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3z1yuk | how does one groove in a vinyl record produce multiple instrument/voice sounds at once? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3z1yuk/eli5_how_does_one_groove_in_a_vinyl_record/ | {
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"This is easier to draw than to explain so I will point you to Wikipedia but waves add by superposition. When you add lots of waves together, they combine. \n\n_URL_0_\n\nIf you want a better picture, do a google images search for wave superposition. "
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adat3l | why are people wearing yellow vests while rioting? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/adat3l/eli5_why_are_people_wearing_yellow_vests_while/ | {
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"The protests started in France where it is required to have a yellow vest in the car, so everyone has one so everyone can join in. "
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k0j4c | how different political parties are trying to get the us out of debt. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/k0j4c/eli5_how_different_political_parties_are_trying/ | {
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"Good luck trying to get a no bias answer.\n\nCan someone please attempt this by citing precedents?",
"Democrats want to raise the amount of money being made, so they can put higher taxes on the richest, and raise revenue. They also want to cut the money being spent.\n\nHowever, some people say higher taxes will scare the richest away to other countries, or scare them into keeping their money in tax havens.\n\nRepublicans want to massively cut spending, and not raise taxes.\n\nCritics say this is because republicans tend to be richer, and that massive cuts will cause severe damage to social welfare. It's also interesting to note that some of these cuts look politically motivated, for example, cuts to Planned Parenthood and other 'liberal' organisations/services.",
"The following answer is based on actual statements, policies, and bills supported by each party. \n\nThe goal of both parties is to get the yearly deficit maintainable or zero. (The deficit is how much we've overspent for a given year. Suppose you made $30,000 this year. And you spend $45,000. Your deficit is $15,000.) I say \"maintainable\" and not solely \"zero\" because the US economy is generally always growing. When things grow all the time, the rules change slightly. If you only made a $30,000 every year with no raises, having a deficit is very bad. But if your salary increased every year by say, 3%, you could safely run a deficit, but only if you make sure it doesn't grow faster than you can handle. \n\nOk, that said, once the deficit is maintainable, both political parties are happy. National *debt* on the other hand, is a different matter. (The national debt is adding up all debt we owe for the next 30 years.) When politicians say \"I want to get us debt free\", they mean \"deficit free\" or even \"deficit maintainable\". Virtually zero politicians want the *national debt* figure to go to zero 30 years from now. And there's good reason for that. National debt can be maintained, and a core part of how this country functions is based on having a debt. \n\n(Sorry, I need to give one more piece of background. Really, I don't want to make it complicated, but this part is core to how it works). Currently, the US taxes roughly 16% of the economy. In other words, the US economy is rated at $14 trillion. Of that, the federal government gets to keep 16% of it or so through taxes. Conversely, US spending makes up about 26% of the economy. So there's a huge problem there. The tax % and spending % should be very close to each other. Right now, they're 16% and 26%, very far apart. And both are far from what they used to be over the past few decades. So here's the two approaches to a solution:\n\n* Republicans lately have strongly been pushing for **zero** deficit. That means the tax % and the spending % should be equal. They have mentioned the need to pass a constitutional budget amendment enforcing it. They want that 26% spending figure brought waaay down, back to ***20%*** (which is close to what it used to be over the last few decades.). That will mean substantial cuts to get back to 20%. As for revenue, you rarely hear them talk about it publicly on the news, but I've seen many mention cautiously and carefully that they taxes to get back up to 20%. (These are rabid conservative Tea Party folks too. They never say raise taxes, they just cite the 20% figure, which implies that taxes must go up.). Usually that means they want to let some prior tax cuts expire. The argument here is that 20% was historical norms. Lets get back to historical norms of 20% revenue and spending, and have an amendment help enforce it. \n\n* Democrats have been pushing for sustainable deficits. Something along the lines of having those two percentages ***differ by 3%***. If managed well, this is mathematically sustainable. Also, Democrats have held a philosophy that more federal government services are needed, and more social programs are needed, to meet the needs of the 21st century. They typically talk about policies putting spending in the ***23-25%*** range with the taxes and spending allowed to differ by 3%. (So taxes could be 22%, and spending be 25%). To get there, they feel that some things should be cut (like defense), some things should be added (such as expanded health care), and to pay for it, anyone in the upper class or above should be taxed more. Especially the top 2%, 1% and even top 0.01%. \n\nOverall, it appears that if Republicans want 20% in taxes and spending, and Democrats want a few percentage points higher that you'd think the two parties are close together. The reality is that modifying taxes or spending 1% or 2% is surprisingly difficult, and requires very different ways of running a country. \n\n",
"You see, little Johnny's dad says that he's going to improve his budget by working more overtime and cut the cable.\n\nLittle Tommy's dad says that he's going to work as he always has--maybe even take some less hours--and cut the cable, get rid of the home phone, and stop eating out.\n",
"You see, little Johnny's dad says that he's going to improve his budget by working more overtime and cut the cable.\n\nLittle Tommy's dad says that he's going to work as he always has--maybe even take some less hours--and cut the cable, get rid of the home phone, and stop eating out.\n",
"Good luck trying to get a no bias answer.\n\nCan someone please attempt this by citing precedents?",
"Democrats want to raise the amount of money being made, so they can put higher taxes on the richest, and raise revenue. They also want to cut the money being spent.\n\nHowever, some people say higher taxes will scare the richest away to other countries, or scare them into keeping their money in tax havens.\n\nRepublicans want to massively cut spending, and not raise taxes.\n\nCritics say this is because republicans tend to be richer, and that massive cuts will cause severe damage to social welfare. It's also interesting to note that some of these cuts look politically motivated, for example, cuts to Planned Parenthood and other 'liberal' organisations/services.",
"The following answer is based on actual statements, policies, and bills supported by each party. \n\nThe goal of both parties is to get the yearly deficit maintainable or zero. (The deficit is how much we've overspent for a given year. Suppose you made $30,000 this year. And you spend $45,000. Your deficit is $15,000.) I say \"maintainable\" and not solely \"zero\" because the US economy is generally always growing. When things grow all the time, the rules change slightly. If you only made a $30,000 every year with no raises, having a deficit is very bad. But if your salary increased every year by say, 3%, you could safely run a deficit, but only if you make sure it doesn't grow faster than you can handle. \n\nOk, that said, once the deficit is maintainable, both political parties are happy. National *debt* on the other hand, is a different matter. (The national debt is adding up all debt we owe for the next 30 years.) When politicians say \"I want to get us debt free\", they mean \"deficit free\" or even \"deficit maintainable\". Virtually zero politicians want the *national debt* figure to go to zero 30 years from now. And there's good reason for that. National debt can be maintained, and a core part of how this country functions is based on having a debt. \n\n(Sorry, I need to give one more piece of background. Really, I don't want to make it complicated, but this part is core to how it works). Currently, the US taxes roughly 16% of the economy. In other words, the US economy is rated at $14 trillion. Of that, the federal government gets to keep 16% of it or so through taxes. Conversely, US spending makes up about 26% of the economy. So there's a huge problem there. The tax % and spending % should be very close to each other. Right now, they're 16% and 26%, very far apart. And both are far from what they used to be over the past few decades. So here's the two approaches to a solution:\n\n* Republicans lately have strongly been pushing for **zero** deficit. That means the tax % and the spending % should be equal. They have mentioned the need to pass a constitutional budget amendment enforcing it. They want that 26% spending figure brought waaay down, back to ***20%*** (which is close to what it used to be over the last few decades.). That will mean substantial cuts to get back to 20%. As for revenue, you rarely hear them talk about it publicly on the news, but I've seen many mention cautiously and carefully that they taxes to get back up to 20%. (These are rabid conservative Tea Party folks too. They never say raise taxes, they just cite the 20% figure, which implies that taxes must go up.). Usually that means they want to let some prior tax cuts expire. The argument here is that 20% was historical norms. Lets get back to historical norms of 20% revenue and spending, and have an amendment help enforce it. \n\n* Democrats have been pushing for sustainable deficits. Something along the lines of having those two percentages ***differ by 3%***. If managed well, this is mathematically sustainable. Also, Democrats have held a philosophy that more federal government services are needed, and more social programs are needed, to meet the needs of the 21st century. They typically talk about policies putting spending in the ***23-25%*** range with the taxes and spending allowed to differ by 3%. (So taxes could be 22%, and spending be 25%). To get there, they feel that some things should be cut (like defense), some things should be added (such as expanded health care), and to pay for it, anyone in the upper class or above should be taxed more. Especially the top 2%, 1% and even top 0.01%. \n\nOverall, it appears that if Republicans want 20% in taxes and spending, and Democrats want a few percentage points higher that you'd think the two parties are close together. The reality is that modifying taxes or spending 1% or 2% is surprisingly difficult, and requires very different ways of running a country. \n\n"
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1o875o | the meaning of carat in relation to diamond and gold. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1o875o/eli5_the_meaning_of_carat_in_relation_to_diamond/ | {
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"In gold, carats refer to how pure the gold is. 24-carat gold is pure gold. It's rare, because it's very soft, so totally unsuitable for things like jewelry, which needs to have other things added to it to make it harder and more durable.\n\nIn diamonds, carats refer to the weight of the diamond. One carat is 0.2 grams.",
"When referring to gems, it's a unit of weight, equivalent to 200 milligrams. When referring to precious metals, it's a measure of purity: 24 times the purity by mass. \n\nThe equation used is:\n\nX = 24*Mg/Mm\n\nWhere X is the purity, Mg is the mass of the precious metal in the item, and Mm is the total mass of the item.\n\nSo, 24 carat gold is pure, because 24*24/24=24.\n\n18 carat is 75% pure, 12 carat is 50% pure. "
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1nl4fg | how can the nokia lumia 1020 boast a 41-megapixel camera sensor while the best dslr's can't even touch 30? | I was reading that the Nokia only actually captures a maximum 34-megapixel image, but that is still leaps and bounds above what's professionally available.
EDIT: I guess I wasn't specific enough. I already understand more megapixels ≠ better image. I'm wondering more why are they putting such a crazy sensor into a phone instead of into professional cameras? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1nl4fg/how_can_the_nokia_lumia_1020_boast_a_41megapixel/ | {
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"It has to do with how close together each \"pixel\" on the image sensor is. It also has to do with the physical size of the image sensor, so a dslr image sensor is going to be much bigger than the image sensor that you find in a phone. As a result of how close together \"pixels\" on the image sensor, much more light is needed in order to have a properly exposed image.",
"Having more pixels doesn't equal better image. DSLRs focus on a lot more aspects than that when making a camera. One of the best quality cameras in the world, the RED 5K, used in Hollywood films, is a 13.8 Mpixel.",
"hasselblad makes many professional cameras above 40 megapixel. Its not just megapixel that creates quality. Any lower megapixel DSLR will take photos leaps and bounds better than the lumia.",
"Here is a 200 megapixel model _URL_0_",
"The Nikon D800 has a 36 mp full frame sensor.",
"Actually, a popular professional camera boasts a 60 megapixel sensor. The H4D-60 manufactured by Hasselblad. _URL_0_\n\nA high megapixel count isn't a guarantee of image quality and is often unnecessary. Lens quality is a bigger factor in trying to take a clean photo. The large sensor in the Nokia will help take better photos in low light conditions and allow for greater quality image when cropped",
"The density of the image sensor is an important factor but equally important is the size of the sensor array. In these phones, the sensor array (chip) is very small. So even if the density is quite high the overall image quality may still be inferior to a larger sensor with lower density.\n\nAn additional factor that is also extremely important is the optics. The smaller the optical elements the more important microscopic defects become. Furthermore, in a large camera, only the sweet spot (the central area) of the optical elements is used for imaging due to lesser distortion. If space is constrained, such as in a phone, their is pressure on the designer to use a greater portion of each optical element, which can have a negative impact on optical quality. ",
"The main reason for the 41 megapixel is for when the camera zooms in to take pictures. The 1020 is really a 5-7 megapixel camera. You will notice other 5-12 megapixel cameras, when zoom in to take pictures it becomes grainy and pixelated because it only has those 5-12 mp to work off of. That is what is so great about the 1020, when zoom in, it has that extra 41 megapixels to use to prevent grainy/pixelated pictures. \n\nHere's a link detailing the Nokia technology; \n\n_URL_0_",
"_URL_0_\n\nFor reference, Lumia 1020 crop factor is 3.93. A DSLR will catch much more light. More light = > more details, better contrast (dynamic range), less noise... .and less exposure required, meaning you can freeze movement, shoot dark scenes.\n\nHere's a comparison between Lumia 1020: _URL_2_\n\nAnd Nikon D800 36MP : _URL_1_\n\nThe D800 is sharper, but the 1020 does a very good job. \n\nTake a darker scene however : \n\nLumia : \n_URL_4_\n\nNikon\n_URL_3_\n\nAdd movement (dancing, sports) and the Nikon will still deliver..."
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5my0wl | why do pandas behave so seemingly different from other bears? | Topic. Has captivity domesticated them to some extent or? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5my0wl/eli5_why_do_pandas_behave_so_seemingly_different/ | {
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"They are classified as a carnivore, but there diet consists mainly of bamboo, do you think the lack of need to hunt causes them to be less agressive idk just thinking",
"They are pretty distant from the \"normal bears\" (brown, black, grizzly, polar), in taxonomy terms.\n\nAll are members of the Ursidae Family, but pandas are a unique subfamily (Ailuropodinae), genus (Ailuropoda), and species (Melanoleuca)."
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1uroeg | why is wildlife important? | Importance of wildlife is enormous, but how to explain? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1uroeg/eli5_why_is_wildlife_important/ | {
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"Well you see all the little beavers and woodpeckers make up something called an ecosystem. And the ecosystem is is responsible for a million different things that allow life on this earth possible. ",
"Man, this is actually a great question. It seems like it should be obvious, but it really is hard to explain. \n\nTo add to the other comment about ecosystems, many medicines are discovered in nature. Without wild animals and plants, we wouldn't have aspirin, salicylic acid, or any of [these](_URL_0_). ",
"**Mufasa:** Everything you see exists together in a delicate balance. As king, you need to understand that balance and respect all the creatures, from the crawling ant to the leaping antelope.\n\n**Young Simba:** But, Dad, don't we eat the antelope?\n\n**Mufasa:** Yes, Simba, but let me explain. When we die, our bodies become the grass, and the antelope eat the grass. And so we are all connnected in the great Circle of Life",
"1. Humans need a healthy environment to survive. We are connected to our natural world and if we destroy it our quality of life will go down. We rely on ecosystems for their [\"free\" services](_URL_1_). For instance they distill and clean our water, they create fertile soils for crops, they absorb and disperse toxins, they purify our air. These are things that a lot of people take for granted because they are not a tangible product like wood for houses.\n\n2. They provide us goods. We get so many [non-timber](_URL_0_) forest products from our ecosystems - fruit, veggies, mushrooms, oils, seeds/nuts, medicines...Healthy ecosystems can provide us goods for years so long as we don't over extend ourselves and engage in unsustainable harvesting practices. For example, *taxol* became a very important cancer fighting drug...but before it could be synthesized in the lab the only source for it was the pacific yew tree from the western USA. This tree was harvested unsustainably, and concerns were raised over the ultimate fate of the tree. Luckily, through the hard work of scientists we were able to synthesize the drug. However, other medicines are still harvested directly from their source and this harvesting is often unsustainable.\n\n3. Sacred spaces. It doesn't have to be about religion - although it can be - sometimes a natural space is just a way for people to connect with themselves, with others, with the world. A place can have sentimental meaning and for many people these are wild places. \n\n4. Recreation. Wild places can be used by humans in a number of sustainable ways. Recreation is a great example - skiing, hiking, swimming, snowshoeing, fishing, or hunting. \n\nThe most important thing is that a healthy functioning ecosystem means different things to different people. Without these wild places our world would be a lot harder to live in.",
"When you hear the term \"wildlife\" most people just think \"animals\". Yet those animals are dependent on plant life and their surrounding environment (even the carnivores ultimately get their energy from an herbivore that ate plants). So here when I talk of \"wildlife\" I mean both plants and animals. \n\nOne thing to understand is that humans are part of a bigger ecosystem. Wildlife is part of this greater ecosystem. Animals (including you and me), plants, fungi and even microbes all play a part of this greater ecosystem and many species are interdependent upon each other for survival, including mankind. \n\nEcosystems can be enormously complex. Remove a key species and you can unravel the thread holding the ecosystem together. Kill off the common honeybee and you'll find that there would be a loss in food crop production without that crucial pollinator. This would impact our food supply, as well as affect wild plants that rely on bees for pollination which would affect all the animals that rely on those plants, and the animals that rely on those animals and so on in a cascading effect. No pollination, no fruits. No fruits, no seeds. No seeds, no new plants. No new plants - eventually the area could become a barren wasteland unable to support life or the ecosystem would experience a major shift in composition with unknown consequences. Some of these crucial species that tie an ecosystem together are called \"keystone\" species. We do not know every single keystone species (the science is an ongoing study), and sometimes we find out the hard way when something goes bad and an ecosystem collapses because a keystone species was lost. \n\nIntroduce a foreign species and you can alter an ecosystem in a bad way. Australia introduced cane toads years ago with the great plan to have them eat the sugar cane grub that was a major pest there. However, the cane toad happens to be deadly poisonous to wildlife and without any natural predators of it in Australia, the cane toad proliferated faster than a jackrabbit on a date. Soon enough native Australian animals and even household pets were dying from trying to eat the poisonous cane toad. The Cane toad is still a problem today for Australia. Fortunately, some intelligent crows have adapted and learned how to safely eat cane toads. But the crows alone cannot eliminate the pest. \n\nWell, why are we concerned about losing species? Part of it has to do with biodiversity and the potential for sustaining the life on Earth. The more biodiversity there is, the better the chances for life to survive through the process of evolution. When you see a more biodiverse planet, what you really have is a more biodiverse gene pool upon which evolution can occur. Gives the planet a better chance for survival if you have a wider range of building blocks for evolution to occur.\n\nSo, what's the deal with endangered species anyways? Well, at it's core, endangered species are the poster children used to raise awareness of the biodiversity loss. Also, in the bigger picture the rules and regulations surrounding endangered species often allow for land conservation to happen, which not only benefits the endangered species, but all the other species that rely on the patch of land that is conserved. Say a law dictates the land must be conserved because of an endangered species. When you conserve the land you conserve the ecosystem, and by doing so you conserve all the wildlife in that ecosystem, not just the poster child. By conserving the wildlife, you conserve the gene pools of all those species. Conserve the gene pools and you conserve biodiversity. And again, biodiversity is what would allow the planet and even mankind to better bounce back from a catastrophic disaster such as an asteroid strike. This is the big picture. \n\nThere is also the aesthetic reason for preserving wildlife and wild lands. Natural areas can provide a place of respite for people who seek to escape the urban jungle. This can be valuable to revitalizing one's own mind, relieving stress and improving quality of life.\n\nThen there is the potential for wildlife to provide value to man. Uses yet to be discovered by science. Plenty of talk about the potential medical value of yet undiscovered natural compounds produced by plants. Often, natural compounds serve as starting points for improved medicines that benefit mankind as well as the animals upon which we directly rely for food and livelihood. \n\nThere is really just the tip of the iceberg. "
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4ghz5y | world's wealth is growing at 2.5% rate. how is this possible? where does "new" money come from if "everybody" is wealthier now? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4ghz5y/eli5_worlds_wealth_is_growing_at_25_rate_how_is/ | {
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"Money is one thing, which /u/K3zzeR covered, but actual, tangible wealth is another thing that can also increase. With every person born, the world's labour force increases, and more work can be done. New resources can be discovered and used, new goods and services can be invented, automation can allow less workers to generate more products, etcetera.",
"Ignoring money, which actually complicates things a bit, we can all be wealthier due to technology.\n\nIf making something takes 100 man hours and 100 of resource X this year, but 80 man hours and 80 of resource X next year, we can collectively have more of that thing next year.\n\nIf most things become slightly less resource intensive, and slightly less labour intensive, we can collectively have slightly more of everything next year, and be collectively wealthier as a result.",
"I work in manufacturing, so I can answer from that end: we get better at making things. When a customer asks for a product, we guess at how well we will make it based on past experience, and put a price on it. If the customer agrees, they place the order and we make the product. If they order it again, the price stays the same but we've had a little practice now so we're better at it and it costs us less as a result, so we make more profit. \n\nSince we're making more money now, we can pay the guy who makes the product some more, and now he can buy a new car or whatever it is he wants because he has more money now for basically the same effort.\n\nIf we get really good at it, we may offer the customer a discount to keep their business. Now we're making a little less than we could, but if we got better enough compared to where we started we're still doing well. And now the customer gets the same thing for cheaper, so they have more money now too.\n\nNone of this addresses changing materials or adding technology, but those do the same thing as \"getting better at making stuff\" as far as this discussion is concerned.",
"If you build a house out of nothing and sell it for 100M you have essentially created 100M more wealth. Before, the buyer had 100M and you nothing, but now you have 100M and the buyer has a house worth 100M, i.e. the wealth has doubled.\n\nYou can obviously not buy a house out of nothing, you have to get the materials first, but maybe you only needed to pay 50M for the materials, the other 50M is for the labor of putting the materials together into a house. But that material has also been worked on and initially it was raw materials taken out of the ground basically for free. So at the end, the labor of producing the materials and putting them together into a house has really added the full value of the house to the world's total wealth.",
"When Alice buys a bicycle from Bob for $100, two things are true. \n\n1) Alice thinks the bicycle is worth more to her than $100 or she wouldn't have bought it.\n\n2) Bob thinks the bicycle is worth less to him than $100, or he wouldn't have sold it.\n\nThis means that BOTH people are happier as a result of this trade. So while there aren't any new dollar bills chasing this new value, everybody is happier as a result.\n\n\nIt's important here to point out that this assumes there is no intrinsic value to the bicycle. There is only a value to each person. This is what makes the trade between Alice and Bob possible. ",
"Let's say you're alone on earth. There is nobody in the world except you. And you have nothing. You are very poor. You have zero wealth.\n\nWhile you're walking around, you see a rock. You think \"Hey I can break things with this\" so take this rock to your possession. Now you have *something*. Congratulations, you created wealth by exploring natural resources.\n\nNow you have a rock. That rock is worth something, but it is still not much, right? But an idea strikes you. You rub the rock to a larger one so that it gets a sharp edge. Now you can cut stuff with this rock. It is worth more than it used to. Congratulations, you just created wealth via your ingenuity.\n\nIn general, this is how wealth increases. People find natural materials that were previously under ground (say, oil). They also use their skills and thinking to create more valuable things out of less valuable things -- and sometimes out of nothing! For example, when Louis CK writes a joke, he pretty much created wealth -- because I'm willing to pay to listen to that joke. It's worth *something*.\n\nAs a final note, money is only the means of exchange. It is not wealth by itself.",
"Seems like OP is asking about physical money and the answer to that sadly is that they just print more! ",
"If I find some rocks and sticks, and then glue them together, I've got something to sell. Voila, new wealth.\n\nIf I create a new song. Voila, new wealth.\n\nPeople have imaginations, and hands. We dream shit up, and then actually make it.",
"Suppose we have a builder, a car maker, and a farmer. After a year, the builder has made 3 houses, the car maker has made 3 cars, and the farmer has provided the food necessary for them all to live in the mean time. At the end of the year, all 3 individuals are \"wealthier\" by 1 house and 1 car than they were at the start. Nobody is worse off, everyone is better off.",
"Money is only a representation of the goods and services it can buy. You can have either a million dollars cash, or a million dollar house, and be equally wealthy, but to explain how wealth increases... Suppose I give you some raw materials... a chunk of plastic, a chunk of glass, a little nugget of copper, etc.. by receiving this bounty, you've become a few cents wealthier! You could trade these things for maybe a piece of gum. Suppose someone comes along, and takes these materials and makes an iPhone out of them. Now you're several hundred dollars wealthier than you were before. That mysterious stranger just increased the total wealth in the world. But that's not all... every time we trade, the world becomes wealthier. Suppose you go to get a massage, something intangible... it costs $50, but you decide that's worth it. By making the decision that the massage is worth giving up $50 worth of anything else money can buy, you are the living proof that to you, that massage is worth greater than $50! When you hand the masseuse your fifty bucks, they now have fifty dollars (having given up time and effort for it, particularly the opportunity to have been doing something else for the last hour, so they are the proof that that time was worth less than the $50 they traded it for) and you have received the massage which is worth more than $50. Both you and the masseuse have become wealthier!",
"Finance/Econ student here. I suck at explaining stuff to 5 year olds so I'll try to make it as simple as I can while still giving a complete answer.\n\nWealth, in terms of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), is denoted by Y. Y is the real value of all the goods we produce.\n\n**Y = A(L^a x K^1-a)** where:\n\nA = the level of technology (with technology being anything that improves the production process. Things like the assembly line, as well as computers and vehicles are all technology)\n\nL = the amount of labour available (it takes labour to build a car for example)\n\nK = the amount of capital available (with capital being machines like the machines that cut the metal and do some of the assembling for cars)\n\na is just a factor that takes into account the utilization of labour and capital that is kind of out of scope.\n\nSummary:\n\nThis is the douglas cobbs production function. Just looking at the formula, we see a number of things can increase wealth namely:\n\nBetter Technology\n\nMore Capital\n\nMore Labour\n\nMore efficient allocation of labour and capital (effects the a variable).\n\nMore of an ELI am in an econ 101 class but I hope this was helpful."
