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za5a9 | plot summary of all the halo games(just the ones with master chief) | Who are the forerunners? Where did the flood come from? What are the most significant events in each game so far? Where is master chief at the start of halo 4? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/za5a9/eli5_plot_summary_of_all_the_halo_gamesjust_the/ | {
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"Ok, this will be long. I cant explain the halo series without going into the games that dont have him in it. Back a long time ago, there was a species called the forerunners. They were fighting a race called the precursors. The precursors, seeing themselves in the forerunners, stopped fighting them. The forerunners eliminated all of them. Soon, they conquer the entire galaxy. Their religion, the Mantle. said that they were the defenders of the universe. One day, they were attacked. It turns out the attackees were humans. The forerunners, thinking that the humans were attacking out of agression, attacked back. The humans and forerunners were on the same technology tier. Little did they know, they were being attacked by the flood. The humans also had the last living precursor. \nThe forerunners soon destroyed all of the human race, and the ones who survived, they devolved so that they could evolve into a much less violent race. It turns out that the last living precursor, was actually the gravemind. Soon they begin a losing war against the flood. One of their AI's, mendicant bias, the one that was in charge of all their devices, soon defected to the flood. This slowed the librarians efforts to collect samples of every intelligent species in the galaxy. They built the shield worlds to save themselves from the firing of the Halos. But they werent able to actually get inside them. The Ark is a structure outside of the galaxy, that controlled all the halos. Soon, because they needed a new AI to save them, they built Offensive Bias to counter Medicant Bias and his huge fleet of infected flood ships. They had a huge war as the Halos fired. After the firing of the halos, the flood starved to death. Then automated ships went out repopulating planets with the Librarians samples. The humans were also among them. Over where the arbiters and the Shan Shyuun were 2 species at war. They worshipped forerunner objects. The arbiters were against reverse engineering them, but the Shan Shyuun were all for it. Even though the arbiters had more numbers, the more advanced Shan Shyuun were winning because of their more advaned weapons due to reverse engineering. Soon the arbiters decided to sacriledge and use forerunner artifacts to save their species. Then they asked why are they fighting anymore, and soon came across a peace agreement with the Shan Shyuun, and formed the covenant empire. They begin absorbing in all the species that they encounter.",
"Wow I haven't played Halo in a while. I'll try though. Obviously there will be spoilers in here. Alright starting off, Halo 1. Halo 1 begins with the fall of Reach. Master Chief is on the Pillar of Autumn when they make a random slipspace jump. This is because there is a law against making a direct jump towards human population centers. Once they exit slipspace, they see the first Halo. It's a large artificial structure supposedly built by the Forerunners. They were built to contain and study the Flood. The Forerunners are an ancient race that had extremely advanced technology, but were wiped out trying to contain the Flood, something I guess they managed to do; the Flood has been contained in 7 different Halo constructs.\n\nHALO 1 PLOT:\n\nHalo 1 begins with the Pillar of Autumns (PoA) approach to the Halo ring. You awaken from cryogenic sleep to fight off boarding parties. You then crash land on Halo. Captain Keyes' lifeboat has landed pretty far away and the entire bridge crew is captured by the Covenant. After a mission where you save Marines, you take a group of them into the Truth and Reconciliation: the battlecruiser in which Keyes is being held. Later in the game, Keyes is looking for a weapons cache that will help you defeat the Covenant. However, instead of finding weapons, he gets attacked by the Flood, which the Covenant has activated by accident. To stop the Flood, 343 Guilty Spark tells Master Chief to find the Index to activate Halo's defense systems. As Master Chief is about to activate them, Cortana stops him. She says that Halo's defense system wipes out all sentient life in the galaxy because the Flood needs it to spread. 343 Guilty Spark confirms this. The Chief then decides the next best thing would be to destroy Halo. Cortana tells him he needs to overload the reactors on PoA and the resulting explosion will tear out a chunk big enough so that Halo's centrifugal force will tear itself up. To destroy the PoA though they need Keyes' neural implants. By the time they find him, he has already been killed by the Flood. They take the neural implants back and overload the reactors. They barely escape in a Longsword fighter. Everyone else dies except for Johnson but Halo is destroyed. End Halo 1. I would say the most significant events in this game would be that we have discovered Halo. At this time we think there's only one so destroying it was a pretty big deal. Keyes is also killed, survived by his daughter Miranda. You fight alongside here later in the series.\n\nHALO 2 PLOT:\n\nHalo 2 begins with a disgraced Elite being stripped of his rank. This is the Arbiter. When gameplay starts, the Covenant have found Earth. They are repelled by the UNSC fleet for the time being, but a carrier with the Prophet of Regret slips by to New Mombasa. They are shut down by Master Chief and the make a Slipspace jump. The UNSC follow them. When they exit they find another Halo installation. Miranda Keyes sends Master Chief to kill Regret while she and Johnson look for the Index. Master Chief kills Regret but is bombarded and falls into a lake on Halo. The Arbiter finds 343 Guilty Spark and is sent by the Covenant to activate Halo. He captures the Index, Johnson, and Keyes. Tartarus, a Brute, informs him the the Prophets have ordered the extermination of the Elites. He sends the Arbiter to Gravemind, where he meets Master Chief. Gravemind is the leader of the Flood on this installation. The Gravemind tells the Arbiter that the Great Journey would destroy all sentient life. The Great Journey is just bullshit the Prophets have been feeding the Covenant. Tartarus activates Halo but is killed by Johnson and the Arbiter. They remove the index hoping to destroy the installation. Instead they put the one they are on and the other 5 on standby. Now they can all be remotely activated from the Ark. End Halo 2. I'd say the most significant events would be that they discover that there are way more Halos than previously believed and that they have all been put on standby mode. That makes beating the Covenant to the Ark critical.\n\nWant Halo 3? This took a while to type but I can type Halo 3. Sorry if the explanation for Halo 2 was a bit confusing, I haven't played it in forever.",
"Okay, so i'll break it down as simple as possible. \n\nThe Forerunners were an incredibly powerful race that existed millions of years ago. They were very technologically advanced and inhabited many worlds. Towards the end of their existence they discovered a parasitic infection called \"The Flood.\" The Flood basically infect other life forms and take control of their dead bodies. Think zombies but more mutated. The Flood infected so many of the Forerunners that the remaining Forerunners built 7 Halos that were used to destroy all life in the galaxy and starve the Flood of life forms to infect, thus destroying them. This basically covers the backstory leading up to the first game.\n\nHalo: Combat Evolved starts off with a United Nations Space Command (UNSC) ship called the Pillar of Autumn (POA), captained by Cpt. Jacob Keyes, which contains the Master Chief and Cortana. The POA made a blind jump away from the planet Reach as a last ditch effort to save Cortana and the Master Chief from the Covenant, a race of many different aliens that worship the Forerunners, and are at war with the UNSC. This blind jump leads them to one of the Halos. Anyway, the Covenant are too strong for the POA, Master Chief and Cortana escape on a life boat and both crash land on Halo and Chief and Cortana set about learning more about Halo. They learn that it is indeed a weapon and meet the monitor of this Halo, 343 Guilty Spark (who will be referred to as 'The Monitor' from here on out). The Monitor essentially tries to get Chief to light Halo to destroy the Flood infection which the Covenant accidentally released from contaiment facilities that the Forerunners left behind. Cortana stops the Monitor and Chief and Cortana devise a plan to destory Halo so The Monitor can't activate it. They decide the best course of action is to use the POA's self destruct sequence to physically break Halo into pieces. They have a little bit of resistance from The Monitor, and Captain Keyes turns into a Flood, but their plan works and they escape.\n\nHalo 2 begins with the Covenant discovering Planet Earth. The UNSC try to keep them from landing but ultimately fail. They land in East Africa and Chief sets about chasing down one of the Covenants 3 high Prophet's known as Regret. There's a big offensive from the humans but Regret ultimately escapes planet Earth, but not without the UNSC ship In Amber Clad tailing him. They make a lightspeed jump and find another Halo. Chief goes after Regret again and eventually catches and kills him. This sparks massive outrage from the Covenant and their giant flying city, High Charity, arrives and Chief jumps into a lake to escape them and sinks into the depths of Halo. Meanwhile, the commanding Covenant General from the first game is being blamed for the first Halo's destruction and is publicly shamed. He is forced into a role known as 'The Arbiter', a role which is basically for failed Elites (a race of aliens in the Covenant) to gain back some dignity before they ultimately die in the role. The arbiter does missions for the Prophets and captures The Monitor from the first game. Arbiter's next mission is to retrieve the Index which is necessary for lighting Halo. He succeeds but is pushed into a giant hole by Tartarus, leader of the Brutes, another race in the Covenant. Now, something you need to know is the Prophets believe that lighting Halo will start 'The Great Journey', a religious thing they believe will take them into divine wonder etc. Anyway, they question The Monitor and it tells them that their Great Journey is ridiculous, because it is. Due to Regret's assisnation, the Covenant decide that the Elites, the traditional protectors of the Prophets, are no longer fit to do their jobs and they hand the responsibility over to the Brutes. The Elites get furious and start all out war against the Brutes and are starting to realise that the Great Journey is a lie. This is when the Arbiter and Chief are both caught by the Gravemind, which is kind of the central intelligence of the Flood. He tells them they need to stop the Prophets and sends Chief after the remaining two Prophets, Truth and Mercy, and sends Arbiter after Tartatus, who is trying to light the ring. Arbiter succeeds with the help of the Sgt. Johnson, who was a secondary character in the first game, and Miranda Keyes, daughter of Captain Keyes. As Halo was almost fired but cancelled at the last second, The Monitor informs them that the remaining rings are on standby for remote activation from a place called 'The Ark.' Chief kind of succeeds but doesn't at the same time. He has to leave Cortana in High Charity but manages to get aboard Truth's Forerunner ship which is headed back to Earth. Truth also lets Mercy die because he's an egotistical maniac. The Gravemind also manages to get aboard High Charity and torments Cortana. \n\n\nChief returns to Earth to find that the Covenant have been digging and have uncovered a massive Forerunner portal. Chief escapes a base which the Covenant invade and is self destructed by the UNSC and then punches through Covenant defenses and destroys anti-aircraft artillery so the UNSC and Elite's (who have defected from the Covenant and are now on the UNSC's side) ships can attack Truth's carrier. They fail and Truth goes through the portal. This is when a Flood infected ship crash lands on Earth with a message from Cortana saying that High Charity, which is basically a giant ball of Flood is on its way to Earth. The UNSC eventually follows Truth through the portal. This portal led to The Ark and Truth sets about trying to activate the rings. Chief and the Arbiter discover that The Ark is building a new ring to replace the one you destroy in the first game. Truth captures Miranda Keyes and Sgt. Johnson to use them to activate the rings as Forerunner technology only works for humans. Miranda dies and Johnson gives up and fires the rings. This is when Chief and Arbiter storm the party. Arbiter kills Truth and Chief stops the rings. High Charity arrives here at some point and the Gravemind attacks. Johnson, Chief and Arbiter escape in a pelican, but Chief and Arbiter get knocked out by the Gravemind and have to run for it. They escape. The plan is to activate the newly constructed Halo and escape through the portal. This won't destroy all life as The Ark is so far away from Earth and the half constructed Halo is still not strong enough for it's full power, but it will destroy the flood which is currently situated on The Ark. However, to get an Index they need Cortana, who still has the one from the first game. She is currently in High Charity which is infested with Flood. Chief goes in like a hero and gets her and then the plan falls into action. Chief and Arbiter activate Halo and head for the UNSC ship Forward Unto Dawn. They manage to make it there and Arbiter heads for the controls at the front of the ship while Chief stupidly stays at the back in the cargo bay. They're heading for the portal and right as the front half of the ship makes it through the portal closes and the second half of the ship is left floating aimlessly in space. The front half crash lands at Earth and everyone think Chief is dead. Chiefs ship is then shown floating towards and unknown planet/ball/thing.\n\n\nNow, the Forerunners also built these things called shield worlds which were supposed to be used by the Forerunners to survive Halo being activated, but they failed to get inside them in time. From what 343 Industries tell us, this is what Chief was floating towards, and what at least part of Halo 4 takes places on.\n\n\nThis might not be brief enough, but isn't even nearly in depth. I tried to only keep really important stuff in there but there's just so much. I can try to be more brief if you would like, and I'm happy to answer any questions you have. :)",
"Also, if you're interested in a little more background of things before Halo 1 and how Master Chief got to where he is, Eric Nylund's **The Fall of Reach** is a fantastic book. Here's a summary of it:\n\nHumanity has spread out to the stars thanks to faster than light travel and colonized many worlds. The UNSC is fighting a civil war against colonists that are revolting. A department inside the UNSC, Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) works with Dr. Catherine Halsey and high-ranking Naval officers to develop special programs that can help fight this war. Dr. Halsey develops the Spartan II program. They identify a group of 150 children at about 6 years of age that have genetic markers for being superb human specimens that would make great soldiers, both athletically and mentally. Dr. Halsey goes around the galaxy with Keyes to various colonies meeting these children and thinning the list of 150 down to 75. Once they're selected, the children are kidnapped from their homes and replaced with flash clones. The flash clones will die within a few months of disease/natural causes (due to technological limitations, if I remember correctly).\n\nOnce kidnapped, the kids are told they are going to serve the UNSC and are thrown into training to hone them into elite warriors. John - 117, emerges as a leader and is given the rank, Master Chief. Several years into their training, when they're in their early teens, the 75 undergo drastically risky experimental surgery, enhancing their bodies in numerous ways. Over half of the 75 die or are crippled from this process. Training doesn't last much longer before the Spartans are green-lit for mission readiness. \n\nJumping forward, the Spartans are extremely successful in their missions and are considered practically legendary heroes to other soldiers and civilians. They're considered beacons of hope. The Covenant appears and starts to kick humanity's ass. Dr. Halsey realizes the danger and brings the Spartans to an ONI facility threatened with destruction by the Covenant that is home to the 2nd half of the Spartan equation that isn't 100% complete - the MJOLNIR project. Spartans are briefly taught how to use the suits and they get the hell out to assist with repelling the covenant attack. There are also a shitload of smart AIs (like Cortana) that are there as well. Each Spartan is supposed to receive one, but they're lost in the destruction of the facility.\n\nThe problem is, the while the Spartans can decimate the Covenant on the ground, the Covenant is vastly superior in space. Their shielding technology stops most of the UNSC attacks and they can navigate through slipspace like snipers wheras the UNSC takes their best guess and is much slower and less accurate. Even when the Spartans win battles on the ground, the Covenant win the battle in space and the UNSC is forced to retreat and watch the planet get glassed. \n\nMeanwhile, it has been discovered that Covenant forces are taking a particular interest in certain worlds that have undiscovered ruins and artifacts (later to be identified as Forerunner). Cortana gets some data on one of these artifacts in particular, which comes into play later. Also, a nice side-note - I can't remember if it's mentioned in any of the games, but Cortana is a smart AI that Dr. Halsey had made from a scan of her own brain. So, she pairs her prized pupil with a digital representation of herself. It's nice to see how the Dr. and Cortana play off each other. Also, unless I'm mistaken - when Cortana is kind of corrupted by the Gravemind, she's spouting off gibberish while you search for her. Some of what she says directly refers to Dr. Halsey's first meeting with John. Anyway...\n\nONI develops a mission tailored for the Spartans to try and end the war. The Spartans are to take an especially advanced and customized ship, The Pillar of Autumn, into Covenant space, capture a flagship, use it to return to a Covenant homeworld of sorts and negotiate a cease-fire. The Spartans are about to leave on this mission when Reach is found and attacked. The bulk of the Spartans drop to Reach's surface to defend MAC Cannon generators from Covenant assault (the only guns that are putting a dent in the Covenant force). Most are killed when Reach gets overwhelmed and glassed. A small force (including Master Chief), stays in space and goes to destroy navigation data on an abandoned ship that illegally left data on board when it was supposed to be purged (to protect Earth and other inner colonies). The Master Chief returns to the Pillar of Autumn with an injured Spartan. They flee Reach as it burns and Cortana is ordered to make a blind jump (no UNSC ship is ever allowed to travel directly to Earth or an inner-colony without making a blind jump first to try and elude the Covenant and to make sure they can't be tracked). \n\nHowever, Cortana decides to plug in some coordinates found in data from the Forerunner artifact instead of jumping blind. Seems random enough for her because she knows it's not UNSC space and she's too damn curious. This brings us to the beginning of Halo 1.\n\nAnother one, **First Strike** tells what happens to MC and Cortana between Halo 1 & 2. The Longsword fighter MC escapes in at the end of Halo 1 doesn't have a slipspace drive to get home with, so there's a cool adventure back to Earth during that book.\n\nHe wrote one more called **The Ghosts of Onyx**. This takes place during the Halo game series and follows Dr. Halsey and a Spartan III program developed by Colonel Ackerson designed to pump out cheaper, disposable Spartans that go on suicide missions for high-value targets. It's really good, too.\n\nNote: I may be off on some of the details for The Fall Of Reach since it has been several years since I last read it.",
"Short version: Shoot aliens.",
" > Who are the forerunners?\n\nA species that dominated the Galaxy 100,000 years before the game. Really advanced tech, bit of a arrogant species.\n\n > Where did the flood come from? \n\nFlood started as a Powder(or something akin to that) that arrived in Human territory 110,000 years ago due to a precursor plan. After hundreds of years of using the powder with a pet species called the pheru, the first combat forms appeared and quickly started to take over people, and became a grave threat to the Human Empire.\n\n > What are the most significant events in each game so far? \n\nHalo 1: We know a military planet named reach was attacked, the pillar of autumn found the halo, the flood were unleashed, halo almost activated, then the halo is destroyed.\n\nHalo 2: The commander of the covenant during Halo 1 is stripped of his rank and eventually becomes the arbiter, the Earth is attacked by a prophet's(leaders of the covenant) fleets, a second halo is found, Regret is killed, a Gravemind is found, Mercy is killed, high charity overran with flood, cortana and MC split, brutes betray the elites(civil war), humans and elites ally.\n\nHalo 3: MC returns to earth and learns of alliance with elites, Covenant burning a hole in the ground to the portal, flood land in africa, MC finds cortana recording, portal opens and covenant go through, Half of africa burned to stop flood, humans and elites go through portal, ark found, high charity lands on ark, MC finds cortana, kills Truth, blows up rebuilt halo and ark."
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38j5gk | can you own land on the moon? could a nation form on mars? | What laws get in the way of these things? I know that no nation can claim the moon, but is private ownership restricted, and if not, how does that play into activities such as the mining of the moon? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/38j5gk/eli5_can_you_own_land_on_the_moon_could_a_nation/ | {
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"Right now all of space is more or less agreed to be neutral territory. Whenever the day comes that someone starts forming permanent colonies on extra-terrestrial bodies, there will likely be a very serious and very important global discussion on how ownership of these bodies will work. Right now there is no clear plan in place. ",
"The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 prohibits governments from claiming territory in space.\n\n > outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means\n\nI don't know if anything in the treaty prevents a private company from exploiting celestial objects. There are some countries that haven't agreed to the this treaty. So, a private company could fly a flag of convenience from these countries to avoid legal ramifications...maybe.",
"Treaties are nice as statements of intent, but the truth is that questions like this are ultimately be settled by guns, if it comes to that. A signed paper, by itself, stops no one. [How said guns would work given the moon's gravity is a question beyond my ken, but has probably been ELI5'd in the past.]",
"When you buy or sell a piece of land on earth you do so with the permission of someone who has both the willingness and ability to control the land. I.e., the sovereign government. There is no one that has the willingness and ability to control (or defend) the Moon. \n\n\nCompare the high seas (on earth). These are vast wet areas that states either (i) cannot control or (ii) have agreed not to claim. The high seas are governed by international agreements not dissimilar from the Outer Space Treaty cited by deep_sea2. \n\n\nIf a private person claimed territory on the moon, interested nations on earth would likely say that the claim is invalid because no one can own the moon (a principal enshrined in earth's international law). From that point any number of situations could play out. At one extreme the private person might be expelled from the moon by force. At the other extreme negotiations might result in the private person being recognized as a lawful occupant or even a sovereign.\n\n\nNew countries do emerge and old ones disappear -- though we are used to seeing this occur in relation to territories that are already occupied by people.",
"The only thing that backs up any law or treaty is force. Therefore, you can claim anything as your own for as long as you can defend it."
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8ii43m | why japanese videogames have english sprinkled in | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8ii43m/eli5_why_japanese_videogames_have_english/ | {
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"Japanese culture is pretty intertwined with American culture. They appreciated ours as much as we appreciate theirs, probably even more so. Because of this, their language has also adopted a lot of English words. For example, they don't have their own word for \"computer\", they just say \"conpyuta\", which is basically the same word with a Japanese accent. There are plenty of other examples which is why you see so many English words in those Japanese video games",
"I asked a similar question on r/answers a while back: _URL_0_",
"- English is taught to everyone these days and while proficiency in English is another matter, practically everyone is able to recognise the alphabet and some English words.\n- There are also lots of loan words in Japanese which come from English mostly thanks to recent cultural influences. Loan words aren’t uncommon in any language and in fact English does it a lot too; it’s just a little less obvious since a lot of our words come from a related language.\n - Perhaps you’ve sprinkled in some Japanese words when talking about anime/manga/etc to sound cooler. Or maybe a few French phrases to sound more sophisticated and give your speech that certain je ne sais quoi. Well, due to the cultural prestige of English, Japanese people love to sprinkle English words in everywhere. Lots of brand names use English simply because it’s more modern and cool. Video games use it for the same reason. \n - There’s another reason, especially for the video game title screen. Back in the 80s, it was actually very difficult to display Japanese and it’s 10,000s of complex characters on a computer. And since many of them were coded in an English-like language, many video games were just made in English (one example is Super Mario Bros). Thus, terms such as NEW GAME, LOAD GAME, GAME OVER, 1 PLAYER, 2 PLAYER, and so on became very familiar to Japanese gamers. So much so that even today, where Japanese is very easy to display on machines, most main menu screens are left in English (and the ones that aren’t are usually transliterated English). ",
"something happened between 1945 and 1952 where american culture made its way into japanese culture, and has been there ever since. even from 1868, japan had been westernizing at a rapid pace, and all those katakana words (jp alphabet used for foreign words) are mostly japanese pronunciations of english words\n\nhell, every country in asia has gone through this. look at the numbers cited here over time _URL_0_"
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4plsmv | why we don't feel much pain during sex if we hurt our penis (abrasions etc.), but after sex it hurts like hell? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4plsmv/eli5_why_we_dont_feel_much_pain_during_sex_if_we/ | {
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"Holy shit. If it /hurts/ after sex have you taken a moment to consider you might have some sort of bizarre medical condition?"
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a4byxq | why are we working longer hours than we did before computers and cell phones were around? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a4byxq/eli5_why_are_we_working_longer_hours_than_we_did/ | {
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" > Why didn't technology help us?\n\nIt did, we are far more productive in general with the use of technology. But it is sort of like the difference between a farmer who works from sunup to sundown on his farm, and then one day he gets a lamp. What does he do? Now he can work in the dark so he works even more.",
"Technology has enabled us to become vastly more productive, but it has also meant that work can be shipped anywhere around the world. So rather than competing with the people in the town down the road, you are competing with the people in the town on the other side of the world. This has meant an increase in workload to compete against poorer countries who were already working far longer hours.",
"We are seeing more and more automation in the workplace, and we’ll continue to see that implementation.\n\nThe issue with what you were told in the 80’s is that the predictions regarding technological futurism were generally baseless, formed solely on conjecture, and they often forgot to conceive the difficulties that society would have to face during the transition between traditional workload and automation replacement.\n\nThe fact is, several countries are looking into - and some even testing - concepts that rely on a universal basic income (UBI).\n\nUBI is when you receive a monthly allowance from the government that allows you to live well, and above the poverty line, without needing to work. You can choose to work if you’d like, and you’ll still receive the same amount of UBI. The funds that make up the UBI given to citizens is the sum of a tax upon businesses that have chosen to use automated workforce’s instead of human workforce’s.\n\nThe transition to this step is going to be long and very messy, particularly in countries where the value of profit is higher than the value of human life, and the countries who are generally afraid of change or unwilling to invest in the future of their own wellbeing.\n\nIf you’re still interested in looking into the matter, I suggest looking into the predictions of Ray Kurzweil (a technological futurist with a 86% accuracy of 147 predictions using a mathematical algorithm regarding the exponential growth of technology), and also this video on Universal Basic Income [HERE](_URL_0_) \n\n",
"If we were willing to live the same standard of living as we did in the 80s (small TVs, simple phones, cars that don’t last past 200k miles without engine or trans replacement, limited medical options, the list goes on and on) then each person could work less to produce the same amount of goods and services, especially if our technology was focused on making existing things cheaper rather than better.\n\nOf course, this doesn’t mean you could live today with an 80s living standard working 20 hour weeks. That’s almost entirely due to the price of food and housing not having breakthroughs on price, while demand has grown. ",
"My theory is that we are so much more productive, that Less people are needed to do our jobs/ combined job descriptions/ positions... so we are still gonna bust ass because m9re is expected of us",
"Because people are greedy. More efficient technology means we could be just as productive as we were without it with less effort than before. Instead people work much harder for lower wages.\n[Here's a graph of wages vs productivity from '64-'08]( _URL_0_)\n\n"
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bvk6lt | in trading, what does liquidity mean and how does it work | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bvk6lt/eli5_in_trading_what_does_liquidity_mean_and_how/ | {
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"To put it simply, liquidity is the amount of supply and demand for a product. For instance, it is very easy to purchase Bank Of America stock because there is a lot of it, and people are constantly buying and selling it, and offering bids and offers. This means that there is a lot of liquidity for this stock. When a stock is liquid, you can almost literally buy or sell it at anytime, without impacting the price very much if at all.",
"You can think of it as the 'transferability' of a financial instrument (either cash, or an investment). High liquidity means it's easier to use and transfer an item; low liquidity means you're pretty much stuck with it.\n\nCash is a very liquid thing. You don't need to find a buyer before you can use it, or involve a middle man. You can just go out and spend it. If all of your wealth is tied up in housing, for example, that's not very liquid. If you can't find a buyer, you're technically *worth* a lot, but if a hot new investment opportunity opens up, you're probably not going to be able to get enough cash together quickly to invest in it.\n\nSimilarly, if there's an investment that is constantly changing hands -- Bank of America stock, as /u/Bhimpele said -- then it's considered liquid; it moves around the marketplace a lot. If you have a stock that very few people are interested in buying or selling (and it can be either, not both), it's not liquid. It's either very hard to take possession of it, or if you've got it it's a pain in the ass to get rid of -- therefore it's not easily transferable.\n\nIt's liquid because it flows easily from one place to another.",
"It's how fast you can turn something to cash. High liquidity means you can sell it quickly and get your cash back. Low liquidity is more like a house. If you need the money today, it ain't gonna happen.\n\nEdited to add that if something is not very liquid (like a house) the only way to sell it quicker is to sell it at a discount. Hence price can have an affect on liquidity. Stores do this with items that aren't selling well when they would rather have the cash again.",
"Liquidity means easy to convert into another asset. Cash in a checking account is super liquid, because you can turn it into anything. Stock of a major company is pretty liquid because you can sell it instantly during market hours. Shares of a private company are less liquid because there is a process of when and how you might be able to sell. Real estate is also less liquid because it takes times to list, sell, close, etc.",
"As you can see from the responses here, this term has different meanings depending on the context. The other responses are not wrong, but I feel I can add a bit of depth and clarity here, specifically in the context of active trading in financial markets. \n\nIn ELI5 terms: when *traders* speak of liquidity they are referring to how many people are willing to passively buy from or sell to you in a given market. For this to make sense, you need a basic understanding of how markets function.\n\nThere are 4 types of ways to participate in a market. You can buy or sell and you can do so either passively (using limit orders) or actively (using market orders). A trade can only occur between two parties when one limit order is \"filled\" by a market order. Distinct from liquidity, *volume* is the number of executed trades where market order met limit order during a given period of time.\n\nThink of a market as a stack of limit orders resting above and below current price. Above current price you have limit orders to sell (AKA offers). Below you have a stack of limit orders to buy (AKA bids). In order for price to increase, all offers at the current level must be consumed by market buy orders. Conversely, for price to decrease all bids must be consumed by market sell orders.\n\nHighly liquid markets (AKA \"thick\" markets) have a large number of resting orders at each price level - so it takes a higher volume of executed trades to move price. \n\nMy area of expertise is in the futures markets so, to give an example, the S & P 500 e-mini commonly has liquidity on average of 100 to 300 contracts at each price level with occasional unusually large orders in the 1,000 to 2,000 range. Whereas the US 10 year treasury note typically has 2,000 to 5,000+, with occasional large orders of > 10,000.\n\nLiquidity differs from market to market but also changes over time in an individual market as conditions change. Volatility increases when liquidity drops and/or volume increases. The most volatile conditions occur when an increase in volume coincides with a decrease in liquidity."
