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | |
1h6l2u | can somebody explain the drone attacks to me? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1h6l2u/can_somebody_explain_the_drone_attacks_to_me/ | {
"a_id": [
"carbtdx",
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"Basically the same as an air-strike. A missile armed UAV which is REMOTELY CONTROLLED (important point most people miss) is deployed in the strike area and the operator finds the target and destroys it. Really, the only difference between an air-strike and a drone-strike is that the former has a guy in a plane while the latter has a guy at the base controlling the aircraft.",
"Obama's war campaign uses unmanned planes (controlled by a pilot sitting in Las Vages at Nellis AFB) to destroy targets. Oppose to sending in a team of men to go after a person they just destroy the building they are in, or if a squad is traveling a drone can fly above/ahead of them and take out people that are waiting to ambush them. the enemy absolutely hate it b/c they don't have a person to shoot at and they rarely see/hear the drone attack coming. Ex-military and can say it is very effective but expensive war strategy, but what is the price on American soldiers lives?",
"In the old days, if you wanted someone dead, you had to send soldiers or assassins to kill him up close and in person. Now, we have remote-control robots that can be operated from the other side of the planet, killing someone without ever being on the same continent as him.\n\nThe ethical issue involved is that by making killing so, so much easier, we turn it from a last resort into a first resort, and we end up with something called \"extrajudicial assassination\", which is a fancy way of saying that you can now more or less legally execute someone without bothering with a trial or a judge or a jury or even letting the guy state his case."
]
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[],
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37c354 | why did texas flood so badly? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/37c354/eli5_why_did_texas_flood_so_badly/ | {
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"crldsc3",
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"text": [
"We got a lot of rain. Houston gets about 50 inches of rain per year on average. Austin gets about 35 inches per year on average. Yesterday Houston got about 8 - 10 inches of rain in a lot of parts and Austin got about 4 - 5. That's like 1/7 of a year's worth of rain in one night. \n\nIt had also been raining for several days before this so the ground wasn't able to absorb as much water and drainage systems were already partially full.",
"Not sure about Texas, but I'm in Oklahoma and we got over a foot of rain in about 4 hours one day. That was a couple of weeks ago and we've had rain showers nearly every day since then, some of them just as heavy. The ground can't absorb anything close to that much water that fast, so the excess runs off and collects in lower lying areas. A foot of rain means that if every drop stayed where it landed, everything would be under a foot of water, which is already considered a flood. When all of that water is running off to a lower area, it is basically a river going across parts of ground that usually would not be a river and we get flood conditions."
]
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[],
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3h8koq | what makes kubrick's "a clockwork orange" great? | What is Kubricks achievement in 'a clockwork orange' ? Seeing as he didn't write the story. I didn't find anything outstanding compared to other movies, so why is it considered such a wonder? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3h8koq/eli5_what_makes_kubricks_a_clockwork_orange_great/ | {
"a_id": [
"cu574sy",
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"text": [
"Yarr, ye forgot yer searchin' duties, for ['twas asked by those what came before ye!](_URL_0_)",
"In all his films, Kubrick's great strength is his breathtaking visual style, the way he frames shots, the way he moves or doesn't move the camera, and his almost psychotic attention to detail. Not to mention his almost psychopathic disregard for how many takes he has to put his actors through to get the *exact* performance he wants. He leaned on Shelley Duvall so hard in The Shining her hair began to fall out.\n\nUnderstand that the director of a film is the person in overall artistic charge of it. And while that control might be more hypothetical for lesser directors (and *wholly* hypothetical for TV show directors), the same is NOT true for for notable auteurs like Kubrick. A set dresser doesn't just walk onto one of Kubrick's sets and put some random vase on a shelf in the background. Rather, first they have to bring a whole truckload of vases to Kubrick, and he picks out the one he likes (or says, \"these are all crap. Find me a better one\").\n\nAnd he exercised that level of control over every artist in the movie: the cinematographer, the editor, the actors, everyone. He hired the very best people he could get, and then made them do better.\n\nNot one square millimeter of image appears in any frame of a Kubrick film without him wanting it there. No color, no object, no motion. Yet curiously enough, he NEVER used original music in his films.\n"
]
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[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/search?restrict_sr=on&sort=relevance&t=all&q=clockwork%20orange"
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2jh727 | why does mist go down whereas steam goes up? is there a difference? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2jh727/eli5_why_does_mist_go_down_whereas_steam_goes_up/ | {
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"text": [
"Steam is hot, gaseous water. Mist is water vapor that is condensing. ",
"Steam is water that is actually a gas, and is less dense than air.\n\nMist is just really, really small droplets of water in the air... so it gets blown around easily, but is in the end affected by gravity.",
"Steam is heated water vapor while mist is cooled/cold water vapor.\n\nHot water vapor goes up while cold water vapor goes down. It has to do with the density; hot causes low density (lighter) and cold causes higher density (heavier) "
]
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[],
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25o1ph | how can 2015 cars be released in 2014. shouldn't they be considered a 2014? | Shouldn't cars released in 2014 be considered that year? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/25o1ph/eli5how_can_2015_cars_be_released_in_2014/ | {
"a_id": [
"chj1uik"
],
"score": [
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"text": [
"The fiscal year for car sales begins in the fall, so they release the new models then.\n\nIt's so they have as much time as they can to see how people react to the new cars."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | |
92j5bd | i know that caffeine blocks adenosine receptors without activating them but i didn't understand the language of why that stops us from feeling tired, how does that work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/92j5bd/eli5_i_know_that_caffeine_blocks_adenosine/ | {
"a_id": [
"e364bf6"
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"text": [
"When you're awake, that adenosine builds up and when the receptors sense enough of it, it slows down neurons and other things so yo8 get tired. However, when the caffeine blocks these receptors the brain doesnt know that its tired. Sort of like when your sprained ankle hurts and you take advil, it just blocks the pain receptors so they dont tell your brain you're in pain (even though whatever happened to your ankle is still affecting it like a bruise or fracture). "