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3pfs0m | what has been going on in canadian politics that caused an upset tonight. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3pfs0m/eli5what_has_been_going_on_in_canadian_politics/ | {
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"Today was voting day for the federal election, and the liberals appear to have gotten a majority government. Stephen Harper from the conservatives has been voted out after almost 10 years as prime minister. Our new prime minister is Justin Trudeau, who happens to be the son of our 15th prime minister Pierre Trudeau. \n\nEdit:\nIn relation to the two main parties in the USA, the Conservatives are similar to the Republicans, and the Liberals are similar to the Democrats. Unlike in the states, Canada also has a 3rd party called the New Democratic Party (NDP) who have very similar policies to the Liberals. This becomes an issue because the left wing vote usually gets split between those two parties while the right wing vote goes to only one party. Many voters coordinated this election with \"strategic voting\" to get around the vote splitting problem and got the liberal majority as a result. ",
"As far as what has been going on, the conservatives ran a campaign that was heavily characterized by aggressive attack ads against Trudeau and obvious pandering to both Islamophobic and religious conservative voters. They also took unpopular stances on a number of issues during the campaign, such as being anti marijuana and wanting more mandatory minimum sentencing, that were heavily criticized by the media as being out of touch with Canadians. "
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45aahu | why is twitter doing so poorly lately? in a single year, their stock has fallen by nearly 70%. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/45aahu/eli5_why_is_twitter_doing_so_poorly_lately_in_a/ | {
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"Twitter doesn't make a lot of money, but for a while investors were willing to overlook that because more and more people were using Twitter, and the expectation was that \"eventually\" they would figure out how to make a lot of money. This is the logic that is used to invest in many tech startups -- if a lot of people use your service regularly, at some point there will be an opportunity to profit. In many cases, by selling advertising. \n\nFor example, Facebook didn't make a lot of money initially, but they kept getting bigger and then they started making money by selling ads, and today they are a very useful and well regarded advertising platform. \n\nTwitter also benefited from the fact that they raised a lot of money in the past, so they had a lot in the bank - so even if it took them a long time to make money, they would be okay. \n\nThe problem with Twitter is that investors have become skeptical that they will ever make the money that was hoped because they have tried a bunch of different things, and the outcomes have all been somewhat mediocre. Advertisers also don't like Twitter as much, because it's very hard to actually get someone's attention on Twitter vs. Facebook or Google. \n\nBut most importantly, Twitter has stopped growing. Normally you don't stop growing until well after you have started making money, and the fact that they have gives rise to concerns that they never will. \n\n\n"
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2kbpfu | what's going on inside of a polaroid picture when you shake it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2kbpfu/eli5_whats_going_on_inside_of_a_polaroid_picture/ | {
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"Nothing. From what I have heard it is a holdover from the days of peel apart film paper, in which a cover was peeled off of the film and the developing chemicals had to dry in order to handle the photograph so waving them may have helped them dry a little faster. Polaroids are covered with a clear plastic film, so shaking them won't really do anything. ",
"The Polaroid site used to say \"The image never touches air, so shaking or waving has no effect. In fact, shaking or waving can actually damage the image. Rapid movement during development can cause portions of the film to separate prematurely, or can cause 'blobs' in the picture.\""
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1xg0v2 | what is energy made out of? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1xg0v2/eli5_what_is_energy_made_out_of/ | {
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"Energy isn't made of anything. It's a property of matter. It's like asking 'what is tall made of?' "
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2qaaan | how do coordinates work if they are between 1 and a hundred something degrees? | That only provides for so many combinations right? How can people locate things with any accuracy on this huge planet? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2qaaan/eli5how_do_coordinates_work_if_they_are_between_1/ | {
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"Coordinates also have sub-units. Depending on the system, those can be fractions of a degree (decimal degrees), or minutes and seconds (60 minutes to a degree, 60 seconds to a minute). There's also Universal Transverse Mercator (I think that's the term) or UTM, where the number of places you give in the coordinates determines how accurate the coordinates are."
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3ffj8z | what makes the f-35 lightning ii superior to current fighter aircraft? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ffj8z/eli5what_makes_the_f35_lightning_ii_superior_to/ | {
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"It isn't. It's inferior to the F22 Raptor(1).\n\nIt is more stealthy than the F14/F15/F16/FA18 fighters the US uses, and the counterparts produced by Russia and China. It trades off that stealthy improvement by being less agile. The theory is that in the future dogfights will be uncommon but long-range missile attacks the norm, so the longer a plane can remain outside the detection of ground or air-to-air radar the more effective it will be.\n\nThe F35 was designed to be less expensive to make and maintain than a fleet of different airframes. The F22 has ceased production and is super-expensive - only about 180 were built. The F35 will be in production for a long time, and thousands are scheduled to be produced. Also, it is designed to be produced in \"variants\"; a variant for the Navy to use for carrier operations, a variant for the Marine Corps to use that has short/vertical take-off & landing capability, and a \"base variant\" for the Air Force. In theory, these variants will share a lot of components in common and a lot of standardized maintenance systems which means there will be efficiencies of scale for producing spare parts and training mechanics.\n\n(1) The F22 is so good that the US won't export it to allies, not even the \"5 Eyes\" partners UK, Canada, Australia or New Zealand. The F35 is designed to be good enough to beat the F14/F15/F16/FA18 generation of planes, and be exportable to our allies, but not trade away the strategic advantage of the F22.",
"In short it got all the stuff we today put on the outside of a fighter plane on the inside. Putting weapons under the wing and external fuel tanks on a plane creates alot of drag (40% of the fuel in a external tank alone gets eaten up by the drag it creates). Drag is very bad, it dulls the plane significantly so now you cant go very fast, climb very fast, or turn very fast. What the F35 does is to put all this on the inside, this creates a fully loaded fighter with extremely low drag, a loaded F35 will speed away from a loaded F16 even when the F16 can do 500kph more when unloaded. Then there is stealth. Stealth makes it so that its very hard for a radar station to see the aircraft at long range, the idea is that you now can get so close to an enemy radar that you can bomb it. Is stealth perfect? No, infact its so unpredictable that the Eurofighter dropped the whole concept (as modern/\"soon to come\" radars will easilly find it anyway) but since \"uncle Sam\" usually fights people using Soviet relics, stealth works like a charm.",
"It's all about the roles of a fighter. Recently, an F-16 beat an F-35 in close air to air combat. However this is never the plan. The F-35 is stealth, and offers an array of air to air missiles. It's design is to be invisible dozens of miles away, and silently take out these aircraft. So the F-35 is using \"smarts\" to silently take out other jets which rely on \"brute force\" and \"hand to hand combat\". Much like a small man would lose in a fight with a big wrestler, but if that man was hiding in a sniper tower, would easily take him out.\n\nThe F-35 and F-22 are both 5th generation fighters. Stealth. So essentially they are on the same playing field. They are better at different things. The F-22 is designed for dog fighting. Air to air combat. It wouldn't fair too well taking out ground targets. The F-35 is multirole. It can take out ground targets, and defend itself along the way.\n\nSo if you were taking out a ground complex, you would either need an F-22 to defend your non-stealth ground attack plane from air threats, or a single F-35 to carry out the mission.\n\nThe F-35 is also designed in varients. One is for Navy use on carriers. It can take off vertically like the harrier can.\n\nSo in short, it isn't superior against all fighter aircraft, just more efficient. It 's just designed instead of doing either ground attack 100% perfect, or Air-Air 100% perfect, to do both ground and air 80% perfect.",
"This is a copy-paste of a post I made a while ago, with minor edits:\n\n---\n\nAgainst a typical 4th generation fighter, it should be quite effective, because it has a number of very advantageous systems.\n\nSpecifically:\n\n**[AN/APG-81](_URL_9_):** is a radar which has a long range, is an AESA radar (that's also a generation ahead of the F-22's), which means it can detect targets quicker, has no moving parts and is a Low Probability of Intercept radar, which means it sends out signals that just look like white noise (background radiation) to a radar. It also has a very high resolution, large field-of-view Synthetic Aperture Radar mode, which is where you can generate [imagery](_URL_11_) and [3D maps](_URL_8_) (that can look through thin cover, clouds, weather, etc) from radar data. It's also very resistant to enemy jamming.\n\n**[AN/AAQ-37 Electro Optical Distributed Aperture System](_URL_10_):** this is a set of cameras that see in the visual and infrared spectrum, in all directions. This means that the F-35 can detect and target enemies (in the air, land, sea) at any angle. Combined with [newer missiles](_URL_7_), this means that the F-35 doesn't have to get behind an enemy to shoot a missile at them. It also automatically detects and classifies air & ground targets, means that enemies can't sneak up on the F-35 when in visual range.\n\n**[Helmet Mounted Display System](_URL_3_):** this is the pilot's helmet - unlike a normal fighter jet, the F-35 doesn't have a HUD (the little glass information window / gun sight). Instead it's all projected onto the inside of his helmet visor. That part isn't unique to the F-35, but what it does extra is also projects high definition video onto the visor. This means that the pilot can see through his jet (through the cockpit floor for example) or zoom his vision in on a target via the EO-DAS sensors. He can also see at night without night vision goggles via EO-DAS, as well as a night vision camera built into the helmet.\n\n**[EOTS:](_URL_4_)** this is the glass prism under the F-35's nose. What it does is provides an extra high quality imaging capability for [zooming in on targets off in the distance](_URL_5_). It also features a targeting laser which does the same job of something like a SNIPER or LANTIRN targeting pod.\n\n**Stealth:** the stealth of the F-35 is very similar to that of the F-22:\n\n > [**The F-35’s cross section is much smaller than the F-22’s**, but that does not mean, Hostage concedes, that the F-35 is necessarily superior to the F-22 when we go to war.]( _URL_0_)\n\nWhat this allows the F-35 to do is fight the enemies it wants to fight (it can detect enemies and simply avoid them to drop a bomb) and to reduce the detection range of radar sensors. Low-frequency radar can detect an F-35 from further away, but the F-35 does have some technologies which help reduce it's signature against things like VHF radar. Low-frequency radars are also limited to large vehicles like stationary radar stations or large naval vessels, and are also limited in angular resolution, meaning it cannot be used for targeting unless the jet is at a very close range; normally these types of radars are only used to direct a higher-frequency radar in a general direction. It also features some infrared signature reduction by being built out of heat-insulative graphite-epoxy and graphite-BMI composites, and also a [serrated engine nozzle](_URL_6_).\n\n**AN/ASQ-239:** this is the most classified of the F-35's systems, but it is primarily a set of antennas and processors that allows the F-35 to detect, locate and target enemy radar emissions across a number of different radar bands, in almost all directions, all without emitting anything itself.\n\n**Multifunction Advanced Data Link:** right now jets use Link-16 as the primary data link (means of communication). While fairly reliable, Link-16 is very slow and really limits what you can do with it. With MADL, you can transfer much more (think dial-up vs Google Fiber) and more securely, because it transfers data through line of sight, like a laser.\n\n**Data fusion:** this is a not a specific system (like stealth), but is a feature of the F-35's mission computers. On older jets (even a lot of modern jets), a pilot has one window which displays information from his radar, another window from his targeting pod, another for navigation / radio and also the HUD which displays his speed, attitude, gunsight, etc. \n\n On the F-35, the computers in the jet take the information from all the systems mentioned above, as well as information from other jets and matches it all up. That means that instead of looking at [a bunch of different displays](_URL_1_), he just [looks at a digital display](_URL_2_) and sees a single map that shows him the location of all enemy and friend air, sea and land units, as well as information about where his radar is scanning, the range of his weapons, the route he should fly, etc. It also means that if he decides to target an enemy, he can see it through his radar, through EOTS, through EO-DAS or even through the sensors of another aircraft. This drastically improves his situational awareness (to beyond anything ever seen in a fighter before), which is considered one of, if not the most important factors in modern air combat.\n\nShameless plug for /r/F35Lightning - a subreddit I moderate for that acts as a news / document repository about the jet.\n\n",
"In addition to what others have covered, it's important to mention that the radar found in the F-35 is almost identical to the one used in the F-22 which is widely considered to be the best radar system in any fighter aircraft. It's actually an expanded version of the F-22's radar, with an added ground element (taking into account the fact that the F-35 is a multirole aircraft). The system is capable of accurate 3-D ground-mapping in real time, even when the aircraft is flying at supersonic speeds. "
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"https://www.youtube.com/watch... | ||
3l8g0f | why do lightbulbs unscrew themselves over time? | bulb was flickering, was going to change it and realized it was loose. seems to happen often even though im sure I tightened it when I put it in. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3l8g0f/eli5_why_do_lightbulbs_unscrew_themselves_over/ | {
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"Gravity and vibrations. Gravity constantly pulls bulbs down and vibrations from people walking around or trucks driving by is enough to help them move a little bit at a time. Over the years it's enough to work it's way out.",
"Thanks for the answers given. I've always wondered why screws come loose in my cupboards, etc. Answers here make sense."
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30lw73 | the situation with yemen and saudi arabia right now | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/30lw73/eli5_the_situation_with_yemen_and_saudi_arabia/ | {
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"The \"government\" in Yemen was fighting against two separate rebel groups (AQAP and Houthi). The rebel groups don't like each other either. In the last three months the Houthi group has made sufficient gains in their rebellion and weakened the \"government\". Saudi Arabia has decided the Houthi threat to the Yemeni government and down the road to the Saudi government is now significant. Saudi Arabia is now conducting direct airstrikes against Houthi targets inside Yemen. \n\nedit: delete extra word ",
"The situation with Yemen and Saudi Arabia is really over a larger power struggle between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Iran has been slowly increasing its influence around the region by supporting various groups like Hezbollah, the shite government in Iraq, and now the Houthis, also Shiites, in Yemen. The Saudi government views this as detrimental to not only their push to become the strongest country in the region, but also to their territorial integrity since they share a border with Yemen. They think Iran is trying to destabilize their country but increasing the power of groups who oppose the Sunni rule. ",
"Yemen has become a large battle ground since the war on terror.\n\nLet's look at the teams!\n\nAl Qaeda: quite the old contender, has become quite the presence in Yemen due to the lack of infrastructure. Their sources of funding could be coming from independent private sources all across the Arab world, much like ISIS, however without the oil. Their presence in Yemen has caused it to be a front-line nation for the war on terror.\n\nHouthi Tribes: The wildcard! The Houthi tribes in Yemen are a Shiite minority along the Saudi border. Their resistance movement has fought against the Al Qaeda terrorist networks as well as the national Yemeni and Saudi Governments. US Government weapons contractors have armed both the Yemenis and Saudis to bomb the shit out of them. Why? The Saudi's are Sunni and are very paranoid about a Shiite force on their border. Plus they believe that Iran is responsible for their funding. Yemen claims the territory, so they attack them as well. Just because the Houthi are fighting Al Qaeda doesn’t mean it’s an “Enemy of my enemy is my friend” situation for the United States. The Houthi aren’t stupid, and they see our stamps all over the missile casings that litter the carpet-bombed and leveled streets of their towns and villages.\n\nYemen's capital: Faction Destroyed! Yemen's coup last month left quite the power vacuum in the capital. National forces are now scattered and it's still uncertain who / what will pick up the pieces.\n\nSaudi Arabia: BIG KAHUNA! These guys are afraid the Shiite Houthi along their borders are a threat to their security. Iran, a Shiite state and old Saudi enemy, (Arab vs. Persian / Sunni vs. Shiite) is said to be funding the Houthi. The Saudis were working in tandem with the Yemeni government before its recent coup with the funding of…\n\nThe United States: The man behind the curtain. The US has been responsible for drone strikes against Al Qaeda targets in Yemen for years. Many of these have caused heavy civilian casualties, including one such incident where we bombed a Yemeni wedding turning it into a funeral for 12 people. This causes a lot of resentment against the US turning many victims into recruits for terror networks. The United States has also signed weapons contracts with the Saudi's and former Yemeni governments to bomb the hell out of the Shiite Houthi tribes. Why? Because military industrial complex IMO.\n\n..I hope this is ELI5 for you. Correct me if you will.\n\nI’d also like to add that VICE did a great documentary on this a while back before the coup:\n_URL_0_\n",
"As you may have heard, the president of Yemen, Ali Abdullah Saleh, was ousted in 2011 by popular protest, following the Arab Spring movement. His vice-president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, was put in power (in a quite dubious fashion).\n\nHere's the deal: \n\nThe main clash in the country is between the Shi'ia tribes in the north, the Houthis, and the islamic Islah party (which is Sunni).\n\nIran, which is one of the only predominantly Shi'ia countries in the world, is backing the Houthi rebels; whereas Saudi Arabia and it's Sunni affiliates(*) want to see a stable Yemen that doesn't cause any trouble. The later group is backing the existing Yemeni government and sheltered both Saleh and Hadi.\n\nEarlier this year, the Houthis took over the capital, Sana'a, and forced the governement towards Aden, in the South. This scared the hell out of Saudi Arabia, and they decided to form a military coalition to threaten the Houthis.\n\nNow people are scared that shit will hit the fan, since Iran might support the Houthis more openly, and the conflict could degenerate \n\n(*) ~~The Gulf cooperation Council, which includes~~ Kuwait, Pakistan, the UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, etc\n\nI hope I didn't post a mistake somewhere ;-)"
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1f8bb8 | do gun-owning americans truly believe they may use them against an oppressive or tyrannical government one day? how would that work? | What's the scenario in which they take up arms? An (elected) government somehow cancels further elections and starts oppressing the populace in some way … taking away guns?
Also the US military is the largest and best equipped in the world. I can see a few guys holding out in remote area but overthrowing the federal government seems pretty unlikely. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1f8bb8/eli5_do_gunowning_americans_truly_believe_they/ | {
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"I don't think that many people own guns because they honestly believe they'll come in handy against a tyrannical government. After all, the kinds of guns one could legally own have nothing against a tank or bomber.\n\nGun ownership in some areas is largely traditional. They've owned guns for ages. Those guns have saved their lives at times and provided food or leisure. So why would they want to give them up?\n\nAnd then there's the incidences where people are killed or injured by criminals in instances where a weapon could have changed the outcome. Most people find it repulsive that they would be powerless against a criminal, and a weapon like a gun ends up providing protection.\n\nConsider, for example, the woman in Ohio who was strangled and raped by her boyfriend because police were unable to respond (which has hit the front page yet again today). I'm not saying she should have owned a gun, but we can't deny that if she did, the incident may have ended very differently. I'm not trying to convince anyone they should necessarily own a gun (I'm not a gun owner myself), but these ways of thinking can, in my opinion, justify a desire to own a gun.",
"Many Americans have a very definite idea that the second amendment is a key check against government power. What they fail to have thought about, however, is in what circumstances this check should be used.\n\nWhenever the topic of the hypothetical freedom fighters of the US vs the military comes up, I see the same argument trotted out:\n\n > **US soldiers are sworn to uphold the constitution and wouldn't murder their own people if they were rising up against tyrannical government etc etc**\n\nWhat the people making this argument seem to fail to realise is that things are rarely as black and white as this. Mostly likely only some people, say, maybe a state or two at a push, would rise up and take up arms - most of the country would probably view this not as a righteous fight against tyrannical government but as something dangerous that they would fully support the government in quashing.\n\n*At most*, the US army tears in two and a brutal civil war takes place.\n\nDictatorships do not tend to simply appear from nowhere, or over the course of just a couple of years (before someone brings up Hitler, he is possibly the worst counterexample to that statement that you could find, so try again. Just wanted to preemptively Godwin's law). They gradually erode at established rights and limitations of government, hide under the cover of legality, and take advantage of popular opinion and recent events. If a government were to abolish elections it would do so having already secured itself against any popular revolt via propaganda or ensuring the support of enough of the nation that it is no longer an issue.\n\nThere is no man who stands up with a megaphone and announces that 'you are now living under a tyrannical government, you should take up arms'. There have been people saying that for a long time, and some people will most likely continue to say that until the US eventually collapses into the Federated Union of Mexinadica or whatever. If you brought a Framers-era politician through a time-warp to modern day, he might well tell you you were living under tyrannical government.\n\nThe key issues are that the people would not, as one, rise on government. I'd imagine it would be somewhere in the South/Midwest that would 'rise' first, but it would probably just be a few small towns that would get crushed. A larger scale uprising, which would probably only have the support of a minority of the US population, would lead to the US military being called in to crush them, which, in my opinion, would lead to the utter destruction of aforementioned rebels."