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203y4n | why do different things give off unique aromas while being burned? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/203y4n/eli5_why_do_different_things_give_off_unique/ | {
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"Burning releases all sorts of chemicals into the air. Different things have different makeups, and so release different chemicals. "
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5m224d | what actually is a colour, whats the definition? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5m224d/eli5what_actually_is_a_colour_whats_the_definition/ | {
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"Colour is a wavelength of light, on the light spectrum. What we perceive to be visible light is between the ultraviolet and infrared spectrums. "
]
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1nzayp | [culinary custom] why do people eat dessert after a meal? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1nzayp/eli5_culinary_custom_why_do_people_eat_dessert/ | {
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"Eating sweet is introducing sense of fullness and you lose your appetite. That's why you get it at the end, to finish.\n\nWithout a dessert I can eat 2 main dishes. After the first one there is still sense of hunger. I could go without the second one and eventually automatically lose appetite after half an hour, but I can go straight for the 2nd main dish. If I have dessert, it cuts that urge."
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3ez923 | what's going on in the brain when you "turn down the music to see better"? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ez923/eli5_whats_going_on_in_the_brain_when_you_turn/ | {
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"Reducing cognitive load. It's not so much that you need to see better, like the way glasses bring things into focus, but you are scanning the environment for clues and processing those clues. It's one of the more demanding cognitive tasks you can do. Your brain knows that any other distractions are just going to divert resources away from your primary task.",
"Imagine your browser running slow because of all the stuff running.\n\nClose spotify and things will go a bit smoother.",
"Psychology student here. Attention is a limited resource, and every single stimulus you perceive is demanding for a bit of it. If you happen to find a way to filter out which stimulus you don't need to pay attention to, because whatever you're doing requires your attention to be placed at something else, you're making it easier for your brain to do it's work. That's why people shouldn't text and drive, for example. Both tasks require a very high level of attention, and your brain can't perfectly handle both at the same time."
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wrk1j | why does turning your heat on lower the temp. in your car if it is over heating? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/wrk1j/eli5_why_does_turning_your_heat_on_lower_the_temp/ | {
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"The heat that comes out of the vents when you turn on your car's heater is essentially pulled from the engine area and fed into your car. So, if you have an overly hot engine, turning out the heat will feed some of the heat away from it. And to you. \n\nIt seems counterintuitive, because one would think that the car would have to heat up even more when you turn on the heat, but in fact in directs the heat to you to make you nice and toasty. Which seems like not a particularly fun time if the temperature outside is like it is today, where I live. Lesson: Check engine. ",
"Everyone here is pretty much right. The engine in the car is kept cool by a liquid called antifreeze which circulates through hoses in your engine area. This liquid picks up the heat from the engine, but gets cooled down again by your radiator. The radiator is located at the front of the car in the engine compartment & has a giant fan that blows over it and reduces the temperature of the liquid coolant. It blows the air over the radiator towards the outside of the car (away from the engine). Within the dashboard of your car is something identical to a mini-radiator. Next to this mini radiator is a mini fan that blows across the mini-radiator and blows air away from the engine, through your heater vents, and into the cabin of the car. This is how the heating system in your car works. This mini radiator is called a [heater core](_URL_0_). Therefore when you turn on your heat you are adding a supplemental radiator to your car. "
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7gta50 | if the universe is like the outer layer of a balloon and we're the pennies on top, what is in the middle of the balloon? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7gta50/eli5_if_the_universe_is_like_the_outer_layer_of_a/ | {
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"In the analogy, there is no inside the balloon. The only thing that exists is the *surface* of the balloon.",
" > My question is, what's on the inside of the \"balloon\" compared to our universe, is it just more universe?\n\nIt is an analogy, you are only supposed to consider the two dimensions of the surface of the balloon and ignore the third dimension. It is supposed to illustrate how space is expanding and everything is becoming more distant from each other, but not going away from some central point. A better analogy would be a rubber sheet being stretched evenly in all directions but again you need to ignore the third dimension.\n\nBut anyway your question doesn't make any sense because you were misinterpreting the analogy and the interior of the balloon isn't part of it at all."
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4fkgax | why did brazil not becomes the economic powerhouse it was predicted to become? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4fkgax/eli5_why_did_brazil_not_becomes_the_economic/ | {
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"A country 87% the size of the USA that got to the \"it's good to be a big country\" party just a little too late.",
"Massive corruption at all levels of government. The congress voted to impeach the president a few days ago, over half of the members of said congress are under federal investigations. ",
"I'm sure the massive corruption has a lot to do with it. Just look at the upcoming Olympics. Everything points to a complete disaster.\n\nThe only reason the Olympics are in Rio this year is because the corrupt government of Brazil paid off the corrupt IOC.\n\nDon't expect the Olympics to revisit the US anytime soon. FIFA did it, and they're paying the price.",
"Brazil is a very complex country - it has government and industry which are sadly affected by corruption. To give you an idea someone I know runs a fast food restaurant in a suburb of Rio. The day she opened the local chief of the military police introduced himself and explained how things work and that if he didn't get paid then things like trash collection just wouldn't happen.\n\nAlso the country is very bureaucratic. I know someone who works in state government in the region of Bahia and things happen very slowly. She gets a ridiculous amount of paid vacation (I think she said 3 months) so you can imagine if everyone has that much leave things take a long time to get done. Add that to the greasing of palms which goes on and that's another problem.\n\nThe other issue is the ridiculous taxes on imported goods - for example the cars there are all small and locally built - I did see an entry level Camero on sale at a luxury dealer and worked out the price was about $125,000 (you can get one in the US starting around $26,000) - thats why you always see the lines at airports to Brazil with people overloaded with goods.\n\nInternally they have a lot of other issues so sadly they are a way off from being that power. But for all the above I have written I love the country. It's vibrant, the people are amazing and there is a lot of potential if they can resolve a lot of the issues with corruption and bureaucracy.\n\nPlus the most amazing person in the world was born there - my son. ",
"IMHO, the lack of incentives for the services and industry (like bad educational system, insane taxes, no safety net for entrepreneurs and ridiculous entry barriers).\n\nA country can't be an economic powerhouse when it concentrates all its efforts on agriculture.\n\n(Oh! And also the corruption.)",
"Massive corruption and collectivist politics, what could go wrong?",
"Good luck getting a simple answer to this. There are a litany of factors influencing geopolitics and the global economy, and trying to boil it down to one simple paragraph doesn't do justice to the reality of the situation. If you want a real answer to this you should do research and read multiple sources so that you actually know the answer not some subjective reductionist account from a stranger online ",
"As we call here, it was a chicken-flight. Some very good economic and currency policies, China insane demand for commodities and the good prices of such commodities, manufacturing incentives and cheap credit between 1994-2012 caused Brazil and its population to enjoy some good years. \n\nBut, instead of using the good times and earned money to invest in heavy infrastructure, education, simplify bureaucracy and taxes and promote government transparency and ethics... Well, nope... Our politicians completely ignored this long term needs and continued singing the same song of corruption and short-sighted decisions that focused ultimately in votes for the next election.\n\nNote: the years above approximate and people will generally disagree when the good Brazilian time started/ended. Additionally, the reasons listed above didn't happen all simultaneously."
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12l1b5 | president chavez of venezuela | So this is embarrassing, I'm was born in Venezuela but my parents got out of there because of him. However, I'm not clear on why people hate him, I have not been kept informed. The most I know is that he supports Castro and expropriation, but are there any other things I'm not aware of? im asking because i know of the vast knowledge of reddit and i know there is someone out there that knows about his | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/12l1b5/eli5_president_chavez_of_venezuela/ | {
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"I know he has a Wikipedia page.",
"He has done both good and bad. Before Chavez, most of Venezuela's oil wealth went to the elite, while most of the population lived in poverty, and the politicians ignored the problems of the poor majority. Chavez has made a real difference in the lives of millions of poor Venezuelans with subsidized food, fuel, and housing, and expanded access to education and medical care. On the bad side, he is friendly with Castro, Ahmedinajad of Iran, and others of the world's worst dictators, he demonizes his political opponents instead of working with them, Venezuela's crime rates have become among the world's highest, and his government is very corrupt.",
"Chavez is basically your kid that runs for school presidency, promises a lot of candy which is addictive and then keeps on supplying just enough so you don't revolt.\n\nHere's a couple comments I wrote awhile back before 7-O:\n\n > > Ah, sorry, I inferred your meaning incorrectly. It's funny - if Venezuela gets mentioned at all on the news, you almost never get to hear from Venezuelans. If Capriles won the election (assuming there are still elections) do you think Chavez would give up power?\n\n > We ... don't know.\n\n > Chavez is a soldier. He attempted a [coup d'etat back in February 4th, 1992](_URL_9_); a bloody coup at that. He failed then but ultimately succeeded later on: then-president Carlos Andres Pérez was apprehended, [impeached](_URL_14_) and tried on embezzlement charges (250 million bolivares. A *major fuckton* of money). Later on in 2001 he exiled himself after being persecuted by the current regime and died on self-imposed exile. All of this was to break the status quo caused by the[ Punto Fijo Pact](_URL_1_) (supposed to last 1 term, but developed into a bipartite system).\n\n > In 2002 [a coup d'etat was attempted](_URL_0_). Some people will say it wasn't a coup but by all means it is: he was forcefully removed from power and returned 2 days later. Later that year, he survived a general strike lasting from December 2002 through February 2003. Fuel was scarcely found, there wasn't as much food available as before but it could be found. He managed to survive it and it tempered his temper.\n\n > These two events deeply affected him and fired up his \"socialism machine\". He was not a socialist when he won his first election. He started to get close with socialist and communist countries (Cuba, China, Russia, etc...) and decided to start, well, everything he's done up to this day (that's a debate for another topic).\n\n > The point is, the people are *used* to their current lifestyle. A lot of people want change, but a lot of people would rather things remain the same. Nobody likes to be home at 6 pm for fear of being robbed, or shot then robbed which is likelier (I'm dead serious). Nobody likes having to go downtown to the dangerous areas to buy clothing, food, school implements, etc... with worn-out or torn clothing to appear \"poor\" to avoid what I mentioned before.\n\n > Nobody likes fearing for their life each time they leave their home or come back to it. But \"a known evil is better than an unknown good\". It's a belief deeply held in the heart of Venezuelans which has been slowly, steadily changing for the better. So damned *slowly*, but changing. \n\n > Kids born since 1998 have never known a different president, a different way of doing things, a different view on life, healthcare, education, politics, etc... People who never had anything now have things: social healthcare, education, employment. This is something we have to recognize, he wanted to raise up the poor ... to a certain limit, so as to prevent them from becoming a threat to his power, while lowering the rich down to their level. He succeeded just as much as he wanted to, enough to keep them wanting more but without rebelling, thus making the population *depend* on him to make do.\n\n > These things I've told you make uncertain whether or not he'll peacefully give up the power if Henrique Capriles Radonski wins. Some say he'll flee the country a-lá \"each man for its own\". Some say he'll use the militia [he's been arming](_URL_7_) (La Piedrita, Tupamaros, Carapaica(?)) to create chaos along with the generals he's favoured to inflict a self-coup and keep power. Some say he'll declare the elections invalid, dissolve the National Assembly and other kind of crazy, inane stuff.\n\n > Now you're thinking \"wait, why isn't people saying anything about him giving up the power peacefully?\". I say: [this is why (read on)](_URL_8_). Before you watch the video, which I was lucky to find subtitled, you need some background (as if it wasn't enough already :P). \n\n > In 2007 there was [a referendum](_URL_10_) whose main purpose was indefinite re-election, previously limited to two terms. It was camouflaged within social reforms so people who dashed straight to the Yes/No box or couldn't read didn't know about it. Think of it as the 2012 NDAA budget and the indefinite detention clause. Chavez lost it, but later in 2009 he impulsed [another referendum](_URL_2_) abolishing all term limits for *all positions*, effectively perpetuating anyone that managed to \"win\" the elections over and over again. But I disgress; watch the video now: it's his reaction after losing the referendum. Watch how much vitriol he spews, how much hate he vociferates, how ... butthurt he is :P\n\n > And here we are, at last: we are unsure how things after 7-O will end up. We really don't know.\n\n_URL_11_\n\n > > How can ANYONE support a government where you have to put your kids in private school for them to have a decent education?\n\n > I'm gonna have to side with the gov't for a bit this time because it's the right thing to do.\n\n > This is a problem that has been going on since way before Chavez, back to the first governments after the Punto Fijo Pact. Near-weekly teacher strikes, poorly (if at all) equipped public schools and too few. How can you have a decent education like that? It's almost impossible. \n\n > The poverty that is rampant in Venezuela albeit smaller nowadays makes it impossible for a large chunk of population to educate their children if they can't send them to private schools.\n\n > But then you have another problem with public schools: public schools + social/communist government = brainwashing. Like it or not, the only way to make sure the new generations remain \"loyal\" to the government's ideologies is to educate them like so.\n\n > That's why almost everyone who can afford it sends their children to private schools.\n\n_URL_4_\n\nEDIT: Just for kicks and giggles, here's a rather interesting tid-bit about the electoral process in Venezuela:\n\n > Heh.\n\n > > Bro, I think the last line wasn't necessary. How am I going to lie when the results are online and can be consulted by anyone?\n\n > True, that's correct, the results are online. Except *some* of them are not the ones you posted.\n\n > [2006 Presidential elections](_URL_6_).\n\n > > In 2006, Presidential elections were voted by 11.790.397. \n\n > [2010 Parlamentary elections](_URL_3_). \n\n > > In 2010, for the National Assembly elections, 4 years later, were the number of voters should've increased, number total of voters was 11.097.667.\n\n > In both cases you are correct, that's the tally. *But*\n\n > > Yes, the last elections were a little confusing for the actual amount of votes for each party. Guided for the election of the \"Parlatino\" the number of votes for the officialism was 5.268.939 and for the opposition 5.077.043.\n\n > Those aren't the actual votes I asked for, sorry. I asked for the National Assembly votes, not the Latinoamerican Parliament (which are those you provided). From Wikipedia:\n\n > |Party| Votes | % of votes | Seats \n|:-|-:|-:|:-:|\n|PSUV | 5,423,324 | 48.13% | 98 \n|MUD | 5,320,364 | 47.22% | 65 \n|PPT | 353,979 | 3.14% | 2\n|**Total**||\n||11.097.667 | 98.49% | 165\n\n > These are the results from the 2010 Parlamentary elections. The percentages are wrong though. The correct percentages are\n\n > |Party | Votes | % of votes | Seats \n|:-|-:|-:|:-:|\n|PSUV| 5,423,324 | 48.8690460797% | 98 \n|MUD | 5,320,364 | 47.9412835148% | 65 \n|PPT | 353,979\t | 3.1896704055% |\t2\n|**Total**||\n||11.097.667 | 100.00% | 165\n\n > Now here's the thing: PSUV needed about 55340 votes to get a seat at the parliament, while the MUD 81851 and the PPT 176989.5. Care to explain this?\n\n > Nah, I will. It's called [Gerrymandering](_URL_5_). It's the reason why [this](_URL_12_) [happened](_URL_13_). Basically, you arrange the electoral districts to suit your voting intention. This means, according to population you need more or less votes to earn a seat. It's done in Venezuela, it's done in the USA, it's *heavily* done in Spain.\n\n > Those who didn't vote for the PSUV and went with the MUD + PPT amount a total of 51.13%. Sure, there are more than two candidates; however I don't believe they will earn a significant amount of votes for them in the big picture to greatly variate these results.\n\n > I ask you again: does the current Assembly shows a true, democratic proportion or not?\n\n_URL_4_"
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6uafyu | how do companies like amazon make amazon prime music happen? | I am a huge Deftones fan and I was ecstatic when I found out I could get all but one of their albums on Amazon Music just because I have Amazon Prime. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6uafyu/eli5how_do_companies_like_amazon_make_amazon/ | {
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"The rights to play/distribute music are bought through contracts. Unless some clause in the contract is expressly illegal, you can make contracts for basically anything. If I'm a decision-maker at Amazon, and I think that a particular artist's [let's say the Deftones] albums being on Prime will get me, say, 1,000 new Prime subscriptions at $100/year, and I can get the rights to give those songs to prime members at no additional cost to them for $50,000/year, then I've just made $50,000/year additional revenue, and the Deftones [or at least their record label] are making an additional $50,000/year from the Amazon deal.\n\nSo the actual mechanics of this are that Amazon's lawyers negotiate terms with the record label's lawyers, and if they can reach an agreement where the label makes what they feel is a good amount of money for the play rights to the songs, and Amazon is still making money, then they get the rights to the songs for \"free\" to Prime customers. If they can't reach a decision (see Taylor Swift and Spotify until earlier this year), then the music won't be made available for free on the given platform."
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d9v7o2 | what is the benefit of wearing yellow shade glasses when going shooting? |
Surely it cannot be a minuscule difference as why would they force amateurs like me to wear them while shooting clays?
Is it clays that are the reason? Is it different for people shooting live fowl? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/d9v7o2/eli5_what_is_the_benefit_of_wearing_yellow_shade/ | {
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"Yellow lenses help eyes see of the target. They also block out blue light which fatigues the eyes. Same reason yellow lenses for computer use and why mobile devices have a reading mode that tints the screen yellow",
"Husband is a clay shooter. He has different shades for different weather and lighting, especially wen there is a competition. Lenses that are yellow/orange block haze and bleu light and usually enhance the contrast between the target and its background. The brighter yellow the lens color is, the better it is for use in low contrast and near-dark conditions. \nCompetition can take a whole day, less energy wasted on focussing to see the bird/clay, more energy to use for concentration. Its al about milliseconds. \nBut it does take time to get used to, so thats why they promote them early on.\n\nIn realshort: It is easyer to follow the target."
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4h7iep | how do film makers prevent a camera lens from getting wet and water drop lets forming on the lens when filming a wet and chaotic scene? | From the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan to Titanic. How come a camera lens never has water droplets or blurry vision when it clearly got wet? I seemed to have this problem with my go-pro often but wonder how hollywood found a solution. Thanks! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4h7iep/eli5how_do_film_makers_prevent_a_camera_lens_from/ | {
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"A special lens cover that spins the water off is available, I don't remember the brand though.",
"We use deflectors. They are a piece of glass that is mounted in front of the lens which spins or vibrates at high speed. Here is an example: _URL_0_",
"The answer you're looking for is a device called an Electronic Rain Deflector system. Its a nifty gadget that is mounted directly in front of the lens in which a clear disk spins and causes water droplets to be thrown off very quickly by centrifugal force. In addition, an air squeegee can be used, which, very simply, blows air on the front of the waterproof housing. \n\n[Here is an example.](_URL_0_)"
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2210om | what does the mississippi religious freedom restoration act mean to me as a mississippian? | I'm from Mississippi and the Mississippi Religious Freedom Restoration Act was just passed and will likely be signed into law. What exactly does this mean for me as a citizen of the state? I don't understand what the law really means. There must be some underlying tones that make it so controversial but I just don't understand it. Anyone care to explain? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2210om/eli5_what_does_the_mississippi_religious_freedom/ | {
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"I don't know the text in the MS law specifically. However, I believe all of these so-called \"religious freedom\" laws are basically the same. It started in Arizona (and was Vetoed by the Governor). \n\nThe proponents of these laws are generally business owners who want to be able to discriminate against specific groups of people because their religion says those people are evil. Government shouldn't be infringing on their religious beliefs. This is nearly 100% targeted towards Gays and Lesbians (and all the members of the LGBTQQ alphabet soup).\n\nOn the surface, it's completely ridiculous, but I can appreciate the \"government shouldn't tell us what to do\" side of things (though that's rarely how laws work. Government tells us what to do every day and most people don't mind that.)\n\nHowever, what if I were to be a business owner, and I hate my employee Vicky (for whatever reason), but she hasn't done anything wrong at work. Now she's pregnant. Ugh, I hate Vicky and now I'm going to have to pay her during maternity leave. I'll just join up with a religion that requires women to have abortions. If Vicky doesn't get one, I'll fire her because religious freedom.\n\nNow, while this was an extreme example, once a law is passed, precedent tends to make the effect of the law go far beyond the original intent. Something like that COULD happen.\n\nIt's attempting to circumvent protected status of minorities. Gays, in many states are not yet a protected status, but with marriage equality becoming more prevalent, these 'religious freedom' movements are in opposition to it."
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6g8xc5 | when getting a cramp why is your first instinct to become motionless and why does it hurt when you move. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6g8xc5/eli5when_getting_a_cramp_why_is_your_first/ | {
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"This might not sound useful, but...\n\n > When getting a cramp why is your first instinct to become motionless \n\nbecause it\n\n > it hurt[s] when you move.\n\nA cramp is muscles literally cramping (for various reasons) beyond they ability to be healthy, the body tells you about the \"danger!\" as \"pain\". As the body tries to limit the possible \"damage\" in the face of that danger, it just attempts to stop whatever it was doing with that limb to just keep that obviously (at the moment) faulty muscle alone.",
"I'm not sure that becoming motionless is a first instinct universally. Maybe it depends on where the cramp is. If it's a leg cramp, my first instinct is to stretch the leg out to prevent the cramp from getting worse. I go through lots of pain getting there, but the alternative is more pain. I also have abdominal pain at times and stretching that out is my instinct there as well."
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4hjzso | how did leicester city win based off of another game? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4hjzso/eli5_how_did_leicester_city_win_based_off_of/ | {
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"Because it's a league with no playoffs. Each team plays each other twice, once at home, once away. We have 2 matchdays to go and Leicester have 77 points, while Tottenham who just played have only 70 points, which means they can only get 76 points if they win their 2 remaining games, which means its not possible for them to get 1st place thus making Leicester champions.",
"You get 3 points for a win, 1 for a draw and 0 for a loss the people who were in second place drew with Chelsea so they only got 1 point, and there aren't many more matches to play so Leicester can't be overtaken. ",
"The league is based on a points system. As the league table stood yesterday morning, if Leicester won their game they would have enough points banked that nobody else would be able to earn enough points to surpass them. Leicester did not win their match, they only drew, so the team below them, Tottenham, could theoretically still win the league themselves if they won every single match they had left. \n \nTottenham drew their match today, meaning even if they played perfectly for their final few matches, they would never have enough points to get past Leicester, no matter how badly Leicester played.",
"The Premier League is 20 teams, and each team plays each other twice. A win is worth three points and a draw one. The team with the most points at the end of the season wins. \n\nGoing into this weekend, Leicester had 76 points, while Tottenham had 69, with three games left in the season. Leicester drew with Manchester United on Sunday, leaving them with 77 points. In order to overtake their point total, Tottenham had to get at least eight points from their three games left (well, they needed nine, since it's impossible to get eight points from three games). On Monday, they drew with Chelsea, giving them one point and leaving them needing an impossible seven points from two games. Since it's now mathematically impossible for Tottenham to overtake them, Leicester have won the title. "
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2pi9t4 | how do people who do not believe in evolution explain things like breeding dogs? | Similarly, how do they explain why people look like their parents? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2pi9t4/eli5_how_do_people_who_do_not_believe_in/ | {
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"They accept it as short term but deny long term evolution. Sort of like accepting walking to the store down the street, but not across the country.",
"Selecting for specific traits does not explain the mutation aspect of it.\n\nAlso, you can select for longer ears or shorter nose, but this does not explain how you can get a fully-functional eye or complex system de novo.\n\nI, of course, realize the foolishness in these arguments!",
"I had a friend who did not believe in evolution, and we discussed this.\n\nIt comes down to this: they (or at least some people) believe in \"microevolution,\" but not \"macroevolution.\"\n\nTo them, microevolution means changes within a species, or \"kind\". A wolf to a dog, or one type of bird into another, for example. Macroevolution, to them, means one species or \"kind\" changing into another. Like fish into things that walk on land.\n\nThe idea of \"kinds\" comes from the Bible, for example in the story of Noah:\n\n > In the selfsame day entered Noah, and Shem, and Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah's wife, and the three wives of his sons with them, into the ark;\nThey, and every beast after his kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind, and every fowl after his kind, every bird of every sort.\n(Gen 7:13-14)\n\nThis idea doesn't necessarily line up with the scientific idea of \"species.\" For example, in this view, all hoofed animals might belong to the same \"kind.\" It does allow them to say that maybe Noah only brought a few animals onto the Ark, representing all of the different \"kinds,\" and then after that, they changed into all the animals we have today (while still staying within their \"kind\").\n\nThis, at least, was the explanation that I got from my friend. What he was really opposed to was the idea that \"a lizard could change into a mammal,\" or similar."
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f8upy9 | - how fatal can 'static electricity' be? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/f8upy9/eli5_how_fatal_can_static_electricity_be/ | {
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"Since thunderstorm lightning is technically static electricity, it can be very deadly. \n\nBut I assume you’re talking about the little zap you get from shuffling across the carpet, that’s not dangerous at all. Might bite a bit, but it won’t kill you. \n\nNow if you shuffle all around the carpet and on the car seat then go fill your tank, that spark could set off gasoline fumes and turn you into a crispy critter.",
"To a normal person? Not at all. \n\nTo someone with a heart condition (like a pacemaker)? Potentially a problem\n\nFrom a carpet? Not at all.\n\nFrom a van-de-graf generator? Potentially problemattic. \n\nStatic electricity has very low amperage (amps), meaning that the \"force\" of it rushing at you is very low. Even if it's thousands of volts the amperage is the number of concern, amps refer to (in ELI5 speak) how much of the volts you get at once. There's a whole science behind this (see: Ohms law) but here's a rough/basic example:\n\nA static shock from carpet is something like .001ish amps (I'm not being exact here) whereas a lightning bolt could be 1,000 amps (again, not being exact).",
"The kind you buzz up on a dry winter day can damage unshielded electronics, but it's harmless to a person.\n\nRotating industrial equipment can build up enough static to actually do damage.\n\nThe churning atmosphere inside a thunderstorm generates enough static to blow up trees, so don't golf during a storm.",
"It can be if it builds up. I used to work in a factory manufacturing plastic. Because of the process the plastic would build up a charge. When you then stacked 150 sheets on top of one another it became like a battery. I've seen a grown man get knocked on his ass by it."