]
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[]
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2jvn1a | (not racist) - why is it that there can be websites, scholarships, tv channels, etc. for black people only, but it's racist when it's for white people only? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2jvn1a/eli5_not_racist_why_is_it_that_there_can_be/ | {
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"text": [
"The black movements aren't ancient history. It's still in everyone's memory. There are still ghetto's due to Government persecution, [it's no \"chance\" that the amount of black people in prison vastly outweighs white](_URL_1_), this is due to many factors from government decisions made 40/50 years ago. [THIS is why these sorts of funds and charities exist.](_URL_0_)",
"Because websites, scholarships, TV channels, etc. etc. are already dominated by white people by default. \n\nThere are black-community-only things to give the black community a chance to participate, because of a tacit acknowledgement that if things were just left as-is, then socioeconomic and cultural factors that have developed over the centuries and decades would leave African-Americans wanting in representation anyway.",
"I don't think there is an easy straight forward answer to this question. Probably because of the shitty past... we want to make up for it and try to balance out opportunity. \n\n\nFrankly, as a white Male from Canada... I don't mind such opportunities for others. ",
"A long time ago workplaces, schools etc used to think not being racist meant treating everyone the same. Nowdays we know better and not being racist means understanding and accepting our differences.\n\nRegarding the dating sites - my friend was on a (non specific) dating site where you could choose the ethnicities you wanted to exclude! So yes, this site could very easily be used as a 'white only' dating site, provided you clicked the preferences. At first I was really shocked, but she explained that she once went on a date with someone from a different ethnic group to her and met his friends too - in that group she felt very socially excluded as their interests and pastimes were different to hers, and they were, at some points, talking in a language she was not fluent in. You get dating sites for people of all ethnicies, asian people, black people etc etc, but just because you use that sort of dating site doesn't make you racist, it just means you're looking for someone with a similar background and cultural understanding as you. I've seen adverts on the tube for _URL_0_ (shaadi = wedding) for asian couples who are specifically looking for a life partner for marriage! Seems a bit extreme/forward to someone who is not from that culture, right?\n\nSimilarly, when adopting through the Borough (government run) system in the UK you will often find that you are matched with a child of a similar ethnicity. Again, it's done in case that child needs a sense of cultural identity, or if the family can provide the best environment for that child. (Although this is not mandatory, it's perfectly acceptable to adopt a child from a different ethnic group to your own).\n\nRegarding Black History Month - Every month is white history month. I'm guessing you're in the US...tell me how many black people feature in your regular American History lessons? Probably the same as in the UK. Black history month should be abolished and every curriculum should include historical events of people of different ethnicities who have been significant in that country's history. Until there is fair representation of all historically significant people, regardless of ethnic group, Black history month will have to continue to ensure that our cultural heritage, including all different people, is preserved.\n\nBlack entertainment Television - Yeah, every other channel is white. How many black people do you see as lead characters in sitcoms? What about in films? How many black women have won an Oscar? What you tend to find is, in mainstream shows and films, the black character is often a side character, a comedy-buddy character, or a token black. The only exceptions are black family sitcoms e.g. fresh prince, cosby show etc. And you also find whitewashing - where a film is set in a certain place and/or era, and somehow all the actors playing the characters are white.\n\nEDIT:\n\nBlack scholarships - black and minority ethnic groups are very much under represented in higher education. This is because you more often find that white people are from more affluent and more highly educated families - if you parents never went to university you are far less likely to go to university. So scholarships aimed at black and minority ethnic groups and quite the opposite of racist - they're trying to get more minority ethnic groups into university to even out the differences between white and non-white groups."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistics_of_incarcerated_African-American_males#Prison_vs._College",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_in_the_United_States_criminal_justice_system"
],
[],
[],
[
"shaadi.com"
]
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fnptbs | how is it possible that we can tell exactly what direction did a sound come from? | We have two ears which means we could tell if something came from the right or left side, but we can do much more than that. We can tell the (almost) exact direction a sound came from. How is this possible? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fnptbs/eli5_how_is_it_possible_that_we_can_tell_exactly/ | {
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"text": [
"You don't *only* hear through those two little holes on the side of your head, you also head *through* your head\n\nSound passes through your sinuses and skull as well as traveling through air to make it to your ears, and when it makes it to your ears your pinnae (the outer part) modifies the sound as it enters your ear canal.\n\nBy measuring which frequencies are lost/delayed as a sound travels through your head versus through your ears your brain can determine if it came from in front of you or behind you.\n\nThe pinnae changes the arrival of sounds from different veritical sources which helps you figure out if the sound was down and left or up and to the left. If you get ear prosthetics it messes with your ability to localize sound for a while until your brain readapts.\n\nThese changes vary a bit person to person but you can use generalized versions of them to make it sound like something is ahead or behind a person when they're wearing stereo headphones. The function that helps do this is called the Head Related Transfer Function (HRTF) which you may have seen in some game settings.",
"The shape of your head, ears, and even your shoulders makes sounds from different directions sound slightly different. You know how human ears have all these weird folded bits on the outside? The sound bounds off all the folds and generates a slightly different interference pattern inside your actual ear, depending on the direction it came from. We can measure this effect, called a [head-related transfer function](_URL_0_), and then create virtual sound sources on a computer when you're wearing headphones.\n\nFurther reading: _URL_1_"
]
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[],
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head-related_transfer_function",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_localization"
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49uduo | without making a prior association, how do birds recognize food? | I approached a flock of seagulls, opened a package of crackers(the orange ones with peanut butter)and fed some birds. Before I even opened the package, they seemed to be cautious of my intent until I threw food.