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1o9u14 | why, when i only hear their voice, can i almost always tell if the speaker is black? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1o9u14/why_when_i_only_hear_their_voice_can_i_almost/ | {
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"text": [
"It doesn't apply to all black people, but it seems most black people have a different accent or pattern of speaking. I think a lot of black people have a close community with each other and they even have a unique culture. Because of this, black people likely spend a lot of time around each other, and that would allow them to develop a slightly different speech pattern or accent.",
"Black men, and to some extent women, have generally deeper voices. It's hard to describe, but it sounds throaty. This is probably due to subtle anatomical changes of the throat and vocal chords. While we are obviously the same species, there are a lot of minor differences between races as they were separated for millennia and adapted to their own environment. Voice is a relatively new thing for humans and does not appear in our close cousins, at all, so the mechanism for it is something that can change rapidly given the right breeding patterns. ",
"If you live in America, then you probably live in a non-southern state. I believe a lot of African Americans come or can trace family back to these areas. Compiled with the fact that African Americans have created their own culture (which includes dialect), you have the modern African American who, despite never being from the south, *would more than likely* have some speech quirks that can be traced back to this culture. \n\nI guarantee to you that it is not genetic or \"magically inherited.\" There are plenty of black people in this country whose voices are indistinguishable from the common American dialect. In short, you need to stop basing you assumptions on what is portrayed in the media. ",
"When I was listening to En Vie En Rose and What a wonderful world, I thought the voice was a white late 50s/60s man, until I found out the singer of the songs was none other than Louis Armstrong. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
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] | ||
bqk115 | sand forming different patterns on a speaker according to the frequency, how does it work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bqk115/eli5_sand_forming_different_patterns_on_a_speaker/ | {
"a_id": [
"eo57iog"
],
"score": [
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"text": [
"[Standing waves](_URL_0_)\n\nIf you shake a string at right frequency \"knot\" points will form that stay stationary. \n\nThis is due to the wave created by the shaking and the wave reflected from the other end interfering with each other.\n\nVideo: Standing waves on a string _URL_2_\n\nObjects that are more complex than a string will have different kind of standing waves on them. They too will form knot points that are stationary (or move only very little).\n\nExamples for a circular surface: _URL_1_\n\nThe sand will move away from the areas that move alot and accumulate on the stationary areas."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_wave",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vibrations_of_a_circular_membrane#Animations_of_several_vibration_modes",
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xCmtYXewdk"
]
] | ||
oizqq | when freedom of speech and assemble becomes disturbing the peace or disorderly conduct? | Also, How would one avoid the latter 2 while freely engaging in speech or assembly? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/oizqq/eli5_when_freedom_of_speech_and_assemble_becomes/ | {
"a_id": [
"c3hnt0l"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"Well, jurisdictions are usually allowed to regulate the *time, place, and manner* of free speech. An example of regulating the time of free speech might be kicking people out of a city council meeting who consistently speak out of turn. An example of regulating the place might be a 'free speech zone' intended to allow protestors but prevent them from blocking auto traffic. And an example of regulating the manner of free speech might be calling it disorderly conduct if someone on the street randomly gets in a stranger's face and yells slogans, following them mercilessly when they try to leave.\n\nWhen a court looks at whether one of these time, place and manner restrictions is constitutional, they look at a few things.\n\n* Is the restriction content neutral, that is, does it restrict ALL types of content, and not just unfavored types? \n\n* Does the restriction serve a significant governmental interest, i.e., is the restriction necessary for the functioning of society?\n\n* Leave plenty of alternatives, that is, the person who is trying to use free speech should easily be able to use another avenue to change the time, place or manner to get around the law.\n\nWithin these contraints, jurisdictions are free to create laws that prohibit disturbing the peace. For example, a law against inciting violence would likely be constitutional, since it restricts all incitements to violence, definitely serves the public interest, and leaves plenty of alternatives (such as publishing a more toned down pamphlet, advocating non-violent means of achieving the same goal, etc)"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | |
4yc3xu | what is the difference between a.i and machine learning? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4yc3xu/eli5_what_is_the_difference_between_ai_and/ | {
"a_id": [
"d6mj80d"
],
"score": [
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"text": [
"It works the same as human intelligence and human learning. \n\nIntelligence is basically an ability to gather knowledge and use it to solve problems in certain situation. Learning is a big part of that process.\n\n"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
311tio | how important is it to wash fruit you bought from the grocery store? aren't they pre-cleaned? | I've never washed an apple in my life besides the old breath and shirt rub. I had a work friend freak out saying how many poisons are on them. How true is this? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/311tio/eli5_how_important_is_it_to_wash_fruit_you_bought/ | {
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"text": [
"It's not true at all. You can eat the apple right out of the store. You're not getting any poison at all.\n\nYou *should* always wash your fruit when you get it home, however, because while that fruit was sitting at the grocery store a lot of people were picking it up and touching it with their dirty little hands.",
"Former produce clerk here. There's probably nothing inherently dangerous on the fruits and vegetables at your grocery store, and you could easily get away with eating them straight off the shelf. However, washing before eating just makes good sense; if you assume it's clean when you pick it up then you're assuming that everything went exactly as planned at every point in the process from tree to store. If one person, even another customer, with dirty hands touches that apple or it falls on the floor, then you're eating it. It's better off to be on the safe side and wash them yourself so you know for sure that it's clean.\n\nTL;DR: Wash your fruit, just in case.",
"My dad used to test grocery stores for the county. Everything holding food was swabbed. There is listeria everywhere. Not just in the meat case but everywhere! It's the perfect environment to grow things. ",
"Great question. I have been working on some certifications for my career/job and I have been learning some in-depth stuff about this very specific question. It is VERY important to wash your fruit before you eat it. But not because of the frequency that people get sick but because of the severity of what you could get sick by. Although the recorded frequency of annual food born illness is 1/6 of the American population, the severity of some of these illnesses are not worth an unwashed apple or strawberry. You have to think about the pathogens, parasites, and viruses that could be on your food due to a careless underpaid worker. Some illnesses could put you in the hospital and you would never find out where it was from because it is completely undetectable with out the proper equipment. And some illness are contagious once you are infected. As some one in the food industry, our goal is not to prepare 100% pathogen and virus free food but to reduce the possibilities of someone becoming ill as much as possible. Our goal is to achieve an appropriate level of protection (ALOP). This means that there will always be stuff in your food that can get you sick but more often than not there is not enough to make you sick. There are lists that state the allowable amount of insects and pathogens for each food item you eat.If you ask me, that's pretty gross. In conclusion, through this class I am taking, it has informed me that there is fecal matter on EVERYTHING and the FDA and USDA are not to be trusted in regards to food safety. \n\n\nTL;DR: WASH ALL OF YOUR FRUITS AND VEGETABLES YOU DIRTY PEOPLE. NOROVIRUS IS CONTAGIOUS.\n\n\n\n"
]
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[],
[],
[],
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c76935 | why do wifi devices have an easy time spotting the existence of weak network connections, yet have trouble connecting to them? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c76935/eli5_why_do_wifi_devices_have_an_easy_time/ | {
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"esdec3o",
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"text": [
"Well, because they're weak.\n\nIt's like when someone is talking to you really softly. You can hear that they're trying to say something to you, but you can't make out what it is.\n\nThe device can see that there's a network there, but it's too weak to move data back and forth.",
"Remember amateur radio? Back in the day folks used to communicate by setting up a low powered radio transmitter and receiver and trying to find other like minded folks in the area. Imagine someone in your area put up a huge tower and transmitted his or her \"Hello, my name is Morgan. Do you read?\" Folks without towers from far away will be able to hear Morgan's messages...maybe with a little noise, but still comprehensible...but may not be able to respond because they may be too far away for their more affordable transmitter to reach the purpose built radio tower.\n\nThe same goes for wireless networks. It's possible to detect far away networks because access points can have pretty powerful transmitters. Talking to those access points, on the other hand, may require a more powerful transmitter than can fit in ur phone or laptop.",
"Imagine a guy shouting into a megaphone, and you are a fair distance away. You can just barely make out what the guy is saying. Now try shouting back to the guy. Do you think he'll be able to understand what you're shouting back? Probably not - if you can just barely hear him with his megaphone, it's not likely he'll be able to hear your meek no-megaphone voice.\n\nA wireless access point is like the guy with the megaphone. They have beefy antennas that can \"shout\" very loudly because it is easy to put whatever kind of antenna you want into a device that just sits on a shelf, plugged into a wall. Your phone/laptop is like the megaphone-less guy trying to shout back. In a phone/laptop there is limited physical space for wifi antennas, and power consumption needs to be low to preserve battery life. So the wireless network shows up because it can \"hear\" the access point, but it can't connect because it can't \"shout back\" loudly enough for the access point to hear.\n\nThere are several ways to mitigate this effect. One method is to simply turn down the broadcast power of the access point. That's like taking the megaphone away from the megaphone guy. This ensures that a wireless network will show up in your network list only if it is likely that you'll be able to connect, but it doesn't actually let you connect from longer distances.\n\nThe other option is to put antennas with better receive sensitivity into the access point. That's like giving the megaphone-guy hearing aids. With this option the access point can both shout loudly, and hear quiet responses back. This method results in an increase in the usable range of the wireless network."
]
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[],
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2dq0ve | i read that around 11% of the world is left-handed. why is that number so low? | I'm left-handed | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2dq0ve/eli5_i_read_that_around_11_of_the_world_is/ | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"Handedness isn't something that is fully understood. I don't think anybody really knows. It does seem to be something we're born with. \n\n(Babies sucking their thumbs in the womb on ultrasound can predict handedness; at least, so said the child dev 101 teacher I once had.)",
"I learned in my Genetics lecture that handedness comes from more than one allele, and that it's *basically* recessive in its nature, so... Similar to red-headedness or albino people, it's not as easy as your 3:1 or 9:3:3:1 splits, but still yields something like 11% in the whole world.",
"oh boy the answers here are atrocious!\n\nit has to do with the part of our brain that [processes language.](_URL_0_) it's most commonly located in the left side of the brain.\n\nthink back to when ancient man first started developing language. handedness at that time was probably about 50-50. as the language center of the brain began to grow and become more complex, people who were better skilled at writing and understanding language had an advantage. since the left side of the brain controls the right side, language adept people were naturally right-handed.\n\nmost other species of animals have a pretty even split when it comes to handedness, which further credits this explanation. granted there are exceptions, which is why we have left-handed people.\n\nfactor in the religious stigma of left-handed people being evil, and you can pretty much figure out the rest. hope that answers your question!"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_center"
]
] | |
54t8vs | how do self driving cars deal with construction/closed lanes? | Do they use cameras to see the road cones or is it something updated from some database? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/54t8vs/eli5_how_do_self_driving_cars_deal_with/ | {
"a_id": [
"d84rajn"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"Self-driving cars use a laser radar system that is constantly scanning 360 degrees around the car, and identifying obstacles in range. It can see through fog, total darkness, smoke, etc. \n\nThe system is able to recognize cones or any other obstruction and adjust the course. If it actually finds something it's incapable of figuring out it will slow to a stop and prompt the driver to take control of the vehicle."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | |
2gengx | how does manufacturer pricing work? can a business charge more than the price on the item packaging? | I've been looking for this for an hour now with no results. My example is some Planters peanuts labeled as 2/$1 or 59 cents for one. I work at a hotel and we charge $1.50 plus tax for the bag, because, you know, profit. Is this something we can get in trouble for? The bag doesn't say "suggested retail price," just has the price printed by Planters. A guest gave me a hard time about it and I told him that I would have to check with a manager.
Also, I go into gas stations and they charge me $1.49 for the Arizona Iced Tea that clearly says 99cents on the can. Is there a difference in the rules for hotel vending and gas stations, or are we all doing it wrong? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2gengx/eli5_how_does_manufacturer_pricing_work_can_a/ | {
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"text": [
"Unless the store has signed a contract stating otherwise, they are free to sell for whatever price they want to. There may be some jurisdictions in which this doesn't apply, but I'm not aware of them.",
"The retailer/vendor can charge whatever they want. Suggested is the key word in suggested retail price. In some cases there are actually laws that prevent a manufacturer from forcing a retailer to sell an item at a specified price because it represents a vertical restraint of trade. \n\nThat being said, if the suggested price is printed on the package, and the retailer decides to charge more for it, then it could make their customers think that they are getting over charged making them less likely to buy it. \n\nEdit: The above is the case for the United States, and if the manufacturer prints a price on the package it is implied that it is a suggested price even if it doesn't say suggested price or MSRP on it. The laws may be different in other countries though.",
"In most jurisdictions of the world, as far as I'm aware, the manufacturer cannot dictate the price that the retailer ultimately sells the product at. The manufacturer may suggest a certain retail price, but I'm pretty sure it's illegal for them to force you to sell the item at that price.\n\nIn the US, manufacturers are allowed (in some cases) to prevent the retailer from advertising a price that is lower than the manufacturer's suggested retail pricing. However, the retailer can still legally sell the product for lower than that price (they just can't publicly advertise what that lower price is, at least until a prospective buyer shows interest [e.g. by adding the product to their online shopping cart]).\n\nThere are also laws concerned with anti-competitive behavior which may prevent you from selling the product at lower prices that result in a loss, simply for the purpose of disrupting the market and getting rid of competition.\n\nWhen it comes to setting the price higher than the suggested retail price, as far as I know there are no laws against doing that so long as the customer is aware that the price printed on the product is not the final sale price. In other words, you should not mislead the customer into thinking they will get the item for one price and then sell it to them at a higher price only after they go to make payment.. I'm pretty sure you must clearly label the actual price of the item (e.g. on the shelf) so the customer is aware of what the price will be before taking the product to the counter.\n"
]
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[],
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458zhx | in response to ligo's upcoming announcements, how do gravitational waves work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/458zhx/eli5_in_response_to_ligos_upcoming_announcements/ | {
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"It is very similar to our bog-standard electromagnetic waves. When an electrically charged object moves around, it emits EM waves. Similarly, when anything with mass moves around, it emits gravitational waves. Gravitational waves, like the EM waves, also travel at the speed of light. So you emit gravitational waves when you accelerate your car, but those are too faint too detect. Earth moving around the sun also radiates gravitational waves, but again they are too faint to detect.\n\nThere are some subtle differences however. For one, gravity is much much weaker than electromagnetism, and so gravitational waves are also very weak. That is why you need a very large instrument like LIGO, with 4km long antenna's so to speak, to detect gravitational waves while you can detect EM waves using your mobile phone. \n\nAnother difference is that you have positive and negative electric charges but only positive mass. This causes some slight differences in how gravitational waves are generated.",
"I have been searching around a bit about gravitational waves (GW) and found this very [enlighting video](_URL_0_) "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GbWfNHtHRg"
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4i0m7m | why do singers in bands sing change of the speed of the lyrics live? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4i0m7m/eli5_why_do_singers_in_bands_sing_change_of_the/ | {
"a_id": [
"d2tzz2k"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"Performing live is very different from recording in the studio. It's harder for performers to replicate all the aspects of their albums in the live setting.\n\nAlso bands, especially those on long tours, get bored playing songs exactly the same every night so they start to change things up to keep it interesting for themselves and the audience. \n\nLots of bands will do mashups of their songs with other artists songs or even with two or more of their own songs. \n\nSome artists will do acoustic versions. Some artists have even changed their minds about what the lyrics of a song should be after the record has been released and so they sing lyrics that are slightly different from the album tracks when they perform live."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
4d2kwt | this whole netflix throttling thing | Why is the Netflix throttling such a big deal? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4d2kwt/eli5this_whole_netflix_throttling_thing/ | {
"a_id": [
"d1n76ix"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"This only applies to Verizon and AT & T customers who were streaming Netflix over mobile connection (3G/4G/LTE etc)\n\nBasically T-Mobile CEO John Legere said that AT & T and Verizon was throttling Netflix for it's customers, meaning that data to and from Netflix was slowed down resulting in lower quality options, and a poorer experience. \n\nWhy would they do this? Well to avoid their customers eating up all their data by streaming Netflix over their connection. That was the assumption.\n\nBut as it turns out it was not AT & T or Verizon but Netflix itself that slowed the speeds, and they freely admitted as much. They said they will not continue to do so once they roll out their data saving option, which will allow users to do this voluntarily if they want to stream over data without using up their plan. \n\nWorth pointing out is that T-Mobile has added Netflix to their “Binge On” platform which means it does not count against a customer's data, however all video streamed this way is slowed resulting in again lower quality. \n"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | |
2qbikr | why does it feel so good to tuck your knees up to your chest? like while sitting or laying down? mostly for women. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2qbikr/eli5_why_does_it_feel_so_good_to_tuck_your_knees/ | {
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"text": [
"The way it was explained to me is that the foetal position (tucking yourself up) is comforting because you spent most of your time in the womb like that.",
"Stretches your spine a bit and also relieves tension in your lower back. ",
"The fetal position is a default comfort position for several reasons. One, it relieves tension across your stomach and the internal organs. If you're having cramps, it allows your stomach and intestines, as well as the muscles around them, to relax.\n\nAlso, it is instinctively comforting because it protects our vital organs. This is why people curl up in a ball when they are attacked; it covers the soft belly and face. Our backs are mostly protected by tough muscle and bone (with some notable exceptions, like the kidneys) and can take a beating better than our stomach and groin. So when you are feeling anxious, it can bring psychological comfort to curl up in a \"safe\" position.\n\nETA: Also, it allows us to maintain body heat by reducing the exposed surface area of our bodies to the elements."
]
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4mxksg | how is it that sometimes i have a quick thought, and completely understand it, but it comes a second or two later and my mind has to think it again but with more emphasis? are there different levels of thinking within our conscious minds? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4mxksg/eli5_how_is_it_that_sometimes_i_have_a_quick/ | {
"a_id": [
"d3zaeeu"
],
"score": [
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"text": [
"The process you are looking at is a form of \"translating\" that thought into \"transmissable\" forms. You could think of it as \"levels\" or more appropriately a \"slinky\" a little bit stretched vertically with a \"step\" where the \"circles\" complete and start anew. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
fzhjg8 | why is it easier to breathe trough the nose when the air is satured with water / steam rather than when it's dry ? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fzhjg8/eli5_why_is_it_easier_to_breathe_trough_the_nose/ | {
"a_id": [
"fn4cvem"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"I'm no doctor but I have had three major sinus surgeries so I have picked up some knowledge on the subject.\n\nThe reason dry air can be damaging to sinus tissues is because humid air prevents water from sinus tissues and protective mucus from evaporating. Whenever you are breathing dry air, the vital moisture in your sinuses is evaporating, sometimes at a rate that is too fast for the tissues to keep up and rehydrate.\n\nIf the air you're breathing is already moist, the humidity is going to allow your sinuses to retain much more moisture instead of letting it evaporate.\n\nWhen your sinus tissue is dry, it will inflame. Inflammation is the body's way of quickly getting water and nutrients to an area in need - that's why the tissues get swollen and bigger - they're basically being delivered more water and nutrients than they can handle at the time. This is why prologned dryness can indirectly lead to inflamed sinuses and breathing issues.\n\nHowever, the reason that breathing in straight steam (like in a sauna or over a pot of boiling water for example) can be helpful is because the energetic steam can loosen some of the mucus that may have dried up and is blocking your air. The heat and water vapor can also temporarily ease up the inflammation (which is the primary issue with people that have chronic sinus problems). Unfortunately once the heat and steam is gone the inflammation comes back.\n\nHopefully that helps."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
1ylxwp | why do rooms look smaller when they are empty? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ylxwp/why_do_rooms_look_smaller_when_they_are_empty/ | {
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"cfloy5j",
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5,
5
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"text": [
"Uhhh I've always been under the impression that they look larger when empty.",
"Because you have nothing to compare the size of the room to. Works both ways, bigger or smaller, you have no reference to put spatial awareness to. Stick a bed in the room, and suddenly there is a reference"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
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2kpe1q | in some microwave foods(hot pockets/pizza), there are "crisping sleeves/plates", how do they work? | I thought putting foil or metal of some sort was bad for the microwave | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2kpe1q/eli5_in_some_microwave_foodshot_pocketspizza/ | {
"a_id": [
"clngqdt"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"They are called \"[susceptors](_URL_0_)\". They heat to a much higher temperature than the hotpocket (or other food) and therefore the heat radiation from them cooks the outside of the hotpocket."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susceptor"
]
] | |
598rmc | how do springs retain their shape and "springy" nature? | After numerous uses, how do springs manage to maintain their physical structure as well as their "springy" characteristic? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/598rmc/eli5how_do_springs_retain_their_shape_and_springy/ | {
"a_id": [
"d96k5n8"
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"score": [
2
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"text": [
"There is something called elastic deformation. Its counterpart is plastic deformation. They are just complex words for describing the way an object will handle stress. A spring has elastic deformation like how a plastic spoon will bounce back after you bend it, but if you bend it too much, it creates a plastic deformation or a break. The same can happen with a spring. Springs are different for various reasons, one of which that they can take a high amount of stress before deforming plastically."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | |
any5hb | how exactly do stethoscopes work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/any5hb/elif_how_exactly_do_stethoscopes_work/ | {
"a_id": [
"efwz9jg"
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"text": [
"The end of the stephoscope captures the sound vibrations and bounces them through the tubes until they reach the other end, which you put to your ears. It's effectively the same as putting your ear on someone's body, but more comfortable for both of you and less intrusive. In fact, that's exactly what doctors used to do before it was invented."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
379v70 | why aren't ballots made to be simple? why isn't it just two big boxes with "check here for this guy, check here for that guy? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/379v70/eli5_why_arent_ballots_made_to_be_simple_why_isnt/ | {
"a_id": [
"crkv1w8",
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"text": [
"Sometimes elections have more than 2 people running.\n\nQuite frequently, there's dozens of different races and issues on the ballot. You want to run them all on a single ballot because running an election is a complex & expensive issue.\n\nBeyond that, the order that people are listed on a ballot can affect the outcome. A lot of people that don't care about \"water district 2nd commissioner\" might just automatically vote for the first (or the last) or other things. Picking the order on the ballot needs to be \"fair\".",
"I think [Canada does it just fine](_URL_0_).\n\nPlenty of places can and do do pretty idiot-proof ballots.\n",
"Can you give an example of a ballot that isn't like that? I'm in the US, and that's essentially what it is - fill in the bubble for the person you want. The only complexities I can think of is the fact that there is almost always more than one race on a ballot, and that write-ins are sometimes allowed."