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f0mqkl | how do financial electronic fund transfer networks (e.g. atm networks, credit card networks) work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/f0mqkl/eli5_how_do_financial_electronic_fund_transfer/ | {
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"Much of it runs over the public internet. Debit and credit transactions are handled as regular HTTPS traffic to a processor which hands it off to a larger processor which hands it off to a bank. Not sure about ATMs so I’ll let someone else answer that.",
"And MasterCard and visa and other similar systems mostly talk over the internet these days. The computer systems can be totally different and use agreed standards (XML, standardized text files, etc) to transfer information with no problem."
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2wqnw5 | why is wasd associated with character movement in most video games? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2wqnw5/eli5_why_is_wasd_associated_with_character/ | {
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"Because your right hand is on the mouse to look around, and the left reaches straight forward to wasd. You get Q and E easy access, and 1234.",
"It wasn't always this way. \n\nIt started out the way you'd expect. Your keyboard had arrow keys. Those were used to move in the directions the arrows showed. Life was good. We lived in perfect two dimensional bliss, moving up, down, left, and right with the up, down, left, and right keys, respectively. \n\nThen the multiplayer games came. They rolled in on single screens, using only one keyboard to control two characters. Player 1 still got up, down, left, and right, but Player 2 was forced to select his own set of keys. It just so happened that W, A, S, and D were roughly in the same positions but on the left side of the keyboard. Two player games spread the use of WASD throughout the PC gaming community. \n\nThough WASD came with a bang, up-down-left-right went out with a fizzle. It made more sense for Player 1 to sit on the left side of the keyboard (since you read left-to-right), so Player 1 started using WASD. Player 1 didn't always have a Player 2, so, slowly over time, up-down-left-right was abandoned. The Internet came along, and Player 2 moved to a different keyboard with his own WASD. Both players' right hands were freed up for other functions, such as using SPACE to jump, and the way of the up-down-left-right was forgotten...\n\nUntil now.\n\n(edit: spelling. Thought vs. though.)",
"ASD is part of home row, so most user's hands habitually rest there anyways. The arrow keys are great for simple games like side scrollers, but the mouse needs to be free in anything with a non-fixed camera.",
"I would say it really became a thing once mice got involved.\n\nLook at some of the classic FPS games, like [Wolfenstein 3D](_URL_4_) or [Doom](_URL_1_). These games didn't give the player any ability to look up or down. Some of the later FPS games like [Heretic](_URL_2_) or [Duke Nukem 3D](_URL_0_) did have limited free look capabilities, but it wasn't the feature you take for granted in modern games. In most of those games, you're still using the arrow keys to turn and move; quite often, you'd have to hold down ALT to strafe.\n\nBungie's [Marathon](_URL_7_) was probably the first famous FPS to use mouse look.\n\nWith the rise of dedicated graphics cards, we started to see designers taking advantage of fully 3D environments. Games like [Descent](_URL_3_), [Quake II](_URL_6_), or even [Half-Life](_URL_5_). In these environments, players *had* to use the mouse to play effectively, which meant that it would be incredibly awkward to reach the arrow keys.\n\nThe WASD keys are in roughly the same shape. They're located on the home row, where people place their hands to type, so the position is familiar. They're even near other keys, which enabled some more gameplay mechanics.\n\nFor a while, there were people pushing for ESDF over WASD. It's technically even closer to a natural typing position, and it has closer access to more keys. I don't know exactly why WASD won out, but I think it's because it's slightly more comfortable, easier to find if you're not a touch typist, and frankly sounds catchier."
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descent_\\(video_game\\)",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfenstein_3D",
"http:... | ||
mftj1 | - linear regression | Instead of mathematic notation, can someone explain the algorithm as if they were writing it in C# or something. I find it easier to follow since I'm more familiar with it.
EDIT: I'm getting a lot of hate on by people thinking I'm just trying to get someone else to do homework for me. Let me be perfectly clear. I'm not in school. I'm trying to learn this out of pure interest but find mathematical notation hard to follow. I'm following this lecture here:
_URL_0_
I'm familiar with basic calculus but my major strengths are in programming. I'm fluent in many different languages, so handling data in a programming language rather than a mathematical notation for an explanation often "gets through" to my brain a lot easier. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/mftj1/eli5_linear_regression/ | {
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"I'm fairly competent in econometrics, but not C#. If you can clarify how you would like the answer, I may be able to help you.\n\nI should also note that, generally speaking, if you're only doing a linear regression, you don't need an algorithm. Basic matrix manipulation suffices. It's the non-linear regressions that require an algorithm.",
"Which method of linear regression are you interested in? And asking for code or an algorithm isn't something you'd get from a five year old. This is a stupidly phrased question, in the wrong subreddit, and I'm not going to do your homework. \nIdiot.",
"In R:\n\n > line < - lm(x ~ y)",
"I'm fairly competent in econometrics, but not C#. If you can clarify how you would like the answer, I may be able to help you.\n\nI should also note that, generally speaking, if you're only doing a linear regression, you don't need an algorithm. Basic matrix manipulation suffices. It's the non-linear regressions that require an algorithm.",
"Which method of linear regression are you interested in? And asking for code or an algorithm isn't something you'd get from a five year old. This is a stupidly phrased question, in the wrong subreddit, and I'm not going to do your homework. \nIdiot.",
"In R:\n\n > line < - lm(x ~ y)"
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827lxt | how do warrants for arrest work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/827lxt/eli5_how_do_warrants_for_arrest_work/ | {
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"That largely depends on the country but in general, a judge decides that someone should be arrested and the police are tasked with enforcing that decision.",
"Judicial law clerk here. For an arrest warrant, law enforcement must complete an affidavit stating why they have probable cause to believe someone has broken a law. This is then presented to a judge who has the opportunity to ask questions regarding the affidavit(s). If satisfies probable cause exists, the judge will then sign the warrant. ",
"If you have a warrant for your arrest out, and you get stopped by the cops for anything, they will take you in. A lot of people (bums or criminals, not a lot of normal people) will not pay fees for criminal acts or not show up in court. This will lead to you having a warrant. you can run and hide all you want, and some people do for months, but as soon as you get into any kind of contact with officials and they run your background, you are getting booked."
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esxke3 | how do tiny airplane wheels withstand the speed and impact of plane during landing? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/esxke3/eli5_how_do_tiny_airplane_wheels_withstand_the/ | {
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"These tires are very tough, but they don't get as many miles as your car tires, only 500 miles or so. They are filled at high pressure and pure nitrogen gas to prevent ice forming at very low temps.",
"1. They're not actually that small. It just seems that way relative to the airplane. [Take a look.](_URL_0_)\n2. They're built specifically for airplanes to land on, including having a seriously powerful shock absorption system.\n3. Planes are lighter than you'd expect. That's kind of the point; the lighter the airplane is, the faster it can fly and the further it can fly on the same tank of fuel. Making the tires as small as reasonably possible directly helps the plane and the tires both do their jobs."
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1yfj2a | how does air in the colon pass solid material and make farts? | Eli5: How does air in the colon pass solid material and make farts? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1yfj2a/eli5_how_does_air_in_the_colon_pass_solid/ | {
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"Because it's not solid, it's just mostly solid, so there's little pockets of air and spaces throughout. \nThe expanding gas just keeps on finding the little spaces in between the sweetcorn and peanuts, and voila, freedom!"
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1wmce2 | why cant we just put (at nobody's expense) billions of dollars into the government of 3rd world countries such as africa or into cancer research? | Instead of having other countries or groups/individuals donate money to help aid 3rd world countries or donate money for cancer research,
i.e. why must we 'donate' funds. Is it not possible to just suddenly put billions of dollars (at nobody's expense) into providing for 3rd world countries and stuff such as cancer research?
This would not only help the homeless and starving humans in these countries, but would also provide more jobs.
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1wmce2/eli5why_cant_we_just_put_at_nobodys_expense/ | {
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"First, Africa is not a country.\n\nSecond, how do you put money into something without it being an expense to someone?\n\nThird, many of these countries are extremely corrupt, so monies given don't end up in the hands of the people that really need them.\n\nFinally, I have no idea what you're actually trying to ask."
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9vdlxg | how do you qualify for tax credits? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9vdlxg/eli5_how_do_you_qualify_for_tax_credits/ | {
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"That varies greatly by what tax credit you are referring to. There are several different kinds.",
"It depends. Let's use the US as an example. There's generally some kind of action you need to take. For example, you can get a tax credit for buying an electric vehicle (like a Tesla). You can get a tax credit for having a child and an income under a particular threshold.\n\nTax credits that a corporation or investor might take advantage of include the Federal Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credit, which provides 10 or 20% credit on the total spent to renovate certain classes of historical buildings."
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4375q7 | why do we turn down the volume when looking at house numbers from the car? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4375q7/eli5_why_do_we_turn_down_the_volume_when_looking/ | {
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"The music is a distraction, less distractions = better thinking. Plus, if you're looking for numbers on houses, you're less focused on the road, so again less distractions are important. "
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1uuf9o | gauge theory and its relation to particle physics | I really haven't found a layman friendly explanation of Gauge Symmetry, and I am really struggling to understand it, and its relation to particle physics. I have to have some basic knowledge of it to compete in my high school science competition. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1uuf9o/eli5gauge_theory_and_its_relation_to_particle/ | {
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"The math involved is very difficult - I'm a graduate student majoring in it and there's plenty there I don't understand - but here's the best I can do for you.\n\nOne of the ways of thinking about physics is an approach called *Lagrangian Mechanics*, where you look at the world in terms of the *Lagrangian* (named for Lagrange, a famous mathematician). In classical terms, it's just the kinetic energy minus the potential energy. In modern physics, it's considerably more complicated, but for the moment just think of it as a function that takes in the state of a system and spits out a number.\n\nIn addition, we're looking at something called *field theory*. A *field* in the physics sense is just \"a number [or vector, or something more complex] for each point in the universe\". An easy example is the potential energy above the earth: we can create a field called gravitational potential that associates to each point the gravitational potential energy of a particle placed at that point.\n\nNow, here's where the *gauge* part comes in: we're interested in theories where the Lagrangian is invariant (doesn't change) even with changes to the underlying system. For a simple example, let's consider a topographical map of a (small, for the sake of simplicity) region of the earth. We can define a field by saying \"for each point, associate to it its height above sea level\", or by saying \"for each point, associate to it its height above the bottom of the Dead Sea\". We're measuring with respect to a different baseline, but the quantities we can observe (the *differences* in height between two points) are the same regardless of which measurement we choose. The choice of measurement is called a gauge."
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rr3ox | what do people mean when they say that the "banks are screwing us over"? what are the banks around the world doing to screw people over? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/rr3ox/eli5_what_do_people_mean_when_they_say_that_the/ | {
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"[Here](_URL_0_) is Matt Taibbi explaining a small part of it.",
"Banks are supposed to hold on to money and to loan money. In exchange for this they invest the money that they hold and give away some of the profits as interest. Meaningful interest from banks disappeared after 9/11 and doesn't' appear to be coming back. So for the longest time, banking money was good for both parties and now it just benefits the banks and not the people as interest is lower than inflation.\n\nThe lack of regulation has allowed banks to hold less money (liquidity) and to invest money in more and more risky things (in the search of more and more profit that doesn't get passed along to banking customers via interest). Because there aren't too many banks anymore they account for a huge concentration of our overall wealth (of lower and middle class not America as a whole). So banks holding less money and taking increasingly higher risks, they eventually loose, they've done this a couple of times and a few years ago they lost a fuck ton of money (or really couldn't hide that it was worthless as bad investments and lack of capital caused some banking institutions to fail).\n\nSo now they don't have money to keep the lights on, through their own doing, and the us government bails them out so the middle class didn't completely evaporate. This is enough to piss off most people as American's value work and earning quite highly. So people are angry because the banks got a free pass, with out money, that will cost us even more money, and in the mean time they don't have our money and won't loan us any of theirs so we are having trouble making more money.\n\nFor all of this trouble, the government throws money at them, they throw money at their executives, and the statute of limitations will be past before anyone mentions any criminal proceedings. \n\nBanks are all about trust and appearance (you don't give your money to idiots or criminals to be safe) and it's pretty hard to see them as noble institutions when they're not keeping up their side of the bargain. \\\n\nEdit: if you're speaking generally, Banks make money by owning and people make money by working.\n\n ",
"I remember a story from Sunday school. A father was leaving on a trip, and he loans each of his three sons each a coin. When he returned, he asked the first where the coin was, and the son said \"I spent it.\" The father (I may be mis-remembering, here) flys into a rage and slaps the hell out of the poor kid, screaming \"It wasn't a gift, you jackass!\" The second son had buried his coin, and so he shows his father he still has it. The father (again, fuzzy on details) picks him up over his head like Mr. T and throws him out the window, then shouts \"What good are you? You buried it for me? I get as much out of you as a hole in the ground!\" Then he wheels on the the third son, veins throbbing in his forehead, frothing at the mouth, and the third son...holds up **two** coins. The father nods, mutters \"Not bad.\" and takes the coins.\n\nThat's investing. When I loan money to you, it's not for storage and it's not a gift, I expect to get my money back plus a little something extra.\n\nThe reason banks are getting such a bad rep is that they're bad at it. When we loan them money, they give us back a tiny fraction of what we have given them. When they loan us money, they expect a big chunk of interest. This isn't in our favor, but we let it slide.\n\nLately, though, they've gone from being cheapass to being dumb, because they started using the money we loaned them to make investments that wound up costing them money. When they realized they had screwed up, they went to the government and straight panhandled for more money to cover their losses. Not only that, but their big argument for this bailout was that if they failed, everyone with money in their banks would lose it...so if I'm reading this right they basically took people's money hostage to make the government pay for their mistakes.\n\n...and that's why Father drinks.",
"Service charges/fees are one way.\n\nA service charge, one might think, should cover the cost of the service. No, not true! In Canada at least, it's SOP to get charged at least four bucks a month just to have a bank account. For that much money you have a very limited number of monthly transactions (maybe 10 transactions, including ATM withdrawals), may not get a paper statement, certainly won't get any cheques returned, and may get charged for *every* interaction with a human at the bank.\n\nIf you fight for an account with no monthly fee, then you will be charged for every single transaction - including depositing more money. Alternatively, if you don't want to fight with counting your transactions and just use your account, you'll pay about $15/month for an unlimited account.\n\nDoes it cost the bank $15? Hell no--maybe it's worth $2 of their effort, but in fact you have to pay $2 just to get a paper statement.\n\nIn short, service charges have become a fairly lucrative profit centre for the banks.\n\nAnother way they screw customers is with their rates. You want a good rate on your mortgage? You need to FIGHT for it--harder than arguing with a greasy used car salesman in a plaid suit. Same thing with GIC rates. What they post is bullshit, and while they _can_ bend quite a bit, they won't unless you kick them in the teeth and walk away. Their rates still aren't as good as dedicated investment firms though, and the management costs are often ridiculously high as well.\n\n**TL;DR: Massively excessive service charges and lousy rates**",
"The banks have a scale of economy when it comes to money. They invest the money that a million people give them to hold; thus they have a million times as much money as any single person (for example). This means they have what is called \"leverage\" - the ability to make huge investments for small percentage gains, and the ability to actually change the marketplace simply by making huge investments. \n\nThis isn't inherently bad, but it's being abused. The banks are 'screwing' us by investing our money in risky endeavors, and by loaning it back to us in a manner in which they could never have expected us to be able to pay it back. Then, when the banks claim they're in trouble, they get money from the federal government (which comes from our taxes) to write off their bad investments. They keep the money, but instead of actually writing off the bad investments (which would equate to forgiving our crappy loans), they also continue to try to collect on the loans. \n\nSorry, that's a simple as I I can put it. ",
"The banks, because of financial deregulation, are now allowed to put their capital into extremely risky, misguided investments. If these investments fail, the bank is likely to fail. But the government is too scared of the consequences of a general bank failure, because it would harm the economy really badly. So the government rescues the banks—when things get bad for the banks, and it looks like they might lose their bets and be wiped out, the government steps in a promises everybody that it will pay for the losses if they happen, using taxpayer money. This has the effect of calming the markets, and so far has managed to prevent a major catastrophe.\n\nThis would already be bad enough, but it gets worse, because the government is not punishing the banks' owners and management or extracting anything valuable in exchange for rescuing the banks. It would be one thing if the government said ok, we'll rescue the bank because otherwise our nation's people will suffer, **but** you, bank owner, failed at your job and you should lose your ownership of the bank. Instead the government throws money at the banks in terms favorable to the bank, and the owners and management, who created the problem, are instead **rewarded** for it.\n\nThere's a basic principle of finance that says: those who take on the risk of an investment are the ones that are entitled to the profits if it succeeds. This situation violates that: when the government and the taxpayers take on the risk by rescuing the banks, but the banks' owners and managers are the ones who profit.\n\nSo what lesson have the banks learned? Make super-risky investments that have a huge chance of failing and wiping out your bank, because if you win, you win big, and if you lose, the government will give you a lot of money so you win anyway. We're screwed, probably until a crisis comes big enough that the government fails to rescue the banks from it.",
"Regular banks and investment banks were separated after the crash of 1929, in a law called Glass-Steagall. Glass-Steagall went out the window in the 90s however, when a merger between Citibank and Travelers was allowed, making Citigroup. Later, laws would be passed to essentially nullify Glass-Steagall oficially. Many issues resulted:\n\nPreviously, banks would give you a loan, and if you defaulted on a loan, they would have to take the fall. This led banks to only give people mortgages who were in good credit standing. But when banks were allowed to merge with investment banks, they realized they could sell off their mortgages immediately by repackaging them into \"mortgage backed securities.\" These securities would include small percentages or cuts of a mortgage (technically called a tranch) and combine it with other small bits of mortgages. By slicing up the mortgages, banks could combine bad mortgages with good mortgages and sell it to investors (usually big investors.. not everyday ppl like you and me but people in charge of endowments, etc.) who are legally binded to only buy AAA investments. Mortgage-backed securities were rated AAA, the highest rating by most of the credit-rating agencies and many have accused these agencies of committing fraud in doing so. So these mortgage-backed securities were utter crap because they were based on mortgages that were sub-prime. Banks didn't particularly care, because they could actually bet against their own clients.. meaning they could sell them something they knew was worthless, then invest for the bank, betting the mortgages would fail. They just sold these pieces of crap and racked up a bunch of fees in the process. \n\nSubprime mortgages boomed. Many have pointed to many pieces of legislation passed during the 90s that encouraged banks to lend to lower income families, and it is true that these laws probably did play some part in the boom of sub-prime mortgages. But there has also been huge amounts of fraud found, where bankers were lying to people about what they would actually owe, were encouraging people to lie on their forms so they could qualify, and there has been evidence that some banks tricked their customers into getting a subprime mortgage, even though they qualified for a better mortgage. Strong evidence shows banks targeting African Americans and those who do not speak english fluently. \n\nBut the point is, banks were in a huge rush to get people to buy up these awful sub-prime loans that would have a teaser rate and would shoot up after a few years. They pushed it because they were no longer on the hook for whether someone paid or not because they immediately resold the mortgage and repackaged them into securities.\n\nBanks were able to repackage mortgages so quickly, because they were side-stepping hundreds of years of laws of mortgage registration.. by creating their own mortgage register--MERS. (The legality of which is still to be determined and some judges have even ruled banks can' foreclose on ppl because MERS isn't legitimate). MERS allowed banks to sell and resell banks many times and immediately.. but sometimes the documentation wasn't correct or was missing. So to fix this problem when everyone was going into foreclosure and banks suddenly needed all these documents.. they set up illegal robo-signing mills, where they paid people $10/hour to illegally forge documents. \n\nAll of this lending led to the real estate bubble and when this bubble burst, the whole house of cards fell. People realized the mortgage-backed securities were worthless, the banks failed and then bailed out, people got laid off, more people were unable to afford their mortgage due to being laid off, the foreclosure crisis escalated and it just became a vicious circle. And here we are today. \n\nNow the banks are paying $20 billion settlements--which sounds like a lot, but not compared to how much they make every single day. To them, $20 billion is just pennies. There is also an issue with the \"revolving door,\" banks aren't regulated properly. This whole crisis would have been avoided if Glass-Steagall was still around. But banks will never be regulated properly because the regulators are usually former employees of the big banks, and will return back to the big banks.. after they serve their time as a public servant. ",
"Fractional Banking. Basically the bank gets to pretend it has money and give you the pretend money and then you pay back the pretend money and give them extra real money."
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n7scc | what is the windows command prompt for? what can be done using it that can't be done in the gui? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/n7scc/eli5_what_is_the_windows_command_prompt_for_what/ | {
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"Quite a lot of technical stuff that doesn't really matter to most people but is important for system admins, etc.\n\nA poor example off the top of my head is the arp command, you can use that to configure and modify static [ARP](_URL_0_) mappings.\n\nI'm sure a Windows sysadmin could come up with something more commonplace as an example.\n\n\nAlso through bash scripting you can automate things from the command line. So for instance if you need to do some process on hundreds of computers in your workplace, you can write a ~~bash~~batch script that uses command line tools to do it automatically and have that run on all your computers.",
"It's less cpu intensive then gui so it works better in emergencies. \n\nI may not explored too much, but I don't know a way to ping something without it and I find easier to type \"ipconfig\" then going to my network adapter settings to check my IP. \n\nAlso I had some security/privileges problems with explorer, that cmd did not experienced (I couldn't remove certain folders).",
"A fair number of common things can be accomplished through the command line. Mostly for system administrators, or for people who have to work on other people's computers. So if it can be done with on the command line then you can write a batch script to do it the same way every time. This removes the possibilities of human error in some common tasks.\n\nOne example is \"mapping network drives\". If I run the network at my place of work, and we have several file stores, I could send out an email telling everyone, step by step, screenshot by screenshot, exactly what to click and what to type in. Or I could write a bunch of \"[net use ...](_URL_0_)\" commands, save it in a batch script, and tell any computer logging into my network to run that script. That way everyone has the same network drive mapped.\n\nThere are automation tools that can click on windows, but those do not come with windows by default. And batch scripts generally predate more comprehensive tools like Windows Scripting Host. Not to mention that system admins typically do not learn much programming, so in my experience WSH is not widely used, even despite great resources like the windows script center.",
"The windows command prompt is a powerful tool for advanced computer users to get access to text based, automated, or non-gui tools. I will go over a few different types of users and how they each use the command prompt. This is in no way an exhaustive list.\n\n* Network Administrators/IT: Your common IT professional/helpdesk employee will probably use the command prompt to get access to diagnostic and information tools built into windows. \"IPconfig\" is probably the most commonly used of these tools, although it is not limited to professional IT use, many home users use this command when doing anything with settings that requires you to know your IP address. It simply presents the configuration of attached network adapters. Net Admins may have to use command line based tools (ssh/arp/nslookup/netstat) to connect to or get information about machines (routers/servers/etc) that don't run GUIs of their own or don't provide the information easily.\n\n* Programmers: Programmers using scripting languages (aka non-compiled languages like python or ruby) most likely use the command line to launch the programs they write or use. These 'scripts' are run via an interpreter which needs to be launched via the command like because arguments need to be passed to the program before it is launched. Programmers of compiled languages will most likely use the command line to run their static compilers then again to run the programs they have compiled.\n\n* Linux/Unix users: People who have grown accustomed to using Linux often find it easier to use the command prompt to do simple actions. Although Linux can be used entirely via the GUI the Bash terminal application included in most distributions of linux is extremely powerful and can do more things than would be remotely possible to list here. Windows users can install Cygwin, which is a program that adds most of the functionality of the Unix terminal to the Windows command prompt.\n\n* Power Users: Anytime you run a program that requires you to add switches (additional commands) to the program before it is run is easiest done from the command prompt, however this can be done by editing a shortcut every time, but thats a PITA.\n",
"Quite a lot of technical stuff that doesn't really matter to most people but is important for system admins, etc.\n\nA poor example off the top of my head is the arp command, you can use that to configure and modify static [ARP](_URL_0_) mappings.\n\nI'm sure a Windows sysadmin could come up with something more commonplace as an example.\n\n\nAlso through bash scripting you can automate things from the command line. So for instance if you need to do some process on hundreds of computers in your workplace, you can write a ~~bash~~batch script that uses command line tools to do it automatically and have that run on all your computers.",
"It's less cpu intensive then gui so it works better in emergencies. \n\nI may not explored too much, but I don't know a way to ping something without it and I find easier to type \"ipconfig\" then going to my network adapter settings to check my IP. \n\nAlso I had some security/privileges problems with explorer, that cmd did not experienced (I couldn't remove certain folders).",
"A fair number of common things can be accomplished through the command line. Mostly for system administrators, or for people who have to work on other people's computers. So if it can be done with on the command line then you can write a batch script to do it the same way every time. This removes the possibilities of human error in some common tasks.\n\nOne example is \"mapping network drives\". If I run the network at my place of work, and we have several file stores, I could send out an email telling everyone, step by step, screenshot by screenshot, exactly what to click and what to type in. Or I could write a bunch of \"[net use ...](_URL_0_)\" commands, save it in a batch script, and tell any computer logging into my network to run that script. That way everyone has the same network drive mapped.\n\nThere are automation tools that can click on windows, but those do not come with windows by default. And batch scripts generally predate more comprehensive tools like Windows Scripting Host. Not to mention that system admins typically do not learn much programming, so in my experience WSH is not widely used, even despite great resources like the windows script center.",
"The windows command prompt is a powerful tool for advanced computer users to get access to text based, automated, or non-gui tools. I will go over a few different types of users and how they each use the command prompt. This is in no way an exhaustive list.\n\n* Network Administrators/IT: Your common IT professional/helpdesk employee will probably use the command prompt to get access to diagnostic and information tools built into windows. \"IPconfig\" is probably the most commonly used of these tools, although it is not limited to professional IT use, many home users use this command when doing anything with settings that requires you to know your IP address. It simply presents the configuration of attached network adapters. Net Admins may have to use command line based tools (ssh/arp/nslookup/netstat) to connect to or get information about machines (routers/servers/etc) that don't run GUIs of their own or don't provide the information easily.\n\n* Programmers: Programmers using scripting languages (aka non-compiled languages like python or ruby) most likely use the command line to launch the programs they write or use. These 'scripts' are run via an interpreter which needs to be launched via the command like because arguments need to be passed to the program before it is launched. Programmers of compiled languages will most likely use the command line to run their static compilers then again to run the programs they have compiled.\n\n* Linux/Unix users: People who have grown accustomed to using Linux often find it easier to use the command prompt to do simple actions. Although Linux can be used entirely via the GUI the Bash terminal application included in most distributions of linux is extremely powerful and can do more things than would be remotely possible to list here. Windows users can install Cygwin, which is a program that adds most of the functionality of the Unix terminal to the Windows command prompt.\n\n* Power Users: Anytime you run a program that requires you to add switches (additional commands) to the program before it is run is easiest done from the command prompt, however this can be done by editing a shortcut every time, but thats a PITA.\n"
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4xo664 | why is it comfortable to sleep under a warm blanket in a cool room but uncomfortable to sleep without a blanket in a warm room? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4xo664/eli5_why_is_it_comfortable_to_sleep_under_a_warm/ | {
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"You're just used to sleeping with a blanket. The comfort and security isn't only about temperature.",
"You've obviously never slept in a room that's 98°. Believe me, it's totally doable to sleep with nothing covering you when the outside air is your body temperature. ",
"When something is not touching your skin, the nerves are working really hard to listen for something touching or brushing past you; which gets distracting. If you have a blanket on you your skins knows something is there and it doesn't have to worry.",
"I just had a lecture on this last week. The main reason is that during REM sleep the way our body makes heat (thermogenesis) is much less efficient, almost to the point that we become \"cold blooded\". During REM sleep we don't make as much heat so our body temperature is dependent on our environment. We need to sleep with blankets because blankets keep the air around us warm enough that during REM sleep we don't get too cold. This is why we can get hot early in the night (when non-REM sleep occurs) but later on, in REM sleep, wake up and put blankets on because we are too cold. Also, when you nap for short periods of time, under 30 minutes or so, you don't enter REM sleep and don't need a blanket. The lack of thermogenesis during REM sleep is seen in all mammals, and all mammals have some sort of way to keep themselves warm during REM sleep, like nesting, using certain postures, or sleeping in packs. This excludes whales and dolphins which sleep with only half of their brain at a time.\n\nA lot of people are mentioning stuff about not needing blankets when it's hot, or only needing them when cold. If you're sleeping in a room that's 98 degrees with no blankets, during non-REM sleep you will be too warm and during REM sleep you will be fine because the environment is at body temp. But if you are in a room that's 70 degrees without a blanket, during non-REM sleep you will be fine because your body can make heat, but during REM you will be very cold because your body's only source of heat is the 70 degree environment which is too cold. In general, our body's thermoregulation is better in non-REM sleep so we can cool off better in non-REM with blankets than we are able to warm up in REM sleep without blankets.\n\nSources: _URL_1_, _URL_0_\n\nAs other have said there is probably some conditioning involved too. If you can't nap for 30 minutes without a blanket the problem is not body temperature, you're just used to having blankets on. \n\nEdit. Another cool thing I learned: One of the first thing that happens when you reach even the lightest stages of sleep is that your body's temperature set point is \"reset\" and lowered. If you're ever sitting or laying down almost asleep and feel yourself get a little chilled, you probably fell asleep for a few seconds and your temperature point got reset. Some people end up sweating a lot early in the night due to their body trying to lower it's temperature to reach the new set point.\n",
"I heard that the reason for this is the order in which our senses develop.\n\nObviously we have quite a few more senses than the traditional 5 people speak about. Besides taste, smell etc., we have the ability to sense pressure, temperature, pain, balance and others.\n\nI've been told to squeeze my toe if I stub it on something, as it numbs the pain slightly due to pressure being a sense that was developed first.\n\nThis might also apply here, as the sense of pressure is developed pretty early in the womb. We're used to sleeping with something over/around us. It's cosy.",
"ELI5:\n\nThe main purpose of a blanket while sleeping is to keep air currents away. If air, even very slowly flows over you it transports away the warmth of your body and you get cold. Yes, even in warm rooms, because they also don't have 37°C (your body temnperature), but something lower.\n\nAnd because you're sleeping you're not producing very much energy and heat for a long time. In this time air currents are bad. Even if your door and windows are closed, there are slight turbulences in the air because your room probably isn't air tight. \nTo keep this moving air away from you a blanket is your best friend. Even if you only use a sheet because it's hot outside; it's better than nothing."