How were the birds able to associate what I was throwing them was food? I didn't eat any crackers. The first cracker I threw was caught and swallowed by one seagull. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/49uduo/eli5_without_making_a_prior_association_how_do/ | {
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"Probably wasn't the first time someone fed those same seagulls. And a lot of animals are capable of teaching their young, so there's that too. ",
"Most birds in urban areas have broadened their normal diet to include human foods. \"New\" to the idea birds start by picking up around garbage cans, dumpsters, picnic pavilions, etc; most pretty quickly learn that if they perch nearby until people come out and throw things away (or leave if it's a picnic area) then more food appears.\n\nGulls, crows, geese, ducks, pigeons, etc (mostly birds with more complex social groups) can also learn that we (usually) are harmless and will sometimes even throw food to them. It is not so much that they recognize food as the action of throwing. Throwing will get their attention, they will check it out--if it is food, they'll take it, if not, they'll move on.\n\nOccasionally geese can get aggressive enough to 'tackle' small children, I've also seen them reach into purses and pockets on at least a few occasions."
]
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[],
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3mqpdw | why can't syrian refugees stay in turkey? isn't it safe? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3mqpdw/eli5_why_cant_syrian_refugees_stay_in_turkey_isnt/ | {
"a_id": [
"cvha1u8"
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"text": [
"Turkey hasn't been particularly welcoming to them. That, and there's a lot of them. They are sending out notices to refugees saying they'll have to [wait years before they can work legally in the country](_URL_0_) and their government isn't very friendly to them. \n\nThat, and many are Kurds, which Turkey just does not like, especially with Kobane and Rojava being as they are now. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umqvYhb3wf4"
]
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2vdgv7 | how do reddit's many bots scour every post on the site to near instantly respond to any frowny face or 'thanks obama'? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2vdgv7/eli5_how_do_reddits_many_bots_scour_every_post_on/ | {
"a_id": [
"cogrluc"
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"text": [
"The bots themselves don't actually scour anything. Reddit has a special API (stands for \"Application Programming Interface\", which roughly translates to \"way to ask for things\") that bots use to interact with it.\n\nAll the bot actually has to do is ask Reddit which posts contain its chosen word or phrase. When it does, Reddit performs the actual search (much easier for Reddit to do it, since Reddit already has all the comments saved away) and gives the bot a list of the posts that match its search. The bot then sends a bunch of requests for Reddit to put in replies to all of those comments.\n\nEdit: Also, the actual search only works on *posts*, not comments. For comments, it literally does just read them to see if it's favorite phrase turns up."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
1g1kl0 | multireddits | I'm apparently too stupid to grasp the concept. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1g1kl0/eli5_multireddits/ | {
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"text": [
"You know how the front page shows the top posts of your subscribed subreddits? Well, a set of random ones over a threshold. Multireddits are like that. Customized mini front pages around a certain theme. \r\rLets say r/adviceanimals didn't exist and each meme had a dedicated subreddit. There is /r/philosoraptor, /r/boatcat, /r/adviceduck, etc. Instead of subscring to them all individually you could subscribe to a multireddit that recreated /r/adviceanimals."
]
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[]
] | |
17xl3n | how come the people who regularly upload tv shows to torrents don't get caught? | Also I know Japan has introduced strict anti-piracy laws. How come people who upload Anime haven't been caught? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/17xl3n/how_come_the_people_who_regularly_upload_tv_shows/ | {
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"text": [
"The daily TV show torrents that you see are usually uploaded by an upload group. The group consists of a large amount of people with a lot of collective seeding speed. My theory is that different people are responsible for getting different shows, that are then distributed across several initial seeders, making tracking of any single one of them more difficult. \n\n\nIn other words, why do the job alone, when you can do it together. ",
"Heavy seeders like the ones you're referring to don't typically need to rely on proxies, Tor, or even private tracking to remain \"uncaught\". Most of them are not in the same country in which the copyrighted material is based, and with that alone, there is very little to worry about.\n\nI seed quite a bit myself right from here in the US, and the only precaution I take is seeding only to private trackers. This means that, while there is still an associated risk, the likelihood that I'm seeding to an undercover copyright holder or FBI agent (this is me rolling my eyes at that one) is very slim.\n\nBesides, most ISPs will sent letter after letter, and maybe throttle your connection. That's about it. It isn't like someone at Charter is sitting there looking for seeders and sending the masked men in their gray van to your door. Copyright holders have to issue a warning to the ISP to be forwarded to you, and this has to happen multiple times before any real action can be taken.",
"Seedboxes are pretty common. Basically, renting out a server with an anonymous proxy. \n\nAs far as anime, it's been kind of overlooked and even encouraged by the creators. The reason being that it exposes the work to westerners and gains more traction without any cost to them. The fansub community in turn has been particularly good to work with. For instance, Dattebayo was basically the de facto fansubber for Naruto. Heck, DB was even contacted directly by the company on several occasions. When it started being licensed and subbed in English, DB stopped torrenting it even though they were never even approached by the rights holders. ",
"In addition to the other answers, uploaders and heavy seeders often use a seedbox. A seedbox is like a server from which you can rent space and can do the seeding for you.\n\nedit: seedbox =/= dropbox\n\nedit 2: beaten to it :(",
"Because they are essentially very well protected. they use a seedbox (Basically a server that can upload with GB/ps) and then uploading the Torrent to TPB which cares a lot about the privacy of its users. Even if anyone would come close to them it is as simple as changing Hosting Services and Scene Release name.\n\nRemember, this is done by a group of people and not just one person. Someone has to crack the DRM, someone has to go to the theater, someone has to buy/rent or have easy access to newly released movies, someone has to record the shows on TV, someone has to edit the commercials out and someone might have to make a website.",
"If you want to fight piracy, one strategy is to go after the initial uploaders/seeders. This has various problems.\n\n* They are more paranoid about hiding their identity.\n* It's not technically that difficult to capture TV shows, so the uploader is easily replaced if you do catch them. Like whack-a-mole.\n* They may not even be in the US, for instance many TV shows are captured from Canada broadcasts.\n* They might be minors.\n\nIt's a lot of effort for not much gain. It's much more effective to go after the downloaders. Easier to catch, and while you aren't going to catch many, you just have to scare them as a group."
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217pyz | why does it feel like playing rock music would be easier than classical music? | Allow me to explain, take [this](_URL_0_), a rock ballad by Scorpions for example. The symphony orchestra at the back seem so serious, concentrating, and really putting in a lot of effort. But the lead guitarists and singers of the Scorpion band are playing like its the easiest thing.