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1e0x23 | why were residents of mexico city only allowed to vote for and elect their city government starting in 1997? | For 16 years or so, residents of Mexico City have been able to vote for and elect their Mayor and other city leaders. Why weren't residents of Mexico City allowed to do this before 1997?
_URL_0_ | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1e0x23/eli5_why_were_residents_of_mexico_city_only/ | {
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"Because Mexico City was governed directly by the Mexican federal government. This used to be a very common practice; capital cities were usually governed directly by the country's government."
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6f9p9l | how are police lights and other flashing lights made, so that they do not trigger seizures in epileptic people? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6f9p9l/eli5_how_are_police_lights_and_other_flashing/ | {
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"They aren't. The lights can, and do, trigger seizures. Typically however if a person is that prone to seizures they don't often have a license or drive frequently. ",
"timing. seizures are generally triggered around the 7hz mark / that's seven flashes per second. emergency lights don't flash that quickly.",
"Despite popular opinion only a small percentage of epileptic seizures gets triggered by flashing lights. Most cases of epilepsy are actually not photosensitive. "
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4nla0f | as a follow up to the "hitler's end game" thread, what was the most realistic strategy for german victory in ww2? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4nla0f/eli5_as_a_follow_up_to_the_hitlers_end_game/ | {
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"Economically, Germany was already significantly disadvantaged against the Western Allies. (That means, excluding both the Soviet Union and the United States). Both the Soviet Union and especially the US outclassed Germany by a devastating fraction.\n\nGiven that it can not hope to take out either the Soviet Union or the US in a blitzkrieg, it needs to ensure that neither ever gets involved into the war. Especially as Germany doesn't have access to many resources needed for a sustained war.\n\nSo, that means a quick blitzkrieg against France (succeeded), and then an enhanced Uboat policy to force the UK to surrender, ending the war by 1942."
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6f9hnh | why is fox news so conservative, but regular fox programming so raunchy? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6f9hnh/eli5_why_is_fox_news_so_conservative_but_regular/ | {
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"Money is a big factor. They're a corporation, and as to not gain any animosity, they don't choose sides. If Fox made a leftist news company, they wouldn't have as much room for profit as they would with Fox News. Same idea goes for their television, where sticking to a formula someone else has already tapped into doesn't gain revenue as easily.",
"One format appeals to the base fears and suspicions of a certain demographic, the other appeals to the base desires of a certain demographic. Both equal big ratings, which equals advertising revenue, which equals profit.",
"Fox News isn't really a news organization. They fought in court and won in Florida on the basis that they have no obligation to be honest or truthful: They are an entertainment organization. \n\nFox News purveys just as much if not more smut than regular Fox does, and it can be confusing with the big \"Fox News\" icon emblazoned in the bottom left-but make no mistake, the only thing that matters is ratings and they have a formula to get those ratings. \n\nAlso, Fox News is run independently from regular Fox. The only 'responsibility' that the two share is to turn a profit.\n",
"First of all, they're largely separate entities on paper- Fox News is, essentially, an unofficial organ of the Republican Party as well as a news broadcaster, whereas the broad Fox umbrella is overwhelmingly located in the entertainment sector.\n\nSecond, there's no real reason a corporation needs to take a consistent moral stance on their programming between franchises. So, Fox News is conservative and puritanical because that makes them money, and general Fox programming is lewd and base because that makes *them* money. If this caused them problems, they would stop doing it, and since they haven't, we must assume it doesn't.",
"The Fox News Channel and the Standard Fox Channel are not the same organization. They are owned by the same *parent company*, but that doesn't mean much. The Parent Company has very little influence in the Day-to-Day decision-making for Fox News and Fox under normal circumstances, they only step in when one of the Fox channels starts under-performing (not making enough money).\n\nFox News Channel and Standard Fox Channel have different content for one reason: They do not want to compete with each-other. Their Parent Company wants *both of them* to have their own audience. This is because people can only watch one Advertisement at once. If your own Channels steal each-other's audiences, then the amount of Ad Money that is produced by all the Channels *does not increase*.\n\nIt's worth noting that Fox News's Parent Company *also* owns National Geographic. You know, the publication that believes that Global Warming is real and calls people to work against it. Meanwhile, Fox News believes it's fake and tells everyone to work against anti-Global Warming things.\n\nBasically: Corporations have no internal Moral Values, except a desire to make more money. They only have alternative brands that pander to different audiences.",
"What about political conservatism do you think regular Fox programming goes against? Being politically \"conservative\" is not the same thing as being socially \"conservative.\" But what's more, you're not going to see much - if anything - that's a political turn off to *anyone.* And that applies to all network programming.",
"I think Seth MacFarlane, creator of Family Guy, said it best.\n\n\"Rupert Murdoch is a businessman first, and a Republican second.\"",
"It amazes me no one posted yet a link to the summary of The Simpsons episode You Kent Always Say What You Want. In this episode, Kent and Lisa ask this every question. The answer is clearly only one possible and entertaining answer, but still a possibility. \n\n_URL_0_",
"It's almost like Fox News doesn't actually exist for the purpose of promoting conservative propaganda. It's almost like it promotes conservative propaganda because that's a good way to make money from a niche market.\n \nSeriously, all these decisions are about money. In the same vein, you don't really think that conservative politicians actually deny science or don't believe in climate change or evolution, so you? They say they disagree with science because there are entities that make a lot of money from going against whatever changes modern science is urging them to make.",
"Money. And each have different target audience. They don't put all their eggs in one basket, so they get the senior demographic with their conservative news and get a younger demographic with their more raunchy and trashy programming."
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fc7q40 | why did google release open source chromium making it free for their competitors? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fc7q40/eli5_why_did_google_release_open_source_chromium/ | {
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"“Code” is not considered a valuable commodity at Google. They monetize data. By open sourcing chromium they get community involvement which generally translates to cheaper-to-develop products, better security (peer review) and access to other open source libraries (faster development). \n\nAt the end of the day they just want the data. Open source software is a better means to an end. Same goes for Android.\n\nEdit: Forgot what sub I was on. Try this:\n\nOnce upon a time there was a blacksmith named Bill who made swords. He was so good and became so famous for making swords that he became king over all the land.\n\nOne day a blacksmith named Richard got sick of Bill making all the swords because he really didn’t like the swords that Bill made. So he formed a guild of other blacksmiths who would make swords for free but who would charge for sharpening them. Eventually people stopped buying swords from Bill and switched to free swords. \n\nAnother blacksmith named Sergei came along. He realized that he couldn’t sell swords and he couldn’t sell sword sharpening because Bill and Richard were already doing those things. But if he gave away free swords and free sharpening in exchange for the names and addresses of everybody who bought swords then he could sell that information to nobles who needed people with swords to protect them. \n\nSince the nobles have all the money, Sergei became very wealthy. Now nobody cares about the swords or anything else made by blacksmiths. Everybody just wants to know who owns what and who is who so they can sell that information to the people who are willing to pay for it.",
"I'm a software engineer at Google and I work on Google Chrome. I think there are a lot of misleading answers here. Here's the truth.\n\nAll of the top software companies (Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, etc.) contribute a lot to open-source whenever the software is something the company *needs*, but it's not something they directly make money from.\n\nGoogle doesn't make money from Chrome, they make money from the web - from search ads, from ads on other sites. Google making money depends on the web being a great open platform.\n\nGoogle has released [hundreds](_URL_0_) of open-source projects over the years - including Android, TensorFlow, Flutter, and so much more. Those are all projects that Google depends on, but they benefit greatly from the community also having access to them and helping to improve them. In comparison, its products like Search, Ads, GSuite, etc. are not open-source, because Google makes money from them directly."
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ce7ry1 | how do surgeons create a sterile field for surgery? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ce7ry1/eli5_how_do_surgeons_create_a_sterile_field_for/ | {
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"Scrub you down with disinfecting agents, then open up many packs of sterile drapes to create the “field”. Wash their hands then put on sterile gloves (generally two sets) in a specific manner so as to not ever touch the outside. Also the surgical gowns are made in a way such that you never have to touch the outside of the gown to put it on. All instruments and devices are either new or newly sterilized and never handled with anything other than a sterile glove."
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4829lr | lots of species developed eyes to "see" but how did they know there were something to see in the first place ? | My 9 yo surprised me with this question this morning. He sometimes got some showerthough but this one is over my level. Hope you can help us :). | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4829lr/eli5_lots_of_species_developed_eyes_to_see_but/ | {
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"They didn't know. Evolution is about random changes. It is just that those who COULD see could survive better, so they procreated more, and eventually those who couldn't died out.",
"Species don't develop new traits because they \"know\" they'll be useful. Mutations in their DNA occur randomly, and useful traits are likely to be passed on, while harmful traits are less likely to be. The eye as the organ we see today was probably developed through many intermediate steps that were independently of some use; a single mutation could have given rise to a light-sensitive spot in a one-celled organism, and that useful trait would've been passed on and been modified (randomly) over millions of generations to better distinguish between light and dark, depth, different colors of light, etc.",
"They didn't \"know\" anything.\n\nThe first \"eyes\" in nature weren't eyes so much as they were simply pigment spots that detected light. The little floaty microbes that could detect light had a major advantage over the ones that couldn't because they could find bright spots to photosynthesize in. \n\nFrom there on it became an evolutionary arms race. Eyes were a big advantage and better eyes allowed a creature to hunt more effectively or avoid hunters more effectively. That went on for millions of years until today when there are animals like us kicking around with comparatively huge eyes and big parts of our brains devoted entirely to processing and interpreting the information those eyes gather.",
"The answer is that no organism knew, it just happened to work out there way. \nBy a random mutation, some bacteria reacted to light by moving away. These bacteria didn't die from getting zapped by the sun, so they bred and the ones who didn't react died. \nSo now there are some bacteria that are light sensative. \nNow another random change allowed them to figure out what direction the light came from, this was an advantage so they could get to food and flee from the sun, so they survived better.\nThen they went into colonies with other bacteria and specialized, then these colonies start moving fasters, and so on and so forth until we get the eye."
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dude5u | why is it always the respiratory system that stops working when your muscles relaxe cause e.g. of a drug overdose and never the heart? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dude5u/eli5_why_is_it_always_the_respiratory_system_that/ | {
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"In cocaïne overdose it's your heart that stop working because of the tachycardia.\n\nIn opiates it's not that your respiratory system stop working, it's just that you fall asleep and your brain \"forget\" how to breath automatically. So you die by suffocating in your sleep. That's why when you suspect someone to have taken too much opiates you have make them walk and keep them awake.",
"Its not just your repiratory system, overdosed folks are passed out and unconcious\n\nIts just that the respiratory failure is what kills them. The heart still functions because it can beat on its own, so its the lack of O2 that kills ya.",
"The heart can fail with certain drugs that cause an upper effect. Meth and cocaine are examples. You die from opioid overdose due to your body succumbing to the dirty side effect of opiates: decreased respirations. Part of their problem is that they not only naturally lower your drive to breathe, but they also shift the threshold for needing to breathe upwards. We naturally produce carbon dioxide and our brain uses the levels in the blood to determine how fast and deep we must breathe to blow it off. We still need to maintain some in the body for essential functions and acid/base balance. The thing that opiates do is shift this threshold higher. Meaning even with increased CO2 levels from not breathing fast enough, you don't see an increase in the drive to breathe. That's how you die. You quit breathing enough (or at all) and you stop bringing in fresh oxygen/removing co2",
"Heart cells beat automatically on their own. A special part of the heart called the sinoatrial node is like a conductor for an orchestra. It is the pacemaker for the rest of the heart. The brain just tells the SA node to speed up or slow down slightly.\n\nThe lungs don't breathe on their own. The brain has to tell them to inhale and exhale. One part of your brain does this consciously (take a deep breath), and one part does this unconsciously (when you are asleep or not paying attention to breathing). This unconscious part is called the pre-Bötzinger complex and it's located in a part of your brain called the pons. Opioids interfere with its function.\n\nThere are many drugs that can cause the heart to stop working too in an overdose. For example, a drug called adenosine can cause your heart to stop beating for a few seconds (which is really scary if you aren't prepared for it). There are many drugs that can cause the brain to stop working in an overdose too. But most of those drugs aren't used recreationally. No one takes adenosine for fun, and it feels like you're suddenly having a heart attack if a doctor gives it to you. Meanwhile, opioids happen to be a popular drug at the moment, and they happen to work on the part of your brain responsible for coordinating your muscles for breathing.\n\nThree more points:\n\n1. Doctors give adenosine if your heart cells are all beating off rhythm. Adenosine stops all of them for beating at once for a few seconds, allowing the SA node to take over again (hopefully.)\n\n2. Rhythm matters in opioid use too. For example, if you take a stimulant like cocaine, your body feels like it's getting ready to fight or flee from a predator. If you take a depressant like opioids, your body feels safe and wants to rest and digest. This digest part means that opioids should cause you to poop more. But the problem is that you need a coordinated activity of muscles to squeeze your intestines and push the poop out (like you're squeezing out the last of the toothpaste). Opioids mess up the nerves in your guts ability to coordinate. So you squeeze poop forward and backwards randomly, causing constipation.\n\n3. Naloxone is really important to have around if you use heroin or other opioids. If you stop breathing, someone can quickly inject you with it and it will save your life. Of course you need someone who notices you aren't breathing and knows to inject naloxone. But your chances of surviving are a lot higher. Doctors are trying to figure out other ways to avoid this problem besides using naloxone in an emergency.",
"Your breathing muscles get direct input from your brain, telling them to move and breath. Big doses of narcotics basically make the respiratory center of your brain go to sleep, and your breathing muscles stop doing what they're supposed to.\n\nThe heart gets feedback from the brain to help regulate heart rate, but isn't dependent on it. You could completely remove a heart from a human body, and it will keep pumping on its own (if it had blood supply, etc). It doesn't require input from the brain to keep going. You can even grow beating heart cells in a petri dish."
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4wqkaq | why has taking a selfie become such a social taboo? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4wqkaq/eli5_why_has_taking_a_selfie_become_such_a_social/ | {
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"Too many people being too rude while taking selfies. Selfie takers may be focused on their little screen, getting the right shot, but the rest of the world sees them as standing around in the way. The new has worn off. You can't wave a stick and bump people with it, and too much of that happens with selfie sticks."
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7q0b92 | booster shots, why is there a time frame? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7q0b92/eli5booster_shots_why_is_there_a_time_frame/ | {
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"It's a way of helping ensure the vaccine takes effect and that your body develops the protection (antibodies) it needs from the vaccine.\n\nFor instance, a vaccine given one time might effectively develop protection in 85% of people, but then you give them the second shot and that percentage goes up to 95%. "
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2b2phb | how do doctors decide to stop trying to resuscitate someone and declare him/her dead? is it a gut call or a precise science? | Also, what if the patient believes in eternal damnation and would like a chance to be a good religious person even with major brain damage? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2b2phb/eli5_how_do_doctors_decide_to_stop_trying_to/ | {
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"For the most part, in a cardiac arrest situation, it's a matter of practicality and a cost/benefit analysis. If we work on a coded patient for 10-20-30 minutes, doing CPR, pushing drugs, etc... and we aren't getting return of spontaneous circulation, then you're getting to the point where even if you DO get them back at some point, they are likely to have major brain damage and their quality of life will be so poor that you're barely saving anything at that point.\n\nThere is no magic point at which someone is dead, and you've \"lost\" the battle. It's a continuous effort until you've decided that the benefits are mostly gone, and it's not worth the effort to continue attempts at resuscitation. Sure, there's always a chance they could get back into a good rhythm against all odds after 45 minutes of CPR, but it's often not worth the damage that's been incurred at that point.\n\nLong CPR is often done for the benefit of family members, and those watching, to know that everything that could be done, was indeed done."
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6td3zr | we went from 2g to 3g to 4g lte relatively quickly. what is 5g and why have consumers not seen it yet? what's taking so long? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6td3zr/eli5_we_went_from_2g_to_3g_to_4g_lte_relatively/ | {
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"We didn't switch that quickly in the past. 3G networks started rolling out in 2002 and 4G networks started rolling out in 2010. It may have seemed faster because there were \"3.5g\" bumps in the middle, like the rollout of HSPA+.\n\nIn the last year or so, a number of telecoms have started rolling out LTE-Advanced (a \"4.5G\" technology, or the first one to technically be 4G if you're using the ITU's definition of 4G). \n\n5G is still a work in progress. Electronics companies are currently testing some possibilities for the technology, but the industry hasn't settled on a standard for it yet.",
"Theres also the decrease in range the higher frequency gives you, requiring much more testing and construction to prepare for. With 3g you could make a lattice of cell towers and boost power or rebroadcast in densely packed areas. With 5G you have the signal being stopped by much less than a large hill or annoyingly large tree. "
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762uui | why, when the majority of african slaves went to south america and the carribbean, in dramas is it almost always shown in relation to us slavery. | I have no agenda here. I was just listening to an audiobook and heard that only 6% of African slaves went to the US but if you were to judge from media you would not know it.
Why is this? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/762uui/eli5_why_when_the_majority_of_african_slaves_went/ | {
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"American slavery continued much longer. Combine that with the history of extreme racism in the US, and you have the answer.\n\nSA and Europe didn't have the same extreme racism as the US afaik. ",
"I'm going to presume that you are either an American, or otherwise in the Anglosphere.\n\nMost of the media you likely consume was produced by Americans, or those influenced by Americans. As such, most media focusing on slavery is going to focus on the United States's relationship with the institution of slavery, which means focusing on slavery in the United States. \n\nI'm certain if you looked at media created by people in places like Brazil, the Caribbean, etc. they would focus more on their own relationship with slavery, and the history of slavery in their country. ",
"/u/Lubyak and /u/hamsterman20 both are right.\n\nAmerican slavery is almost unique in that it was tied to \"inferior races\" and religious excuses. Any other time is history, you look at slavery, it is just one people conquering another. America took it a step further.\n\nAnd, yes, American is the driving force for media.",
"The United States only took 6% of slaves that were imported from Africa. However, they had much more than 6% of the total slaves in the hemisphere. \n\nBritish colonies in North America encouraged their slaves to breed, so many of the slaves there were actually born in the colonies and not shipped over.\n\nIn the Caribbean and Brazil, where most of the slaves that crossed the Atlantic ended up, the slaves were mostly male and used on sugar plantations (and silver mines), where they are often worked to death and then replaced by new imports."
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2dgvxk | if latin has to be prepared to be spoken, how was it a normal language like english in roman times? | I've wondered this since Latin class, that we had to decipher Latin stories and that technically the words could be put in any order but it depended on their endings. How would they talk normally if they have to have certain endings on words, but could put them in any order?
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2dgvxk/eli5_if_latin_has_to_be_prepared_to_be_spoken_how/ | {
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"Interestingly enough, Finnish has a whopping 15 cases. And Finns speak it just fine.\n\nMost of the basic Latin writings and speeches keep to the standard Subject-Object-Verb format. Word order is only mixed in poetry and when the speaker feels the need to place a special emphasis on something.",
"Exactly like many other \"modern\" languages around the world. If you use it, you just know how to use it. Like, for example, in polish (and few others languages). ",
"All languages are hard to learn the rules for, and many are just like Latin in that the words can go in any order you want as long as the endings are correct. The thing that makes it a lot harder to learn to speak Latin fluently than, say, Spanish or French is that nobody speaks Latin anymore. \n\nWhat's survived is usually well-prepared or even in verse, and Latin education has historically revolved around reading Cicero's speeches or Virgil's Aeneid. Thus, there's no emphasis on learning how to think like a Latin speaker - all the focus is on slogging through the sentences and figuring out what the hell is going on. It's like learning English by reading Wuthering Heights and Paradise Lost.",
"You're used to speaking a language with relatively fixed word order, so Latin seems weird. But actually, English can be very fluid in informal contexts.\n\n\"So, this woman--Mary--took a trip to...well, she went out--it was to the store--and she met this--wait, it was the gym--she met this guy who...\"\n\nWe have functional words like \"to\" which define case instead of synthetic endings. But they help us determine the role in a confusing sentence, which comes up often in real speech.\n\n\"I went to the store.\"\n\"To the store I went.\"\n\"Went I, to the store\"\n\nAll of these are possible in English. The difference is in topic, or emphasis.\n\nThe same applies to Latin. Yeah the words can be in fairly free order, but they didn't do it randomly. It was for emphasis or followed their train of thought. And if you want to say \"the farmer's dog tan into the baker's house\", both \"farmer\" and \"baker\" are genitive. You can't put them anywhere or else you might be saying it was the baker's dog and the farmer's house. So Latin absolutely has restrictions on word order."