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58ac9i | why it is possible for people to use their children's social security number to apply for credit? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/58ac9i/eli5_why_it_is_possible_for_people_to_use_their/ | {
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"You're talking about the same version of a theft whenever a fraudster applies for credit in your name. You can apply for credit entirely online with just name and address and Social Security number. This could be tempting for parents who have gone through things like bankruptcies or a lot of delinquencies, the child credit history is blank , which isn't ideal but it's better than what they have. A lot of parents will justify that they'll make it up to the kid by paying it off before the kid turns 18, or they rationalize it by thinking they're building their child's credit. It's still fraud.\n\nThe only reason a lot of parents get away with this is because and a case of fraud a lot of times you need to have a prosecutor, and children generally don't want to prosecute their parents. Even if their parents fucked them over.",
"I think the part you might be missing is that the parents lie about the age of the child on the credit application.\n\nCreditors don't have access to a national database of information about people by their social security number. They have no idea how old that person is.\n\nWhen the parent first applies for credit in the child's name and with a fake age, it's conditionally approved for a very small amount of money because there's no credit history. Over time, as the parent makes payments, the child's account gets a positive history of paying back loans, so other creditors can look that up and trust it, too.\n\nBasically there's nothing stopping you from applying for credit cards under made-up names and social security numbers yourself. Of course it's illegal, but lenders aren't going to bother to investigate as long as you keep making payments. The reason it's slightly risky is that if you happen to pick someone else's social security number, they might investigate. By picking your own child's legitimate social security number, you don't raise as much suspicion.\n"
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1196hk | why cars don't have a built in variable speed limit? | I know that some cars and motorcycles have some kind of device that avoids it reaching the maximum speed possible. Why don't they put some kind of radio "checkpoints" on the streets/highways that allows the cars to run on specific maximum speed on that lane/patch to avoid people exceeding the speed limit? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1196hk/eli5_why_cars_dont_have_a_built_in_variable_speed/ | {
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"Because there are legitimate reasons for going over the speed limit. Emergencies, overtakes, and just keeping up with traffic.",
"There is this thing called paying attention and using your cruise control. It's pretty effective."
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45uief | when criminals 'launder' money, i'm assuming their not putting it into a washing machine. what exactly does it entail? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/45uief/eli5when_criminals_launder_money_im_assuming/ | {
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"The idea is to take money that has an obvious criminal connection (dirty money) and pass it through a number of steps that obfuscates that connection until it appears to be legitimately earned (clean money).\n\nFor example, a drug dealer could take the money he earns selling drugs and pass it through a money launderer who employs him at a fake job. The launderer takes a cut, and the dealer's money now appears to have come from a legitimate job if anyone comes looking.\n\nA successful criminal could purchase a cash-heavy business like a bar, strip club, convenience store, etc. He could then feed the proceeds of his criminal acts into the business and make it appear as though the business had generated the money. Or he could enter into a scheme with other criminals to buy and sell things for inflated prices, or send the money through multiple banks, businesses, and investments until it all appears to be from legitimate sources back several steps.",
"So lets say you're getting a stream of money from selling drugs. Too much money that you can write it off safely without getting noticed, and you really want it in your bank account. \n\nThe best way to handle this, is to buy a small business that also has a steady stream of income coming in. the act of \"laundering money\" is adding little bits of the dirty money in with the clean money from your legit business, therefor \"cleaning\" it. it becomes impossible to differentiate between the two from anyone outside, and if you do it smartly its pretty safe. ",
"Say you sell drugs (has to be a lot of drugs. Nobody is going to care if you have a couple hundred a month in sales. Not the people that watch for money laundering). You need a way to get that money so you can spend it without looking suspect. If you drive a bently but claim $20,000 income for the year,red flags will go up. So anyways, you open a business that is cash dependent for the most part. Think pizza shop, nail salon, bowling ally, etc. you open it up, claim more customers than you actually get, and funnel your money in with the rest. Now the government isn't any wiser, and you get a way to make that money look legit. Pawn shops are great for it also. ",
" Let's say you are a drug dealer, so you have large amounts of dollar bills laying around. If you go to the bank and deposit $10,000 and you don't have a job that is obviously going to raise suspicion. You can't buy a car or house with cash because then they will know you are either a tax dodger or doing something that requires there to be no paper trail ( selling of illegal goods/ services). So what you do is you give a bunch of people some of your cash and have them send you a check for about 80% (fee depends on person/group) of what you gave them, and as soon as it is in a bank account there will be almost no suspicion of anything lucrative. The term comes from when the mafia would buy Laundromats because banks know it is normal for laundromats to deal in cash so the mafia just puts the \"dirty\" money in with the money that the laundromat makes when depositing it in an account."
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x6a62 | bass & treble | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/x6a62/eli5_bass_treble/ | {
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"text": [
"Bass tones are the low, grumbly ones. Treble are the higher, tinkly ones. \n\nBoom, ELI5'd. "
]
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[]
] | ||
4dkj8k | why the numbers of distributed delegates in wisconsin don't match with the percentages of votes? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4dkj8k/eli5_why_the_numbers_of_distributed_delegates_in/ | {
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"Sanders got 56.4% (45 delegates ) and Hillary got 43.2% (31 delegates). So if there were a total number of 86 delegates (+ 10 superdelegate) why the number of delegates for each candidate doesn't match with the voting percentages? (like sanders should have gotten 48 delegates since 56.4% of 86 is 48!)",
"I touched on this in the reply below, and to be clear I don't believe the tallies are final yet delegate wise. Bernie should finish with about 48 delegates.\n\nDelegates are awarded by congressional district. To make the math easy let's say Wisconsin was worth 100 delegates and had 10 congressional districts all worth 10 delegates each. If Bernie were to win every single one of those districts by a margin of 52-48 each district would have to set their delegate allotment at 5.2 delegates for Bernie, and 4.8 for Hillary. You can't award a fraction of a delegate, so what happens is that they would round, and both candidates would earn 5 delegates. Netting the overall delegate for the state 50/50 for both, despite Bernie getting 52% of the vote. It's a tiny difference, and this an extreme example showing all the rounding going in favor of one candidate. Usually it's going to be pretty dead on, but this is an example of how you can get a small disparity between your overall vote and the delegates you receive."
]
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[],
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5z0gn5 | why do game developers often say that it is much harder to make computer games for mac than for windows.? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5z0gn5/eli5_why_do_game_developers_often_say_that_it_is/ | {
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"When developing a game engine, which is the 'core' of the game, developers will use a 3D graphics API which means they don't have to worry about a lot of the details of exactly how computer graphics work, or about the difference between different computers. Microsoft have put a lot of work into making their API, DirectX, nice for game engine developers to work with but DirectX is only on Windows. OpenGL is another API available on Mac and Linux as well as on Windows but it's a bit harder to use and sometimes a bit slower, so developers tend to favour DirectX.\n\nMany game developers don't write their own engines though, they use an off-the-shelf one such as Unreal Engine or Unity. In that situation the game developer is somewhat reliant on the game engine developer to provide support for different operating systems. Even when the engine does, there's still a bit of extra work involved in making the game available on Mac or Linux and many game developers don't consider it worth the small extra market.",
"I don't have a lot of experience in development for MacOS X, but I spent some time working on games that ran on iOS (among other platforms) and had to use Macs for this.\n\nOne of the aspects is tools. Visual Studio is something almost every game developer knows, but it is only available for Windows. MacOS X has XCode instead. Which is very good in some aspects (better auto-completion than VS, very good profiling tools), but has some drawbacks (crashes or hangs all the goddamned time for no apparent reason, has worse debugger tool than VS).\n\nAlso, to create a signed program for MacOS X (i.e. one you can run without toggling the switch for untrusted sources (or whatever it is called) in Settings), you need to register as an Apple developer. I don't know the current situation, but it cost money before, which is, of course, not a problem for a big company, but might make a small indie team reconsider working on that platform. And signing process itself is a pain in the ass, because XCode sometimes randomly stops accepting your signing certificate, and you have to find out why (which is not an easy task and may take several hours).\n\nThe points about DirectX and game engines mentioned by /u/cantab314 are also very valid.",
"OpenGL drivers are somewhat more buggy, slower, unreliable and/or offer fewer features in OS X.\n\nSource: I develop cross-platform 3D software"
]
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dap82f | why does a person’s voice sound different after waking up from a coma? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dap82f/eli5_why_does_a_persons_voice_sound_different/ | {
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"text": [
"Often they’ve been on a ventilator, which may irritate their vocal cords. Plus, they haven’t been speaking, so that affects their vocal cords, as well."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
2311um | how are the mapping applications able to pinpoint the location more accurately when on a wi-fi network compared to a mobile network. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2311um/eli5_how_are_the_mapping_applications_able_to/ | {
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"Every wireless access point has a unique ID, it's MAC address. \n\nThrough other crowdsourced efforts, especially like Google Street View cars, the location of these has been triangulated with decent accuracy. If you have wifi on, even if you aren't connected to the wireless access point, it's SSID beacon will tell you its MAC address. If this is sent up to a server with access to a database, it gives you geographical points to triangulate against. \n\nThis all happens behind the scenes, but leads to greater accuracy as cell towers are hundreds of yards or even miles apart.\n\nIt is specifically useful indoors where GPS signals are blocked.",
"You can thank the Android phone users out there for Google being able to pinpoint with reasonably high accuracy your location. Android will compare location information from cell towers and wifi networks. When one connects their phone to a certain SSID, Google gathers location data relative to the cell signal strength, and adds it to their database. Next time you use that SSID, Google knows where you are."
]
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[],
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5lnyei | when they say "we didn't have the technology then," what does that specifically refer to? why were usb sticks only able to hold 500 mb a few years ago but are now able to hold hundreds of gb? what specifically changes in that time frame? | I'm just thinking like, all the same materials are there; the silicon, the metal, everything, but what *specifically* made us able to fit that amount of storage on a USB stick-sized chip then, and the current amount we can now? Or some other comparable application. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5lnyei/eli5_when_they_say_we_didnt_have_the_technology/ | {
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"For storage mediums, the materials were there, but the ability to transform the materials was not. It's a gradual evolution. \n\nThe first USB stick probably had a few Megabytes on it. Over time, manufactures figured out better ways to fit the storage on the specific medium. The better ways reduced the size, which left more room for more storage. \n\nFast forward several years, and several generations of miniaturization and you have a USB stick with Gigabytes of storage space.",
"There's a few things, but one big change how small we can actually build the parts that sit on that chip. \n\nIn the 1970s, the transistors on embedded circuits were 10 micrometers across. That's **tiny**. But by 2004, we'd hit 90 nanometers. To save you the conversion that's 9,910 nanometers smaller. In 2016 year Samsung hit 14nm across, and will probably be able to do 10 in 2017.\n\nThe result is that since we can build stuff even more ridiculously tiny-er-er, we can start to squeeze a lot of the same basic structures that make up memory circuits and the like into smaller spaces, which means we can fit a lot more **of** them onto one chip.",
"Making things smaller plays a big role in the advancement of technology. Taking USB drives as an example; they work by using transistors. Transistors use electrons to store information. Over the years transistors have been made tiny. To the point where you 32 billion of them (transistors) are crammed into a 8gb flash drive. ",
"Lego blocks have many different sizes. So let's say the smallest piece the machines can make is a 2x8 brick. You can only fit so many of those on a big flat plate. That's your 500 mb stick.\n\nNow technology improves and the machines get better and can now make 2x2 bricks. You can now fit 4 times as many on the same big plate. This would like a 2gb stick.\n\nMiniaturization and better computing power to control the machines now allows them to reliably make 1x1 Lego bricks. You can now stick 4 times as many on our big plate. This is a 8 gb USB. \n\n\nTldr. Better machines that make machines that make smaller machines that make faster machines cause production to be faster, cheaper, and better every generation. When applying this to computers, where every 2 or so years is a generation, everything is obsolete faster and faster.\n"
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9176bo | how did the name "jesus christ" come to be equated to expressing shock and surprise? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9176bo/eli5_how_did_the_name_jesus_christ_come_to_be/ | {
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"It probably came out of invoking the name of Christ when people were terrified of things they assumed to be manifestations of the devil",
"Invoking the name of Jesus, God, or other deities is a common reaction to shock and surprise. In its original religious context you are literally calling on them to bless you and protect you in that moment, or you are calling on them to condemn or curse someone or something in that moment. As the habits became ingrained into common practice it took on the secular meaning of exclaiming shock, but many religious people still hold to the original uses and that is why you get admonitions of \"do not use the Lords name in vain\" when you use it simply to show shock. ",
"In more superstitious times, when people saw something unusual, they often saw it is evil and dangerous, and would invoke their deity of choice for protection. \"Jesus Christ, I beseech you to cast away this abomination I see before me!\"\n\nThat's a lot to say, especially if you are running away, so it eventually got shortened into the expressions we use today."
]
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3leg59 | how does an antivirus contain viruses to their vault ? | Like, why doesn't it, "escape" and infect other stuff ? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3leg59/eli5how_does_an_antivirus_contain_viruses_to/ | {
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"text": [
"Without getting technical, essentially think of it as a real life vault. The virus is deleted/moved from it's original location and put into this vault where it has no access to other files. It isolates it in that folder so it can't harm your other files. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | |
60bl7v | is increased heart rate and blood pressure by using stimulating drugs necessarily a bad thing? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/60bl7v/eli5_is_increased_heart_rate_and_blood_pressure/ | {
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"No. People drink caffeinated drinks all the time. These cause mild elevations in pulse and BP and for most they are harmless. It's a matter of degrees. How elevated? What underlying health issues does the person have? How often is it happening. Things like that. The problem with abusing stimulants is that it's hard to answer those questions so you can end up in trouble. \n\nI once had to have a chemically induced stress-echo test. I had a sprained ankle but had an episode of SVT so my doc wanted to be certain nothing was wrong and didn't want to wait for the ankle to heal first. They use drugs to push my heart rate up into the 180's and held it there for a few minutes so they could complete the echocardiogram. I'm sure it spikes your BP as well. Very unpleasant experience but no big deal medically. Now if I had one on a daily basis then yea it could probably cause some issues. \n\nKeep in mind that there are other risks to abusing stimulants as well. "
]
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[]
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8hdm6p | why can a severe injury's pain stay with us for life when a cut can heal up no problem with no pain later? | If my leg is sprained why is it that 30 years later I can still feel a reduced version of said pain, shouldn't it have already healed fully if all the cells are new? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8hdm6p/eli5why_can_a_severe_injurys_pain_stay_with_us/ | {
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"Well, there are multiple ways to explain it.\n\n1. Your body's circulatory system is like the roads of the city, and most cities have neighborhoods like slums and ghettos where the roads are either few or don't reach. These can include some places like ligaments (where sprains occur). When your blood (the delivery trucks that deliver important resources) can't reach those areas, then they can't rebuild any damage done. So they remain as broken areas (the injury persists). One such place I can think of are some of the cartilage and ligaments in your knees.\n\n2. Your nervous system is like a super-powerful computer that learns as things happen around it. When you have an injury that either: (a) causes you an immense amount of pain, or (b) leaves you with a part of your body missing, such as an amputation, the nervous system has a difficult time coping with it. In the case of A, the pain may imprint onto your brain, kind of like that ex who you don't contact anymore but just can't seem to forget. In the case of B, your nerves try to rebuild and reconnect with each other, but due to the loss of body part, they grow all wrong and can be triggered randomly, causing the phenomenon known as phantom pain or phantom limb pain.\n\nYes, I probably got some of these inaccurate, but this is for the purpose of explaining it in simple terms. You could go to a place like /r/AskDocs if you want more info, I guess.",
"A sprain is different because 1) ligaments blood supply is terrible so healing potential isn't the same as a cut and 2) the ligaments are there to hold the joint in a certain position, so when they don't return to the pre-injury state the pain is actually coming the joint because of abnormal loading "
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[],
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1sp0lx | why do terms of service contain some parts in all caps? | Reddit's new terms eventually lead me to glancing through Google and Apple's Terms of Service. [Apple's Terms of Service](_URL_0_) consist of 14,898 words, more than 7 times larger than [Google's](_URL_1_) which is 1,848. Although google does it less so, both of them occasionally switch into ALL CAPS.
Why is that? Were the lawyers just upset after writing so much they wanted to convey their anger to the world? Are those sections more important? Do they know its a pain to read all caps so they put things there that they don't want anyone reading? Does the court somehow treat those sections differently? Seriously, why do they do that? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1sp0lx/eli5_why_do_terms_of_service_contain_some_parts/ | {
"a_id": [
"cdzrx1w"
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"text": [
"IT MAKES the stuff that we really need to read, like the really IMPORTANT STUFF. The shit that we have to read STAND OUT.."
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"http://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/us/terms.html",
"http://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/terms/"
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u6z5f | student loans. | I start college pretty soon.
It will cost me around $21,000
I have been offered a $3,500 FED Direct sub loan, $2,000 Direct unsub loan, and $9,466 in parent plus loans.
I have no idea of what *any* of this means. At all. How do they work? When do I start paying them if I accept them?
Thanks in advance.
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/u6z5f/eli5_student_loans/ | {
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"text": [
"The $3,500 Direct subsidized loans will not accrue interest while you are in school. The $2,000 Direct unsubsidized loans will accrue interest while you are still in school. You will have to start paying them off shortly after you graduate or stop attending (I think I had six months, but I'm not quite sure.) The parent PLUS loans will be in your parents' name, not yours, and it will legally be entirely their responsibility to repay them, provided they are willing to take them in the first place. I have no idea what the repayment schedule on them is, but I'm fairly certain that they start accruing interest immediately, like Direct unsubsidized loans."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | |
aa6djo | how does a nuclear powered aircraft carrier operate? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/aa6djo/eli5_how_does_a_nuclear_powered_aircraft_carrier/ | {
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"text": [
"The nuke plants create heat that is used to create steam which is pushed through a turbine which drives a bunch of reducing gears to lower the RPM & increase torque which turns the long shaft that the propeller is connected to. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
jxmpb | how do countries with more than one official language write their laws? | I'll use Canada as an example. When they translate a law from English to French, does it ever lose its intent or true meaning? Who does the translating? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/jxmpb/how_do_countries_with_more_than_one_official/ | {
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"They have the law in both languages. There are specialists who draft laws and its special language. They also tend to do the translation work. \n\nLaws tend to be written in a peculiar style of writing that really is full of legalese and rather clunky. Strangely enough, this makes translation somewhat easier since it typically prefers substance and utility over style. They usually just do their best though, since whether something such as \"statutory derivative action\" is translated correctly makes minor differences in what it actually does or refers to.\n\nUsually, one language will trump over the other in case there is an issue on interpretation or inconsistency. Interpretation of laws is another topic that judges and lawyers will deal with and is another topic in itself.",
"They have the law in both languages. There are specialists who draft laws and its special language. They also tend to do the translation work. \n\nLaws tend to be written in a peculiar style of writing that really is full of legalese and rather clunky. Strangely enough, this makes translation somewhat easier since it typically prefers substance and utility over style. They usually just do their best though, since whether something such as \"statutory derivative action\" is translated correctly makes minor differences in what it actually does or refers to.\n\nUsually, one language will trump over the other in case there is an issue on interpretation or inconsistency. Interpretation of laws is another topic that judges and lawyers will deal with and is another topic in itself."
]
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[],
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9i1ehi | what are the reasons for doctors squirtin medicine out the end of a needle after filling it. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9i1ehi/eli5_what_are_the_reasons_for_doctors_squirtin/ | {
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"It's to clear out any air that could be in the syringe. Pushing air bubbles into your blood system leads to very serious complications. ",
"TL;DR;Usually they aren’t squirting our medicine but air. \n\nSince most medicine is heavier then air the air will rise to the top (hence they hold the needle upwards) and one can push until all the air is out. But since it is sometimes just a small bubble of air it is hard to stop in time hence sometimes a bit of medicine leaves the needle as well.\n\nSource: I used to take medicine using a syringe for a couple of years",
"They make sure there is no air in there. Injecting someone with a syringe full of air is deadly. "
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1t01dj | why do authorities attempt to stop someone from committing suicide? surely it's their choice? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1t01dj/eli5_why_do_authorities_attempt_to_stop_someone/ | {
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"Because it's usually part of their job by law. The pro-life moral view that suicidal thoughts can always be extinguished holds majority. Plain and simple.\n\nBut yes, objectively it should be their own choice.",
"The police are there to Protect and Serve. Sometimes this means protecting people from themselves.\n\nAlso, a lot sometimes suicidal people are only suicidal for a short amount of time, like if they just lost their job or broke up with their partner. I'm not trivialising suicide with this last part, I understand there are people who are long-term suicide risks for deeper issues, but I understand that is part of the root of the reason why the authorities try to stop them (also, if you're a cop and you're walking past someone about to kill themselves, it's kinda evil to just stand back and let them do it)",
"There's a huge difference between being of sound mind, and deciding to die Vs mental illness with idealations of self harm. I adamantly support the right to die movement; but it's very important to differentiate between the cognitively competent and the mentally ill. "
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60w1a4 | how is aluminum produced? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/60w1a4/eli5_how_is_aluminum_produced/ | {
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"Aluminium is not quite easy to produce. You have to extract the metal from [bauxite](_URL_0_), a rock (not a mineral). It requires a lot of electricity for production because at some point you have a solution (a soup) with aluminium in it and need to extract it with electrolysis. \n\nEven if you're not a fan of recycling, please, do recycle cans. Forget about paper or glass. If you're only recycling one thing, let it be aluminium. ",
"Aluminum is produced from an ore called Bauxite, which is a naturally-occurring mixture of several Aluminum compounds as well as impurities of Iron. This ore is crushed and undergoes what is called the \"Bayer Process\" which converts the various compounds into Aluminum Oxide (Al2O3).\n\nThe first step of the Bayer Process is to dissolve the aluminum from the bauxite. This is done at high pressure and temperature in a Sodium Hydroxide (NaOH, a strong base) bath. You can add Calcium Carbonate here to help remove the silica (Si) compounds or you can remove them later in the process. The solution is cooled and the solid impurities are removed, leaving you with Sodium Aluminate (NaAlO2) and water.\n\nHistorically this cooled solution would then have Carbon Dioxide bubbled through it to create Aluminum Hydroxide (Al(OH)3), but it's more efficient to instead \"seed\" the solution with some Aluminum Hydroxide crystals that you already have, which causes the Aluminum Hydroxide that's in the tank to crystalize too. \n\n*But wait,* I hear you say, *I thought we had Sodium Aluminate in the tank?* \n\nWell, we did. And we also had Aluminum Hydroxide. Our NaAlO2/H2O solution exists in a natural equilibrium with a solution of Al(OH)3 and NaOH. The equilibrium heavily favors the side with NaAlO2, but once we start crystalizing bits of AL(OH)3 the equilibrium shifts towards them. (This is called Le Chatlier's principle, and I can explain it more if you have more questions about it.)\n\nThe last step of the Bayer Process is to heat the Aluminum Hydroxide crystals in order to have them thermally decompose into Aluminum Oxide (Al2O3) and water.\n\nOnce we have the Aluminum Oxide, we can put it through another process which is called the \"Hall-Heroult Process.\" This process relies on a mineral called Cryolite, which, if you want to get technical, is Sodium Hexafluoroaluminate or Na3AlF6. You could potentially skip the Sodium Hexafluoroaluminate and just melt your Alumina (another name for Al2O3), but Alumina has a much higher boiling point and Cryolite dissolves aluminum salts and oxides quite well. Another advantage of Cryolite is that it doesn't break down with high heat or electricity, the developers of this process tried using water first but ran into problems with it breaking down into H2 and O2 before any of the aluminum could be isolated. But I digress,\n\nOnce you have dissolved your Al2O3 crystals in Cryolite, you can run an electrical current through the solution. This electrical current gives the Oxygen and Aluminum enough energy to convince them to separate and find another thing to bond to. Typically a carbon anode (the \"positive\" side) is used. In the following equations *e^- * refers to an electron.\n\nCathode:\n\nAl^+3 +3e^- **-- > ** Al\n\nAnode:\n\nO^-2 + C **-- > ** CO + 2e^-\n\nSo overall:\n\nAl2O3 + 3C **-- > ** 2Al + 3CO\n\nAlthough in practice there's more CO2 produced at the anode than CO, the math isn't quite as simple. Cryolite and Aluminum have very different densities, so it's relatively easy to remove the Aluminum from the molten Cryolite.\n\nThat's the primary production (new aluminum) anyway. Secondary production is completely different, and is put simply, just melting down scrap aluminum that has had impurities and paints removed from it. Secondary production is much more efficient than primary production and makes up about 40% of the North American aluminum supply."