I feel like I am missing out some important reasons to appreciate their music more. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/217pyz/eli5_why_does_it_feel_like_playing_rock_music/ | {
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"Rock music is usually simpler in style compared to classical music. Where classical music is composed of hard technique and advanced theory, rock music usually consists of a few simple chords that sound cool and catchy repeated over and over again.\n\nIn this video however, since both the rock band and orchestra play the same music, I would assume that the orchestra just plays more classical music than the guitarist and singers thus naturally causing them to have a more serious, professional tone. Great song btw :)"
]
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"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CNpFt9h2Yk"
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[]
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4ki9aw | why do smokers get special treatment at work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4ki9aw/eli5_why_do_smokers_get_special_treatment_at_work/ | {
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"I'm sure you can take the same breaks if you so desired. Just don't stand around and do absolutely nothing on your break. Very doubtful if you decided to go for a 5-10 min walk at the same time anyone would object. ",
"Where I've worked in the US, smokers are only supposed to smoke on their breaks. Indeed, in my last couple of jobs, they were supposed to clock out any time they went out to smoke, as they weren't allowed to smoke anywhere on the property and they were supposed to clock out before they left the property. As you've noticed, this doesn't happen and they never seem to get into any trouble. At my last job, I picked a frequent smoker and started taking a break after every one of his breaks. Just went outside and stood around and enjoyed the fresh air for a few minutes. Exactly the same number of breaks, for exactly as long as he was gone each time. When the boss told me I was taking too many breaks, I pulled out my notepad and showed him I was taking exactly as many breaks as the smoker. He never said anything after that. Of course, I was also leaving that job soon and wouldn't have cared if I did get in trouble, so I don't suggest you do that.",
"Employers are definitely not legally obligated to give you smoke breaks, but in the US, productivity at work is almost alarmingly capped because of the \"face time\" mentality anyway. My workplace has people sitting on their computers surfing the Internet for literally the entire day and any marginal effort at their real job is enough to not get fired. My boss shows up at 6 am and drinks coffee and makes social rounds for a solid 2 hours, while I show up at 7 and start work right away, and he still leaves super early citing how early he got to work. Employers are so out of touch with how people actually spend their time at work, unless you have a manual job that requires daily output.\n\nWe do however get lower insurance premiums for non smokers (although the smokers just lie about it when filling out benefits forms).\n\nI think obesity is much bigger issue today than smoking.",
"This is a good question. I smoked for about ten years. At one of my jobs there were many smokers and we went out smoking several times a say. Sometimes even for two or three cigarettes and up to 15 minutes. But truth is, that we talked about work most of the time and although we weren't on our desks, these breaks were kind of short meetings. Sometimes short time away from your desk gives you a new perspective on your current problem and explaining what you are currently doing has been giving problem solving ideas for years.\nSometimes we weren't talking about work out course, but then these breaks help clearing your mind a bit and focusing after the break.\nIn my opinion if you're working on a job where you don't just have to do what you're told to do, but also have to think for yourself and make some decisions, some 5-10 min breaks every 2 hours help increase your productivity.\n\nThe last point and one of the unfairest advantages of smoking breaks is networking. You would never imagine how good smokers in big companies are connected sometimes. Standing down there with Mary from HR, talking to Dave the head of accounting... This gives you advantages that any non-smoker will never have. And I think that's a thing worse than colleagues having some 20-50 min breaks over the day...\n\nAs a resumee I don't think it's the right way to fight against smokers getting their breaks, but one should rather fight for getting these breaks too, even if you're not smoking. (Ps.: I say so, and I have not smoked at work for a year and also stopped doing so in private for some months)",
"In part, because office workers used to be able to smoke in the workplace. Once clean air laws started being passed it forced the smokers outside so it's just kind of the way things have been due to a sort of evolution on where/when workers smoked. We're still in an adjustment period where the social norm is changing. The trend is towards restricting these breaks but we're not there 100% yet. ",
"Everywhere I've worked in the UK has only allowed employees to smoke on their break, the same breaks that everybody gets.",
"The real reason is because it's a compromise from the 90s / early 2000s. Back then a lot more people smoked and you could smoke indoors almost everywhere, so there was no need to go outside for a smoke break, you could just smoke at your desk/cubicle/whatever. When smoking indoors was banned in the late 90s/early 2000s, you still had a lot more smokers than you do now, so a lot of employers compromised and let smokers go outside for 5 minutes every few hours for a cigarette. Currently the population of smokers is in a pretty significant decline and society's view of smokers has changed. With less smokers and more people looking at smoking with a negative view, there are more and more employers doing away with the free 5 min smoke break and allowing smoking only on breaks or making employees clock out for their 5 min smoke break. ",
"I work at a call center where the phone agents are allotted 2 10-minute breaks (paid) and a lunch break(unpaid); these are typically spread out so that the phone employees get a break every two hours. (Edit: I forgot to mention any breaks outside of these are discouraged and can result in some kind of formal write-up if deemed to be \"in excess.\" So a smoker who needs to step out every hour rather than every 2 hours would receive a warning, followed by a written, and then a final; just as anyone would for any number of other reasons.)\n\nI've worked retail also and the smokers who stepped out to smoke usually became more productive when they got back, so mgmt didn't mind so much. But lazy employees who also happen to smoke were monitored and eventually let go either for performance or too many write-ups for something else.\n\nI have also seen employers turn a cheek to marijuana and cocaine users for the same reason: as long as they're top performers, they don't see an issue.",
"Previous smoker here. I was allowed to take smoke breaks because I did my job, I did it well, and I did it quick. My boss saw no problem with it because I would do a plethora of work before going on a break, and usually I'd get approval then go. After a while I didn't need approval because he knew I did my job. As long as you do your job, you can receive perks. Also, I've always communicated with my bosses and would work with them rather than against them like other employees.",
"If people are taking smoke breaks, you take a smoke break. Doesn't mean you have to smoke, but fair is fair.\n\n",
"I used to smoke. Quit for almost two years now. \n\nNicotine addiction literally changes your attitude in ways you cannot imagine as a non smoker. You need to force yourself to imagine subconsciously thinking about a smoke every time you think about literally anything, and getting jitters and irritating thoughts every minute you don't do it. It doesn't sound productive does it? \n\nIt is a simpler solution, and a more immediate one to just let them have a few smoke breaks alongside productive work, rather than very shoddy and detached work all day long because they're fiending for a cig. ",
"Where I work:\n\nSmokers are allowed a 10 minute break every 2 hours for a smoke in one of the dedicated smokezones. \n\nNon-smokers are allowed a 10 minute break every 2 hours for a breath a fresh air wherever they want.\n\nThat isn't counted towards the legally mandated breaks, and production may not suffer due to smokebreaks (as they are *not* legally mandated).\n\n\nFair is fair, everyone gets the same \"time off\"."