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2cff2t | "not for individual sale" | Why do companies make multiple versions of their products like this? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2cff2t/eli5_not_for_individual_sale/ | {
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"If you make and sell 24 packs of water bottles, you don't want the store cutting the case up and selling each bottle for $1. You'd rather they buy those individuals at a higher price so you get your piece too.\n\nI'll try some numbers to help explain this. \n\nLokiorin Water Company sells 24 packs of water for $6 (.25 a bottle). We also sell individual bottles at .50 each. Our main customers are grocery stores and gas stations.\n\nOne day we find out that one store is buying our 24 packs for $6 and cutting them up, selling each bottle for $1. We're getting screwed! We'd rather they buy the individuals at .5 and so we get our share. ",
"I want to say it also has something to do with other labeling, as well.",
"It's almost entirely labelling and some quality control.\n\nLegally, labels need to include full ingredients, allergy alerts, location of manufacture, and a lot more that may simply not fit on the small package. \n\nThere is another note though. Weight measures need to be accurate to within a certain percentage, which varies by region. If the small package includes something like peanut M & Ms, it may be difficult to control the exact weight in each package. Some pieces may be slightly larger, while others a lot smaller, than the average. If there are only 3 pieces per box, the weight may vary wildly. \n\nHowever, the package of 100 individual packs will almost certainly average out just fine, so they comply with the law. \n\nThis also includes any ratios (\"I didn't get any blue skittles!\") that are tough to control in small numbers. "
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2u3yjq | what is in foods like broccoli, beans, asparagus, etc. to make you more gassy? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2u3yjq/eli5what_is_in_foods_like_broccoli_beans/ | {
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"Some foods, especially beans, contain oligosaccharides. Oligosaccharides are just short chains of sugar, longer than a disaccharide like sucrose (table sugar) but much shorter than a polysaccharide like starch. Because of the way they're linked, oligosaccharides often can't be broken down by human enzymes, so they pass through the small intestine undigested. In the large intestine, bacteria break them down, producing gases in the process. Most of this gas is odorless, like methane, nitrogen, hydrogen, and carbon dioxide, so it just causes bloating. Unfortunately, even a tiny amount of certain sulfur-containing compounds, traditionally known as mercaptans, can make it smell pretty foul."
]
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o7fta | the plot of the dark knight. | As many times as I've seen this movie, I have never been able to full understand the film. And also, I would like an explanation of Batman's ending words of the film. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/o7fta/eli5_the_plot_of_the_dark_knight/ | {
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"Maybe I could help if your question was more specific, like as to which points you where stuck at. Right now all I can do is copy paste the Wikipedia article on it, which is not very ELI5. \n\n\nThe last words where Batman explaining that it was better for the collective psyche of Gotham to think that Harvey Dent, the DA who stood up to crime, died a hero and not a murdering, cop-killing vigilante corrupted by the Joker. Batman wanted Harvey to remain the \"white knight\" and give Gotham a figure they could aspire to. ",
"It helps to understand that the primary conflict in the film takes place not between The Joker and Batman, but rather between The Joker and Harvey Dent.\n\nOn the one side, you've got Harvey, who is determined to drag Gotham, kicking and screaming, away from the criminal slum it was turning into. Aided by Lieutenant/Commissioner Gordon, the Mayor and Batman, he's had a lot of success in that effort, and as such has managed to win Gotham's respect, trust and most importantly, hope.\n\nEnter The Joker. He's a self-described agent of chaos. His goal is to create anarchy in Gotham, anarchy that could never really happen as long as Harvey Dent existed as a source of hope. So in order to create the anarchy he wanted, he had to beat Harvey Dent. But more importantly, he had to completely destroy Harvey's entire image, turn him from a symbol of hope to a symbol of despair.\n\nSpoiler alert!\n\nBy killing Rachel the way he did--forcing Harvey and Rachel to confront her imminent death together--The Joker was able to create the despair in Harvey that he needed. The idea was that the people of Gotham would see that Harvey Dent, their White Knight, had turned into a psychopathic killer at the Joker's hand. All hope would be gone, and Gotham would descend into anarchy. Batman recognized that strategy and short-circuited it.",
"Not to take over this thread, but out of curiousity, my writing professor kept telling us about a glaring omission/plot hole throughout the movie, specifically about Gordon's dissapearance, but I haven't seen it in a while, so I never knew what he meant by it. Would someone be able to explain?"
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1g5vva | stocks and investing | I'm 23 years old and even after reading over explanations I'm still unsure about stocks and investing...
I have roughly 9k in stocks currently through my Roth IRA that my parents set up and have been working on for me. I would like to understand things better so I can be able to do all of this on my own and be able to live comfortably upon retirement.
Can anyone break this down for me so I can figure out what's going on? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1g5vva/eli5_stocks_and_investing/ | {
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"Investing in a stock is like buying a tiny piece of a company. When the company makes money, you get a tiny piece of the profits (dividends). When people think the company is more likely to do well in the future, the stock price goes up, so shares that you own are then worth more.\n\nGo to /r/personalfinance and ask what to invest in. More importantly, ask why index funds are the right choice for you."
]
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7wl7ms | how does polio actually work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7wl7ms/eli5_how_does_polio_actually_work/ | {
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"It's a virus. Once it gets into your body, it infects your central nervous system and kills nerve cells. The cell destruction & side effects of it (eg - inflammation) cause paralysis in parts of the body controlled by those nerves.\n\nBeyond that, [The molecular mechanisms by which poliovirus causes paralytic disease are poorly understood.](_URL_0_)"
]
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poliomyelitis#Pathophysiology"
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aq7ic4 | the difference between european and american weather models | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/aq7ic4/eli5_the_difference_between_european_and_american/ | {
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"The european weather model, also known as the European Center for Medium Range Forecast (ECMWF) is different from the american model (GFS) simply because it uses different mathematical formulas to predict the physics behind weather. A weather person would most likely look at which model is most accurate when compared to actual observed data when determining which one to use in specific situations, such as forecasting for a hurricane, or forecasting winter weather. "
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3pnfj1 | how is it possible to be woken up to a noise that is perfectly synced to a dream? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3pnfj1/eli5_how_is_it_possible_to_be_woken_up_to_a_noise/ | {
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"Your brain interprets the noise. Once i had a dream wherein there started an annoying repetitive beeping. For an indeterminate period of time i was asking dream people what the hell it was. Then I woke up. It was my alarm.",
"Dreams mess up your perception of time - a man once told of a dream he had where he was int he french revolution and he was on the run and they were going to catch him and kill him. They eventually capture him, and they're leading him up to the guillotine. He puts his head in the block thing and then right when the guillotine was going to come down BAM a book falls off his shelf in his bedroom and the book falls on his neck. ",
"In many cases, an entire dream happens instantaneously. The long trip through the woods, the entire fall out of the plane, the historical reenactment, it all happens in the span of a fraction of a second. Your brain fabricates it and convinces you that you remember this whole long series of events, when you never really experienced them.\n\nIt will create elaborate scenarios to explain away the sound you heard.\n\nLet me give you a timeline:\n\n1. You're sleeping silently and not dreaming. \n\n2. The cat knocks something off the shelf.\n\n3. you hear the bang. \n\n4. Your brain interprets the sound as a gunshot, and creates a scenario in which it occurs. In doing this, it manufactures some fake memories, and dream scenarios which you feel like you've had for the last hour or so, but we're only created after you heard the bang.\n\n5. You wake up.\n\nI won't pretend this is the case with all dreams, but certainly many of them. ",
"Used to work as a manager at an internet porn company. We were very careful to keep all the porn stuff low key in our building. In my dream I was sitting at my desk and heard loud porn sounds coming from down the hall. I got up and yelled at the guys and told them to lower the volume and always keep the door closed when viewing and editing. A few minutes later I started to hear the porn sounds again and was really pissed that they had ignored my instructions to keep the door closed. I was so angry that I woke up. That's when I realized that I was hearing my roommate and his girlfriend going at it. Also realized I needed a new job.",
"Your brain actually doesn't run in real-time. There's a few situations where your brain runs on sort of a tape delay and then fills in the gaps so you don't notice. \n\nOne example is when you flick your eyes to look somewhere else. To avoid nausea, your brain shuts off the signal from your eyes for that brief moment, and then to avoid a momentary blank, it just fills in the gap with a little piece of \"footage\" from afterward. That's why when you first look at a clock, the second hand seems to pause for a moment before proceeding normally.\n\nI'd suspect this is a similar thing. Your perception of your dream and external stimuli is actually delayed from real life slightly, so the brain has time to incorporate external sounds, lights, etc. After all, the only reason that loud sounds wake you up in the first place is that somewhere in your head, an unconscious decision is being made that that sound should be dealt with.",
"One time I fell asleep after taking hallucinogenic mushrooms and threw up right before it happened. I kept on hearing these birds in my dream and woke up and thought I was dead because no one was there. The birds were still flying around a bunch and I guess they ate my vomit and likely were tripping balls.",
"This just happened to me this morning! My residence fire alarm was going off and I thought it was just a part of my dream, that was, until my roommate came into my room bare ass naked yelling there's a fire. Gotta love first year res."
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7kz217 | how does a level work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7kz217/eli5_how_does_a_level_work/ | {
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"Assuming a bubble (liquid) level: any liquid will find equalibrium to Earth's gravity and thus the bubble will move as it's angle to the gravitational field is changed. \n\nIn a zero G environment, the bubble doesn't move.",
"A level has a tube filled almost completely with liquid, and a smallish bubble of air.\n\nThe liquid will go to the lowest point, and the air will go to the highest point.\n\nIf a surface is higher on the right than on the left, the air bubble will go towards the right. \n\nIf a surface is \"level\" then neither end of the tube is higher, and the air bubble will stay in place. "
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3u340e | why is putin so unpopular in the west? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3u340e/eli5_why_is_putin_so_unpopular_in_the_west/ | {
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"Because people still dont trust the russians after all thats happened with them in the past 100 years or so that current generations still remember",
"While previous Russian leaders since the fall of the Soviet Union have been friendly to the U.S. and Western Europe, Putin has been more hostile toward the west, and has acted more like a dictator than elected president -- going so far as to install a puppet president (Medvedev) when term limits prevented him from running again. He became Prime Minister for a term, then when he could run for president again, he did. There have been countless journalists and other critics of his policies who have been murdered or jailed, infringing on free speech and dissemination to truthful information to the public. Also, he invaded Ukraine last year, trying to take over the country, and has meddled in the politics of other former Soviet countries trying to re-build the Soviet Union -- or at least a sphere of influence of similar scope."
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5xewa9 | what exactly is apartheid? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5xewa9/eli5_what_exactly_is_apartheid/ | {
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"Apartheid is state-sponsored discrimination (typically racial or ethnic) such that people of the disfavored classes have fewer rights, less access to employment or education, etc., and so on. It's not just having a racist society, but rather it is the policy of the government to maintain the racist status quo. This can be a formal policy or a de facto one, but the thing that makes it apartheid is that the state itself is enforcing discrimination."
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24yiy4 | why do most animals seem to have a much higher tolerance for boredom than humans? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/24yiy4/eli5_why_do_most_animals_seem_to_have_a_much/ | {
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"You don't know what you have until it's gone.\n\nIn other words, their life may seem boring to you but it's not as boring to them because they don't know any better.",
"Are they, though? Would a hundred cats do as well on a kitty-sized international flight as 100 humans would?\n\nWe're pretty good at being bored."
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5z0qd3 | why do they worry about rocket ships burning up when returning through the atmosphere from space, but not going to space? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5z0qd3/eli5_why_do_they_worry_about_rocket_ships_burning/ | {
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"A rocket shop starts at earth at standstill and speeds up to get into space. The rocket ship is not going really that fast in the sense parts of the atmosphere. \n\nWhen a rocket shop returns it has orbital velocity, aka is going really fast. To slow down it actually uses the atmosphere. With terribly big shoes out enters the densest parts of the atmosphere. This shows down the rocket ship, but also generates a lot of heat. "
]
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1pgkve | what are weapon calibers? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1pgkve/eli5what_are_weapon_calibers/ | {
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"Caliber is the diameter of the projectile fired from a weapon. So a .45 round is just under a half inch diameter.",
"Caliber refers to the diameter of the barrel, and, therefore, the shell/bullet fired.\n\n\".X caliber\" means that the gun has a X/100 inch diameter. For example, the .50 cal M2 machine gun has a barrel diameter of half an inch, 0.5 inches.\n\nOther guns use metric to denote calibers, such as 9mm, 7.62mm, or 5.56mm.\n\nIn general, the larger the caliber, the bigger the bullet/shell, and the more damage it will do. Pistol calibers, for instance, can be much larger than rifle calibers, to make up for the slower round (less propellant) and to provide stopping power at close range.",
"Caliber can also describe the length of a barrel, such as a 75mm 56 caliber canon. In this manner, caliber means how many projectile *widths* the barrel is *long*. So this barrel is 56x75mm long (4200mm).",
"The caliber is the diameter of the bore of the weapon. Typically, the projectile is approximately the same diameter of the bore, although some, such as saboted rounds, may differ significantly. \n\nThe exception is naval guns, where caliber is the *length of the barrel*. A 5\"-54 caliber gun would have a barrel length of 270\", while a 5\"-38 caliber gun has a barrel length of 190\", but both fire 5\" diameter projectiles.\n\nOn a related note, the \"gauge\" in shotguns is the number of lead balls having the diameter of the barrel that would make 1 pound.\n\nEDIT: spellin'",
"Lots of people have answered this to within a very close margin of error, which is fine for an \"ELI5\" but there's also the difference between the name of the cartridge and the caliber, and even those with the same caliber will not necessarily work in the same firearms.\n\nExample:\n\n.357 SIG (not to be confused with the .357 Magnum) is a 9mm (.355) projectile but will not work in a 9mm Kurtz/.380 ACP because the dimensions of the cartridge are entirely wrong, and the pressures will likely destroy the smaller gun even if you somehow COULD make it fit.\n\nthe .45ACP is not the same as the .45GAP or the .45-70 Govt.\n",
"Larger calibers do not necessarily correlate to more \"powerful\" rounds. That is mostly a factor of how much powder load is behind it and the barrel length. Also the diameter is only one factor in the bullet's mass- length is still variable, longer bullets of a given caliber will be heavier.\n\nFor instance, the 0.22LR is the smallest round commonly sold, and regarded as a target round \"generally inadequate\" for self-defense. Its wounds are often not just nonlethal, but won't even stop an attacker. The 0.223 Remington and NATO 5.56x45 are essentially the same caliber bullet but longer with a far more massive powder load. The round is a much larger brass casing- for powder volume- necked down to hold a smaller bullet.\n\nThey're much more powerful and lethal than the 0.22LR, although there's more effective rounds out there.\n\n",
"Strictly speaking, it's the diameter of the bullet.\n\nBut in practical usage it's just the *name* of a particular type of cartridge, which may or may not be the diameter of the bullet. If I tell you [\".357 SIG\"](_URL_0_) you can't actually tell the dimensions of the cartridge just from the name. (In fact, \".357 SIG\" has a .355 inch bullet diameter, so the name is actually lying about the measurement!)"
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3ibmxo | how is it not abuse of the political process for the senate to take a bill that passed the house of representatives; replace its contents and title with something completely unrelated; and then pass it as such? | I'm referring to this video from "Last Week Tonight" with John Oliver (at 14m 51s):
_URL_0_
*Now you'll be happy to hear that bill passed the House. However, by the time it did, it had been bundled together with other unpaid-for tax breaks, and retitled America Gives More Act of 2015; but still, that original provision was in there. Which means this problem is being solved, the show is over, we can roll credits and all live happily ever after, right?*
*No, not right. Because when the bill got to the Senate, they & #8211; and I honestly did not know this was even possible & #8211; they removed everything from inside the bill, retitled it the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015, and refilled it with completely different language concerning border control and US-Israeli relations. Which means & #8211; yes, HR 644 passed, just with a completely different title, and completely different contents.*
How is this not abuse of the political process?
Isn't the Senate abusing consensus that was achieved in the House of Representatives for one goal & #8211; a particular piece of legislation in this case aimed at making permanent specific tax breaks & #8211; and then switching it out with a completely different piece of legislation?
How does this not defeat the purpose of having two houses, in the first place? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ibmxo/eli5_how_is_it_not_abuse_of_the_political_process/ | {
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"The new bill, now signed by the Senate, will go to a designated subcommittee whose job it is to rework the bill again, and eventually get the exact bill signed by both the House and the Senate. \n\nIt's like a negotiation, both the House and Senate add and subtract things from the Bill until everyone agrees on it, and signs it, and then it goes to the President.",
"The Constitution has what is termed the \"origination clause\" that requires all spending originate in the House. So any bill that includes government expenditures must start life as a House bill.\n\nHowever, getting bills through the Senate is much harder than getting them through the House. As a result, the Senate is really the controlling body of the legislature - if something passes the Senate, it will almost inevitably pass in the House but the reverse is not true.\n\nGiven this, the Senate often wants to originate its own spending bills. To get around the origination clause, what they do is take a House bill that isn't going to pass anyway, strip out the contents and refill the bill with their own legislation - which they then pass back to the House. Because the bill technically originated in the House (even though with completely different contents), it satisfies the origination clause.\n\nThe reason they can get away with this is that no one really has an incentive to stop it. The Supreme Court could theoretically rule the practice unconstitutional, but they'd need both a party with standing to sue (which would be hard to find) and to come up with a mechanic for judging just how much of a bill needs to be preserved for the origination clause not to be tripped."
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3fguud | what's the difference between solid pills and liquid pills like advil? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3fguud/eli5_whats_the_difference_between_solid_pills_and/ | {
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"Liquid pills are intended to dissolve in the stomach, and thus get the express elevator into your blood stream. Solid pills are intended to dissolve more slowly and be absorbed by your body at some point in the lower digestive tract.\n\nDifferent layers of coating will dissolve at different times, allowing the time delayed or multiple day effect for some drugs."
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1dli8j | basketballs "pick and roll". | Is it a offensive or defensive term. When announcers talk about a team using pick and roll, what am I supposed to be seeing during the game. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1dli8j/eli5_basketballs_pick_and_roll/ | {
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"It's an offensive term. It's a two-person act where a player sets a screen for the ball-handler (pick) to give the ballhandler space from the defender. That generally causes the player setting the pick's defender to 'help' on the ballhandler. If that happens, the man setting pick runs towards the basket as he will likely be free (roll). \n\nIt's hard to explain in words so here's a good [video](_URL_0_)\n\nEdit: Only problem with that video is that they mention the person rolling can also flare out to take a jumpshot. That's called a pick and pop - semantic but important difference."