]
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5rcsft | what is physically going on with a machine when it's "warming up"? | A gas sensor, for instance, requires some time to warm up before it can become calibrated and read accurate gas readings. I've heard this with other machines requiring warm up time. Why? What is happening to get the machine to work properly? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5rcsft/eli5_what_is_physically_going_on_with_a_machine/ | {
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"In the case of a lot of electronics, literally warming up. Most basic electrical components (resistors, capacitors etc) exhibit some level of temperature dependency. If a sensor works by precisely measuring the current across a known resistor or some mechanism like this, the resistor doesn't necessarily have the calibrated resistance except at its designed operating temperature. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | |
36ms4w | if cytotoxic t cells kill cancer cells, haven't we technically found a "cure" for cancer? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/36ms4w/eli5if_cytotoxic_t_cells_kill_cancer_cells_havent/ | {
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"There is no such thing as a \"cure for cancer.\" Cancer is an entire class of different diseases. Lung cancer is different from brain cancer which is different from stomach, throat, liver, colon, prostate, skin, etc. etc. etc. The prognoses and treatments differ from one to the other. These T cells, as far as I can tell, could potentially be programmed to fight and destroy certain types of cancer cells, but a cursory search didn't show *which* types.\n\nFurthermore, cancer is rarely classified as \"cured\" but rather you are judged to be in remission if there is no evidence of the cancer after a certain period of time. While you may be considered \"cured\" of that cancer, there is still the possibility that it is merely dormant and could come back; after all, we can't scan every single cell in your body.\n\nThe sensible interpretation of this information is that we have another tool in our belt to fight certain types of cancers, alongside other treatments, such as radiation, chemotherapy, surgery, etc. etc.",
"Well yes and no.\nThe immune system does it's best to recognize and clear cancerous/viral infected cells, but the system is not perfect. The simplistic way to put it is that cancers often mutate at such low levels that the immune system does not recognize that mutations are occurring. A good analogy would be a 150 lb. person gaining weight from over eating, on a day to day basis the extra 100kcal would be unnoticed, but when looking back at pictures from 2 years ago, the changes are significant. \nNow immunologically, as CD8 T-cells, N.K.'s, and CTL's are undergoing somatic sampling for a normal cell binding must identify 3-4 sites as self on the MHC I. 5-6 means non-self, or viral, while 1-2 means malfunctioning self. If the mutuations keep the cancerous cell in the 3-4 range then it won't be identified or destroyed. So often when cancerous cells have become so mutated they enter the 1-2 range a significant growth has developed. If mutations occur very slowly then even the immune system may find that the new 1-2 range is still 3-4. \nCancer is complex, and I'm curious to see this vaccine out of Cuba. But as others have said, there are a lot of intricacies in every cancer. There's enter PhD programs decicated to each one, so do keep that in mind."
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3ryvgj | why do horseshoes getting nailed into the hooves of a horse, not hurt the horse? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ryvgj/eli5_why_do_horseshoes_getting_nailed_into_the/ | {
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"Same reason why cutting our hair and nails doesn't hurt. It contains no living cells nor has nerves. These things are made to be broken chipped cut and scratched.",
"There's a fleshy part in the center of the hoof called the 'frog' and if you hit that it can hurt them. But the actual hoof has no nerve endings in it (think like the end of your finger nail) and nailing into doesn't hurt. ",
"For the same reason trimming your nails doesn't hurt. Horse hooves are basically the same material and serve the same purpose. There's no nerve endings to feel any pain.",
"Not only to they nail into the hoof, some farriers will \"hot fit\" shoes. They take the hot shoe and put it right onto the hoof. Smells amazing. ",
"Then why does \"throwing a shoe\" hurt them?",
"Think of a horse hoof as having four layers.\n\nThe very inside has bones.\n\nThe next layer has \"veins\"\n\nThe next layer is an in-between area called the white line. A moist, connecting area. \n\nThe outermost layer is the hoof wall. The tissue there is dead/not alive/ no sensation. Similar to fingernails and hair. This is what the nail is supposed to be driven into.\n\nAs to why we put shoes on horses, my farrier once summed it up in a very simple statement. \"When you start doing unnatural things to horses, (riding them) you have to start doing unnatural things to their feet.\"\n\nSource: Horse Trainer",
"Contrary to what was said in a few different comments, horses' hooves actually do contain living tissue but it is not in the area where the nails are driven into the hoof. \nNails should not leave the hoof wall so the horse will feel no pain. Nails are driven up and stick out of the horse's hoof until the farrier bends the ends down to hold everything in place.\n\n\nThe first and outermost layer is the hoof wall. It's tough and protects the sensitive tissue inside. It's basically the horse version of our fingernails.\n\nThe next layer is called the laminae (AKA 'white line'.) It's sort of like a buffer zone between the hard outside and the really sensitive stuff on the very inside. \n\nIn the center of the hoof, you have the more delicate anatomy. There's a few bones, tendons, and some blood vessels with lots of very touchy material. \n\nCaping off the bottom of the hoof is the relatively tough sole. It's capable of bruising just like ours.\n I'd recommend doing a quick image search on hoof anatomy to make it a little easier to visualize. \n\n\nHope that helped!\n\n",
"[The hoof has many parts to it however, and a nail can be placed incorrectly or in a sensitive spot which certainly will cause pain and result in lameness. The nails are placed in an area where it is insensitive](_URL_0_)\n\n\nEdited to add- Not all horses require shoes. Some have very good feet and are used on terrain which accommodates being unshod or barefoot. \n\nOthers however generally will live on soft ground in a paddock or on bedding in a stable so their feet remain soft and not toughened to suit rocky ground or concrete, so they require support to avoid stone bruises and general soreness. \n\nOften a horse will not receive his first pair of shoes until he is in training to be broken in or later when in full work.\n"
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afguu8 | if space has no gravity, why do things get yanked into space if there's a whole in the spaceship/rocket? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/afguu8/eli5_if_space_has_no_gravity_why_do_things_get/ | {
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"Lots off air pressurised in rocket. No air in space.\n\nMake hole is rocket, air goes from rocket into space (imagine a balloon popping)\n\nAs the air rushes out of the hole, anything happening to be _in_ the air gets pulled out by the air, like you get pulled backwards if you stick your head out a car window.\n\nExcept much faster. ",
"There is gravity in space. The forces aren’t strong enough to pull you quickly in any particular direction. The air pressure in the spacecraft is what forces things out into space. There is far more pressure in the spacecraft than space, which has basically none.",
"It's kind of like a balloon. All the pressure in it is fine, but yhen when its pierced it has to escape",
"The rocket is airtight and filled with air. The pressure inside is much greater than the pressure of space which is a near vacuum. If there is a hole in the rocket, the air is expelled at high enough pressure to potentially pull objects. "
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9g89lo | why do bubbles reflect rainbowish colors after being blown? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9g89lo/eli5_why_do_bubbles_reflect_rainbowish_colors/ | {
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"Ahoy, matey! Yer not alone in askin', and kind strangers have explained:\n\n1. [ELI5: Why do bubbles have that strange rainbow kinda color? ](_URL_3_) ^(_3 comments_)\n1. [Why do bubbles and rainy streets make a rainbow? ](_URL_2_) ^(_2 comments_)\n1. [ELI5: Why does soap bubbles from a soap bubble machine have so many different colours? ](_URL_1_) ^(_1 comment_)\n1. [ELI5:What's that colorful stuff on bubbles ](_URL_0_) ^(_7 comments_)\n",
"Even though the top comment has linked to other posts with the solution, I just want to inform that this phenomenon is called Thin Film Interference, I am no expert so you should probably Google it or check out someone else's explanation.",
"Eh there are some comments that link to other comments but I'll try to answer anyway.\n\nSo, light is a wave. In fact, white light is all sorts of waves with different wavelengths (that is, the horizontal length of one cycle) mixed together.\n\nIf you get two identical waves and place them exactly on top together, the waves will strengthen each other and become stronger, right? Also, if you place the two waves so that the \"mountain\" goes on top of the other wave's \"canyon\", then the waves the cancel out each other, right?\n\nWhat happens is that, one light wave reflects from the surface of the bubble, and some other light wave just enters the surface but immediately reflect on the other side and come out. These two light waves might strengthen each other or cancel out each other, depending on the angle of the light (because the distance the light travels become longer depending on the angle) and the wavelength (which is directly related to color).\n\nSo, depending on the angle you look at the bubble's surface, the wavelength that gets strengthen will change gradually, and looks rainbow.\n\nSorry if that was difficult to understand. My native language isn't English and that was kind of a physics and English exercise for me too :)\n\n",
"I know this! I wrote my dissertation on stuff related to it!\n\nBaaaasicslly. The surface of a bubble is a very thin layer of water. If you were to zoom in really closely you would see that this layer of water has a top side, and a bottom side. Imagine it looking like a slice of water when you zoom in. \n\nThe reason light reflects in a shimmery way is because as the light goes through the surface, the light partly reflects off of the top and the bottom side, and kinda just messes with itself, making it look shimmery or iridescent.\n\nHope that helped, DM me if you want a more detailed explanation! ",
"Bubbles gets so happy after being blown that he enters a psychadelic state which reflects his inner rainbow. 🌈 "
]
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"https://np.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4wid9x/eli5whats_that_colorful_stuff_on_bubbles/",
"https://np.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6qrr4i/eli5_why_does_soap_bubbles_from_a_soap_bubble/",
"https://np.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/19kyvk/why_do_bubbles_and_rainy_streets... | ||
4319wv | does everyone think that they are "gifted" or "have above average intelligence? how many of them are truly smart? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4319wv/eli5_does_everyone_think_that_they_are_gifted_or/ | {
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"How many people have above average intelligence? About 50%. ;)\n\nMany studies have shown people are pretty bad at judging themselves in various domains; usually (but not always) people assume they're smarter or better than they are. This means that, generally, if you ask a individuals in a group how they stand in relation to the rest of the group, a sizable majority will say they're above average.\n\n[More...](_URL_0_)"
]
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_superiority"
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9kw66v | how do snakes heat pits work | How do the pits on snakes heads that help detect thermal radiation work. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9kw66v/eli5_how_do_snakes_heat_pits_work/ | {
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"The pits contain special nerve cells that sense infrared radiation as heat, and not light. The nerves are then linked to the somatosensory system (a fancy word for the sense of touch, temperature and pain). \n\nSo it doesn’t actually “see” a visual image, but rather feels the heat and makes a sort of mental map, similar to animals that use echo-location. They did studies that showed a snake could detect a human hand better in a slightly refrigerated space than in a room temperature one. \n\nHere’s a good way to think of it: if you close your eyes and hold your hands near a candle you can feel the heat. You can’t see it, but by moving your hand around you could figure out the location of the heat, specifically the hottest parts. \n\nThat’s how the pit cells work, only are much stronger so it picks up on heat variations that we cannot. "
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arqjht | how do cellphone screen protectors that allow a phone to be hit by a hammer and not have the screen crack work? | Here are some examples of what I’m talking about:
1) _URL_0_
2) _URL_2_
3) _URL_1_ | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/arqjht/eli5_how_do_cellphone_screen_protectors_that/ | {
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"Watched a demonstration in a networking group from a Verizon employee. She raved about the screen protector, then hit it with a hammer. It shattered. She was mortified. Man it was fun.",
"Pressure = Force / Area.\n\nWhen you apply a screen protector, they are specially designed to dissipate as much force over the largest area possible. When a hammer is struck against it, the glass takes the brunt of the impact, and the adhesive and layer(s) beneath the top layer of the screen protector underneath dissipates that force and cushions the screen below.\n\nNote how the hammer has a large flat surface, which acts in the glass's favor. Compare a hammer head to a [glass breaker device](_URL_0_). Note the difference in size of impact area. Glass tends to break in a cascading effect, unless it is tempered. By focusing a large amount of force into a tiny area you're able to overcome glasses impact resistance and cause it to shatter.\n\nThere is a lot of materials science done to find out the right combination and ratios of glass elements to create an all-purpose screen protector that can absorb a hammer hit. Research of which can be applied to other areas outside of smartphone screens to create better, stronger glass.",
"To be more explicit in the way a hammer can be misleading, it's pretty rare for a large flat area to hit your phone when it's falling at once. You screen tends to shatter when it's hit by a point or a corner. That means you can have a way smaller force than the hammer but it's a larger pressure because the area is much, much smaller. "
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1vdood | why does my a/c come on when i am trying to defrost my car in the cold? | When it is colder (i.e. below 40 degrees F), when I need to defrost my front windshield, or turn on the defrost to get ice off of my windshield, the Air Conditioning automatically comes on.
I've read in certain places that it is because it needs "dry" air that's pushed through the A/C unit, but other places have said that the dry air explanation isn't true and that it is to keep the A/C unit piping from deteriorating during the winter months.
Is there a simple explanation for the A/C activation, and is it important that i leave the A/C on even if its colder? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1vdood/eli5_why_does_my_ac_come_on_when_i_am_trying_to/ | {
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"The A/C comes on to dry the air in the car. The A/C doesn't mean cold air, you can use the full heat, on the A/C, on any position. \nI use the heat, on the floor, with the A/C, to warm and dry out my car in the winter. I tend to track a lot of snow into my car going in an out.",
"its just to keep the system lubed & conditioned, plenty of vehicles out there without a/c that defrost just fine. helps keep a/c warranty claims down."
]
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1vq479 | how sites like godaddy can make new domain extension. | How can GoDaddy make .estate, .ventures, .photography, .club, and .app and why can't I do it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1vq479/eli5_how_sites_like_godaddy_can_make_new_domain/ | {
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"text": [
"GoDaddy does not make new domain extensions. That is the job of ICANN (the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers). GoDaddy is just preregistering people for when the new gTLDs (Generic Top-Level Domains) are available."
]
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9kmxya | why does your temperature seem to fluctuate so much more when you’re asleep versus awake (ie fall asleep freezing, wake up sweating, repeat)? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9kmxya/eli5_why_does_your_temperature_seem_to_fluctuate/ | {
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"There are some normal cycles. For instance, body temperature tends to drop in the middle of the night and spike around when you're about to wake up (this is especially problematic to me, I have a spike where I often get stupidly hot 30 minutes before I need to get up). For most of us, we sleep a bit better when we are cooler, which is why it's better to sleep in a colder room with blankets to keep you warm enough to be stable.\n\nBut the biggest issue is just stability when you aren't moving for 5-8 hours. Say you're awake, and you're in a situation where heat builds up about 0.2 degrees per hour if you don't move due to blankets and other insulation. No big deal, you move all the time. If you're sleeping and you don't move the blankets keep trapping more and more heat. Or you kick them off, and suddenly that sweat on your body cools you down and the temperature crashes.\n\nEdit: TLDR not moving for a long period of time is the biggest issue. Go hunting in the winter (not moving for hours at a time and then maybe moving around) and you'll see even worse heat vs cold issues. There is a huge difference in body heat between moving and expending energy vs. being still.",
"Your metabolism slows down before/when you're sleeping. It speeds up right before you wake up. \n\nTherefore you fall asleep and stay asleep at the point where your body is producing the least amount of heat. So you bundle up with blankets.\n\nIn the morning when your metabolism gets moving again, you produce more heat, and suddenly all those blankets become WAY too much. "
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8r0lq1 | can sound travel forever? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8r0lq1/eli5can_sound_travel_forever/ | {
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"If you are a volcano, yes. \n\nIn fact, if you are a big enough volcano, and you blow up all at once rather than gradually letting out magma and pressure, you can make a sound that travels around the world several times. \n\nEdit: The loudest sound documented in historic times was the explosions of Krakatoa, which sounded as cannons being fired to people 5000 kilometres away, and caused a measurable pressure change travelling the world three and a half times over the course of five days. On the first pass it was powerful enough to cause a change in sea level in the English channel. \n\nPrior to human history, or humanity in general evolving, we see evidence of several explosions that would make Krakatoa seem like a firecracker. ",
"A sound wouldn't be able to travel *forever* since the molecules lose energy each time they bounce off an object, but there was a volcano (Krakatoa I think?) that caused such a huge sound wave when it erupted that it was heard all over the world",
"No. Sounds come from vibrating matter, which requires energy. Each next vibration is slightly less because there us less energy to make it. Say it took 100E (for energy, trying to Eli 5 this after all) to make a person a metre away hear it perfectly. To make a person 2 metres away hear it the same volume might take 1000E and 3 metres 10000E! The further back the person is, the exponentially greater the energy is needed (it's not this ratio, obviously). "
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cxnt66 | why are mayonnaise packets bigger than ketchup and mustard packets? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cxnt66/eli5_why_are_mayonnaise_packets_bigger_than/ | {
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"No one likes a dry sammich maybe?"
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2yxjxp | what is going on when i save files onto the computer hard drive? | I understand that it takes space and time to save a file, but where does the file go and how is it that the file, video file for example, is able to be played back when the file is not physically inside the hard drive? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2yxjxp/eli5_what_is_going_on_when_i_save_files_onto_the/ | {
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"Storage is just where you put data that you want later, like a file cabinet. Most of the time the processor never directly interacts with the data in storage. \n\nWhen you playback the file in question, the computer never reads data directly from the drive. It's slow, and data typically can only be read from the drive sequentially (meaning if you want the data at address 1024 it has to go through addresses 1-1023 first). What happens is the compute tells the drive to locate the data at a given address (that corresponds to the file path) and then reads that data into memory, which is called RAM. That's short for Random access memory, meaning the address number does not matter in memory. \n\nOnce the data is in memory the processor can load it quickly to process it, such as sending it to a display. \n\nIf you're streaming, the video data never makes it to storage. It goes from the network straight into memory, where it can be processed. \n\nThere are exceptions to this process, when the computer runs out of memory it can use storage space to store data. That gets extremely slow. ",
"Well, it *is* physically inside the hard drive in a way. The hard drive is kind of like a piece of paper that is written on, except instead of graphite and letters it uses magnetism and binary. The hard drive has a magnet in it kind of like a hockey puck that spins. It has a reading (and writing) part kind of like the needle of a record player that detects the magnetic charge on the hard drive. In order to read or write a file the read/write head has to be in the correct position on the disc, which takes time to move, and it's speed is limited by how fast the disc is spinning. This is why solid state drives are faster than regular hard drives, they don't have to physically move any parts."
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6t3ctu | why most food service companies have such slim margins? (i.e. grocery stores, restaurants.) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6t3ctu/eli5_why_most_food_service_companies_have_such/ | {
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"There is immense competition, and it's something everyone has to buy so there is a huge market. For most of those people, price is the #1 factor that drives their choice. ",
"Essentially all businesses compete away any differences in returns on capital after adjusting for the likelihood of failure or other losses (so if a rich person fronts money to a clever grocer, the profits earned by the business will be similar to the profits if its a clever discount store or a clever manufacturer). \n\nFood service firms have two big advantages that most businesses don't have: Everyone needs to eat and everyone needs to eat pretty much every day. The first means a grocery store that's successful one year is very unlikely to suddenly fail the next. The second means that the store isn't dependent on stocking up a massive inventory in preparation for massive Christmas sales, nor does it often have inventory that's almost impossible to sell (like unpopular clothes or last year's trendy toy). \n\nThose two lower the risk of failure, and allow a store to turn over a pretty significant, but predictable amount of inventory in a given period of time. Since investors like lower risks and businesses need less investment when their inventory is predictable, that means investors who prefer safer investments bid down the profits necessary to provide them with sufficient returns to invest. Which means that the company both doesn't have to earn a high return to satisfy investors, and that new investors are often standing ready with more investment money if profits rise (so there will be a new competitor who will lower margins). "
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v6182 | how to space shuttles get back down to earth? | I realize they use fuel to get up to space, but then they drop off their fuel tanks.. Someone explain how they get back? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/v6182/eli5_how_to_space_shuttles_get_back_down_to_earth/ | {
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"The space shuttles use compressed gas ejected through several directional jets to maneuver in outer space. These gas jets can be used to slow down the shuttle thus causing it to drop out of orbit. As it enters the atmosphere it is angled upward so that the heat from air friction is directed toward the heat resistant tiles on the bottom of the shuttle. when it gets low enough in the atmosphere and the air is thick enough, the shuttle can fly like a glider to the landing strip."
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bhnssp | why are airline attendants given seats with both a belt and shoulder harness where as the actual passengers are only given a seat belt? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bhnssp/eli5_why_are_airline_attendants_given_seats_with/ | {
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"Jump seats (the seats attendants use) don’t have anything else in front of them stop stop them in case of turbulence or a crash. Most other seats have another seat in front of them that will help arrest movement. \nJust like a child’s school bus, no seat belts are used (for the most part) except for the driver. The padded seat in front of you will help to prevent injuries in low speed collisions. The driver wears a seat belt as hitting the steering wheel and windshield would not be safe even at low speeds.",
"I think it’s because it is very important to prioritize their safety in the event of an emergency. They are trained and responsible for passenger handling during evacuation procedures. Bluntly, their survival is key to the survival of the passengers."
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2prab9 | why do age verification lists on websites sometimes list the last 2-3 years? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2prab9/eli5_why_do_age_verification_lists_on_websites/ | {
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"Because lists like those are generated automatically. "
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5021la | how does a plug socket supply the correct amps? | I'm UK based, first off. Now, I can plug a 15 amp device with a 15 amp fuse into a plug socket and it works. If I then unplug that device and plug a 3 amp device into the same socket, it also works.
How does the socket know to only send the correct amps to the device and not trip a 3 amp fuse when it is capable of sending 15 amps to the same socket? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5021la/eli5_how_does_a_plug_socket_supply_the_correct/ | {
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"It's the device that draws what current (amps) it needs. The supply cable can safely carry up to the circuits rated load. If a light bulb needs 1 amp, that's what it will \"draw\". The voltage will always be 230v, give or take depending on the length of supply etc, but the current will vary depending on how much the device needs. ",
"The voltage is fairly constant whether you draw 3 or 15 amps. That's because the source (generator, wires, transformers...) are designed to have a much lower resistance than the load resistance (which is never less than about 15 ohms). If the source resistance was higher, like 30 ohms, then at full load, the voltage would drop to a third of 220 (around 73 volts). \n\nEDIT: The load determines the current drawn. The current is proportional to the voltage and inversely proportional to the load resistance. The voltage remains constant",
"It doesn't, it supplies a voltage and the resistance of the device causes the resulting amps. U=I x R\nU=volts\nI=amps\nR=resistance (in ohms)\n\nIn a more ELI5 way: The socket tries to push electricity through the device, the strength at which he does this is called the Voltage, if the device has a high resistance that means that the device has a lot of 'friction' on the electricity, making it harder to move. The resulting 'speed' at which the electricity moves is the amperage (amps) \n\nYou could imagine a tube with marbles (marbles being electrons) where the voltage is how hard is pushed on the end of the tube (actually both ends but one a lot harder than the other). The resistance is how hard you squeeze the tube, making it harder to move the marbles, and the amps being how many marbles pass per second. The fuse is a part of the tube that will break if too many marbles pass by per second. \n\nTL;DR The amps is dependent on the resistance of the device, so the device sets the amps",
"Voltage is water pressure, like a high power fire hose blowing out windows and knocking things around. Amp is water capacity, like a well you can dip water from *when you need it*. Or, voltage pushes, while amps pull. So, while you can literally blow up an electronic device by giving it too much voltage, amps don't matter unless you try to draw more amps than the current source can supply."
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4gqxkj | how does facebook plan to monetize whatsapp? they paid $19 billion for it 2 years ago, but the app is still free and has no ads. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4gqxkj/eli5_how_does_facebook_plan_to_monetize_whatsapp/ | {
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"[In corporate America, the product is YOU!](_URL_0_)\n\nThey bought whatsapp for the database of users and logs and connections. They can mine that and sell targeted adds to the people, even without putting ads on whatsapp, if they can connect you with a facebook profile or some other means of online tracking. \n\nAnd arguably it was just to gather more of the marketshare abroad, particularly in China. They were buying popularity. They were buying, in part, your account because that's what they sell to advertisers. You are the product. Same reason why google gives out so many services for free.\n\nPersonally I think that was a really stupid purchase and is likely some sort of money funnelling exercise to extract the billions out of facebook and somehow come back to Zukerburg's personal accounts sans taxes or shareholder oversight. Let's hope for another panama papers leak.",
"One of the plans Facebook has to monetise WhatsApp is to open it up as a communication platform through which customers can contact businesses, and they will be charging business for this. ([forbes article on the matter] (_URL_0_))\n",
"Ever hear the phrase, \"if you're not paying for the product, you ARE the product\"? This is extremely true and how Google can offer so many different services, with such huge functionality, with surprisingly few ads.",
"It's a defensive buy.\n\nFacebook was actually threatened by Whatsapp.\n\nWhat do most people do on Facebook? Two things. Chat and share photos.\n\nInstagram was also a defensive buy. Mark Zuckerberg felt it could potentially overtake Facebook, which was a real possibility. Why would I go on Facebook to look at photos when all my friends are sharing most of their photos on Instagram? Well, most of my friends are still on Facebook, *but* what if they all migrated to Instagram, then Facebook becomes irrelevant, just like MySpace.\n\nThe same for WhatsApp. If half my friends are on WhatsApp, and we start communicating frequently on it, why would I go on Facebook anymore? I can chat with them directly through WhatsApp.\n\n- messaging\n\n- photo sharing\n\nprovide 90% of the reason why people still go on it.\n\nGiven a reasonable competitor out there that's big enough to actually make Facebook irrelevant (like MySpace was made irrelevant by Facebook), the best choice is to play defense, and acquire them. Losing a bit of money (to Facebook 19B isn't a lot, which is equal to a year's revenue), is better than the alternative which is that Facebook doesn't exist anymore.",
"What Tencent has done with WeChat in China. \n \nOnce you build up a huge user base, you start selling emoticons and graphics. A couple bucks for a few pictures. 100% profit. WeChat allows people to send money as well. All the stored money pays interest. People just don't use it for communication. "
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2a3b1d | why aren't all toilets tankless (like the ones in commercial buildings)? | I'm not sure what toilets are like worldwide, but in the US, we have a toilet with a tank that people use in their homes and then a different type of toilet in commercial spaces that goes straight into the wall with only a flush lever (or auto sensor). There is no tank on these ones.
What gives? What makes the tankless version more suitable for commercial spaces and tank versions suitable for homes? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2a3b1d/eli5_why_arent_all_toilets_tankless_like_the_ones/ | {
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"Homes generally do not have access to the high flow water sources required to make one of those toilets work.",
"_URL_0_\n\nTL;DR Insufficient flow in residential water systems to trigger the siphon effect to clear the bowl."