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89tfr3 | what makes an object silver as opposed to white? | If "silver" objects (like mirrors, silverware, etc.) are actually just highly reflective, why are they distinct from white objects, which reflect all wavelengths of visible light? Does it have something to do with how much the material scatters the light? If so, why do some rough surfaces still look silver? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/89tfr3/eli5_what_makes_an_object_silver_as_opposed_to/ | {
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" > Does it have something to do with how much the material scatters the light?\n\nYes: There are two phenomenons at play here:\n\n * Very smooth surfaces will reflect light coherently producing sharp reflections while rough surfaces will reflect light in somewhat random directions producing blurry reflections.\n\n * Dielectric materials (ie: non metals) will absorb part of the light before re-emitting it in a random direction. This light is remitted uniformly in all directions and in all colors so it produce no reflection and appear uniform. This is called diffusion. (chalk is a good example of a mostly diffuse material)\n\n > why do some rough surfaces still look silver?\n\nMetals are not diffuse, they only reflect incoming light (creating more or less blurred reflections, depending on roughness), that's what give them their silvery look\n\n[Here is an illustration from a computer graphics book](_URL_0_)\n\n",
"The difference is smoothness. \n\nWhite objects reflect light in every direction. Two rays of light coming at the same angle can be reflected in two completely different directions, because the surface of the object is not smooth. \n\nReflective objects are very smooth, so they reflect light at very specific angles - see [Specular Reflection](_URL_0_). "
]
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1lvwef | how are humans good for the ecosystem? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1lvwef/how_are_humans_good_for_the_ecosystem/ | {
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"We are not. Not even a little bit. Humans are possibly one of the most destructive and environmentally harmful forces Earth has ever seen. "
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da1ra5 | how are the bars for wifi and mobile data calculated, what do they mean, and why is it possible to have low bars and still have high speeds? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/da1ra5/eli5_how_are_the_bars_for_wifi_and_mobile_data/ | {
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"The bars are based on signal strength not speed. So if you're really close to an access point, but the access point is only connected for say 20mb/s, that's what you'll get. But if you're far away from a 250mb/s access point you may get more packet loss, but you'll still end up getting somewhere say around 200mb/s."
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awv3vw | what improves/changes between versions of ethernet wires? (i.e. cat6, cat5e) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/awv3vw/eli5_what_improveschanges_between_versions_of/ | {
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"These standards are based on various characteristics. Such as impedance tolerances, resistance and cross talk between pairs. The higher the category the stricter the specification. So a damaged category 6 cable might only test as a category 5e cable. The way you get these better cables is both stricter manufacturing tolerances so the cables are uniform and also by adding insulation and shielding in the cables to minimize cross talk. So if you open a category 6 or 7 cable you will find a lot more shielding wires and foil between the pairs of wires then in category 5e cables and in category 3 cables there is almost none."
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1qtqe6 | why sony/microsoft don't delay the launch of ps4/xbox one until they have built up their supply to meet demand? | I've always wondered why it's so difficult to get one of these game systems at their launch. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1qtqe6/eli5_why_sonymicrosoft_dont_delay_the_launch_of/ | {
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"Actually, it is the economic principal of price discrimination. \nSimply put, they want to sell at the highest prices that people are willing to buy at. If they rolled out the console at a palatable (and popular) $300, they could sell to pretty much everyone that really wanted one. However, what of those people that are willing to pay $400, $500 or even $600? Simple. They roll out a few at $600, and then those that are willing to pay $600 buy them. This means that they make an extra $300 on each console per person. Then they drop them to $500, and those people that want them at $500 buy them, for an additional $200. Then $400, making an extra $100. Finally, they sell for $300, but by the time that they get to $300, everyone that ever wanted to buy one at a higher price has already done so, and thus Sony/Microsoft have made extra money on all those that they have sold to already. ",
"Inventory costs, and revenue for partners.\n\n2 million consoles would be worth almost a billion dollars in inventory just sitting around. You'd need to pay interest on the borrowed money + warehousing.\n\nThen there's the 3rd party guys (EA, activision, all of the game companies not directly owned by MS or Sony). They just spent X number of years and millions of dollars making a game. If they don't get revenue they could have to lay people off or go out of business. What do you do with 200 staff and no money? Right. Launch titles have the advantage of selling a lot of copies even if they're kind of bad because people want to buy something. \n\nYou also want to hit launch windows (notably for christmas). \n\nThe more inventory you have the more expensive a problem is. Take the HDMI port thing on the PS4 - the fix on Sony's end is probably 'glue it together better', the fix once it has gone to consumers is shipping it back and forth, opening the package trying to solder it, you're looking at 100 dollars to fix a 5 cent problem. The sooner it is out there and in the hands of consumers the better. \n\n\n > I've always wondered why it's so difficult to get one of these game systems at their launch.\n\nPrevious generation consoles have required a lot of custom parts, the processors in the PS3 and XB2 for example were custom designs that could only be made a couple of places. The companies that physically make those chips were much smaller outfits. You're limited by the slowest component to make, (it doesn't do you any good to make 10x as many network controllers as CPU's). The PS4 and XB3 both seem to have all of their serious parts being fabbed by GlobalFoundries and TSMC, those are 2 of the 3 big dogs in semiconductor fabrication (the 3rd being Intel, though Samsung is catching up). These new consoles I suspect will have much better supply than the previous generation, not perfect by any means but better. \n\nSo they certainly could buy up huge inventories and sit on them (potentially for quite a long time). But that would be very expensive, and could put critical partners out of business, and that would be bad, particularly for Sony who aren't exactly swimming in money the way Microsoft is. "
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4v0g8h | what is the "wall of sound" music production technique and what does it do? | I looked it up on wikipedia but could not understand it and need simpler clarification
| explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4v0g8h/eli5_what_is_the_wall_of_sound_music_production/ | {
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"Think of lots of instruments playing little parts rather than few instruments playing big parts"
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5lljzg | why do sitting close to tv messes with your eyes but putting on vr glasses doesn't. or does it? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5lljzg/eli5_why_do_sitting_close_to_tv_messes_with_your/ | {
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"The eye damage that supposedly comes from sitting too close, is usually strain from trying to get your eyes to focus on something that large and that close. forcing yourself to go extremely crosseyed puts a lot of strain on you eyes, but the object can be anything, or even nothing. VR goggles have two lenses offset from each other. Since the eyes aren't trying to focus on the same thing so near to them, no strain occurs. There could be different eye strain just by having the screen lights in you face for long periods of time, but this is the same as a bright screen blinding you at night."