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376o38 | what causes the different colors i see on an oil spill? | What causes [this](_URL_0_) to happen on an oil spill? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/376o38/eli5_what_causes_the_different_colors_i_see_on_an/ | {
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"The layer of oil on the water spreads out so thin, its thickness reaches a small multiple of the wavelength of visible light. (A few micrometers, basically.) That means light entering the oil layer can only make a few waves before it hits the water interface. If the oil thickness is an exact multiple of the wavelength, it is able to reflect back from the oil/water interface constructively and you see that color. If the thickness is a multiple plus 1/2 wavelength, it will reflect destructively and not be seen. There's also a lot of in-between, but that's where the color comes from.\n\nExample: Say the oil is uniformly 1.5 micrometers thick and you look at it perpendicular to the surface. This only convenient multiple of visible light wavelengths is 3 waves of 500nm blue-green . So what you'll see reflected back is a shimmery blueish green. Other colors will reflect before entering the oil or pass through the oil-water interface, and not affect the color you see.\n\nOf course, you're not really looking at it straight-on, are you? You're looking at it from an angle -- and that angle varies somewhat on the near side of the puddle and the far side of the puddle. The difference in angle affects the distance the light has to travel through the oil in order to be reflected towards your eyes. So the near side of the puddle will have a different color than the far side. Usually the oil isn't uniformly thick, and you look at it from different angles, so you get a pretty good rainbow from all the different wavelengths of light that are able to reflect off different parts of the oil sheen.\n"
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1o9jmr | could we, as a planet, ever run out of resources like oil and fresh water? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1o9jmr/eli5_could_we_as_a_planet_ever_run_out_of/ | {
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"Oh my goodness yes. With population increasing and non-renewable resources declining, the end is nigh (or so to say). Here are the problems we face:\n\n* population: I will preface this by saying that I am against population laws and regulations. We have a current world population of 7+ billion people and that number has been doubling quicker and quicker since the 1400's and it doesn't appear to be stopping. Exponential growth is a tricky thing.\n\n* politics: with USA being one of the most, if not the most, powerful/influential country in the world, the president and congress hold a lot of power. That causes multiple delays, setbacks, and inefficiencies that stops us (as a species) from fixing anything. If the government wasn't shutdown, congress could probably pass some effective legislation for energy.\n\n*Possible* Solutions\n\n* get a large enough group of people together to go to small villages and large cities to educate people about sex. We have to get contraception out there even if it flies in the face of most religions. People also need to know how their bodies work. Safe sex and smart sex are effective at population control.\n\n* Americans need to vote some new people into office. We're stuck with the current ones for two more years and they're all doing a pretty bad job. There is little-to-no regulation on the usage of natural resources. Oil is used on a daily basis and it's use has gotten out of control. Plastics, gasoline, cosmetics, electronics, ink, oil, the list goes on. Suitable solutions need to be found especially since our most valuable and cherished resources (oil & trees) are hard to renew on a human scale. Oil takes millions of years to produce and large trees for milling take up to 100 years to grow.\n\n* We need better use of international ties, political and otherwise. If the US and at least major power on every continent all get together and decide to do this, it'd be resolved in no time at all except the people in power like to bicker and nit-pick.\n\n* Lastly we need the initiative. Sadly, as a human race, we tend not to fix problems until it's too late. That will be the case here if we don't act now.",
"Oil, definitely. Fresh water, perhaps.\n\nOil is a non-renewable resource -- once we can't find it, it is gone. Outside of synthesizing it ourselves, this doesn't solve the energy problem. Currently, we generated [91% of our power from nonrenewable resources](_URL_0_), 85% of which is the 'fossil' fuels, coal or natural gas and 6% nuclear. We don't currently have the ability to produce enough energy to replace fossil fuels, not without massive investment into nuclear and alternative energies -- we will need both.\n\nFresh water, on the other hand, is something getting more common every day. New technologies are coming around for desalination, but once again, we are reaching that energy crisis. We don't have the energy to produce the water to sustain 6b people, so it is important to keep the system clean, but next generation filtration technology is very promising at filling in the edges as long as we can keep the lights on.",
"TL;DR - Technically everything can run out as the planet is essentially a closed circuit, but it is all about economics and advances in technology as to when. Read on if you want to know more....\n\n\n\n\nOne aspect that hasn't been mentioned is the economics of resources.\n\nSimply put, current resource balances of the likes of oil and metals are based upon what is currently economically viable to extract. Unpolluted fresh water can also fall into the same basket rather loosely.\n\nThe planet is something around > 70% water (~98% in oceans), so water as such will never run out unless there is a planetary catastrophe that vapourises the oceans and vents the vapour out into space. I doubt we as a species would survive such an event.\n\nFresh water is a touch trickier, as we already see areas of the planet where fresh water is scarce compared to the requirements of the population - Northern Africa is the obvious example. The boundaries of modern nations prevents the large scale movement of people away from areas of poor resources, which historically used to happen.\n\nAs others have mentioned, fresh water is naturally regenerated through evaporation and then falling again as snow, or rain. The challenge that is faced is providing sufficient fresh unpolluted water to large populated areas in India, China and even the likes of Europe and the States.\n\nMost countries have some form of water conservation regulations to protect drinking water from being polluted. In practice however this varies widely even in different areas of the same country, let alone the developing countries and you certainly wouldn't want to drink from the lower Ganges river in India.\n\nFresh water can be extracted relatively easily from salt water through a number of desalinisation processes such as Reverse Osmosis (passing water through fine membranes to trap the salt), converting water to steam and having fresh water condensate back out and several other processes. [Australian Desal plant] (_URL_1_).\n\nThe problem with Desal plants is the cost. The one linked above came at a cost of ~$3 Billion AUD/ ~$2.8B USD. So the areas most in need of fresh water, are often poorer areas and they cannot afford the cost to build such facilities.\n\nMoving back to oil. Oil producers are currently drilling and extracting from oil deposits that historically were not economic. The shallow, quick and cheap oil deposits to exploit are mostly exhausted and now companies have to go into areas previously considered off limits, such as the Arctic, national parks, or explore the options of oil sands, or fracking and often oil wells are drilled to several thousand metres deep to access smaller reservoirs.\n\nAdvances in technology have improved the success in finding new oil deposits, as well as extracting more oil from them, but at some date in the future the supply of oil will decrease significantly and the cost will rise further, where it will become cheaper to use alternative technologies instead of oil. This conversion to alternative technologies will decrease the demand for oil eventually to such a point that no one will really be using oil, so theoretically oil shouldn't ever run out simply because people will stop using it.\n\nIf we continue along at current practices without evolving our technology, then at some point we would reach a \"run out\" stage.\n\nI personally do not believe we will ever run out, simply because we will move vehicles to alternative fuels such as electricity, Hydrogen, Biofuel etc and current oil based plastics will be grown from some form of algae. Oil fired power plants are already closed, or converted in most countries and people that use heating oil will convert to gas, or electricity.\n\nNaturally there are still numerous other users of oil, but again, most users can substitute oil with something else. The reason most haven't, is because oil is so cheap.\n\nOil reservoirs will often replenish themselves very very slowly over an extremely long period of time and new ones will be created, but this takes geological time scales to be significant, not several decades.\n\nIf I expand your question slightly further, because an often forgotten point is the supply of metals that is in essentially everything in society.\n\nThere are a number of core metals used in the world, such as iron ore, copper, zinc, lead, aluminum and nickel that are the building blocks of society. There are also numerous others like gold, silver, platinum etc, but they are not as essential (some would argue otherwise).\n\nEconomics and the price of the metals based upon demand is the fundamental reason for the various mines to be producing.\n\nMany of the planets rocks are made up of varying degrees of these minerals, but unless the minerals have been concentrated, then the economic cost of extracting them is too high, so they will sit in the ground until there is either a cheap enough technology to extract and refine them, or the metal prices go high enough.\n\nAs an aside, as the price of the metals goes higher, then recycling becomes more viable, so the demand for metals from the ground is reduced.\n\nEssentially the planet is a closed circuit and while geological processes are still active in creating new oil and metal deposits, these take such a long time to create that it is doubtful that the human race will be around to ever see a new one - with the exception of [Black smoker deposits] (_URL_0_) which are actively laying down various metal sulphides in real time on the sea floor. Geothermally active zones such as Yellowstone national park and around Rotorua in New Zealand are other examples of actively forming future metal deposits.\n\nThere are still massive iron ore and bauxite deposits around the world, so these are not going to run out any time soon and it also just happens that Fe and Al are 2 of the most abundant building blocks in many of the planets rocks - we just cannot economically extract it yet.\n\nEDIT - format",
"Yes but, as with virtually everything, it is dependent upon a supply versus demand ratio. Populations grow and as a result, resources are \"stretched\" but technology continues to expand and grow as well which means that the use of such resources becomes more efficient/wisely utilised. So yes we could though we'll never \"run out\" of oil and fresh water but we may/do have problems supplying it to certain places.",
"Water is never really used up on Earth: the Earth automatically makes fresh water through [the water cycle](_URL_0_), and, actually, [the burning of fossil fuels actually produces 'fresh' water, too](_URL_1_). Our worries about fresh water is about the *amount* we need in the *places* it needs to be -- like Southwest California or Las Vegas or the Sahara. If more people live in an area than the fresh water source can support, then worries about fresh water begin to occur. It's not because fresh water is gone, destroyed, missing -- it's because humans are using more water than clouds, rivers, or lakes can supply in that area.\n\nOil, actually, is somewhat similar -- although the system by which new oil is created takes *millions* upon *millions* of years. The bottom of the ocean is slowly, slowly [collecting dead plant and animal material and silt which will eventually create new oil](_URL_2_)....we're just using it up on a timescale far faster than more can be created, and on those timescales there's no measurable way to consume oil slower than it's created than to stop altogether.\n\nBecause both are a limited resource on small timescales, this is why people are worried about both, and are looking for scientific ways to produce it where and when it's needed -- without having to wait for the limits of natural processes and geological timescales."
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4put18 | why the us still has so many soldiers in germany, italy, japan and huwaii? | According to the [Wikipedia article](_URL_0_), the US still to this day, has the forllowing numbers of military personal deployed in:
- Germany: 36,691
- Italy: 11,799
- Japan: 52,060
- Hawaii: 46,764
These really seem like big numbers, in a places where there is no conflict and no risk of conflict in the foreseeable future. So why keep such a large (and certainly costly) military presence in these places?
Everybody knows WWII, cold war and all but really 36k in Germany alone? 52k in Japan? and a whopping 46k in Huwaii, which is just an Island in the middle of nowhere...Reasonably a few garrisons numbering fewer than 4k or 5k would be more than sufficient both military and for whatever political dissuading political message they want to send...So why is the US over-doing it still to this day and age? And should we call these countries, sort of occupied, because they have such a very large foreign military presence...and isn't this a bit counterproductive, as I imagine in a very nationalistic place like Japan, they wouldn't take too kindly to the idea of having 50,000 armed American soldiers on their soil. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4put18/eli5_why_the_us_still_has_so_many_soldiers_in/ | {
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"All the nations you name have a lot of US troops because immediately after WWII they had their militaries dismantled as punishment. They then developed relationships with the US where the US was providing them with military protection and that allowed them to spend money on other things such as building up their economy or setting social safety nets so they kept their militaries small after they were allowed to re-establish them and rented military bases to the US. Japan specifically wrote it into their constitution that they were to have a small military and rely on allies for protection. So no, they like the US being there. \n\nWhile the Cold War is officially over, we do not trust Russia and they are still our number 1 rival. We keep troops in Europe to react to them. \n\nAs for Hawaii. There are not a lot of Islands in the Pacific, but the ocean itself is huge. That means you have a lot of people stationed in places where they can cover it. (Edit: Also, Hawaii is not just an Island. It is a full US State). ",
"Why wouldn't we have soldiers in Hawaii? That's part of the U.S. and would be much more vulnerable to invasion than other parts of the country. Plus it makes a great Naval base for us.\n\nFor Japan, there's always North Korea and China. China's probably not going to be a huge risk despite their recent posturing, but no one knows what North Korea will decide to do. And again, it makes a good place to have a Naval base as long as we're allowed there.\n\nGermany and Italy are good places to be to present a strong front to Russia since Putin seems to be trying to start up the Cold War again.\n\nPlus, it's not like any of those places have formally requested we leave and most politicians in the U.S. support us having a worldwide military presence",
"What the heck I'll give this a go since I am a pretty good source.\n\nGermany, it was once a very bad guy not too long ago. Now it's a friend but it's a friend who was occupied by the Soviet Union for many years. Since the Soviet Union was there, we had to be there to ensure Berlin did not become fully Soviet. After that ended the US stayed because they had become a strong ally with the free (West) Germany and helped to rebuild it after the Russians left (This was not so long ago remember.)\n\nItaly, same thing goes for the first part. Second part being that it is close to the Mediterranean and therefore close to current conflicts. The unit stationed there is an Airborne unit and therefore could be rapidly deployed to anywhere around Italy if need be *cough* *Middle East* *cough*\n\nJapan is three fold. Firstly, WWII. Secondly, after WWII Japan was not allowed to keep a military. Period. So when the US began to rebuild Japan it also took on the responsibility of protecting it (until recently). It also was a midway point for troops getting deployed to both Korea and Vietnam during those two wars. Third, it is the closest place we have to Korea, besides Korea itself, as well as contested islands in the South China Sea.\n\nFinally, Hawaii (not Huwaii). Hawaii was originally the West most point where the United States had a military presence (pre-WWII). The value of Hawaii pre-WWII was strategic. The US would be able to deploy rapidly to the Pacific theater if it needed to which is why it was home to both Navy, Marine, and Army bases (No Air Force at the time). Post-WWII it became the US's most isolated State while retaining its strategic value. Today, the US uses Hawaii as a staging point for any conflict that could arise in the Pacific (N. Korea, China, etc.) as well as uses military operations in the area to build relationships with other nations in the Pacific. ",
"Basically there's one reason, \"self interest\" which breaks down into two others: self-defense and empire.\n\nAfter WWII, the Truman and Eisenhower administrations wanted to learn how to protect themselves in a nuclear world. Studies came back from thinktanks and the defense/war department with some sad news: The days of letting America's oceans protect her are over. Any future war that seriously jeopardizes the republic will now be a fast technological war. We will no longer be able to sit back, convert factories to build weapons while slowly militarizing the country into a temporary state of readiness. This time, bombers and missiles will be on their way in hours.\n\nSo they came up with a new policy of perpetual readiness. There always must be some factories producing tanks. There must always be a standing military. There always must be military bases abroad ready to be used, even if there is no immediate threat.\n\nThe second reason is empire. The US is like any other nation-state: it likes to have others bend to its will. For instance, the reason the US has ~10 nuclear powered navies and ~10 conventional navies and ~80 submarines isn't just for self defense, it's so that the US can control global trade routes. That means that everyone else who has a shoreline could be on some level dependent on the US.\n\nTake Australia for example. Australia is very vulnerable, being so isolated from the rest of the world. Australia is absolutely dependent on naval trade for economic survival. Due to their very low population they have historically relied on the British Royal Navy to defend them. That is, until WWII happened, and the British were routed in Thailand. Suddenly, Australia found itself with it's soldiers fighting far away with no navy to protect their shores. But then who arrives, but the US. Since then they've relied on the American navy to secure their trade routes.\n\nWhile expensive, this benefits the US. When the US wants favorable policies from other countries, the US always has the leverage of the navy. The US has the implicit unsaid threat of a) leaving or ^(however unlikely) b) blockading shipping lanes or ^(however very unlikely) c) Military action.\n\nForeign military bases help support the vast network of American military power, including the navy, which can respond to any global shift in international relations very quickly by design. For instance, America's German bases have state-of-the-art surgical centers where soldiers injured in the Middle East can be flown to quite quickly. Those European bases also hinder Russia's interests. Not necessarily with the delusion of stopping a sudden full-scale Russian invasion, but rather as a sacrificial lamb: if American troops get slaughtered in a base in Eastern Europe, the public will support a massive military counterattack, one that might destroy Russia.\n\nDo other countries want the US there? It depends. The US is slowly diminishing its presence in Europe and engaging in a \"pivot to Asia\" in order to focus on containing China's interests. There have been numerous protests in Okinawa, where American troops have a terrible reputation. But having the US military there also reduces the amount of money foreign governments have to spend on their own militaries. Why blow tons of money on anti-missile defenses when the US will build them for you?\n\nAs for Hawaii, Hawaii's economy relies on military activity. It is *the* stronghold of the Pacific. There are no other significant landmasses for many thousands of miles.",
"In terms of Hawaii from a military strategy standpoint, it's the Easternmost Island in the Northern Pacific. If you were to lose it in a campaign against an Asian power, you would be boxed in off of California, until you could launch an Island hopping campaign using the Aleutians back into Asia, or a massive amphibious assault on Hawaii launched from California which would be very difficult to do. It's extremely important to the US military that they don't lose control of the Hawaiian islands.",
"You do realize Hawaii is part of the US, right?\n\nThe US has bases all over the world, because they want to be able to exert their military power worldwide. \n\nThe base in Japan is important for an east Asian presence near China and Korea.\n\nBase in Germany and Italy are import for European influence, and were important during the Bosnia and Gulf Wars.\n\n > Huwaii, which is just an Island in the middle of nowhere.\n\nA US state in the middle of nowhere, far away from help from the mainland. Sounds exactly the sort of place you'd want a strong military presences. It is also an important stop over between North American and east Asia."
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561k37 | when trying to carbon date an ancient man-made object, how do you differentiate between when the object was created and the age of material that was used to create the object? | Example: An ancient sword can be made out of cast iron. When you carbon date it today to find its age, are you finding the age of the iron or are you finding the age of the sword? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/561k37/eli5_when_trying_to_carbon_date_an_ancient/ | {
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"Carbon dating only works for organic objects. It measures the time since the object was 'killed.' So maybe something like the time the wood from a carving was cut from a tree. ",
" > When you carbon date it today to find its age, are you finding the age of the iron or are you finding the age of the sword?\n\nCarbon dating is only used on biological material in comparison to the levels in the atmosphere at the time. So in your example we would date the leather wrapping on the handle to see when the cow died and assume they didn't use leather from a cow who died hundreds of years prior.\n\nThe reason it works is that some carbon is radioactive and when it is tied up in an organism it rotates through them regularly. Once they die it doesn't go anywhere and the radioactive atoms decay at a known rate, so by looking at the different proportion we can know when the organism died.",
"I believe for metals there is a way to date the material based on the direction the magnetic poles are locked into when the crystal solidified.",
"If the sword had a leather or cloth wrapped handle, then it could be carbon dated. Carbon-14 dating unfortunately only works with things that consist of carbon matter, hence the term carbon dating. Basically carbon-14 is a radioactive isotope of carbon, which has a half life of 5,730 years. If memory serves me well, it decays into nitrogen and we can determine the age of an organic object by the amount of nitrogen in it. Don't quote me on that last bit though.\n\nThat being said there are other ways to find an approximate date of an object that's not carbon based.",
"You can't carbon date iron :) You carbon date carbon. \n\nSo imagine that you have a kind of carbon which can only be created in a living thing, and that once that living thing dies, this carbon slowly goes away and can't be replaced. Carbon dating measures this left over isotope of Carbon and because we know how long it takes for it to decay, we know how long it's been since it was alive. \n\nIn the case of carbon dating a sword, you'd need to find some pollen or wood chips, insects, trash, seeds, etc that are buried in the same layer of soil as the sword was. If you can date the soil the sword was found in, then you can date the sword. \n\nAlso many swords had leather wrappings and other weapons had wood handles etc. \n\n",
"Everyone's focusing on the wrong part of the question. Most people only know of carbon dating, so that's why they ask about it. \nRegardless of the method of dating, I think the question is: How do they differentiate between the age of the material and the age of the manufactured object? \nEdit: a word",
"Carbon that occurs naturally has a ratio of regular atoms to radioactives that is known. For ELI5 purposes lets say for every 100 Carbon 12 (stable) atoms there are 10 Carbon 14 atoms - we'll assume this is steady for the production of CO2, carbonates etc. so the building blocks of plant and animal life have a ratio of 10:1.\n\nall the while the plant/animal/tree etc is living and growing it is taking in carbon that has this ration of 10:1; incorporating it in its leaves, branches, fats etc. Then bam! this tree gets chopped down, the animal gets slaughtered. There is no more intake of fresh carbon, no growth etc. - that is our stopping point and that is the date we are trying to find. Its important to understand that up to this point there has been a steady ratio of carbon 12 to carbon 14, that is 10:1.\n\nWe know that Carbon-14 has a half-life of 5300 years. so after 5300 years half of the carbon-14 is gone through radioactive decay, and the ratio of carbon 12 to carbon 14 should be 20:1; after 10600 years the ratio should be 40:1. \n\nUsing really good analytical chemistry instruments; we can measure and determine the ratio of carbon 12 to carbon 14 and using the maths we can correlate how long that it took to get from our ratio of 10:1 to our result using the half life of 5300 years\n\n\nits limited because of we are relying on a diminishing factor that approaches zero as time goes along, and zero is very hard for chemists to grasp.\n\nIts important to remember that when we do carbon dating we are not looking for a specific date like Oct. 3rd 250,000 B.C. at 3 pm this tree was cut down. For that type of data rounding to 250000 B.C. is close enough. We don't need to go Antiques Roadshow on it.\n\nCarbon dating is good for about 100,000 years which gives us all of human history and a good chunk of time before that.\n\nSimilar procedures are used for other radioactive dates, but the same principles apply in regards to knowing the starting ratio and back calculating how much is left."
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3za13h | if copper and fiber lines are so hard to expand underground, why don't we just use already existing telephone poles? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3za13h/eli5_if_copper_and_fiber_lines_are_so_hard_to/ | {
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"These poles are owned by utilities. Generally they belong to an electrical power company, not the telephone company. If you noticed many new subdivisions have underground wiring.\n\nTelephone companies use their existing copper lines to offer DSL. There is a limit to how much bandwidth they can push down copper wires.\n\nInstalling fiber optic is expensive no matter how it is done. Aparrently the cost of running underground is worth it as fiber is expanded.",
"Underground lines are expensive to expand, but they also are very robust, meaning they don't repairs as often. Lines on poles are vulnerable.\n\nSo, in many cases, it's more cost-effective to bury the lines.",
"I used to work on the Google Fiber project in Kansas City, so those are my credentials.\n\nBuried fiber optic/copper cable lines are expensive because you need a permit to drill, and you need to have a Locate Service come out and mark your existing utilities like sewer, electric, gas, water, cable. Many of the drillers on the project in KC were claiming that they were getting about $3-$4 PER FOOT to drill and run underground conduit. Then after that, an aerial crew (me) would come and run the actual fiber lines through the conduit and we would get about IIRC $.60 per foot. \n\nSo why not just run fiber on existing utility poles? LICENSING FEES! That's why. Lets say you're an electric company or a telephone company and you laid the plans and invested all of the money up front to set up the infrastructure to set up your network. Now you have a competitor that wants to use your existing infrastructure to put up their own network, and try to compete with you and steal your customers. What are you going to do? You're going to charge a bunch of money to let the new kid on the block use your equipment. \n\nSo, why don't these new companies come in and set up their own infrastructure? New poles, new everything? Well, try to get a permit to install a new pole where there is an existing infrastructure. Just try it. Municipalities don't want utility poles everywhere, \"there's already one there\" seems to be the mentality. Which I can understand. If everyone was allowed to put up their own stuff, lots of poles would look like all those funny pictures you see from India where theres like 4 billion wires on every pole. \n\nSo, the preferred method IS to use the existing utility poles. It is not \"hard\" to expand the networks underground, it is just exponentially more costly to do so. "
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2pj3g7 | why was john nash's theory was so revolutionary and how was it applicabe across many disciplines? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2pj3g7/eli5why_was_john_nashs_theory_was_so/ | {
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"Before Nash, economists treated economic decisions as a single-player game. People know what the conditions are, and they act accordingly.\n\nNash explained that economic decisions are oftentimes more like multiplayer games, where your decisions need to be based not just on your conditions but the conditions (and decisions) of other players.\n\nThis may seem obvious, but it isn't always. A fun example could be an arms race.\n\n** < example > ** In classical economics, it might play out like this: you build a slingshot. Your enemy builds a crossbow. You build a rifle. Your enemy builds a machine gun. At this point, you've already spent a bunch of money, and if you give up now it would have been for nothing; so you build a rocket launcher. Your enemy has also spent a lot of money and doesn't want it to be a waste, so he builds a cannon. You build a tank. Your enemy builds a giant robot. And so on and so forth until you both run out of money.\n\nIf you were familiar with Nash, it would play out like this: you build a slingshot. Your enemy builds a crossbow. Not wanting to get in the same situation as before, you immediately build a rocket launcher. This is a large expenditure compared to a slingshot, but also compared to a crossbow. Your enemy, realizing they'd have to build a cannon, says \"fuck it\" and stops building weapons. ** < /example > **\n\nThere are many other examples of this, but the general thing to remember is that other people make choices too, and if you consider their choices you can make better ones for yourself."