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5xrr8l | when the conductor moves his hands/uses gestures during a concert, how do the musicians interpret it? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5xrr8l/eli5when_the_conductor_moves_his_handsuses/ | {
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"Every \"change in direction\" is a beat. Music notes have different hold lengths for each beat. So when the music calls for a \"whole note\" (looks like an open circle on the page) the musician \"holds\" that note until the conductor goes back to the first position. \n\nThere are several signals the conductor will use. One of the most common ones looks like the conductor is making a cross in the air. That's 4 beats, musicians read that as 4/4 time (4 quarter notes in one bar) and play the notes they read based on that tempo.\n\n(Hope that helped.. Its how I was taught to read my conductor)",
"The way the conductor moves his hands/baton [indicates the beat](_URL_0_), which helps keep every one in sync. With other body language he indicates other parts of the music - softer, louder, with more emotion, etc. The musicians already know what they're supposed to do, but there's always a little more you can give with somebody egging you on.",
"Also a former band member here. The answers above are great, and I just wanted to add that most of these movements are rehearsed many times. In my experience, it's rare for a conductor to just \"throw in\" new gestures. ",
"During a performance, the conductor is mostly communicating timing and volume. For volume, they'll typically use wider motions for louder sections and smaller motions for quieter parts. For timing, the most important information is when a new measure begins and that will generally show up as a downstroke of the baton. Subsequent waving is used to communicate the rhythm. "
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1smmdz | new york city | I've lived in Dallas suburbs and Las Vegas. Still, I can't really understand how big New York is or how the boroughs are situated. Is all the parking on the side of the street like in Seinfeld or are there actual parking lots in a lot of places? Sorry for the stupid questions, but I just never really understood it at all. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1smmdz/eli5_new_york_city/ | {
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"NYC has five boroughs: Manhattan, The Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island. You can find a map here:\n\n_URL_0_\n\nUsually when people think about NYC they're actually thinking about Manhattan (that's where shows like Friends and Seinfeld take place, and most of the landmarks and commercial buildings are situated)."
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1xdpc2 | how does a disk become bootable? | Whenever I pop-in a Windows installation CD into my PC to do a fresh installation the setup formats & partitions my hard drive then copies a lot of files (or at least that's what I see), but I'm sure it does more than that & turns the drive from a dummy one into a 'bootable' one, please explain to me (like I'm five) how that happens. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1xdpc2/eli5_how_does_a_disk_become_bootable/ | {
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"The computer is programmed (by a very low level program called the BIOS) to attempt to load the data at a particular location on the hard drive into memory when the computer starts up. This area is called the boot sector. \n\nTo make a disk bootable, the installer puts the correct data in that very specific location so that, after the BIOS copies that data to memory, enough of the OS is now in memory to complete the rest of the load. ",
"When you first turn a computer on, it looks at the very start of a hard drive for instructions on how to boot the computer (the [boot sector](_URL_0_)). Installing an OS on a drive copies a little program to the start of the disk that tells the computer how to load everything else.\n\nWith a modern PC, it's normally a two-step process. Since the boot sector has to be *really* small, it's got a tiny program that tells the computer to load a slightly larger program. That slightly larger program actually understands how to access all the files on your hard drive and get Windows (or Linux or whatever) running.\n\nWhen you install Windows on a fresh drive, it does a few things:\n\n* writes a partition table\n* installs a boot loader into the boot sector\n* formats the partition with a file system\n* copies the 2nd-stage boot loader to the start of the partition\n* copies the OS onto the file system"
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3wtlvq | why do black holes matter? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3wtlvq/eli5why_do_black_holes_matter/ | {
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"Even if it doesn't affect us a a species (although it does, as learning shit from science is just as, if not even more powerful than philosophy... Powerful as in affecting us). This science does not help us as much as biomedicine, but it's still extremely fascinating."
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1va609 | how does this shoe and wall wine opening method work? | Here is an example video of what I am discussing, _URL_0_
How does the bottle not break? How does hitting it against the wall force the cork out? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1va609/eli5_how_does_this_shoe_and_wall_wine_opening/ | {
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"The shoe protects the glass bottle so that it doesnt break.\n\nThe force gets transferred through the liquid and pushes the cork out. If the cork was not there, the wine could come out of the neck. If it was completely solid glass, it would likely break."
]
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29vg49 | i just read on reddit that the u.s. surpassed russia and saudi arabia as the leading oil producer. why then do we still pay $4 and up for a gallon of gas? | If we have so much oil coming out of the ground, why can't we make the cost of gasoline cheaper for folks around the country? When I first started driving, it was .99 cents a gallon. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/29vg49/eli5i_just_read_on_reddit_that_the_us_surpassed/ | {
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"Basic answer is supply and demand. World demand is very high and since oil can, and is, shipped anywhere, prices follow.\n\nNatural Gas is a good example of this. In Europe the main supplier is Russia. They produce about 4-5 times as much a the European Union does. So they have the supply and demand is high so prices are high. In North America USA produces more than Russia does and Canada produces almost as much as the European Union. So we have actually pretty cheap natural gas prices because of this. Our supply and demand is separate from the European supply and demand. We can't yet really ship the natural gas across to Europe, but once the treaties and regulations allowing LNG trade to occur across the Atlantic, European prices will go down and US prices will go up as they become one pool of supply and demand.",
"unless you live in Alberta... gas is so cheap compared to the rest of the country.. jerks.\n",
"Gas in America is actually very cheap compared to the rest of the world. \n\n_URL_0_\n\nSort it by price and you will notice that the US has one of the lower prices of gasoline. In Canada prices are above $5 per gallon (currently $1.40 a litre where I live), most European countries are around $8 per gallon. And Norway, a large oil exporter has the highest gas prices in the world at over $10 per gallon.",
"The cost of producing oil keeps going up. The \"easy\" oil that shoots up out of the ground is mostly gone. The oil now has to be dug from deeper and deeper places underground and underwater using expensive technology, tools and energy. So you can have all the oil in the world but if it costs a company $80/barrel to produce, they're gonna ask for at least $85/barrel so that they make a decent profit.\n\nAlso, oil can be exported, so the world is your customer. Doesn't matter how much oil you have locally, because if there is a high demand worldwide, it's going to drive up the price.\n\nAlso, refining oil into gasoline keeps getting more and more expensive because of the technology used, environmental regulations, pollution reduction. Many refineries were built forty or fifty years ago. Since then, inflation has gone up year after year. To build a new refinery, you pay for it in today's dollars. "
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1rjpzk | discrete mathematics. wtf? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1rjpzk/eli5_discrete_mathematics_wtf/ | {
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"It's sort of a catchall subject for math that's related to computer science. There's not really a way to sum it up simply though, since it's such a varied set of mathematics... Are you confused about sequences? Functions? Graph Theory? Algorithmic Complexity? Boolean Algebra? Finite State Machines? There's just no way to sum it all up nicely."
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2imdki | why is editing software so expensive? | Adobe usually charges $29.99/mo for Premier (and most other of their programs)
Meanwhile other editing softwares are upwards of $1000!
Why is this? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2imdki/eli5_why_is_editing_software_so_expensive/ | {
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"Supply and demand.\n\nThere is a high demand for professional level software and not a lot of options. \n\nAnd if you look at almost any profession, the tools of the trade are often expensive but people pay the price because that is what they need to make money.\n\nAlso note that many software packages have a student version that is much less expensive. ",
"how else are they going to make a profit off you? companies charge the maximum amount that'll make profit",
"It's a combination of the fact that a lot of work is put into the development and continual updating of the software, and developing tools that a professional needs. A lot of people using professional editing software packages are doing so as their livelihood and need the software to be robust and well tested. \n\nThere are a lot of cheaper/free pieces of editing software out there but they don't have the professional tools that you pay for with the pro level. "
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1gestf | how people who get lots of plastic surgery (especially on the face) aren't covered with scars | I know with boob surgery they make the incision is less noticeable places, but I'm thinking of all the celebs that get tummy tucks and facelifts and nose surgery. Where are the scars? It can't just be makeup, can it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1gestf/eli5_how_people_who_get_lots_of_plastic_surgery/ | {
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"YES!!! Finally something I can answer accurately (and I know I'm late to the party, but I'm still answering this)!\n\n**FACELIFT**\nFacelifts incisions are traditionally [hidden in the hairline](_URL_3_) and/or behind the ear. Here is a [picture of Angelina Jolie](_URL_2_) with her hair up. It is suspected she has had this done...albeit, not over the top like some. You can see an unnatural straight line. Additionally, there is kind of a sketchy procedure out there that uses sutures to \"pull\" the face back. These are more obvious.\n\n**TUMMY TUCK**\n[Tummy tucks](_URL_1_) hide their scars in the underwear line of the patient. While men typically have less issues with this due to clothing choices at the beach, women need to pick the right bikini bottoms. Either a full-style that covers their butt and front or one of those high-rising bikinis. [Here are some examples](_URL_5_) of how the scar can be completely hidden or just appearing out of the panties. \n\n**RHINOPLASTY**\n[Nose jobs](_URL_6_) hide their scars inside of the nose or in the mouth near the upper lips. Unfortunately for you, but thankfully for most celebrities, this one is hard to \"show you\" the scarring. The only time we will know if someone had a nose job is if the Surgeon over augmented or they have before photos. Great plastic surgeons will deliver a new nose without much evidence.\n\n**BREAST AUGMENTATION**\nYou sound like you are familiar with this one, but yes, they are in places you *should* not see...even when nude. Primarily, and my personal favorite, is the option for the lower breast crease (TIL that is called [the inframammary approach](_URL_7_)). This allows a woman, while nude, to face forward and not show evidence of the scarring. Again, due to this and their careers, many celebrities DO NOT post these pics. Here is an [example diagram](_URL_4_) though. While each method offers advantages, this is one that I think many actresses would pursue. They can and do also insert implants through an incision around the nipple and underarm, but the underarm incision can be seen in dresses...like [Christina Aguilera](_URL_0_).\n\nHope this helps! ",
"Nose surgery is typically done from the inside, right up through the nostril. A facelift uses an incision and suturing in the hairline and around the perimeter of the face. A chemical peel removes the outermost layers of skin--done properly, it doesn't leave a scar, although the skin can be somewhat lighter in color (and have a somewhat different texture?) afterwards."
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"http://www.asmithmd.com... | |
575cef | why is ohio so important in elections? | Ohio doesn't have the Electoral votes other states have (only 18) nor does it have the population of other states (7th overall). Why does it hold so much sway when it comes to election time? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/575cef/eli5_why_is_ohio_so_important_in_elections/ | {
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"It's a State that both parties can realisticily win, that has a relatively large number of electoral votes. Most States are dominated by one party or the other. Florida is the other big swing State.",
"Most of the large states lean pretty heavily in one direction or another. _URL_0_ gives Clinton a 99.9% chance of winning California, worth the most electoral votes. They give Trump an 85% chance of winning Texas. Since these states are all winner-take-all, it's just assumed that Clinton gets all of California's votes and Trump gets all of Texas's votes. \n\nIf you add up all the \"safe\" states for each side, they both have about 230 of the 270 votes they need locked up. So it's the handful of states that are about 50/50 on who to vote for that really get a lot of focus. And of the states that are \"in play\", Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania are the ones with the most electoral votes. ",
"It has been said that Ohio is a \"litmus test\", if you will, for how the election will go. Historically, Ohio has gone to the winning party all the way back to the election of 1976. Both candidates will want to carry Ohio, and the other \"battleground states\" because, in these states, it is truly a toss up between the two parties. Hence, why the term \"purple state\" is applied.\n\nOhio doesn't necessarily hold any \"sway\" besides its 18 electoral votes, but, as I stated above, there is no clear cut majority in the state. On the other hand there are states that without a doubt will go to certain parties. For example, Trump will win in Texas, and Clinton will win California. ",
"Ohio has a pretty long history of voting for the winner of presidential elections. In the last two election Ohio went for Obama, and in the two elections before that it went for Bush. I think Ohio has picked the winner for the last thirty or forty years. \n\nSo you're right, Ohio's electoral votes on their own aren't necessarily hugely important. But Ohio itself seems to be a microcosm of the United States as a whole when it comes to voting. So doing well in Ohio is sort of an informal benchmark for overall national performance. ",
"Ohio is fairly large *and* is a swing state. Most of the large states are solidly red (Texas) or blue (California, New York, Illinois). But a few states like Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania are swing states that are less consistent from election to election. That's where the elections are won or lost. Ohio is also a good proxy for the U.S. as a whole because it's demographics in terms of urban/rural, while/minority are fairly close to the country as a whole."
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9dk161 | what was exploded in the big bang? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9dk161/eli5_what_was_exploded_in_the_big_bang/ | {
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"The big bang wasn't an explosion. It was an early process of the universe, by which it went from an extremely dense state (stuff packed together really tightly) to a less dense state (today, stuff is really spread out). ",
"Nothing. There was no explosion. \nWe currently observe that the universe is getting less dense. This tells us that is used to be denser. That's it. We still don't know (and probably never will) what created the universe since we can't observe that early. \n",
"The universe.\n\nThe Universe was once very, very small and very, very dense. The thing we call \"The Big Bang\" was an event where the Universe started expanding, the preferred term as \"exploding\" implies some sort of combustion."
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1l0enb | in american healthcare, what happens to a patient who isn't insured and cannot afford medical bills? | I'm from the UK where healthcare is thankfully free for everyone. If a patient in America has no insurance or means to pay medical bills, are they left to suffer with their symptoms and/or death? I know the latter is unlikely but whats the loop hole?
Edit: healthcare in UK isn't technically free. Everybody pays taxes and the amount that they pay is based on their income. But there are no individual bills for individual health care. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1l0enb/eli5_in_american_healthcare_what_happens_to_a/ | {
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"Hospitals can't refuse people so if you have no insurance you sign a paper that will start sending full medical bills to your place of residents. I was forced by my parents to go to a hospital a few years ago and now I have a 10k+ medical bills that will never be paid off. I plan on running up my medical bills as high as they can go then I'm going to declare bankruptcy. I really don't understand our medical system even if I had insurance my 10k hospital bill would be like 2-3k but I can't even pay that and I can't afford the ~$120 a month insurance policy.",
"60 percent of all bankruptcy in the US are tied to medical bills. \n\nThe common refrain you hear is \"anyone can go to the emergency room and get treatment\" and that is not untrue. However, people do not go to the ER for routine care that can prevent problems. If you went to the ER because you had a strange growth they would identify it as a cancerous tumor but that treatment wouldn't be an emergency so you would either have to find charity care or die a slow painful death. Some local governments (states or counties) have welfare care (the dole for health care) but you have to qualify & that takes time and you probably have to not have a job or a very poor paying one.",
"No loophole, right now if you have a chronic condition you are fucked (until 1/1/2014 when PPACA is fully active and the health exchanges are open, and the medicaid expansion takes place).\n\nAcute care, you may qualify for charity care (based on income), or you could simply go to the ER and then later avoid the debt collectors (or go bankrupt).",
"just depends on the area. some county hospitals have a low income or free healthcare program which doesn't deny you service but it's usually the bare minimum of what can be done. in other cases you have 2 choices either they treat you and you rack up hospital debt so overpriced you'd think it was provided by kanye west or you try to survive without it and manage the condition to the best of your abilities",
"If it is immediately life threatening they will receive treatment. Otherwise they're fucked.",
"They die or go bankrupt. ",
"**OP:** You don't even know how sad it makes most Americans when (I assume) a non-American, sincerely, curiously asks this question because they really don't know, and not just to sound ironic. \n\nEvery time a center to left of center American hears this question we honestly get a sad. \n\nI hope this offers another bit of insight into the American psyche in relation to our health care mess. ",
"I'm at an increased risk for cancer and for the simple fact that I am even slightly unsure of my health care options in a few years is more than reason enough for me to leave this country. I will not die of something that can be treated just because of our broken system.",
"As others have stated, generally they are treated if it is life-threatening and then they have to declare bankruptcy for the bills that come later. My parents are schoolteachers living on less than $35k a year with student loan debt, and they declared bankruptcy for the $800k+ medical debt my mother incurred by having to spend over a week in ICU because of pancreatitis. The judge that looked at their case on their day in court actually bust out laughing when he saw the numbers on my parent's papers before he signed off on their bankruptcy. ",
"There are lots of steps for the process here, and it kind of depends on what was actually done to you. (Fortunately, I'm canadian, but couple of friends of mine work on medical billing systems for US companies).\n\nThe US actually has free healthcare for the poor - medicaid. If you have no money and no assets the government has you covered. Medicaid actually provides pretty good care. But you have to be really poor to qualify.\n\nSecondly, the US has medicare, something close to free healthcare when you get to 65. So if you can live to 65 you're golden. (I Think the age for this is creeping up, which will just drive costs up, but whatever. What happens is that people get to their 50's, start having health problems and defer care until they get medicare to reduce out of pocket costs, and that makes the problem more serious, and therefore more expensive).\n\nSo then everyone in between, not so poor as to qualify for medicare, and under 65. \n\nSo you go to the hospital and have bills you can't pay. Well first, it's treated more or less like any other debt, can't pay it? Declare bankruptcy, lose your house, assets, get you wages garnished etc. Depends on the terms of the bankruptcy.\n\nAfter that state and federal governments have a complex cost sharing scheme. When you can't pay, it ends up in the hands of a state level organization that's sort of a giant insurance pot that pays out to hospitals based on how many uninsured patients they have. That state organization gets money from both the federal government and the state in a matching system, where the state puts in X, and the feds put in I think it's 2X. \n\nThe system is monstrously inefficient, and the hospitals and insurance companies know full well that they want to charge as much as they can and get reimbursed the maximum possible. This is why uninsured costs are usually the most expensive, they jack the price up knowing full well they won't get all of it, but the more they charge the more they can claim in compensation. ",
"The law states that a medical institution doesn't *have* to assist you unless they believe that you will die within 48 hours unless you recieve medical care. Then they'll push you just past that window and send you away, or perform life saving measures and hand you a bill. Because they have to treat you, they don't have to do it for free.\n\nOften, if you ask, the hospital will try to work with you. For example, they will have staff members who will guide you through applying for public insurance, or disability, if you can get it. But you are going to get your credit score SHREDDED in the time it takes for those applications to go through. \n\nThere are some good doctors out there though. My Father In Law is a General Practitioner, and he sees a lot of low income patients. He offers to do trades with them, like back in the old days. He has a woman who works at the grocery store, she brings him a bag of oranges once a week, because he takes care of all of her children's check ups and vaccinations for free. But most doctors don't because it's so expensive, and a lot of that cost comes from outside.\n\nWhen I was 21, I had a full-time job, but the insurance was too expensive to have that and pay rent+utilities, so I was fucked. In the summer, i started getting weird pains in my stomach. They were intense, on my right side, just under my ribs. I would have to stop everything and lay on the floor just for the pain to go away. Finally, my boss told me to go to the ER, because I was laying on the floor in tears, wishing this pain and pressure would just stop. My boyfriend drove me in, and while there I discovered that a) my gallbladder was fucked up, and b) I was pregnant.\n\nThe pregnancy was nice, because low income pregnant women get medicaid (the free state health insurance). So my child got prenatal care, but it didn't cover anything unrelated to my pregnancy. \n\nSo after my daughter was born, I thought it was over, that the gall bladder stuff was just a pregnancy issue. It wasn't. A few months after she was born the pains came back with a vengeance. I was in tears over the pain, and most people thought I was overreacting. I went to visit my father, and one night the pain became so intense that I begged him to take me to the hospital while I lay there in tears. He did, and I was admitted after they did an ultrasound of my gallbladder and found it to be severely infected. I had emergency surgery the next morning, for fear it would burst inside me. That surgery was billed to me at $47,000 (approximately £25,700) I didn't have that kind of money, and was forced to file for bankruptcy. The stress of that event took a huge toll on my life, and while I'm alive, the last 7 years have been hell. The bankruptcy just fell off my credit report 2 months ago. So I'm getting married now.",
"I honestly can not understand how people defend the system as being good. Health is such a basic \"good\" that any civilized country should not even think about whether universal healthcare should be introduced but just do it. Cut the ridiculous high military budget and there you go.\n\nHowever, it appears that there is a lot of misinformation going on. A few years ago, when the whole \"Obamacare\" discussion was hot and going on (shortly before it was introduced), I was visiting friends of my parents in San Francisco (I am from Germany). They had kids that were about my age, about 23 years old, and I went out often with them and their friends. All upper middle class, visiting colleges (2 were at Berkeley and 2 at Stanford). One night they started to ask me how this whole universal healthcare stuff works. Apparently they were told by TV, radio and media in general, that you have to wait more than 6 months for an appointment, that they would reuse needles, not wash sheets between patients and so on. \n\nWhen I asked for reasons why some of them opposed it, the most common argument was \"Because I don't want to pay for some unemployed (Mexican)\". I'm mentioning Mexican here because apparently they had a huge problem with supporting people's health who otherwise couldn't afford it, but the biggest problem was that also immigrants would profit from it (like a Mexican, illegal or legal immigrant, does not have the right for a painless and healthy life.\n\nInterestingly, otherwise they were all nice and mature people. But paying for someone's health was as absurd as beheading tiny kittens for fun.",
"I actually have an aunt and uncle living in our livingroom as we speak about 600,000 dollars in debt from medical bills...Yet somehow they still manage to pay the taxes on their house, they just dont stay there since its unfit because they were horders",
"Sometimes I think I want to move out of the UK. Then I remember free health care and change my mind. ",
"You're fucked for life.\n\nSource: I'm under a crushing amount of medical debt.",
"I'm very happy to be Canadian. I suffer from chronic ear problems and I'm pretty sure I'd be deaf by now if I lived in the US. I know I wouldn't qualify for insurance or be able to afford it. ",
"I racked up a million dollar bill after I broke my back and suffered a spinal cord injury. My husband and I just put the bills in coffee can and laughed at the due dates. We were in contact with lawyers about bankruptcy. However, the gods smiled on me, and I got the government insurance for the poor, Medicaid (which I was fortunate enough to get it back-dated to before my accident.)\n\nSometimes, and I stress sometimes, people can set up a payment plan with hospital to avoid bankruptcy. ",
"I am luckily still on my parents health insurance plan, but I am going to be FUCKED in a couple years when I'm not. My medication costs $700 a month (for the generic form) there's no way I can afford it, and there's no way I can afford health insurance. ",
"First I'll make the assumption that the medical bills in question are those that will be charged from a hospital. If you suddenly require medical care and do not have insurance, there are laws [detailed here](_URL_3_) that require any non-profit hospital receiving federal funding (this includes Medicare and Medicaid) to treat all patients with an emergency condition, in the ER. According to [the American Hospital Association's data](_URL_2_) last gathered in January of 2013, that is roughly 51% of hospitals. Half of the remaining 49% are public hospitals, with the same rules. The hospital also has a legal obligation to stabilize any patient in emergency care before moving them to any other service area - even if the patient lacks the ability to pay for treatment - which is the likely course of action rather than leaving the patient in their care, requiring more funds to do so. For more information on this, please see the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act.\n\n\nPlease note that stabilizing a patient and treating them are two different things.\n\nStabilizing a patient is bringing them to a point at which their life is not in immediate danger. Treatment is an attempt to remedy the underlying issue. For example, a hospital is required to perform a life-threatening surgery caused by a tumor, but is not required to give the patient any chemo-therapy prior to their life threatening condition.\n\n**To answer your question, if you are uninsured you will not be left to die, you will be left to deteriorate until the point of death, and then stabilized on the boundary thereof.**\n\n\nGetting the medical services paid for after they have been administered without insurance can happen in a variety of ways. Most hospitals have a charity fund which will cover most if not all of the bill. This of course is based on donations and may not always be available. According to the [Federal Trade Commission's report](_URL_0_) roughly 64% of uninsured patients received charity care (not detailing the degree of coverage) between 1996 and 2000. You must be 350% below the Federal Poverty Level in addition to your yearly income amounting to less than 10% of your medical bill to qualify for charity care. [See here for details](_URL_1_)\n\nPlease note that Medicare and Medicaid are government programs, and not insurance companies.\n\nThus all of the above could apply and you will still be able to use both of these programs, if you qualify, to pay for your treatment.\n\nIf you are still left with a balance after your treatment, you are required by law to organize a payment plan with the hospital for care. The hospital may be required to give you discounts for care if you qualify. If you do not cooperate and still can not pay, you will be reported to a collections agency and could face foreclosure, repossession of property, and law suits. You can not be jailed for debt in the United States, with the exception of child support debt in special circumstances.\n\nIf it goes this far, it is presumed that you will not pay - and those with insurance will cover your debt, often raising the price of premiums/co-pay's for law abiding citizens.\n\nThere is no such thing as a free lunch. Not in this case, anyway.\n\n",
"I d like to make one thing clear, healthcare for you is by no means free.",
"Here's my anecdote. I sprained my ankle up in Irvine, California, USA. No medical insurance, no real job. So i went to an urgent care the next day, spoke to the financial people and assured them that i would sign up for whatever the free healthcare for people with no money is.\nGot my treatment, medicine, crutches.\nGot the bill. $3500ish.\nSpoke to the free healthcare folks, which took 3 long days of waiting in lines, speaking to people, appealing to different government agencies.\n\nFinally it came down to one thing. Birth Certificate. Somewhere in all my years of moving around the USA i lost it somewhere. So i ordered a new one. The state of california has a weird system where if you're adopted (i am) it takes much, MUCH longer to get a legal duplicate of your birth cert.\n\nI finally qualified after i submitted my cert, for exactly 30 days. you see, you get the coverage one year at a time, and they count the prior months since sign up retroactively for the purposes of paying off bills to hospitals given prior to the free healthcare. So even though i told the urgent care, in 2 separate written letters, a fax, and several phone calls, they sent me to collections, and added a negative score to my credit report.\n\nI did get a new primary care physician. he was ok, if condescending. Having health care for 30 days was nifty, i guess.\n\nIf you don't care about your credit score (i don't) then simply telling the collection agency they shouldn't have taken on your debt, and to never call again as you will never pay the bill will work. Haven't heard peep about it since then.\n\nTL;DR: you run the risk of credit reporting agencies lowering your credit score.\n\nLITERALLY THE ONLY THING THAT HAPPENS.\n\n",
"Legit answer. if a person has no insurance and cannot pay. They get the same care as if they had millions of dollars and awesome healthcare. Sometimes they try to set up a payment plan...but usually, the hospital/doctor just eats the cost. ",
"I've been in both worlds. \n\nI was married at 23 and started having kids at 24 all while trying to go through college. During those years of college, I had to take on a full-time graveyard position to have access to the health benefits. So I was going to school full-time and working 50+ hours a week in the middle of the night. What can I say sleep was overrated. Having health benefits was nice as we had a 100% coverage plan, but it came at a steep cost. Something like $350 biweekly. It penned out that we'd save money in the costs of labor if we paid the premium than if we were at a 80/20 split. After my son was born, I quit to focus on school again.\n\nAbout a year later we had our second child, but my wife was able to qualify for medicaid, so welfare covered the cost of the labor and delivery. Much to our surprise, our second child has Down's Syndrome. This came with a congenital heart defect that required heart surgery at 4 months. All of this was paid for under medicaid, and currently my daughter qualifies for disability assistance. \n\nHowever, during the same time as my daughter being born, I was having horrible stomach pains. I'd been putting up with it for nearly the two years after losing health benefits to concentrate on school. I qualified for nothing. I'm a 25 year old man in my school's Master's program and couldn't qualify for medicaid because my school offered health insurance for $800/semester. So because it was *available* I couldn't qualify. However, the school's insurance exclusions were a couple pages long. And it definitely wouldn't cover specialty care which I desperately needed. So I lived with it up until the point that I actually thought I might die because of it. I had lost 80 pounds and people were constantly asking if I was okay. There was a stretch that I could only eat baby food because anything else made me wish for death.\n\nSo I was coming up to graduating and I'm realizing that I need to get feeling better because I'd be worthless to an employer. So I went to the gastroenterolgist to get checked out. An endoscopy, barium swallow, digestion study, and two colonoscopies later, we pinned it down that I have Crohn's Disease. Great. So on top of all of the labs and test bills I have, I'm going to have to add a lifetime of incredibly expensive brand name medications. \n\nBut my doctor's office and all of the hospitals were very generous. All of my bills totaled well over $15,000 but we saw only a third of that. And my doctor was giving my Crohn's medication from the stock of samples given to his office. It is do this day one of the biggest gifts I've been given. And he did this because he knew the situation my family was in. \n\nI know have health insurance through my company but it comes at a 75/25 split after the individual realizes a $2500 deductible. Between my daughter's doctor visits and my doctors visits, we max out our insurance each year. \n\nTL;DR Sometimes I wonder if having insurance really saves me money because cash gets such a steep discount.",