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2kb7t2 | would spray paints cans work in space? why or why not? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2kb7t2/eli5_would_spray_paints_cans_work_in_space_why_or/ | {
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"Yes, assuming they didn't explode before use. In fact the propellant would be redundant spraying into vacuum.",
"Yes.\n\nSpray pain cans run about 70psi. Air pressure at sea level is about 15psi. So, can in space would experience 70+15=85psi. They can withstand over 200 psi, so they would not explode in outer space.\n\n"
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evmcy7 | how do sea monkeys work and how is it possible to create “life” like that from a few chemicals? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/evmcy7/eli5_how_do_sea_monkeys_work_and_how_is_it/ | {
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"Sea monkeys are a type of shrimp that stops measurable metabolic processes when environmental conditions become unlivable. When the environment returns to being livable, the metabolic processes restarts. This is not unique to sea monkeys, but can also be done by tardigrades (water bears), nematodes (roundworms), and rotifers (wheel animals).\n\nSo you aren't \"creating\" life any more than pressing the \"On\" switch on your TV remote is \"creating pictures\" in the TV.",
"Sea monkeys are just brine shrimp. You're not creating life from a few chemicals. You're just adding a package of brine shrimp eggs and some nutrients into water. Once in the water, the eggs will develop and hatch."
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mndh2 | the idea of a parallel universe. | I read the scientific American sometimes and I had trouble understanding this.
_URL_0_ | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/mndh2/eli5_the_idea_of_a_parallel_universe/ | {
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"According to the way it's described in this article:\n\nThe universe we live in can be thought of as all of the possible places you can be ever, at any time in history or in the future. The universe is very large, of course, with many billions of Galaxies and billions upon billions of stars.\n\nThe universe was born in an \"explosion\" called the Big Bang. It's a bit confusing, because it's hard to imagine something exploding when there is nothing to explode into... This explosion was the birth of space itself, and after the beginning, space began to expand. \n\nThink of space as a large piece of spandex. You start with a very small piece, but hire some olympic weigh lifters to grab all the ends and start pulling it in opposite directions. As the spandex stretches, the amount of space increases, and the distance between any two spots on the surface gets bigger and bigger.\n\nAccording to the article, during the time of early, rapid expansion, there were separate pockets of the universe that cooled or congealed into matter and then stars and stuff. All the while, the universe was expanding pushing these pockets farther away from each other. Today, the expansion of the universe has pushed these \"parallel universes\" so far away that even if we tried to travel to them, they are moving away from us faster than the speed of light.",
"According to the way it's described in this article:\n\nThe universe we live in can be thought of as all of the possible places you can be ever, at any time in history or in the future. The universe is very large, of course, with many billions of Galaxies and billions upon billions of stars.\n\nThe universe was born in an \"explosion\" called the Big Bang. It's a bit confusing, because it's hard to imagine something exploding when there is nothing to explode into... This explosion was the birth of space itself, and after the beginning, space began to expand. \n\nThink of space as a large piece of spandex. You start with a very small piece, but hire some olympic weigh lifters to grab all the ends and start pulling it in opposite directions. As the spandex stretches, the amount of space increases, and the distance between any two spots on the surface gets bigger and bigger.\n\nAccording to the article, during the time of early, rapid expansion, there were separate pockets of the universe that cooled or congealed into matter and then stars and stuff. All the while, the universe was expanding pushing these pockets farther away from each other. Today, the expansion of the universe has pushed these \"parallel universes\" so far away that even if we tried to travel to them, they are moving away from us faster than the speed of light."
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3h0fgq | what effect with the reopening of the us embassy in cuba have? | Will Americans be able to visit, or buy Cuban-made goods? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3h0fgq/eli5_what_effect_with_the_reopening_of_the_us/ | {
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"An explosion in the Cuban economy. In less than a decade I could see Cuba turning into the next Cancun or Puerto Vallarta, with the sheer amount of cheap investment that is going to occur."
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1xzrc9 | with all the crazy weather we're having in britain, why are these sinkholes beginning to appear? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1xzrc9/with_all_the_crazy_weather_were_having_in_britain/ | {
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"well, the roads are built on the ground. lots of water means the groundwater level is bouncing around a lot, so lots of movement in the ground. potholes are caused by the foundation under that bit of road becoming weakened, and this type of weather speeds that up."