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4qtr1p | why are formula 1 racecars so heavily regulated? why isn't there a motorsport with no engineering limits? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4qtr1p/eli5_why_are_formula_1_racecars_so_heavily/ | {
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"Basic reason is cost and safety. With unlimited engineering limits, teams with the best sponsors could out engineer poorer teams, and design cars that the poorer teams couldn't afford. \n\nThen it would pretty much be a race of 3 cars and a small group of cars that trying to get 4th place. \n\nPlus with some regulations safety is the concern. Safety for the crew, driver and spectators. Races where wheels regularly fly into the seating area and crush a few dozen people isn't good. Races where a driver gets seriously injured or killed isn't good either. \n\nAs for why there aren't unlimited classes, there are some. We can only speculate on why racing leagues don't have it, so that's not for this sub.",
"The theory is that the regulations prevent excessive spending.\n\nTeam A make an engine with 1000hp for $50m\nTeam B respond and make one with 1200hp for $55m\nTeam A try harder and make one with 1300hp for $30m\nTeam B then make one with 1350hp for $25m\n\nYou'll notice that the gain is smaller but the cost per horsepower increases.\nWorks teams can massively outspend the small teams. If they can easily turn this money in to huge performance advantages on the track the little teams probably would survive long. Suddenly the big teams are spending a couple of billions of dollars a year - then there is a recession or the company decides that F1 isn't relevant to them any more or its simply costing too much, they leave the sport and suddenly we're watching maybe half a dozen cars race - could even be less. Then another works team leaves, because without competition there isn't much point or because of the reasons cited above... effectively the sport burns out.\n\nSo, the theory is to impose a set of rules that can limit spending and thus keep the car performance relatively close to others.\n\nI'm not necessarily advocating it, but thats the theory.\n\nIn reality, works teams still have far more money than the little teams, but the performance of the cars is relatively close. Williams do quite well and a smallish budget, Force India have done very well the past few races on a tiny budget. \n\nThe opposite argument is that works teams have big budgets and if you stop them spending it on something, they just re-allocate the funds to something else to get performance gains in that area.\n\nTo some extent you could say that the regulations make it more expensive to compete - instead of doing something the cheap way it becomes more complex and expensive. For example the Mercedes engine makes somewhere between 900-1000hp. An awful lot of power but in all honesty its not that difficult to make a decent race car engine with that sort of power. Until you add in the regulations:\n\nEngine must be a 1600cc V6 (97 cubic inches)\nMust have a hybrid recovery systems\nNo variable intake runners\nNo variable valve timing \nMax fuel flow must be 100kg/hr\n\nSuddenly that 1000hp got awfully expensive and complicated.\n\nHope that helps.",
"[Group B Rally](_URL_0_) was essentially this. No engine restrictions, and it led to some amazing spectacle and some really bad crashes.",
"Well, there is, pretty much. The Reno Air Races, unlimited class. Must be a piston engine. Fly fast, fly low, turn left. 480-500mph average speeds for winners. FWIW, the limiting factor tends to be engine heat buildup. Teams use water sprayers on the engines, and anything else they can think of to manage the heat, but they blow up engines pretty regularly.\n\nEDIT: Just had to add, one of their racing classes is Formula 1 - which uses a specific engine that produces 135hp. They go 250mph with that.",
"It comes down simply to safety and competition. Safety regulations make up the majority of the Formula 1 regulations. They obviously do a very good job at keeping drivers alive because they have had some very nasty crashes over the past two decades with relatively low injuries. It's crazy to watch how nasty of an accident these drivers can walk away from due to the immense amount of safety regulations required by the sport. \n\nWithout those regulations, teams would undoubtedly sacrifice safety for more speed. Everybody wants to win, but nobody wants to think about how close to death they are so they take serious risks to try to get ahead.\n\nThe other main part of the rule book keeps the competition on a somewhat level playing field. As others have mentioned, the amount of money a team has is not heavily regulated, so teams that have more money can spend more on research and fancy high-tech materials and technologies. There are teams in the sport that are vital for keeping the sport interesting that don't have that much money. So rules are made to give those poorer teams a better chance at winning. This makes it more interesting for everyone because the audience gets to watch more interesting racing with all racers being within a couple laps of each other at most and sometimes down to the hundredth of a second from each other. It also forces the teams to come up with more interesting methods of getting ahead and forces the drivers to be better to make up the difference between the performance of the cars. It's a win-win for everybody.",
"Others have pointed out costs and safety. I'd like to point out the more root cause for these regulations.\n\nThere are no sporting events of any kind that don't require measurement of at least one person's performance as being better than another person's performance. If we're not measuring at least one person's performance, it is not a sporting event but rather an engineering competition.\n\nIf you and I decide to throw a ball as far as we can, and people are going to bet on who can throw the farthest, we can be sure we will have to throw the same kind of ball from the same spot. Otherwise, it is not a valid competition. This is why golf ball design is tightly regulated in pro tournaments. Play with the same ball and prove your skill.\n\nWhat are the most frequent complaints about professional sporting events? The referees. Their purpose is to prevent cheating and ensure a fair outcome. When they make a wrong call, the crowd reacts primarily to the unfairness of it.\n\nFormula 1 is a competition to determine the best driver and team. The best car may be part of determining that outcome, but not more important than driving well and having efficient pit stops. The best car might crash on the first lap. A better driver might avoid that crash skillfully and go on to win the race. This is a sporting event outcome.\n\nThis is why we don't have basketball leagues where high school freshmen compete against professional players. We don't have competitions between children in football pads and adults in football pads. That isn't a sporting event and the outcome cannot ever be fair.",
"No one has mentioned yet that automotive engineering now has the capability to design a car that will kill you if you drive it from the g forces",
"There used to be less regulations. But the cars started becoming too powerful to safely drive and steps had to be taken. They essentially surpassed safe human capability limits back in the late 80's. It wasn't until the year 2000 when they began really regulating things due to cost instead of safety. \n\nUsing todays technology and no regards for safety or spending, they could build a car that would be capable of taking a corner at over 300 km/h. However, a small mistake at those speeds on a turn is an imminent means of death. ",
"Part of it is that the teams owned by car manufacturers, like Mercedes and Ferrari, want a lot of the regulations. On top of advertising for their brand, these teams also want technology that is applicable to the road cars they sell. Basically, they want to use F1 as R & D. That's how you end up with such strict regulations on fuel usage, the change to V6 hybrids in 2014, etc. These regulations require car manufacturers to innovate in ways that wouldn't be necessary if they could just increase engine power output unfettered. \n\nThere's also the hope that these regulations will draw in new car manufacturer owned/partnered teams. Honda returned to its partnership with McLaren in 2015 (2014?), for example, and there's always hope that Toyota starts up a team. \n\nA lot of regulations, though, are implemented just to level the playing field. I believe new aerodynamics regulations were implemented after Red Bull stomped everyone for a few years, in part because they were leagues ahead of everyone else with aerodynamics. When legacy teams like Ferrari start complaining because they're losing, F1 tends to bend to their will.",
"i don't think a 5 yo would understand most of these responses.\n\nSimply put, if no limits were put on the race cars, a lot of people would die. Most people are not smart enough to realize they have gone too far or going too far when chasing money or the promise of being famous. "
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3c8eid | if you go to sleep drunk, how can that affect your dreams? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3c8eid/eli5_if_you_go_to_sleep_drunk_how_can_that_affect/ | {
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"You might get nightmares, apparently going to bed drunk removes a lot of blood sugar, and water from your body, and you get nightmares from that, and sometimes wake up. Most fucked up thing that happened to me was the \"yelling nightmare\" where you dream voices are screaming at you from the dark, you don't even know you're asleep until you wake up. I then read about about it, and apparently it's common in alcohol withdrawal symptoms. ",
"Alcohol is *terrible* on your brain's ability to enter deep sleep. If you go to bed too drunk, there's a good chance you'll never get into REM - which, compounded with dehydration, low blood sugar and generally being poisoned, leaves you feeling like crap in the morning. Even moderate intoxication has a negative impact on your ability to sleep.\n\nIt wasn't your question, but I generally calculate the impact alcohol has on my ability to sleep by calculating the amount of time between when I started drinking and when I expect to wake up the next day, and subtracting from it the amount of servings of alcohol I'd consumed.\n\nSo let's say I started drinking at 8 PM, I expect to wake up at 7 AM. This is 11 hours. Let's say I drink 6 beers. This means I can expect to wake up feeling like I got 5 hours of sleep.\n\nIt's not perfect, and a lot of factors go into your ability to metabolize alcohol. But it's definitely a decent way to gauge your consumption to help you get a good night's sleep."
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376ej8 | sinus decongestants | Please feel free to correct me.
I use a neti pot which cause the cilia to wave back and forth to push mucus either to the back of the throat where it can be swallowed, or to the nose to be blown out.
- A neti pot, is it draining the sinus cavity or nasal cavity ? Both ? Same thing ?
- The main part of my post - how do sinus decongestant medications work then, like the neti pot ? Causes the cilia to move the mucus out ? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/376ej8/eli5_sinus_decongestants/ | {
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"Neti pot isn't a medication - it's just physically rinsing irritants and other crud from your nasal/sinus passages.\n\nMost pharmaceutical decongestants work by restricting blood flow, which reduces inflammation of the nasal/sinus passages, allowing natural drainage and reducing the amount of mucous."
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3knj9s | even if tsa has implemented higher security policy, what is stopped terrorist from buying 'private jets' and doing something evil like 9/11? | Assuming they have millions of dollars from funding by supporting Islamic nations and extortion money gained by illegal activities. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3knj9s/eli5_even_if_tsa_has_implemented_higher_security/ | {
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"Nothing really. \n\nHowever, an aircraft must file a flight plan, and if an unknown craft heads toward US airspace it will be detected and tracked. It will be contacted, if possible, and ordered to land for inspection. Failure to do so will result in the plane being shot down, likely before it reaches a city. \n\n9/11 was successful in part because it was unexpected, and in part because of the presence of so many hostages. Authorities were hesitant to kill that many Americans. You would not find that hesitation today, and certainly not when confronted with a small, private jet. ",
"Very little of what the TSA has done has actually increased safety. There's numerous glaring security holes that never were fixed, mainly because of the simple assumption that terrorists must hate the planes themselves, as opposed to the people in them. In the middle east, the preferred targets all have one thing in common: many people in a tightly packed space. Lots of options in that category, yet still few enough attacks to make lightning or cows a more rational fear. So, assuming they have the means to buy private jets, what's stopping them? Whatever's stopping them from attacking any of the numerous possible targets that in no way involve planes."
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7ni0rq | how does alcoholism run in families? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7ni0rq/eli5_how_does_alcoholism_run_in_families/ | {
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"Genetics play a role in the body's reaction to and capacity to metabolize alcohol. Some people are more or less able to \"handle\" alcohol physically and/or psychologically. It's a risk factor, but not entirely determinative.\n\nAnother risk factor is the social aspect: those who grow up experiencing drug addiction or abuse are more likely to carry on with those habits. Those who are more susceptible to pressure or who come to rely on alcohol to jumpstart their social interactions are also more likely to become addicted. Families often provide the first and most important examples of these habits, for better or for worse. Again, this is a factor, but it's not determinative.",
"Not an expert, but I believe the addiction itself is genetic, not specifically alcoholism. So while a parent, grandparent, etc. may be an addicted to alcohol, you could be addicted to, say, gambling.",
"Another consideration: Drinking alcohol is a \"socially acceptable\" way to manage anxiety. Alcohol works similarly in the body and on the same receptors as anti-anxiety medications, namely benzodiazepines (xanax/valium). Many alcoholics are self-medicating anxiety disorder. I learned about this via the book, \"Drugs Without the Hot Air,\" by professor David Nutt. Anxiety disorder is also genetic (though environmental factors can also play a role).\n\n\nInteresting side note - alcohol and benzodiezepines are the only two addictions that can cause death through side-effects of withdrawal alone. It's important to either taper (only way with benzos) or seek medical help with alcohol (withdrawal is treated with...you guessed it, benzodiazepines!)."
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1o55qy | why do we "hear" gifs and silent videos and why does our brain create sounds in our head? | You can find a bunch of these in /r/noisygifs | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1o55qy/eli5_why_do_we_hear_gifs_and_silent_videos_and/ | {
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"There's a concept called priming. Basically it means that if we are told to expect something, then the likelihood is that we will see/experience/notice it. So, if a gif is called 'THUD' and it portrays a falling piano we are more likely to \"hear\" the thud when the piano hits the ground. \n\nAlso, we are used to hearing causal sounds in both film and reality. Again, to use the falling piano, if this was shown in a film you would watch it's descent and be very perturbed if it made no noise when it hit the cold, hard ground. When we watch a gif of the same event the brain basically goes; \"Oh, there's a piano falling. They usually have noise when they hit the ground, let's expect that.\" then when it doesn't happen the brain has already expected it to, so there would be some confusion (specifically neurons firing down the beginnings of pathways) so you end up with a ghost of the sound you expect.\n\nI have also come across other gifs that make use of rhythms such as our pulse, and time each thud of the object to our heart-rate. This is taking advantage of the ability to tune into sensations that are already going on that we don't normally notice, hence the ghost sounds there. \n\ntl;dr We hear the sounds we expect to hear, especially if we're told to expect to hear them."
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6ri7nu | the difference between btc and bcc. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6ri7nu/eli5_the_difference_between_btc_and_bcc/ | {
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"The major difference has to do with a certain feature of most cryptocurrencies called the blockchain. The blockchain is the written record of where a piece of currency has gone and who has owned it. It is an exhaustive list that only gets longer with time and always travels with the currency itself. \n\nThe problem here is that as the blockchain grows it becomes slower and slower to read, slowing down transactions. Since bitcoins have been around for a while now many parts of the currency are starting to get ungainly blockchains in a sort of digital rot that threatens to make BTC (bitcoin) too slow to use.\n\nBCC (bitcoin cash) has a different way of writing the block chain that is more tolerant to heavy use (though it's still ultimately vunerable to the same problem). \n\nThis is really the only big difference between the two, other than the obvious problem that BCC might not be accepted by those dealing with BTC if it not seen as legitimate. Incidentally that's probably why coinbase is bothering you so much!"
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4o9iz9 | what's the difference between a neuron and a neuroglial cell? | They seem to be similar and I'm having trouble figuring out the difference between the two. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4o9iz9/eli5_whats_the_difference_between_a_neuron_and_a/ | {
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"Neuroglial cells are a few different types of support cells for the neurons. They don't transmit information, but they produce chemicals for the neurons and provide insulation so electrical information can move faster.",
"Neuroglial cells aren't one cell type, it's an umbrella term for basically any other cell in the nervous system besides neurons. If you think of blood, you often think of red blood cells, and yes, red blood cells form the major part of what blood does. But in blood, there are also immune cells, platelets which help stop bleeding, and other cell types with other functions.\n\nNeuroglial cells are the same, there are the immune glial cells (microglia), the cells which form the blood brain barrier (astrocytes) etc. While neurons do the actual signalling, the neuroglial cells are needed for a fully functional nervous system.",
"To add onto what others have said this may help a bit.\n_URL_0_\n\nMakes it really simple with a lot of good visuals."
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3049w1 | why are dogs way more happy/excited to someone, and humans aren't? | A dog might go halfway psycho, run around the house, and jump on the person to smother them with kisses. But we will simply say "hey." What's with that? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3049w1/eli5_why_are_dogs_way_more_happyexcited_to/ | {
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"Dogs take a lot less to be happy. When you're gone, all they do is wait for you to return. If you're gone for a few hours, that's a lot of time for them to sit and get more and more excited for your return. Humans will keep themselves busy, and don't spend hours anticipating your return.",
"Mankind bred the most social and loyal dogs for thousands of years, so they've been bred to want to be near people and to crave acceptance as a member of the group. For dogs, being alone is often very boring, so they get anxious when alone which builds anticipation which causes them to be very excited to see you. Also, because dogs tend to hyperfocus, they seem oblivious to everything else while they go nuts sniffing you down.",
"It isn't socially acceptable for people to greet each other like dogs. So while I may feel the urge to wait by the door and then jump on my husband and kiss his whole face the moment he gets in, I kinda keep that shit to myself until a more appropriate time. ",
"Animals communicate via behavior much more than we normally do because they have no basic verbal language. So they express themselves in a variety a ways that may appear overly dramatic or intense compared to humans. This trend is true of cats, horses, and plenty of other mammals.",
"Isn't this part of breeding? I would imagine people would be more keen for a happy dog to reproduce and likely generate happy progeny than a grumpy dog.",
"A dog doesn't necessarily know when or even if a human will arrive/return to the house. So every visit is a surprise. ",
"“You humans need to get over yourselves. I am not man, I am not woman, I am not human nor animal. The dog never complains that he isn’t made in God’s image. Learn from him.”",
"Biologist here!\n\nThere are a few reasons:\n\nFirst, dogs have very tight social structures. In their lives (packs) we are the Alpha dog. Because of that we are their main focus all of the time. They look to us for direction as well as affection. When we leave them alone, they are without order. This lack of order can be stressful on such a social animal. So when we return, it is mind blowingly awesome for them. \"Hooray my leader is home! Give me love, tell me what I'm supposed to be doing, play with me!\" Humans are less reliant on this type of social interaction. We tend to be pretty independant. \n\nAnother reason is signalling and communication. Humans give a lot of their communications verbally along with some body language. Dogs are a lot more body language driven than we are (unless you have a yappy pup!). Your dog is expressing their happiness that you are home by wagging their tail, wiggling around and jumping. It may look crazy, but they are just communicating.\n\nFinally, and this is really important, it's a chemical response. Oxytocin is a \"happy hormone\" and when your dog is near you there is a big release of this in their brains. We get the same response around them, our mates and our children.",
"Speak for yourself. My friends and I go bonkers hugging and jumping around every time we see each other. It's NYC, so everyone works hard, long hours and when we can finally get together, it's an event. ",
"You have to look at it from the dog's point of view. When it sees a human (moreso with one it knows) it knows that it's going to get petted(?)/fed/walked/played with/etc. If you walked into a room and kicked your dog every time, it'd be a lot less happy to see you.\n\nImagine that every time you met someone, they either fed you something great or gave you a handjob, every time. You'd be a lot happier with people as a whole"
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5its34 | when a car is idling with the engine on, why does the sound deviate (gets louder then quieter)? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5its34/eli5_when_a_car_is_idling_with_the_engine_on_why/ | {
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"Because of the various needs of the car.\n\nThe engine runs the alternator runs the electronics, the electronics are not a constant draw, even if you are running them consistantly",
"It is because of the radiator fan spinning faster when the engine temperature reaches a certain level, before slowing down again once the engine cools off again. \n\nIt has to do this because the car is getting little air through the radiator while stationary as there is no air forced through it."
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2fldtj | how are some countries, like norway, so efficient at utilizing waste-to energy (to the point they have to import waste from other nations)? why can't other nations adopt such programs on a larger scale? | It seems like no matter how much the initial cost it would pay off sooner or later? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2fldtj/eli5_how_are_some_countries_like_norway_so/ | {
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"Different economies use different recycled parts for things. As an example used kitchen oil (from deep fryers) can be transformed into home fuel. However if no one uses that particular type of home fuel, there's no market for it.\n\nIn some cities they use the paved tops as an aggregate for road constructions. They do this because rock and crushed rock is not available as a suitable aggregate. Many are using tires as a brand new form of aggregate. There's a really weird market forming where they're purchasing foreign used tires so they can turn them into road aggregate.\n\nIf Americans began using recycled home fuel sources, there would be far more people making it.",
"Norway is basically burning trash, producing energy less efficiently than coal or heating oil would. This works well in a country with a low, centralized population, and a lot of unutilized land you can put landfills and incinerators in and that can disperse the smoke. It also helps that one of Norways biggest energy demands is heating.\n\nA densely populated tropical country would not be able to duplicate this kind of success."
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2b5vn8 | why is it when i'm working on a programming problem, or something with numbers, when i get up and do something else away from the computer for awhile, it comes to much easier when i get back? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2b5vn8/eli5why_is_it_when_im_working_on_a_programming/ | {
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"I'm certainly no voice on the matter, but I'd venture to say in those cases that tunnel vision is the issue. Taking a breather if you're tunneling is usually the best way to stop tunneling and get back on track. Could be completely wrong though. "
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1os75e | what does the phrase ''check your privilege'' mean? | I've heard it many times before in multiple contexts pertaining to sexuality and religion. Just wondering what it meant. Thank you! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1os75e/eli5_what_does_the_phrase_check_your_privilege/ | {
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"It's been a bit of a sarcastic remark a lot because there are some people accused of overusing it and using it as a substitute for an actual rebuttal, but:\n\nThe idea is simply that if you're a Christian in the USA you never need to worry about getting an odd glare or outright hate from others when you wear a cross on your neck. Muslims can't always be sure of that, and so in this case Christians are privileged. Similarly if you're a man in business you'll never need to worry about the sort of beliefs prominent in the 60's and 70's that only started fading in the 80's and 90's are going to hold you back because 'you ought to be at home looking after kids' or something. That's a privilege a man holds over a woman.\n\n'Check your privilege' is meant to say \"remember that you don't see the worst of it, if any of it at all. There are those that have to experience some kind of hardship much more often than you and you need to respect that they therefore have different views and perhaps more accurate views than you due to their experience.\"\n\nA simple case: someone who is visibly white and has exclusively British ancestry says \"Black people should just get over slavery.\"\n\nWell here the person obviously has never experienced modern anti-black racism because they are obviously white, and they have no family or culture that has been limited, killed or otherwise oppressed.\n\nA black person who had direct ancestors be slaves will have a real experience of that sense of loss and whatnot, so it's a much more sensitive topic. They can readily find someone saying 'get over it' so flippantly offensive.\n\nThe idea here is that the first guy should recognize there's no personal hardships they've had in respect to what they're talking about, so it's different for them.",
"When it comes to social power structures and people somehow disadvantaged by society (racial minorities, women, non-straight people, etc.), \"privilege\" means that you've had the privilege of being in the majority. Basically, straight white men are usually the ones considered privileged. If you've never had to deal with significant prejudice, it can be more difficult to understand where someone else is coming from when they talk about power struggles. So, \"check your privilege\" means \"Keep in mind that you haven't had to deal with [societal issue]\" "
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5eo7xx | why do people need to urinate? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5eo7xx/eli5_why_do_people_need_to_urinate/ | {
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"Urine is used to flush out bodily waste that is expelled by your kidneys. Water is used to expel this waste more easily, since most of the waste is water-soluble chemicals.",
"It's a not just about excess water. Your body urinates as a way to rid itself of waste. Think of your poop as food waste and pee as all the other waste that can't go in your poo. ",
"Your kidneys filter out all the waste products from your blood stream, as well as regulate the amount of fluid that is kept in your body depending on how hydrated you are. So, if you are dehydrate, your kidneys will keep extra water and your urine becomes very dark and concentrated. If your consuming a lot of water, you're kidneys will put out more dilute urine. "
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42ayc3 | why are commercials in countries like japan so much different than american or european commercials? don't they all follow the same guidelines/studies? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/42ayc3/eli5_why_are_commercials_in_countries_like_japan/ | {
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"Well for one they don't have the huge budgets that US commercials do. Two, the cultures are different - in the US \"sex sells\" but there it is seen as vulgar. Three you are probably asking about some random weird one you saw on YouTube - most Japanese TV commercials are boring."