"A lot of hospitals have payment plans and financial aid.\n\nMy dad got severely dehydrated and had to spend two weeks on IV, getting 3 surgeries and upwards of 5 PET and CT scans. His bill ended up being over $100,000. Between mediocre insurance and financial aid, the bill was reduced to less than $10,000 and is paid off completely 5 years later.",
"Bankruptcy. My husband and I just had ours discharged a few months ago. We filed after he had knee surgey (WITH INSURANCE) and the $5000 bill ruined our finances. It was the tipping point.",
"It depends on a lot of things. When I was 22, I had a \"castastrophic illness\" 2 days before leaving for basic training for the army. I did not pay for COBRA (extension of private insurance coverage) when I left my job, literally a week before I got sick. It was the only period in my life I was uninsured (army isn't responsible until the day you ship out). \nSo, I ended up in the hospital, having both legs amputated and with permanent organ failure. I was in for 3 mos with about 15 surgeries. My bills were over 2 million dollars. My family thought to apply for medicaid and the county health plan for where we live and fortunately they covered everything. I worked full time for 4 years prior to my illness so I qualified for disability right away and medicare in 2 years. As soon as we could, I went back on my parents insurance and only used medicare as a secondary payer. \n\nI know my experience was probably not the norm but I just wanted to let OP know that if you have a devastating illness and no insurance at the time, you do still get treatment. I was even given some controversial drugs right out of phase III .trials that were quite expensive. \n\nI think a big issue here is for the people who have a less catastrophic illness and are not at at least 150% of poverty level (meaning they make slightly more). In my situation, i could not return to work ay any time even in the distant future. I made more that 150% of poverty level but I still qualified under \"catastrophic illness,\" for medicaid- only until I started recieving SSDI. Private insurance can be quite a financial burden on people, especially when they work for a smaller business bc their premiums are higher. I don't know what the right solution is for this but I do know that it makes me very uneasy about the quality and frequency of care people will get. I am a public health major so our healthcare system is of great interest and great concern to me. ",
"Massive frustration leading to desperation, both accompanied by pain and suffering, followed by death. The ER \"safety net\" only treats life threatening conditions, so by the time you find out that horrific pain in your gut that you couldn't afford to see a doctor to have treated is cancer, it's too late.",
"Ecuador is poor as hell and has free healthcare and education (including college).",
"No healthcare system should work for profits. Potentially dead people need to be treated, not shaked for change. ",
"ITT: lots of non answers, anecdotes, and political banter. The answer is that you will be treated and stabilized if it is a life threatening condition. Those with insurance pay higher prices to cover the hospital's contingency for treating uninsured patients. ER visits for non-life threatening conditions can result in refusal of treatment or treatment (and large medical bills later).",
"My Canadian Perspective:\nThe American health care system makes freedom look bad. And that's because it isn't free or capitalistic at all. It is corrupt to the core. The American federal government pays more per capita for Medicaid and Medicare than Canada does for our entire universal health care system. That means the average American is paying more taxes for health care than Canadians and a very large percentage of them are not entitled to any services. They still have to pay for an insurance plan or pay out of pocket for health care. \n\nThe insurance companies are not allowed to sell insurance across state borders so there are many insurance monopolies that keep prices high. \n\nThe Canadian system is riddled with problems including long wait times and poor service. In the States, if you are wealthy you will get the best care in the world, if you are dirt poor you will get decent service. If you are middle-upper middle class you will pay extremely high insurance premiums or risk becoming a debt slave if you get sick. In Canada, you get poor service no matter who you are. Pick your poison. \n\nI really wish that somewhere in the world there was an example of a free market health care. ",
"I work for a business office of a healthcare facility in customer service, but my job is based around internal collections, so I have to ask people to pay their bill all day, and there's a lot who don't have insurance. We have a financial assistance program, that's available for everyone, but helps uninsured the most. They simply fill out a page, front and back, application and send their last two pay stubs and last years taxes; it's based on income. If they qualify, they could receive a discount between 15-100%. People who don't have insurance often qualify for 100%. Now if a person comes to the ER, there seen no matter what, so we have to call and ask them to fill the application out after the fact. But if someone has to make an appointment and they don't have insurance, they have to go through this process which includes filling out the application ahead of time. Now, my facility does not turn anyone away, no matter whether they have insurance, or if they don't pay their bill, or if they are in collections with us. If a patient isn't insured and they don't pay their bill, we talk to them, explain that they need to start paying and to fill out a financial assistance app, but they won't be turned away. \nThat's just how the facility I work for helps patients who can't pay their bills. ",
"Two anecdotes:\nWhen I went to the ER, I asked what people do when they can't pay fo their ER visit. The billing lady said \"Honestly? They say 'No habla\" and walk out.\"\n\nIn Texas, UTMB is the state hospital and they provide indigent care. I believe they cannot turn people away for being unable to pay. So if you can make it to Galveston, you are \"good\".",
"Everyone who has healthcare pays for them by being extremely overcharged.\n\nWhich is why Obamacare, helping the poor buy health insurance saves Americans $100 million a year. It is cheaper to insure them than pay Medicare taxes AND get overcharged by hospitals. ",
"If you are low income, you can qualify for Charity Care services that often cut a large portion of the bill down to more realistic numbers.\n\nHowever, even when you have insurance plans or Charity Care coverage - the costs associated with medical care are outrageously sky-high. \n\nFor instance, I was hospitalized with pneumonia a few years ago and when I got the itemized bill, my jaw hit the floor when I saw the charges. What stood out most to me were the 24 liters of saline solution I used while recovering. Each liter was priced at nearly $200 dollars each. Now, if they're charging that much for saline, imagine what they billed me for a few days in ICU.\n\nWhen you see these plans cover 75% of the bill - you think, \"Not bad, that's pretty good!\".\n\nExcept 75% of $125,000 USD still leaves an insurmountable debt to those stuck with the last 25%.\n\n.. the problem with medical care in the US is simply the fees and charges hospitals charge for everything ranging from band-aids, MRI's, and ICU room charges.",
"No, they are not.\n\nAmerican is not a god-forsaken place were the sick are left to rot on the side of the road. Doctors in the US are just as ethically obligated as the rest of the world's Doctors to treat the sick regardless of the ability to pay.\n\nIn fact, the real losers in this are the hospitals. They have HUGE write-offs on their balance sheets every year. In simple terms they have to absorb a lot of cost involved in treating the uninsured. As an example, Vanderbilt Hospital has to absorb about $300 Million per year (that's roughly 193 Million GBP or 225 Million Euro) in costs associated with treating the uninsured. \n\nIn short, somebody has to pay... but its rarely the one who gets saved. Truthfully one of the reasons Health Care is so expensive in the States is because hospitals have to charge extra from those who can pay to compensate for those who can't. Otherwise, they can't stay open and continue to operate.",
"Right well, this entire thread has left me incredibly depressed. :/",
"Imagine a cartoony, fat, rich man, smoking a cigar, demanding ransom, holding an asthema inhaler behind his back while a young girl coughs. ",
"To the Rancor of course!",
"You die. \n\nSource: Watching my boyfriend with brittle diabetes get more and more sick for 10 years until he died. That's the simplified version but the rest of it isn't really as important except that he would probably be alive had he had medical coverage when he initially got sick. Instead I am essentially a widow at 34. The only reason we weren't married is I couldn't afford to take on his debt because one of us needed credit. ",
"I hope the OP sees this. I might be too late. \n\nAnyways, I am a 28 year old male who has gone the last 6-7 years without any health insurance. I have something like $50,000 in medical debt on my credit. I'll never pay it off. \n\nBecause of this terrible credit:\n\nI can't get a mobile phone activated unless it is prepaid. \n\nI can't rent an apartment or 95% of homes for rent. This makes finding a place to live incredibly hard. I have lived in my car for multiple-months on numerous occasions. \n\nI can't get any credit cards or anything like that. I've actually never had a credit card. \n\nI don't have a bank account. \n\nI can't finance any life-emergencies. For instance: the transmission in my car blew 2 months back. I am not only STILL without a car (which has caused in numerous problems) but I can't finance the parts/repairs. I tried to get a rental car for the weekend just 2 days ago and found out even THEY do credit checks. So even if I pay in-full for the rental upfront, AND give them a $400 cash deposit, AND buy their full coverage insurance, I still cannot rent a car. \n\nThere are a lot of other issues, but this is what I assume many others in my situation deal with. \n\nIt makes life very hard to 'fix'. I feel like I'll never be a normal 'adult' as the idea of life being stable enough to get a mortgage or something is just laughable. It kinda sucks :/ \n\nI would give 50% of every dollar I make if it meant that everyone can get all of the medical care they ever need for free. I know what it's like to need it and not get it, and it is very depressing. \n\nI CAN get private insurance, but decent coverage will run me around $800 a month and my deductibles will still be very high. I don't make much money, and definitely couldn't come close to affording that and still eating. ",
"Healthcare and insurance are a nightmare. I (as a 23 year old female) was admitted to the hospital for an emergency surgery to remove a mass amount of blood clots. I had no insurance because I couldn't afford it and left my job that I had it through. After spending 4 days in the ICU and having 3 surgeries, I racked up about $75,000 in bills. \nI've applied to insurances and because I now have a 'pre-existing condition' monthly premiums are through the roof for me. I don't qualify for state insurance because I make too much, by $10. To make matters worse my job now cut my hours way down to avoid having to offer health insurance to part time employees/have to pay a fine for not due to the new laws coming out. \nThe debt doesn't go away, I get harassed by bill collectors multiple times a day, but don't have the means to pay my bills. I can't even tell you the stress this has brought on and the number of tears it has caused on my part... A year and a half later I haven't even made a dent.",
"I needed stiches as an emergency couple years ago. They trimmed some skin & put in 3 stiches, I was out in no time. i received 4 different bills from various \"departments\" within the hospital totaling about 4500 dollars together. They staged the bills, so when i paid the first bill of 1200, they continued to send the other 3 in different amounts. Then they sent me to collections within about 30 days. I had to get a lawyer, cost me about 400 dollars. My case was that I wanted one final bill because I had already paid a large amount and they continued to send different bills over a 6 month period. Judge dropped the bills because the hospital cold not explain why I was repeatedly billed. I bet they would have garnished my wages eventually if i didn't lawyer up.\n\nNext time I will just use crazy glue, go to my regular doctor for antibiotics and heal slower. BTW this is with insurance",
"The word that accurately describes their situation isn't something a 5year old should hear",
"They get their medical treatment at the highest possible price and the American taxpayers pay for it... yet people still cry about Obamacare and the prospect of single payer despite the fact it should cost us all less.",
"So it is the insurance companies who are benefitting from such a system? Or who?\n\nI think the American people are being duped into believing a system like this is to their benefit. I know many of them are in favour of change, and I hope change happens, but the rest of the world are looking in disbelief that capitalism has been taken to this extreme.\n\nI live in a developing country, we have free health care for all in the government hospitals, and many people who can afford it have insurance for the private hospitals and clinics (faster appointments) it's not ideal but from what I gather it's much better than what is available in The States.",
"If you require immediate care the hospital will take care of you, offer a discount, and set up a payment plan.\n\nThere are lots of charity organizations that are available to help, and the govt provides aid for those who are in poverty",
"I'm late to this question.\nBut, what happens if somebody is already financially screwed (bankruptcy or whatever) and they require emergency attention?",
"Please edit this. Healthcare here in the UK is not free. What do you think national insurance is for? It's free at the point of use.... Unless you need a prescription, glasses or dental work.",
"So is there any talk in the US of changing this? Surely the politicians understand this is a joke. Whats Obama saying?",
"I get so worked up anytime I read about the American people dieing/being made lame/performing self surgery etc etc because they are to afraid to see a doctor due to the $$.\nI am Canadian - THANK GOD! \nIt boggles my mind how the American health system is run.\n\nLet me make clear - health care in Canada is **NOT** free. Taxpayers pay into it. Our taxes ARE HIGHER here - but no one dies from a broken foot or the like. We just go to the Dr's. \n\nI had heart surgery when I was 11. I bet my family and I would still be paying for that if I were an American.",
"We get billed, I am JUST above the poverty level that qualifies for Medicaid. (Government insurance) Due to my wifes medical issues she goes from E.R. to E.R., we can not get a primary care physician so the debt just piles up. I own nothing anyone can put a lien on, so I just go to my mailbox and throw away 2-3 inches of hospital bills every other day.",
"I am a case manager at a clinic in Maryland. We work with uninsured patients who would otherwise have no way of receiving care. I will admit that I haven't read each response in this thread so I apologize if this has been mentioned. If a person is racking up bills at the hospital, they may be able to apply for a \"spend down\" which basically means that they will be able to receive medical assistance for 6 months. Once the 6 months expire, they will need to renew. Also, there are programs such as Primary Adult Care (at least in Maryland) that provide insurance to low income people. With the new healthcare reform, everyone with PAC will get medical assistance. The main idea here is that there are usually programs to help people. Hospitals typically have social workers to ensure that you apply for the appropriate ones. Oh, and there are programs to help get medications for free through the pharmaceutical companies as well. I recently got free HIV meds for a year for a patient that would have otherwise cost $1000 per month!\n\nIt's not all bad here. ",
"For the rest of the world, reasonable Americans understand why we need to switch from for profit to nonprofit healthcare have to fight against.\n\n_URL_0_",
"This is my life right now. My wife is dying of cancer I cannot afford to pay the bills. cost of healthcare is literally killing my wife. Her cancer is very treatable but we cannot afford the treatment. If you do not have insurance in America you die slow and painful death.\n This is the American healthcare system. "
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"http://legal-dictionary.thefree... | |
nctu6 | what exactly is sopa planning to do to the internet? | I've heard a lot about SOPA trying to fuck the Internet, but nobody has explicitly told me exactly what they are trying to do. Explain like I'm five, and thank you in advance. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/nctu6/eli5_what_exactly_is_sopa_planning_to_do_to_the/ | {
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"The Stop Online Piracy Act. Basically it is an act that forbids internet users from using content under copyright. EVERYTHING under copyright. Music, video game footage, everything.",
"Apologies if I'm doing it wrong, this is my 1st post here. And if something here is inaccurate, I'll try to fix it :)\n\nLet's say I write and record a song, and sell it on iTunes. Some jerk buys it, and without my permission posts the song on a site like _URL_0_ for all to hear and download.\n\nWith the current laws (the DMCA), I have to send a cease-and-desist notice to _URL_0_, and as long as they remove the song link, they're in the clear, protected by the DMCA's [safe harbor part](_URL_5_). But it's not perfect for me, I'm the one who has to monitor sites like FreeSongsHere, and if someone re-uploads the song, I have to send another cease-and-desist. If I'm fairly popular, or have more than one song, this can be quite a chore. And if _URL_0_ ignores me, well, I can file a lawsuit, but what good will that do if they're in some random land? (thePirateBay is *still* up and running!)\n\nWhat SOPA would allow me to do:\n\n1) Without going to court first, I can block advertisers and payment processors (like PayPal) from doing any business with FreeSongsHere. I might use this power for good, but will bigger companies use it to bully sites they don't like?\n\n2) Use the [might of the federal government to block people](_URL_6_) from going to _URL_0_, even if it's not hosted in the US.\n\n3) Even if most of what _URL_0_ hosts is legal, I can [get them in trouble](_URL_7_). And while _URL_0_ might have primarily infringing stuff, sites like YouTube, Wikipedia, and Reddit are worried that their sites may become a target (for example, Reddit has [several subreddits](_URL_1_) that promote or discuss piracy).\n\n4) Websites like Reddit and Wikipedia will be [pressured to monitor and censor](_URL_2_) anything that copyright companies might be upset by. And their track record ain't exactly spotless, here's [a story from today](_URL_4_) where Viacom zapped their own game trailer, and another where media companies [blocked a song that offended their precious sensibilities](_URL_3_).",
"Apologies if I'm going this wrong, this is my 1st post of this kind here. If something here is inaccurate, I'll try to fix it :)\n\nLet's say I run a website that lets people upload content they created, called _URL_0_. Some jerk uploads a song that's not his for all to hear and download.\n\nWith the current laws (the DMCA), when I receive a cease-and-desist notice, and as long as I remove the link, I'm in the clear, protected by DMCA's safe harbor part. It's almost perfect for me, because I would rather be working on new features for users, instead of monitoring my site all day long for infringing content. If I'm fairly popular, or have many users, this can be quite a chore. If I choose to ignore the takedown notice, the person can file a lawsuit, even if they're in some random land! \n\nWhat SOPA would force me to do:\n\n1) Without anyone going to court first, my advertisers and payment processors can be blocked from doing any business with me. I don't know who would use this power for good, but I know bigger companies would use it to bully sites they don't like.\n\n2) The might of the federal government will be used to block people from visiting my site, even if it's legal in my country.\n\n3) Even if most of what my site hosts is legal, I can be in trouble. Even if I have primarily non-infringing stuff, my site will be a target. \n\n4) I will be pressured to spend much more time and money monitoring and censoring anything that copyright companies might be upset by. And their track record ain't exactly spotless.",
"I am slightly hesitant to ask these questions, but if SOPA passes and is executed by DNS alterations, does that mean it will still be possible for people affected to use \"blocked\" webistes if they know the IP address of the site they wish to visit?\n\nWill users who use proxy servers outside of the USA be able to bypass the restrictions?",
"What if we just put the whole internet behind SEVEN PROXIES??!!\n",
"The Stop Online Piracy Act. Basically it is an act that forbids internet users from using content under copyright. EVERYTHING under copyright. Music, video game footage, everything.",
"Apologies if I'm doing it wrong, this is my 1st post here. And if something here is inaccurate, I'll try to fix it :)\n\nLet's say I write and record a song, and sell it on iTunes. Some jerk buys it, and without my permission posts the song on a site like _URL_0_ for all to hear and download.\n\nWith the current laws (the DMCA), I have to send a cease-and-desist notice to _URL_0_, and as long as they remove the song link, they're in the clear, protected by the DMCA's [safe harbor part](_URL_5_). But it's not perfect for me, I'm the one who has to monitor sites like FreeSongsHere, and if someone re-uploads the song, I have to send another cease-and-desist. If I'm fairly popular, or have more than one song, this can be quite a chore. And if _URL_0_ ignores me, well, I can file a lawsuit, but what good will that do if they're in some random land? (thePirateBay is *still* up and running!)\n\nWhat SOPA would allow me to do:\n\n1) Without going to court first, I can block advertisers and payment processors (like PayPal) from doing any business with FreeSongsHere. I might use this power for good, but will bigger companies use it to bully sites they don't like?\n\n2) Use the [might of the federal government to block people](_URL_6_) from going to _URL_0_, even if it's not hosted in the US.\n\n3) Even if most of what _URL_0_ hosts is legal, I can [get them in trouble](_URL_7_). And while _URL_0_ might have primarily infringing stuff, sites like YouTube, Wikipedia, and Reddit are worried that their sites may become a target (for example, Reddit has [several subreddits](_URL_1_) that promote or discuss piracy).\n\n4) Websites like Reddit and Wikipedia will be [pressured to monitor and censor](_URL_2_) anything that copyright companies might be upset by. And their track record ain't exactly spotless, here's [a story from today](_URL_4_) where Viacom zapped their own game trailer, and another where media companies [blocked a song that offended their precious sensibilities](_URL_3_).",
"Apologies if I'm going this wrong, this is my 1st post of this kind here. If something here is inaccurate, I'll try to fix it :)\n\nLet's say I run a website that lets people upload content they created, called _URL_0_. Some jerk uploads a song that's not his for all to hear and download.\n\nWith the current laws (the DMCA), when I receive a cease-and-desist notice, and as long as I remove the link, I'm in the clear, protected by DMCA's safe harbor part. It's almost perfect for me, because I would rather be working on new features for users, instead of monitoring my site all day long for infringing content. If I'm fairly popular, or have many users, this can be quite a chore. If I choose to ignore the takedown notice, the person can file a lawsuit, even if they're in some random land! \n\nWhat SOPA would force me to do:\n\n1) Without anyone going to court first, my advertisers and payment processors can be blocked from doing any business with me. I don't know who would use this power for good, but I know bigger companies would use it to bully sites they don't like.\n\n2) The might of the federal government will be used to block people from visiting my site, even if it's legal in my country.\n\n3) Even if most of what my site hosts is legal, I can be in trouble. Even if I have primarily non-infringing stuff, my site will be a target. \n\n4) I will be pressured to spend much more time and money monitoring and censoring anything that copyright companies might be upset by. And their track record ain't exactly spotless.",
"I am slightly hesitant to ask these questions, but if SOPA passes and is executed by DNS alterations, does that mean it will still be possible for people affected to use \"blocked\" webistes if they know the IP address of the site they wish to visit?\n\nWill users who use proxy servers outside of the USA be able to bypass the restrictions?",
"What if we just put the whole internet behind SEVEN PROXIES??!!\n"
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"http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/12/megaupload-contract/",
"http://www.vg247.com/2011/12/14/the-last-of-us-trailer-p... | |
6ty1n0 | why does standing at a cliff's edge give me the feeling as if i'm being pulled over. | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6ty1n0/eli5_why_does_standing_at_a_cliffs_edge_give_me/ | {
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"It's a well known psychological condition called \"Cognitive dissonance\".\n\nIn a nutshell it is the brain receiving mixed signals, being confused, and attempting to work out a solution.\n\nStanding on a precipice is confusing for the brain. Your rational mind knows you are safe, yet your base animal brain is terrified. Your brain is trying to function as one mind working out many conflicting scenarios at once.\n\nThis is a very ELI5 answer, but if you want to know more here is a link:\n\n_URL_0_\n\n"
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26p8b7 | how are lighthouses like this built? (pic in comments) | [_URL_0_](_URL_0_) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/26p8b7/eli5_how_are_lighthouses_like_this_built_pic_in/ | {
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"I assume that wave wasn't there when they built it.",
"_URL_0_\n\nThat's a great read on how they get built. At least back in the day...",
"Probably using caissons - like [this Wikipedia article on St. George reef lighthouse](_URL_1_)\n\nThe image is an [art piece](_URL_0_) and I can't easily find the actual location. ",
"There is a documentary about this, the series is called [Seven Wonders of the Industrial World (2003)](_URL_0_), and episode [three](_URL_1_) is about the lighthouse.\n\nIt is available on netflix in some countries (not the US), but if you have a \"app\" to watch other countries netflix its available on the Norwegian netflix at least.",
"They built it during low tide and calm weather. But those conditions aren't often met in this part of France which is known for its very high currents. So the construction usually lasted many years. I don't know about La Jument (the lighthouse in your picture) but I can tell you about ArMen, also located in France not far from La Jument actually. It took them 14 years to built it. During the first years, they only managed to work for about 50h on it. \n\nPic : _URL_0_ \n\n\nI think all of the isolated lighthouses in France have been automated since 1990. And with the GPS they aren't that useful anymore. Considering the lack of maintenance and the storms they endure every winter it's only a matter of time before they collapse :(",
"Victorian man finds rock in sea. Victorian man chips away at rock when rock not covered by the sea (usually through the summer where workers often built temporary wooden living quarters built on stilts). \n\nVictorian man applies carpentry techniques to stone masonry (think dove-tail jointing of massive blocks of granite) to make stone strong enough to withstand the 2000lbs/square foot pressure the sea can exert on the walls etc. \n\nNice man lives in clever stone structure and fuels a fire by often pulling coal out of the water nearby supplied by delivery vessels.\n\nShips avoid clever brightly lit structure and rocks saving P & I clubs (insurers who often funded the constructions) ££ in claims. \n\nUnbelievable war of attrition against the sea.\n\nFun fact: the pioneers of the first light houses that were built to last in this manner were the various members of the author Robert Louis-Stevenson's direct family (Treasure Island, Dr Jekyll.. etc). \n\nLike a proper, dour Scot, RL-S often resented fame and considered himself a failure as he disappointed the family by taking up writing instead of the family profession. \n\nCannot recommend this book enough: _URL_0_"
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9k5rd5 | why do newborns smile when they have gas? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9k5rd5/eli5_why_do_newborns_smile_when_they_have_gas/ | {
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7gxt4s | why is fasting so important before exams? | I mean, for blood exams I can guess it's because you don't want any abnormal level for sugar, for example, as it can happen because you just ate or drank. But why for tomography and other scanning exams? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7gxt4s/eli5why_is_fasting_so_important_before_exams/ | {
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"If the exam is looking at certain organs it may be better to see them at rest or empty to get a more clear image of the organ itself. If your having an issue with say stomach pain and you just had breakfast that hasn't left the stomach then they can not get a clear image of all parts of the organ. Or if it becomes active it may not show exactly what they need. Also for surgery you need to fast and depending on the exam if they find something that would require emergency surgery it's better to be prepared as well "
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5us3t0 | how does a eagles eye not freeze while in flight in the winter? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5us3t0/eli5how_does_a_eagles_eye_not_freeze_while_in/ | {
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"Wind chill doesn't actually freeze anything. Its called a wind chill because the wind blowing makes the air \"feel\" colder, not actually be colder. Despite how windy it is, the air is still whatever the ambient temperature is."
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7afjnv | how did people get a ticket for speeding and how were they caught for back in the early 1900s? or did police not take any action in pulling people over? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7afjnv/eli5_how_did_people_get_a_ticket_for_speeding_and/ | {
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"\"Pull over, don't make me jog slowly alongside you any longer! Pull over damnit!\" - Old timey cops, probably.\n\nSpeed limits in America became a thing in 1901, and it would seem, so did speeding tickets. [Here's an example of one from Canada in 1910](_URL_0_)"
]
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efp6jo | why are there no home insulin level tests/momitors? | Insulin levels rise slowly over years from insulin resistance, then crash when the beta cells finally give up the ghost, resulting in some form of diabetes. It seems completely obvious that continuous insulin monitoring is the next wave of our unfolding. But I can find only a single reference to a company trying to bolt one onto their under-development artificial pancreas. There is ZERO out there for at-home insulin monitoring. Why can't lab testing be scaled down for at-home use? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/efp6jo/eli5_why_are_there_no_home_insulin_level/ | {
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"Simple answer is that the test is complicated and to dumb it down so anyone could do it would require that it be expensive enough that pretty much no one would buy it.",
"Because the specific amount of insulin in your body is not that important compared to the amount of glucose in your blood.\n\nHigh insulin could kill you *because* it will decreased your blood sugar.\n\nThe actual presence of high or low levels of insulin isn't dangerous itself, but the effect it has on sugar levels can be dangerous.\n\nBecause it's not a reliable indicator of sugar levels and it is likely expensive to deploy on the scale you are describing, there's no incentive to create a device like this.",
"\"Insulin levels rise slowly over years from insulin resistance, then crash when the beta cells finally give up the ghost, resulting in some form of diabetes.\" Just FYI: that may be linked to type 2, but not to type 1 which is an autoimmune disease. We had an autoimmune attack, which can be very sudden and has nothing to do with insulin resistance, that killed and continues to kill off insulin-producing beta cells.\n\nFor your question, it might be very expensive to have a home insulin monitor? Just curious, for what purpose?",
"The current test for insulin blood levels involves: \n* Attaining at least 0.5 mL of blood from a vein (about five drops) by a trained phlebotomist \n* Centrifuging that blood \n*Adding two special binding chemical reagents \n*One of them allows a third reagent to bind and solidify the whole thing \n*Then an electromagnet pulls all of those combined insulin-reagent-reagent-reagent complexes onto an electrode \n*A fourth chemical washes everything else away \n*Then an electrical current is run through the electrode, and one of the original reagents causes it to glow \n*The glow brightness is measured and then calculated to determine how much insulin is there. \n*Now throw everything in the biohazard trash\n\nSo a continuous home test would need to improve on the IV blood access, find a way to centrifuge, deal with the expense of the reagent chemicals, include the electrode and light sensor, then safely get rid of trash. For bonus difficulties, insulin varies so wildly throughout the day that measuring it after a many-hours fast is the only way to get useful numbers, taking biotin vitamin supplements will mess up the results, and this all has to be made safe and easy enough for all of the idiots you know to be able to do it after fifteen minutes of instruction.\n\nAll of this compares to our current best, the hemoglobin A1c test. It measures hemoglobin molecules that have accidentally, permanently bound to glucose molecules. This gives a picture of how much excess glucose a person has had in their blood over the last three months. Compared to the above test, it's pretty simple and cheap. In fact, some doctor's offices buy Point of Care machines that can read HgBA1c on site. Doing one of these tests every three or six months for someone at high risk for developing diabetes is not unreasonable, and it will give much of the info you're looking for."