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n273z | what are the most likely reasons why life on earth could cease to exist? and when could it happen? (human and natural causes) | I was smoking some weed while watching the stars and thought to myself "stars explode when they get old" and "the sun is a star" and then I thought the sun might explode soon so i googled it, and apparently that's not anytime soon, but i started to wonder what could really end our existence... | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/n273z/what_are_the_most_likely_reasons_why_life_on/ | {
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"[This'd do it](_URL_0_)",
"Slootpocalypyse 2012, the Mayans have known about it for ages.\n\n(But maybe /r/AskReddit is better than ELI5 for this)",
"Meteor\n\ncomet \n\nrouge black hole\n\ngrey goo (self replicating nano machines that don't stop replicating)\n\nsingularity\n\naccidental creation of stranglets or a black hole\n\nalien attack\n\nnuclear war\n\nrouge GM foods\n\nsuper viruses\n\nThese are all things that could kill us all in the next century or sooner. ",
"Watch the documentary Countdown to zero, it shows that nuclear war is still a huge risk every day and that War by design, by accident or terrorism would result in cutting the worlds population significantly.",
"_URL_0_ \n \n \nBoom you will love this site. It's pretty old school layout wise, but it has tons of different end of the world scenarios. There's the religious ones, ones that can happen today, ones that can happen soon, and ones that can happen in the distant future.",
"You might find [this](_URL_0_) interesting, as it details the largest extinction event in the fossil record. Not sure it's ELI5 simple though.",
"[This'd do it](_URL_0_)",
"Slootpocalypyse 2012, the Mayans have known about it for ages.\n\n(But maybe /r/AskReddit is better than ELI5 for this)",
"Meteor\n\ncomet \n\nrouge black hole\n\ngrey goo (self replicating nano machines that don't stop replicating)\n\nsingularity\n\naccidental creation of stranglets or a black hole\n\nalien attack\n\nnuclear war\n\nrouge GM foods\n\nsuper viruses\n\nThese are all things that could kill us all in the next century or sooner. ",
"Watch the documentary Countdown to zero, it shows that nuclear war is still a huge risk every day and that War by design, by accident or terrorism would result in cutting the worlds population significantly.",
"_URL_0_ \n \n \nBoom you will love this site. It's pretty old school layout wise, but it has tons of different end of the world scenarios. There's the religious ones, ones that can happen today, ones that can happen soon, and ones that can happen in the distant future.",
"You might find [this](_URL_0_) interesting, as it details the largest extinction event in the fossil record. Not sure it's ELI5 simple though."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaW4Ol3_M1o"
],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.exitmundi.nl/"
],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permian-Triassic_extinction_event#Causes_of_the_extinction_event"
],
[
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaW4Ol3_M1o"
],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://w... | |
31hnbm | how did we get from jesus dying on the cross to a giant rabbit hiding colored eggs for easter? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/31hnbm/eli5_how_did_we_get_from_jesus_dying_on_the_cross/ | {
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"text": [
"Most of the traditions adopted in the Catholic church were done so to try and persuade other cultures to join the church. Easter eggs come from Eastern Europeans who would paint their eggs and honestly, are obsessed with [eggs](_URL_0_). The whole tradition was invented as part of a cultural way to include and assimilate various eastern europeans into the church.",
"Actually, it went from rabbits and eggs to Jesus, not the other way around.\n\nMany pre-Christian religions had spring festivals celebrating rebirth and fertility, symbolized by eggs and rabbits. The word Easter itself comes from such a festival. \n\nWhen Europe was Christianized, rather than banning the old religious festivals, it was often easier to co-opt them and give them a Christian meaning. That's part of the reason Easter occurs after the first full moon after the equinox, rather than on a fixed day. ",
"The secular trappings of Easter are not part of the Religious celebration. They are relics of the Pagan Spring holidays and are ancient fertility/birth symbols, and rebirth symbols for the Christians after they converted. ",
"[This post over in r/badhistory is rather too detailed for ELI5, but it's an excellent post and I think you'd learn a lot from reading it.](_URL_0_) So would many of the people answering here.",
"The Hare Club for Men would like a word with you."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQ9Jsl1uVIypVOyDOUBvAIZseeEv0QrsPOHFxfa8qixbO0dCp1oBsCiiSc"
],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/31h6mp/the_guardian_does_its_level_best_with_the_easter/"
],
[]
] | ||
69o4sx | what's the science behind white noise? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/69o4sx/eli5_whats_the_science_behind_white_noise/ | {
"a_id": [
"dh823zh",
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"text": [
"White noise is just a sound (or signal) that has an equal intensity of all frequencies.\n\nBecause the brain tends to ignore things that don't change (the feeling of a wool sweater once you're used to it, the friction of your skin on on object, a sound, staring at one thing for too long, etc...) white noise can become soothing.\n\nHow? If silence is the absence of frequencies, then white noise is easily \"converted\" to silence in your brain since it doesn't change and includes an equal spread of frequencies. So you get noise without the noise.\n\nThis un-noise blocks out actual noise (crickets, someone snoring in the next room, creaking house, tinnitus) without being annoying itself.",
"Very nice explanation by Anticode. \n\nTo complete :\n_URL_0_\n\nI recommend also this website if you need very effective white sound (it's really part of my life now 24/24) :\n_URL_1_"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_masking",
"https://mynoise.net"
]
] | ||
3nchhk | how could the united states create a legitimate system that aids in decreasing the number of gun related deaths? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3nchhk/eli5_how_could_the_united_states_create_a/ | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"Quit talking about the gunman; stop showing his picture, spreading his name all over the media, and running his life story for weeks, months and years after he goes on his shooting spree. When the \"glory\" of suddenly being in the spotlight is removed, most of the troubled lonely school shooters will look for other ways to get attention. ",
"The problem is that there is little concensus (inside the US) on solutions to this problem.\n\nGun control is so widely resisted and has been so often roadblocked that it is unlikely to ever happen. People are now seeking other solutions to the issue, blaming things like mental health or the media. \n\nAll other Western countries have similar mental health and media circumstances to the US. The only practical difference between these countries (with much, much lower gun crime, and *especially* mass killing, rates) and the US, is the differing availability of guns.\n\nIMO, The short answer is clearly \"there is no implementable solution to US gun crime\"."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] | ||
1eq6t3 | why don't computers with faster processors run games at ridiculous speeds, or at least faster than other computers? | Basically, if you're taking a game that runs relatively well on a budget computer, why doesn't it run sped up on a supercomputer with a ridiculously fast processor?
EDIT: Obviously, programs compensate somehow. But how? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1eq6t3/eli5_why_dont_computers_with_faster_processors/ | {
"a_id": [
"ca2nodp",
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"text": [
"The game's software is designed to compensate for variances in processor speed.\n\nHowever, you actually do see this effect in some games that were designed for older CPUs.",
"It may be that the program limits its speed with reference to the computer's clock. So when you press Space to jump, even though all the calculations for the jump are completed in a nanosecond, the game still limits the display of the jump to a set speed based on the computer clock.",
"Most games execute a loop in which they read inputs, calculate the new positions of objects on the screen, check for collisions and then draw something on the screen.\n\n\nThe game keeps track of how much time has passed since the last time the loop was executed by reading the system clock, so if you're playing a racing simulation, the game knows the car is supposed to be travelling at say 100 feet per second, and it knows it has been 10 milliseconds since the loop was last executed, so it's going to draw the car 1 foot further down the track.\n\n\nIf you run the same game on a computer that's a lot slower, the same loop may take 40 milliseconds to execute, and the game would draw the car 4 feet further down the track.\n\n\nOn the slow computer you get 25 position updates or frames per second. On the fast computer you get 100 frames per second, so it looks smoother because the position of the car changes in smaller steps, but the car appears to be travelling at the same speed.\n\n\nIf the game's main loop takes less than one millisecond to execute (which can be the case if you run really old games on fast computers), this approach may not work, because the system clock doesn't provide the necessary resolution. If 0.6 ms gets rounded to 1 ms, the game will be running too fast. If 0.4 ms gets rounded to 0 ms, the game may even crash. To calculate how much an object has moved since the last time it was updated, you'd use (object_speed / time_since_last_update), and if time_since_last_update is zero, the game will crash because you can't divide by zero."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] | |
1e6uan | why specific cultures like vietnam only appear to have about 3 different last names? (ngo, tran, nguyen) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1e6uan/eli5_why_specific_cultures_like_vietnam_only/ | {
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"text": [
"It has to do with dynasty's of feudal lords and people changing their name to honour their lords in ancient asia. \n\nFor eg. many Vietnamese changed their name, or were rewarded the honourous name \"Nyguen\" during the Nguyen dynasty's rule, so a man who had his name changed, would marry a woman, who's name would now be Nguyen, who'd have many children, all of them all being Nguyen as well, and so on until now, many Asian person's surname is either Nguyen, or Lee. ",
"There are lots of different reasons, but the primary reason is \"surname extinction\". After about 50 generations, you will lose 80% of the family names. It's math!\n\nIn the western world, people haven't used family names for quite as long as the eastern world. That's why in Korea you have \"Kim, Lee, and Park\" covering 80% of the population.\n\n_URL_0_",
"In a related question, how do you pronounce Nguyen and Ngo? This is the first time I've seen Ngo, but I've been confused about Nguyen for a long time."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galton%E2%80%93Watson_process"
],
[]
] | ||
15mx5c | the movie "lincoln" to a non-american | Why was voting to abolish slavery going to end the war? Did the non-Lincoln side of the war get to vote on the slavery issue or were they technically not American? Did only some of the pro-slavery states join the pro-slavery side of the war? Did some states never have slaves even though slavery was legal, or was slavery always illegal in some states? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/15mx5c/eli5_the_movie_lincoln_to_a_nonamerican/ | {
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"text": [
"See they made a historical movie about the 16th president. ",
"Voting to abolish slavery wasn't going to end the war. The worry was that some European powers with more trade with the South would support them in the war. By abolishing slavery (although this only applied to slaves in currently rebelling areas), the war became in part *about* slavery; this would make support for the South look like it was in favor of slavery.\n\nThe other side of the war had declared independence from the USA; they didn't send any representatives to the government, so they didn't get to vote.\n\nThere were a few slaveholding states that stayed with the USA, yes.\n\nStates where slavery was legal always had some slaves, just through people migrating or whatever. At the time of the American Civil War, some states had banned slavery for a long time.",
" > Why was voting to abolish slavery going to end the war?\n\nAbolishing slavery meant there was no going back. It made impossible a negotiated peace where the South would rejoin the union with slavery impossible, which was some in the South desired. It meant the South couldn't just run out the clock, they had to win the war to keep slavery.\n\n > Did the non-Lincoln side of the war get to vote on the slavery issue or were they technically not American?\n\nThere were in rebellion, so their seats were declared vacant or in some cases held by pro-union congressmen.\n\n > Did only some of the pro-slavery states join the pro-slavery side of the war?\n\nYes. Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri and part of Virginia remained with the Union despite still having legal slavery. The Union part of Virginia split off into West Virginia, while Kentucky and Missouri had both Union and Confederate governments during the war.\n\nMaryland, Missouri and West Virginia all abolished slavery during the war. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation on pertained to states in rebellion, so there were still legal slaves in Delaware and Kentucky after the war.\n\n > Did some states never have slaves even though slavery was legal, or was slavery always illegal in some states?\n\nSlavery was initially legal in all the original US states, but many northern states began abolishing it shortly after gaining independence. As new states were added in the 1800s, they were designated slave or free upon admittance, often amidst great controversy. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] | |
2onze4 | in pictures of space and galaxies, how is it that we see color? | What type of light is it we see? And why? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2onze4/eli5_in_pictures_of_space_and_galaxies_how_is_it/ | {
"a_id": [
"cmow7dc"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
"A lot of the time, what we're seeing isn't in our visual spectrum. We identify far off objects through all of their electromagnetic spectrum, so infrared, x-rays, etc.\n\nBut for us to see it visually, we'll color X-rays a certain color, infrared another, and it lets us see it in our way."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
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