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2wk07h | would it be possible for another country to buy a country in debt? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2wk07h/eli5_would_it_be_possible_for_another_country_to/ | {
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"You can buy the debt from the person that holds it, but you cannot purchase control of the country. ",
"The only ways to gain control of a country is through conquest or treaty.\n\nIn a treaty, you can theoretically place a condition by which the annexing nation pays the remaining debt of the nation being annexed.\n\nThis would effectively be \"buying\" a nation, though it is not something that could be done without the debtor nation's consent.",
"Not in the way you could buy a house, or one company could buy another.\n\nIt has happened though. Scotland poured a lot of it's wealth into an attempt to colonise Panama. When this scheme failed (due to disease, the locals, the Spanish, and to some extent the English) Scotland was broke.\n\nAt the same time Scotland had been arguing with England about thier shared monarchy, particularly who should be allowed to succeed. The English parliament wanted to ban all Catholics from sitting on the throne.\n\nThe English saw the Scots predicament as an opportunity and agreed to re-emburse the nobles for thier losses if they voted to merge Scotland with England - creating the United Kingdom.",
"If you were to buy a country, who would you be paying?"
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62a9rt | why is lobbyism normal in the us? what's the difference to corruption? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/62a9rt/eli5why_is_lobbyism_normal_in_the_us_whats_the/ | {
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"Keep in mind that Lobbying is just talking to your representative, and you can be representing a group of people when you do it. You're informing a politician of your group's wants and needs. That's it. There doesn't need to be money involved.\n\nA few years ago, the US Supreme Court determined that restricting money = restricting speech (this is colloquially known as Citizens United if you want to see more info).\n\nNow, you still can't put money directly into these politicians' hands. But you can give it to a group that supports them (A Super PAC, which they can *almost* do whatever they want with the money. It's very flimsy, as far as regulations go).\n\nThe practice of lobbying by itself isn't corrupt, but because money = speech in the eyes of the law, that allows for corruption to happen legally.",
"Lobbyism is normal in the US because of the constitutional rights to freedom of speech and “petitioning the Government for a redress of grievances”.\n\nThe eight largest lobbying groups in the US are\n\nUS Chamber of Commerce\n\nNational Association of Realtors\n\nAmerican Medical Association\n\nGeneral Electric\n\nAmerican Hospital Association\n\nPharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers of America\n\nBlue Cross/Blue Shield\n\nAARP\n\nThose cover a lot of people's interests, GE is 106,000 US employees alone\n\n",
"As another comment mentioned, lobbying is just speaking to politicians about your needs and/or the way laws impact you. \n\nThe problem is that people have very unequal access to politicians, and money greatly increases the chances you'll be able to have your voice heard (maybe literally). \n\nThere are also concerns about direct bribes or more traditional forms of corruption in the process of lobbyists interacting with politicians. An example is simply eating a meal with a politician to talk-- who pays for that meal? I believe there are actually rules about that specific thing, but somebody will always believe they are too restrictive or not restrictive enough. \n\nAnd in general there are all sorts of opportunities for partnerships, payment, or gifts when your job is to hang out with politicians all day. ",
"Lobbying in the US is similar to bribery. I think you should already know how it works. The lobbyist represent a person/group/company will talk to someone in congress and will persuade him to vote a certain way so that the person/group/company they represent will help him in the next re-election (they donate the money to his Super Pac, and they dont have to reveal who donated that money to you, until way after the election is over, and by then, nobody cares... Stephen Colbert does a great coverage of this when John Stewart was running Stephen's Super PAC).\n\nIts a system that its hard to change, why? Because money wins elections. You can hire smarter people, or more people, air more ads, etc, etc... And its a system that everyone in the government know is wrong but there is nothing they can do about it because they all need the money to keep going.\n\nAlso because presidential campaign takes almost a fking year, and its getting earlier and earlier to get your name out, while other countries presidential election are rather short. The longer the election campaign, the more money you need.\n",
"Paid speeches \nCampaign contributions\nWell paid non-executive board positions \nHigh paying corporate jobs after you've left office\n\nAll of these are methods for washing bribe money.\n\nMany politicians who get these perks are taking them as payment for favourable legislation they have helped pass during their term in office.\n\n\n",
"Lobbying doesnt even have to be immoral. If I start a petition that the government should do something about the heroin epidemic or other real problem, and pester congressmen about it, that's lobbying.\n\nLike most things humans do, its not the act itself, its the people involved who turn it slimy.",
"There will be many answers saying one is legal and the other isn't. They will also talk about how lobbying means you get your gov't rep's ear but not necessarily forcing that person into a specific decision. Those are in theory correct but that doesn't mean that it doesn't end up devolving into bribery.\n\nBut in terms of why one is \"normal\" and viewed as acceptable and the other isn't, you can also look at it like this. Corruption is bribery for the benefit of a few. Lobbying is bribery for the benefit of a large interest group.\n\n",
"Lobbying in its current state evolved from a more acceptable practice of simply getting advice from people knowledgable in a given field.\n\nFor example: If you are trying to enact reform on law enforcement, a congressman who has little interaction with the police would have a hard time drafting legislation to address any of the prevalent problems. Therefore lobbyists would come to the Congressman to give their perspective. \n\nActivists from groups such as the NAACP or ACLU might give their opinion on the problems with how law enforcement currently affects people negatively, so he would know what problems need to be fixed. Representatives from the police union might give their opinion on the reasons officers act with the protocols they use. The congressman needs this kind of information to do their job effectively.\n\nThe reason lobbying in it's current form is often thought of as pseudo-corruption is that the theoretical lobbying described above requires access to politicians and open communication. This is also more or less a given due to constitutional freedom of speech.\n\nFurthermore, it is somewhat of a necessity to have an organized media campaign and infrastructure if you want to run for office on a large scale, such as when running for a congressional district that expands far beyond your own city. As a result, most politicians need to spend money to campaign, and the law thus allows people to donate to politicians.\n\nWhile this may seem like it invites corruption, consider the alternative: The law cannot restrict an individual from spending their OWN money on a television ad to promote themself, due to freedom of speech. So if there was no mechanism for politicians to raise money, almost all large scale political campaigns would be inaccessible to anyone who was not privately wealthy or famous. Allowing fundraising makes it theoretically possible for anyone to run an effective campaign so long as they have supporters.\n\nThe result of these two things: The open access of politicians to lobbyists as a necessity of the job, and the legality of fundraising as a necessity of campaigning, means that anyone can make their wishes known to politicians and can donate money to them if that politician ends up doing what they wish.\n\nFrom a technical perspective, there is a simple way to avoid corruption in the legally culpable sense: If you do not make an explicit or legally binding promise of payment as a result of a specific action on the politician's part, it is not a bribe. You are simply exercising your legal right to talk to your local government representative, and your legal right to donate money to that candidate.\n\nThe loophole comes from the fact that even if your candidate fulfils their promise, there is no guarantee that you will actually pay them, despite your informal promise. Or inversely, if you donate to a candidate there is no guarantee that they will take the actions you desire. Without such a direct provable cause/effect, you can't definitively prove corruption.\n\nEDIT: To address the common responses in the comments:\n\n1. I am not trying to advocate or condemn the current system. The question asked why lobbying isn't legally corruption, so I explained what the current system is and the reasoning for how it resulted, and did so in a neutral tone, but I don't make any claim as to whether this is a good or bad system.\n\n2. Many bring up Publicly Funded Elections, where the government gives all candidates money to run. This already exists, to a degree. For example, any political party which achieves a certain threshold in a presidential election gets federal funding in the next cycle. The reason that this alone can't solve the problem is that the Constitution can't stop an individual from campaigning on their own money, so even with public funding a wealthy person is very advantages over a poor person.\n\n3. As for WHY we can't block individual spending on a campaign, this was the interpretation of the supreme Court on the case of \"Buckley v Valeo\". Due to the wording of our constitution, such a law would be invalid here, Despite it being legal in some other countries. Obviously the Constitution can potentially be amended, but that's a broader conversation than I am focusing on with this comment.",
"Lobbying as an individual person, acting independently of any business interests is so rare. What its actually turned into is corporations (who are legally treated like an individual) and other PAC (political action committees) donating lots of money to politicians to get legislation passed in their favor. In my opinion, there is really no difference in how lobbying is actually being practiced in America right now and corruption. Somehow it is being allowed because they have found numerous loopholes to cover their asses in the event of a lawsuit or any other scrutinization. ",
"Simply put, there is more than one type of lobbying. The main type we hear about is big corporate lobbying which is sometime accompanied with 'pay offs' to the politicians. However, there are also lobbyists for things such as Clean Water, Clean Energy, Social programs, ect. \n\nThere are specific ways that the 'bad' lobbying occurs and rules that have to be followed. A good lobbyist will at least adhere to the rules.\n\nNPR just recently did a piece on this a few weekends ago with some previous lobbyists as guests. I tried to find it but failed sorry.",
"I just heard this [this story](_URL_0_) on NPR this morning about Professor Joseph Bankman. It's an interesting story of a man paying for his own lobbyist out of pocket to push \"no-brainer\" legislation, but going up against a corporation and California politics. ",
"Imagine you have a playground (the country) with a bunch of different sections for playing (various business industries) that has a person in charge that makes decisions about the playground (the government). You love slides and go to the park everyday to play on them. However there are some rumors going around that the person in charge is planning on implementing a rule of \"no one can be higher than 10 feet off the ground\". This is because kids were playing on swings and were getting up too high than getting hurt. However you know that the slide and other toys are actually higher than 10 feet and so they will be affected by this new rule too. So you, the jungle gym kid, and the monkey bars kid get together and have a friend of yours (the lobbyist) go talk to the rule makers. This friend knows all about safety and which parts of the park that are high off the ground and so you trust him to talk to the rule maker about changing this bill. Your friend does this and gets the rule maker to make the rule now say \"No swinging higher than 10 feet off the ground\". So that it doesn't affect the other equipment.\n\nThe part where corruption gets involved is imagine that the sandbox kid hears about the original rule and likes it because it will mean more people will play in the sandbox. So he gets a friend of his to give the rule maker some money if they keep the text of the rule the same no matter what anyone else says.\n\nTL:DR - A lobbyist is an informed friend of an industry who's goal is to work with the government so that they are aware of the specifics of the group they represent. Corruption starts getting involved when they begin offering money and job offers to get what they or their industry want.\n",
"Lobbying comes out of the fact that interest groups used to wait out in the lobby in an attempt to influence policy makers. It was thought of as a way to keep representatives informed about current issues. It's not a new phenomenon. I'm sure lobbying is quite a bit different than it has been at other times in our history. Lobbying isn't always a bad thing. It's just unfortunate when businesses takes advantage of things. There are a lot of really diverse special interests. Mothers against drunk driving, environmental groups, the AARP is a really active community, etc. MADD had a pretty big impact on policy decisions about drunk driving.",
" > Why is lobbyism normal in the US?\n\nFirst, you need to ask, what is lobbying?\n\nThe 1st Amendment to the Constitution of the US says:\n\n > Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and **to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.**\n\nSo, we all have the right to go into our local politician's office and be heard. If I want to go to the office of my House Rep, he has to hear what I have to say. It's my right to *petition*. Same goes for my city councilmember, mayor, State Rep, Governor, Senator, and even the President. They all have to hear what US citizens have to say.\n\nNow, as an example, let's say you want to see a Congressman. There are 435 Congressional Districts in the US, each representing populations of 711,000 people. Imagine the queue you'd have to make if everyone in the district wanted to *redress grievances* with their Congressman!\n\nSo, to make things more efficient, people created companies that, when hired, would petition your politicians for you. This is called lobbying. This is why lobbying is legal, and population (and geographical) sizes is why it's normal. It's very hard for an American in Hawaii to visit their Representative in Washington. And it's very hard for 711,000 people to be heard all at the same time. \n\n > What's the difference between lobbying and corruption?\n\nLobbying is associated with corruption because special interest groups would donate money to politicians who are open to their ideas. For example, let's say Congressman A is in favor of the oil industry, the oil industry lobbyists would be more willing to donate money to Congressman A's re-election campaign. In contrast, the solar industry lobby would not only abstain from donating to Congressman A's campaign, but they'd be more willing to donate to Congressman B's campaign, because Congressman B is a proponent of solar power as an alternative to oil!\n\nThis looks like corruption because it appears that money is being exchanged for votes. But, can we prove that's the case? Or is it the case that these Congressmen already agreed with a particular position, and lobbyists are simply endorsing these candidates because they agree?\n\nThe law makes a very clear distinction: if money is given in exchange for votes, then it's corruption. So, if you say to a candidate \"Vote for this bill and I'll give $500K\", that's corruption; it's a bribe.\n\nHowever, if the lobbyists says, \"Remember that bill we talked about the other day? I saw you voted the way we like. It is clear that your worldview and ours are compatible, and since we like you so much, here's $500 for your campaign\", then that's not corruption. It is perfectly legal.\n\nIt's a fine line, to be sure, but the law has drawn the line there, and in that fashion. Right to petition is an important right for any free society to have. \n\nIn the United States, congressmen have been investigated and arrested for bribery. In other words, the US *does* prosecute outright bribery. So lobbyists and politicians need to be very careful to not cross the line. The good news is that the line exists. The bad news is that many people disagree about where the line is currently drawn, and believe it should be drawn elsewhere.",
"I don't get why they don't just have a government run standardized election channel. It would literally just tell you who's running and shit about elections. Each candidate would get the same amount of air time for ads or whatever with a rotation for prime time or something and so on to make it unbiased. Maybe more of an organization then a channel. The National Campaign Organization. Have check and balances and shit, would ideally separate corporations from politicians by changing how Campaigning and election coverage operates.",
"Lobbyist: a person who takes part in an organized attempt to influence legislators\n\nLobbying is a natural part of politics. Any exercise of power involves stakeholders, the people who are impacted by the decision being made. Lobbying is how those stakeholders talk to the leaders who are making decisions. Lobbying itself means many different things, from meeting with politicians, to mass letter writing and phone call campaigns, to private pledges of political and financial support, or threats to withdraw it. \n\nThe problem is that drawing the line between legal lobbying and illegal bribery or corruption is really hard. Let's say a man named John Doe grew up on a farm, raised and slaughtered his own cattle, eats steaks every night, was drinking buddies with a bunch of ranchers, and eventually decides to go into politics to help out his farming community. The local beef industry got together and donated a bunch of money to help John get elected to the Statehouse. Years later, John runs for the Senate and wins. While in the Senate he passes a bill that helps the beef industry! Was that corrupt? Did the beef lobbyists give him money to force him to pass that bill, or did they give him money because they knew he already wanted to pass that bill? \n\nLobbying crosses into corruption only when it becomes literal favor trading, bribery, or extortion. And in this regard, the US government follows a far higher standard than private industry, or even many other governments. ",
"There is no difference, its legalized bribery because thats what corporations (and politicians) want.\n\nbecause more $$$ is better than less $$$\n\nyou dont need me to explain that one right? thought so.",
"Look, when politicians contemplate making computer owners get licenses, you lobby them to get something sensible passed\n\nYes its way more powerful than the popular vote and you can use it to enshrine your advantages in society, but turn that John Oliver noise off and try to form an objective opinion yourself for once",
"Most lobbying consists of simply telling politicians what you, or the interest you represent wants. 99.99% of lobbying is not shady at all. Lobbyists and the media are just easy scapegoats for politicians to divert blame towards. ",
"There are going to be a lot more nuanced answers here, but the gist of it is that people with a lot of capital can just use that capital to legitimize nearly anything they want to do as long as it doesn't step on the toes of other people with capital. The modern lobbying context grew from the fact that everyone with capital benefited from having near-exclusive access to politicians, so it became the new normal by virtue of everyone with money participating. It very different from corruption not because it has a different effect on the political landscape (it has the exact same effect on the political landscape), but because there are a few laws the people with capital agreed upon that enforce and justify the system. It's not a complete free-for-all, there is a particular process to it, but that's because even those who are functionally corrupt aren't complete savages and like a little nuance with their definitely-not-criminal activity. Also by having at least *some* laws on the books it helps them point to it anytime someone calls it out as bullshit. \"Hey, we aren't corrupt, we aren't breaking the laws we created!\"",
"Lobbyism wasn't always the norm. It is just the way civil society is structured these days. Before the 1960's, 'interest groups' (as you would call them) were composed of federations of people that worked together to advance their mutual interests in policy. During the civil rights movement, however, new more efficient strategies were invented to accomodate for the fewer resources and manpower among minority groups such as women and African Americans (because the federations were generally segregated). These strategies were much more efficient. Think the NAACP, an organization of 'experts' whose salaries are paid through donations. The problem is that these organizations were too efficient, and their use has spread considerably. More organizations are utilizing this rent-structure funded by grants from corporations and wealthy donors. The consequence is that these organizations disproportionately are at odds with the middle class and are more beholden to the wealthier segments of society. This is 'corruption' because it goes against the notion of popular jurisdiction by granting unfair advantages to a select elite.",
"What's so bizarre to me about most of the responses in this thread, is that 'in the US' has been consistently interpreted to contextualize intra-US politics. To be more specific, I was surprised that comparisons are not being made to other countries ie 'what does lobbying look like outside the US?'\n\n\nThis is a fundamental question to ask, because many Americans don't realize that many countries around the world do not distinguish between lobbying and bribery. In fact, when US media outlets talk about bribery happening in other countries, the legalistic offenses often relate specifically to \"lobbying\" efforts. Read more cynically, the reason the US political system is thought not to have endemic corruption is because we have redefined what it means to be corrupt - not because we have uprooted corruption itself.\n\n\n**TLDR:** In many other countries, lobbying *is considered the same thing as* bribery.\n\n\n**EDIT:** A lot of replies appear to confound free speech and lobbying. There's a difference. I'm not trying to argue that actual free speech directed at politicians is necessarily lobbying. Ironically, this thread demonstrates why we have such issues in the first place around bribery. The courts in the US have exploited this to manipulate the definition of lobbying, political donations, etc (this is why we can't just say 'lobbying' in the US is the same thing as 'lobbying' in other countries). Funny how there was a Chomsky thread that hit the front page on the same day. *Actually, /u/BrotherPazzo explained this point much more concisely, so go check out his comment!*\n\nAlso, most responses have referred to western democracies in their rebuttals - but see that's exactly my point. While there are western democracies that criminalize the equivalent of lobbying in the US, there are a great many countries (democratic ones!) outside the west that do the same. Apparently, we're not supposed to take their laws seriously.",
"Partial solution: no campaign advertising is allowed other than in a government provided booklet and .gov page available to all voters explaining your positions/ideals.",
"In my opinion there is NO DIFFERENCE. Lobbying is the exact means by which the wealthy have taken over the US government, and I wish it could be severely limited. Unfortunately, the people with the power to impose limits on it are the very legislators whose political careers depend on it. \n\nTrump supporters on reddit have asked what he could do that would make haters change their minds about him. My answer: write an executive order severely restricting lobbyist access to members of Congress. ",
"lobbyism is the number one reason that democracy fails. for instance lawmakers are supposed to regulate finacial institutions and keep their power over society in check. how are they ever going to achieve that, if lawmakers are depended on finacial support from those finacial institutions they are to make regulatory laws for!? the media doesant get invited to back office deals! anything could be going on, anything could be standard practise!",
"There's an actual study suggesting that lobbying coupled with transparency made corruption worse.\n\n_URL_0_",
"Way too complicated answers. \n\nIt's normal because multi national corporations and the establishment have bought off the process, rigged the system and made it normal. \n\nWhat is the difference from corruption? \n\nNothing, except that they don't call it corruption. In reality, it absolutely is, and until that system changes the U.S.will not be a democracy as much as it is a oligarchy, catering to the desires of the elite/establishment.\n\nSee?\n\nNo huge multi paragraph answers required, it's quite simple, really.",
"Americans should quit trying to rationalise what is clearly just a corrupt system in the eyes of the rest of the civilized world, where such practices are severely prohibited. It's the law of the rich, plain and simple. Democracy of the highest bidder kind.",
"I worked in a Maryland State legislature and was in charge of ethics in one of the representatives offices, which is indirectly tied with lobbying. Lobbying in itself is not an issue, tiny, community organizations do it all the time. Hell, paid lobbyists I've encountered were often quite frequently terrible, and ineffective, compared to local community organizations who often made quite convincing arguments about their issues. \n\nProblem is the Supreme Court ruling concluding that companies = people, and allowing these \"people\" to funnel unlimited amounts of money into politics. It is impossible to prove unspoken *quid pro quo* between business and politicians that happens because of this. \n\nAs far as I can tell, that is mainly an issue on federal level, my experience with reps on state level was overwhelmingly positive, despite me being rather skeptical when I started there. At least in MD...",
"In many other countries lobbying is just lobbying. The major difference is that weird ass election system in the USA and the fact that there is so much money involved in the campaigns. It's not about who is the best candidat for being the president. It's all about who can get the most money and looks the best on camera and manipulates the best. And for manipulation you need a lot of money. For that many cooperations are more than happy to put out loads of cash to a specific candidate who then in return will give them what they want. And exactly that is why many other countries see lobbying in the US as corruption because it latently is. One of the reasons why the economy should not be involved in politics but I guess in the US people think it is a necessity... well maybe after Trump that view will change.",
"Don't let the United States of Ammendment fanboys fool you, there is no discernable difference between corruption, bribery and lobbying in the current US political system. The only reason it's not addressed as such is due to this developing slowly over time than being blown out in a scandal early on. Of course everyone has/should have the right to speak to their representative but any exchange of money for time/ideas/orders is a dictionairy definition of corruption.",
"The US version of 'lobbying' is considered corruption in most other developed democracies around the world.",
"All these long answers.\n\nIt is this way because the people benefiting from it are the ones that would have to change it, which is unlikely since they are benefiting from it. Basically its a conflict of interest for them to get rid of it, since many politicians would rather help themselves over the people they represent.\n\nEdit: This is of coarse talking about the money involved in lobbying, lobbying itself is good, its the money that makes it bad.",
"It's not corruption because it's legal, and it's legal because the super rich like owning politicians.\n\nIf you or I approached a senator and offered him $100 bill to vote a certain way, we would be engaging in bribery. But if we funnel $100k into his campaign accounts through a web of various entities, in order to obscure our involvement, then we hire the senator's nephew to an executive position which he has no qualifications for, that's lobbying.",
"I should start with this, not all lobbyists represent a group of private interests. For example, even our state government departments have their own government relations teams to advocate on behalf of their respective boss who may either be a political appointee or an elected official themselves. The laws put into place in my state are quite restrictive and righteously harsh for anyone caught trying to pull a quid pro quo situation. The vast majority of lobbyists are good people that are not the slimy kind you hear about in campaign commercials. \n\nSOURCE: Am a state government lobbyist. ",
"Lobbying = I get paid to try to convince politicians to enact policies I agree with.\n\nCorruption = I pay politicians for a pre-determined outcome in exchange for a bribe or compensation. \n\nThere can be a fine line between lobbying and corruption. Corruption is when someone changes their behavior (vote, etc) in exchange for reward.",
"I hope you realize that it's normal in every single country with a government where it's accepted that citizens talk to their representatives. It's just more visible in the USA. ",
"The First Amendment grants the right to express their dissatisfaction with the government and to seek redress. \n\nWe all have the right to try to persuade the government to pass legislation that is in our own personal interest. \n\nThe fact that some interests are supported by well resourced groups and others are very much well resourced doesn't change the right \"to petition the Government for the redress of grievances\".",
"As an Italian lawyer, i can tell you that in the vast majority of cases it would be considered corruption in here. The objection is \"but it's not guaranteed the politician will actually do x\" would just make it attempted corruption (still a crime).\n\nI'll give you an example. \nSay a local group has an interest in the local administration to green light a project, something like modernizing a harbor, because they'll profit from it (construction companies, unions). They make sizeable above the board perfectly legal donations to candidates, that need that money to run for office in that administration. That's lobbying in the US and textbook corruption in Italy.\n\nYou can try to rationalize it all you want, but the simple truth is that politician in the US need money to run for office, this is provided by donations. Now why would that person/ group donate again if the promises made don't get fullfilled. So you have a politician that needs to fullfill, or at the very least do his best to fullfill, the promises made to the donor, and the only difference with corruption is that you have a legalized system in place and a different name for it.",
"Lobbying is arguing your side of the debate. Voicing your opinion and trying to convince the person in charge you are right. "
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422ilt | why do we say a unicorn and not an unicorn? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/422ilt/eli5_why_do_we_say_a_unicorn_and_not_an_unicorn/ | {
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"It goes by the phonetic sound, and not the letter.\n\n\"It's an honor\" would be an example. Unicorn is making a Y sound, so it would be like saying A year vs. An year. Umbrella is a U sound, so An umbrella.\n\n",
"Because it starts with a y sound, not a true u sound, if I'm not mistaken. \n\nOtherwise because english spelling and grammar are absolutely fucking ridiculous and it's among the most difficult languages in the world to acquire. ",
"It's not whether it starts with a vowel or consonant, it's whether it starts with a vowel or consonant *sound*. Just like we say \"an honor\" even though it starts with a \"h\"",
"Because, although the word \"unicorn\" starts with a vowel letter, it has a consonant *sound.* It sounds like the letter y.\n\nWe'd say, \"an orange car,\" but \"a yellow car.\" The Y in yellow has the same sound as the U in unicorn. Compare to \"an umber car.\" Same letter, different sound.",
"Welcome to the English language, there are no rules and if there are, we usually don't follow them. Enjoy your stay!"
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1gpmwh | why movies are longer than just a few years ago? | I remember when 1.45 movies were long, now movies are common at 2 hrs or more. My question is why the sudden change? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1gpmwh/eli5_why_movies_are_longer_than_just_a_few_years/ | {
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"The same thing has happened with popular music too, actually. Wasn't it Nirvana with the first song over 5 minutes long in the charts?",
"Your question was worded very confusingly. I'm glad you clarified in the text"
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