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bau1cf | are humans making the earth heavier? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bau1cf/eli5_are_humans_making_the_earth_heavier/ | {
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"No. \n\nNo mass is created when humans reproduce or grow bigger. Rather, existing mass is transformed *into* humans by the human metabolism: a pregnant woman eats food and some of the mass absorbed is used by the cells in her womb to create more cells.",
"All of the atoms in every human's body come from the earth. The earth's mass does not increase or decrease unless something flies in from outer space and lands here, or unless we send something away from the earth. Since humans have sent some stuff out into space (albeit a really really tiny amount of stuff), humans are *decreasing* the mass of the earth.",
"No.\n\nAll the stuff we are made of already existed on earth before us so the total mass of earth do not change because of that. \n\nTo change the mass on earth you need to transport stuff away from or to the planet. So launching a probe to another planet will rescue the mass of earth but most things we launch into space stay close to earth and most of the rocket that is fule fall back down to earth. \n\nThe amount of matter we launch into space leave the earth is small compare to natural processes. There is \\~60 tonnes of solid mater from space that hit earth each day mostly the size of dust and at the same time 90 tonnes of the atmosphere escape so earth have a net loss of 30 tonnes per day. 90 tonnes of lost atmosphere per day might sound like a lot but the atmosphere is huge and for the few billion year before the sun expand the loss is not noticeable. The sun will when it expand make earth uninhabited where the atmosphere will be blown away ",
"I believe not. For animals to gain mass they must eat other mass(food). Also, matter cannot be created or destroyed, only converted to energy."
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f1239b | for building muscle, should you eat protein before, after, or the morning after working out, and why? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/f1239b/eli5_for_building_muscle_should_you_eat_protein/ | {
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"It's a daily requirement. You don't need to carry protein powder in your gym bag and run to the locker when your done working out or whatever. Just get about 1.5 grams per kg of body weight daily. Try to space it out in all your meals. \n\nPersonally I like a protein based breakfast (eggs, bacon, milk, etc) and have a protein shake once a day. Combined with a protein source for lunch and dinner I get all I need. As long as you're training, keep the protein and calories consumed levels consistent, and in line with your goals, and you'll grow muscle.",
"Doesnt matter. As long as you are getting protein. \n\nSupplement manufacturers often say afterwards or both. But they are trying to sell you supplements.",
"I'm sure there are some real nutritionists here that know better, but this is how I understand it:\n\nProtein synthesis for muscle repairs lasts for hours or even days, so as long as you eat protein throughout the day you should be good regardless of time. On a finer level, your body responds to molecular signals, so consuming protein right after a workout may begin stimulating protein synthesis immediately."
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c69kpv | how the poison in/on an animal doesn't harm the animal itself? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c69kpv/eli5_how_the_poison_inon_an_animal_doesnt_harm/ | {
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"It's not usually located in a place that can be damaged by the poison. Humans are the same way, we have germs and other things in our digestive system that if they made it back up to our stomachs, we would be seriously ill. But our bodies are designed to keep things separated. \n\n & #x200B;\n\nThat's why getting stabbed or shot can be extra dangerous if certain organs are punctured....things start to spill into places they really shouldn't be.",
"Toxins (poisons produced by organisms in nature) and venom (toxins that are injected by a bite or sting) generally do their dirty work when introduced in some way to the bloodstream or to some organ. Animals with venoms generally secret their venoms in watertight sacs behind their fangs, meaning the venom is never in contact in any way with the animal's blood or organs. If they accidentally bite themselves, or another creature of the same species bites them, they sure as heck are going to get envenomated. They may also have naturally occurring anti-venom created inside of them, to treat minor injuries that they might incur on themselves.\n\nOrganisms with toxins are generally only toxic to certain types of creatures with special organs to detect or attempt to utilize the toxin. Take capsaicin, for example, a toxin created by most spicy foods. While mildly toxic to humans, capsaicin is nontoxic to birds (who can't detect it in any way!). Or chocolate; a naturally toxic compound that doesn't bother mice, but is deadly to dogs. So, while an organism might produce a toxin, they may not actually have any kind of organ that can absorb it. A cacao plant (from which we get chocolate) doesn't have a liver, so it can't process theobromine in any way, which means it can't be poisoned by the compound that it creates.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nEven humans create deadly chemicals inside of our own bodies. Our stomach acid can kill us if it gets out, and if our pancreas bursts we literally start digesting ourselves from the inside out because of how crazy deadly those enzymes are. But the organs that produce and store those compounds are lined with special cells that are nonreactive to those chemicals, so it's totally fine."
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1072hd | if it only takes one sperm to get a girl pregnant, how come low sperm count causes infertility? | I remember in sex-ed class learning about how many sperms per eyaculation you had to have in order to get a girl pregnant, and if you had less than 10 million (just guessing I don't remember the actual number) You were infertile. But still, people said that if you get one single drop of cum near a vagina, then it only takes one sperm to crawl all the way up and find its way to the ovule. So, which one is true? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1072hd/eli5_if_it_only_takes_one_sperm_to_get_a_girl/ | {
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"Put on a blindfold and throw a dart at a dartboard. Chances are, you'll miss but it is possible that you hit the bulls eye. \n\nNow throw a hundred thousand darts at the dartboard. The odds of you hitting the board and the bullseye is much higher.\n",
"It's technically true that only one sperm ends up fertilizing the egg, but the vast majority of sperm die before they get anywhere near the egg.",
"See it like an army. If you have millions of soldiers, you will be considered a great military power. If you have few, people will assume you will lose the day war breaks out. It's all a matter of odds, sure, you only need one to make it, but having millions assures that the one is in there somewhere.",
"It only takes one soldier to capture the flag, but you need to send a whole battalion of them to ensure victory, and most of them die en route.\n\nA small group of soldiers instead will likely end up getting killed. Emphasis on likely, since these things are not hard truths, but just statistical statements. Once in a very long while, the lone wolf may get lucky (but most of the time ends up dead in a ditch).\n\nYou still need to wear a condom every single time.",
"Both are true. Only one sperm needs to hit the egg, but it's so dam hard to hit it that with only 10 million tries they're never going to make it. You need billions of attempts to hit just once.",
"It is also untrue that it only takes one sperm to crawl its way up and find its way to the ovule. Each sperm has a head and tail - the tail is used for maneuvering its way up, while the head contains the DNA. There is a small sac at the very tip of the sperm called the acrosome, containing enzymes that break down the ovule's barrier and allow the sperm to enter. It takes the work of many spermatozoa to break down the barrier, even though only one sperm eventually enters the ovule.",
"OP, that big army of toy soldiers that I bought for you over there must capture the golden egg. It contains half of the queen’s secret code. But the soldiers have the other half of the code, but they’re stuck in a dense jungle. It is hot, humid, dark, and filled with acid, so your toy soldiers will fall over soon from environment. Also, not all of your toy soldiers are the same. Some are charging fast. Others are prone and possible gone. Some are just standing there. Some also are disfigured since you put them in the microwave when I told you not to. So you’re going to need a lot of toy soldiers. It’s a really dangerous mission. Mother nature always puts up a fight. Sometimes, nobody makes it and we try again. Sometimes…\n\nJust when enough of your toy soldiers reach the end of the cavernous jungle, there is a giant mountain blocking the way. It cuts the land into two valleys. But where is the egg? Is it to the left? Or is it to the right? There’s usually only one egg and if your soldiers choose incorrectly, they won’t succeed and will pass away. Sometimes there’s two, but that’s rare and we call those fraternal twins. So your toy army does the best it can do. Of the remaining hard charging soldiers, half of them go towards the valley of the left. The other half head towards the valley of the right. Both valleys are narrow and winding. The route is long and the environment is just as dangerous.\n\nOh my goodness! The golden egg has been found, it was on the left. A brief moment of silence for the deceased breathen who went to the right. Only a few of the toy soldiers remain upright. It’s the final charge. (insert flight of the valkyries music) The first toy soldier to plant to the flag on the egg wins and the mission is a success. We have both sides of the code now. In 9 months, you will now have a sibling. Good thing there were enough soldiers to complete the mission.\n"
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dqwyn1 | do small sicknesses like colds boost or weaken your immune system? | I keep getting cold and I'm not sure if it is because each one is making my immune system more vulnerable to sickness or if I should let myself fight them off. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dqwyn1/eli5_do_small_sicknesses_like_colds_boost_or/ | {
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"When you have a cold your immune system is in a weakened state. That's why people with colds or similar viruses often experience [opportunistic infections](_URL_0_).",
"In a way, they boost it because it gets exercise/experience. But while fighting one thing, it may be easier for another disease to take hold. \n\nAnd at least for colds, you have no choice but to let your body work through it because there's no vaccine. Let the fever go as much as possible, because it destroys the virus."
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3yw4lo | are road signs standardized around the world, and who makes sure they are? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3yw4lo/eli5_are_road_signs_standardized_around_the_world/ | {
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"They are somewhat standardized, but not completely.\n\nMany countries are either signatories or just followers of the [Vienna Convention of Road Signs and Signals](_URL_0_), but many do not. Even so, no one actually enforces this treaty - it's up to the states themselves to make sure they follow it.",
"Road signs are not standardized around the world, in fact many road signs vary between local jurisdictions (not just countries or continents). \n\nYes, there are select few road signs (notably the stop sign) that are, for the most part, standardized across the world and (as /u/Schnutzel mentioned), there is the Vienna Convention of Road Signs... but most countries have their own designs or mix internationally standardized signs with their own custom/regional signs.\n\nFor example, in many European countries, speed limits are indicated with a sign that has a number printed within a large red circle. In the USA and Canada, speed limit signs do not have a red circle and instead have \"Speed Limit\" or \"Maximum\" printed on them.\n\n[Here](_URL_1_) is an example of common road signs used in Britain.\n\n[Here](_URL_0_) is an example of common road signs used in the US.\n\nNote that there are many differences. Apart from the Stop sign, all other signs are distinctly different or at least vary in some capacity from their counterparts across the atlantic."
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6k9fxc | how does an actor get an acting job? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6k9fxc/eli5_how_does_an_actor_get_an_acting_job/ | {
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"If you want to act in movies and on TV, your first step is to find an agent. They're the gatekeepers who control access to most auditions. To do this, you need to put together a demo reel from student films or self-shot footage and send that in along with a cover letter, headshot, and actor's resumé. \n\nAgents are sent breakdowns from casting directors (which are given to the casting directors by the production). These are little outlines of what characters are in the production. The agent decides who they think the best fits are from their roster and submits them to the casting director. \n\nIf the casting director likes the agent's suggestion, they will call them in for an audition. They usually send the agent sides to pass along to the actor. Sides are little snippets from the script that the actor will perform in the audition room (where they will be taped by a cameraman).\n\nThe casting director, director, and often one or more of the producers will look at the taped auditions and then pick who they think is the best fit. For smaller roles, it may be left up to the casting director alone.\n\nActors without an agent can still sign up for websites like Casting Workbook to self-submit for breakdowns, but they won't have access to as many: most paying gigs are restricted to actors with agents (or union actors).\n\nActing for theatre is a little easier. If you sign up for a local mailing list for auditions, you'll usually be pretty well-informed about what's going on in your city. Of course, bigger paying companies often have to prioritize actors in the theatre union, so if you're just starting out most of what you'll be seen for are small independent projects.\n\n ",
"You find an agent that gets you into auditions. Then you go to those auditions and nail them. Hopefully you get a callback for wardrobe fitting/etc and possible audition again as a \"shortlist\"."
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4wy9n0 | why are some pastas "instant" and others are not? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4wy9n0/eli5_why_are_some_pastas_instant_and_others_are/ | {
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"\"Instant\" noodles are already cooked and then dehydrated. Boiling them just rehydrates them so they're more palatable, but you can eat them \"raw\" (and in some places this is a common snack). Non-instant pastas are not pre-cooked."
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exa008 | when the united states was first forming, why was it important to develop debt? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/exa008/eli5_when_the_united_states_was_first_forming_why/ | {
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"if you owe a bigger country money, they have incentive to keep you around until you can pay them back.",
"It was important to develop and maintain a history of *paying off* debt in a consistent and reliable way. It increased to confidence that creditors had in the U.S., which made it easier for the nation to borrow in the future. \n\nAlso, it created a new market - the bond market - that helped investments more easily flow to new businesses. This made the economy more dynamic."
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3okluf | will video game graphics reach a 'point of no progression', where they cannot be improved anymore? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3okluf/eli5will_video_game_graphics_reach_a_point_of_no/ | {
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"quite possible indeed, but then they would shift on to enhance experiences on other bodily senses. So I do believe that as long as there are humans making video games, there will never be a perfect video game. There will always be room for improvement.",
"Speaking as a designer and programmer I don't think so. Our perception of the world with regular senses is fairly limited eg: 3 dimensions, single rate of time. Computer simulation offers the ability to advance our sensory experience beyond the capabilities of our regular senses. Although this is \"only\" simulation, I still think that represents progression. \nBy way of example look at this model of a hypercube. _URL_0_ \nThis is a model of a shape with more than three dimensions.",
"The concept of \"graphics\" will disappear, replaced by a reality. Currently your brain perceives the game play through your eyes as displayed on a screen. In the future your eyes will be bypassed and the reality created through direct connectivity to your brain. In that state the game will become a reality, and reality will become one of a number of different realities. ",
"Generally, they tend to hit diminishing returns in both complexity of models and resolution of textures. The jump from NES to SNES for example was far more noticeable than the jump from PS3 to PS4 even though there was a more time in between those consoles. ",
"This is tricky as it's a bit of an open ended and complicated question but I'll try my best =)\n\nIn terms of highly realistic visuals we're fast approaching your 'non-progression' point. The example I will use is Kojima Productions P.T. demo as it illustrates my next point:\n\n_URL_0_\n(Warning: For those with a weak heart I wouldn't watch for too long as it is a teaser for a (cancelled) horror game (and a damn good one at that))\n\nBut these visuals are only really sustainable in the environment shown, an enclosed hallway in which they player interacts with almost nothing. The three primary reasons for this I see are production and tech and interaction, I'll try to explain these below.\n\nFrom a tech perspective, imagine your console or PC is a garbage disposal that has a pipe that connects to your TV or monitor. The textures and models that make up the game go into the garbage disposal get process and then down the pipe and get displayed on your monitor. This garbage disposal can only chew up and display X amount of information at a time, so throwing little textures and models in is fine. But creating highly realistic visuals requires really big textures and really big models, and the garbage disposals that are able to chew up that much information aren't easy for people to buy just yet (and console versions don't exist).\n\nIf we DID have a really power and powerful garbage disposal, those big textures and big models? Someone needs to make those, this is the production problem. If you're making a highly realistic game, all of a sudden industry-standard modelling and texturing isn't enough. For arguments sake, everything needs to be 4 times more detailed, this means 4 times more time being spent by artists creating models and textures. Which means the game will become a lot more expensive to produce and the white collars at the top aren't going to agree with this unless they see that such a decision is going to make them more money than they're spending.\n\nNow, if we have that really big garbage disposal, and we've convinced the guys upstairs to make a really pretty game, now what? The player has to be able to play and interact with that loveliness, this is the interaction problem (and is really just a larger part of the previous problem). For example, the player is dropped into a really realistic environment and there is a beautifully rendered lake in front of them. They marvel at it for a moment, decide they want to wade into it and when they do it reacts with a really choppy, wavy motion that doesn't really reflect what would happen in real life. The water does not respond in a realistic manner and thus the illusion is broken. This section is a massive rabbit hole that I could go on and on (feel free to ask about it if you want) but I'll leave it with, the more realistic you make the environment, the more realistically the player will expect it to respond to their input.\n\nAs a closing statement I would like to bring up, do games NEED to be highly realistic? In my opinion high levels of realism actually hurt games as is begins to limit what the developers and gamers are able to do with the content. Not that highly realistic games don't have their place :)\n\n**TLDR; In terms is visual fidelity yes we will reach a barrier, but we will need to overcome significant technical, production and interaction barriers before we do (and an exciting day it will be) :)**",
"In a traditional sense of game graphics, there will come a point where the graphics reach the limit of your sight's perceptions. For example you wont see any improvement in a resolution that is greater than the resolution in which you see (576 megapixels roughly). There would be little point in increasing beyond this point.\n\nThen additional questions pop up. Can we bring other senses into the mix? Or maybe can we find a better method of interfacing the image with viewer? Go direct to the optical nerve? Maybe generate electrical signals in the brain?",
"To give a completely pointless answer, there is a limit to the amount of information that can be stored in a sphere _URL_0_ . If we make a video game that uses all of that storage to present the game, we couldn't possibly improve it. \n\nHowever, improve is really a subjective term depending on what artstyle you prefer, so in that sense, we can constantly improve them until we have done every possible combination of data, so no they won't realistically",
"Yes and no.\n\nWhile that can happen, what will likely happen first is the financial necessities to create such graphics will be so demanding that it would cause the developers to go out of business.\n\nYou'll notice that a lot of middle-tier quality video games have already started to die out. Games are almost either AAA titles or Indie games with lower price points that have some sort of artistic style that lets them look cheap without actually looking bad.\n\nThis is because the last couple of generations of video games has done the whole make or break thing with studios who invested too much into the graphics.\n",
"VR is going to be the next step. I dont think they will allow the kind of VR where you go to sleep in a booth (not anytime soon atleast, because people will literally want to live their life in there), but Im sure they will soon perfect motions as a controller, and a helmet with a fully panoramic screen and a ridiculous resolution (basically a better, smaller, less invasive occulus rift).",
"Not for a very long time. We still don't have perfect lighting, having to rely on older lighting techniques or cheaper general illumination techniques that are sort of like real life but still far enough away to be noticeable. Part of graphics is the ability to simulate objects, which is still pretty bad. Cloth simulations still intersect other bits of geometry for example. Water simulation acts like mercury rather than water, although if you fake it (like Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag) you can make some amazing looking water. LOD systems are still pretty bad, you can still see things pop in from nowhere, or the LOD models switch between each other. Guild Wars 2 has a great way to handle LOD, you can watch a model \"paint\" in rather than just pop in, it's very weird when you finally notice it.\n\nIf we're just looking at raw power, VR sets everything back. Not even 60 FPS is good enough any more, now we're looking at 90 FPS and a resolution of 2160×1200, requiring 3x the power needed for a 1080p/60 FPS game. Some people are thinking even that won't be enough and we'll need higher resolution and frame rate. Maybe we'll get a VR replacement 20 years from now that requires even more graphics power than VR.",
"Computer generated graphics (as we know them today) are made up of polygons. In the early days of CG graphics, the technology wasn't advanced enough to render that many polygons and screen resolutions were low. As technology advances, more polygons can be rendered in real time. More polygons, higher definition = more detail. Eventually, we will be able to render scenes that look indistinguishable from real life. At that point, you could say that there is no progression, as what you are seeing cannot be made to look more 'real'. As was mentioned before, expect to see more virtual reality and augmented reality, which will add to the overall realism. So really, the sky is the limit in terms of 'improving' game experiences and realism.",
"Graphical simulation may reach a point where it is really hard to tell if the images shown are recorded or not. But when you look at things like close up interaction with a large waterfall and fish moving in the water we are ridiculously far from this. The complexity of correctly or with a reasonable approximation simulating several types of light phenomena, in particular effects in flowing water and multilayer transparent and reflective surfaces is so extreme that they are unlikely to be part of a real time video game in the next few millenia. Simply not having these types of scenes or making coarse approximations which look good enough under very limited circumstances hides this from players quite well however. ",
"Speaking as a normal human being... yes. There is a limit. My contacts just got upped to +5/+5, so at this point, the graphics can get better and better, my eyes can no longer really distinguish to that level of detail. I have playing Empyrion and at this point, the only difference I can really tell between the lower resolutions and the higher is the frame rate ;P I'm looking forward to getting those \"bionic\" lens replacements, so then maybe 4k will matter... but even then, there is some biological limit to how finely humans can see... and improved graphics in games will have to come on the heels of advanced cybernetics or some stuff like that so a human can see better. Maybe we'll get full spectrum implants, then games will let you see in additional spectrums?",
"I feel like once we got close to this point, should the industry share/license generic graphical assets, i.e. asphalt, cotton jeans, grass textures to reduce development costs down for the industry as a whole? You could then have developers design the 3d mesh to apply that texture to and then apply color patterns on top. ",
"Probably, yes. They will reach the point where simulation and reality are indistinguishable, however we are a long way from that. Ambient light in the real world is generated by light reflecting multiple times until it reaches your eye. In games we substitute with a flat value. Reflections are expensive, as are shadows. \n\nIts also possible we will reach some sort of hardware limit, where GPUs and CPUS are insanely fast but the only way to get faster is to make them bigger, in a way people won't put up with. Think having a car sized object just to render games. ",
"Eventually in order to perceive the potential graphics of the future, we will need to be directly connected to the system (brain-to-machine interface.) Then the *resolution* will start to be less important than the complete sensory perception received by the user: the usual five senses, followed by kinesthetic sense, temperature, pain, balance, direction, and eventually the ability to perceive electromagnetism. By the time graphics reach levels that are better than average visual acuity in the real world, hopefully game creators and users will finally focus on literally everything else that makes a game great.\n\n",
"As crazy as this may sound I sorta believe this life is a game. Or a recording or simulation. The graphics are so good we believe this to be reality. ",
"I think that the technical issues of raw computing power and visual display systems may get to a point in the far future where they are basically indistinguishable from real life viewing with your own eyes, \n\nbut\n\nit wont matter because no game studio will be able to afford to create games that take advantage of it. Can you image a game where EVERY object in it has to indistinguishable from a real life version? 3D modellers will have to spend weeks creating every single item, no matter how trivial, just in case the game player takes a look at it. A vacuum cleaner in the corner of a room has to be perfect, a shelf of books has to be perfect, a toaster has to be perfect, every door knob, lock and striker plate has to be perfectly modeled. Every nut, bolt, screw, and bit of wire has to be perfectly modeled on every car, train, or plane, etc...\n\nIts simply not financially viable to create a virtual game world that looks anything like \"cannot be improved anymore.\"\n",
"I think artists will always find new creative ways to \"improve\" their work even if the tools don't change much. Paint brushes and canvas haven't changed much in hundreds and hundreds of years, but it's \"improved\" regardless.\n\nComputer graphics will eventually get there too. The technology is getting pretty mature already, the latest video game systems still have noticeably better graphics than the last ones, but it's not as dramatic as it was last time, or the time before.\n\nMaking the chips even faster with more cores and shaders and having more memory to work with and all the things newer hardware has matters less and less.\n\nThe limit will be what the artists can dream up and create.",
"I think the \"Uncanny Valley\" theory can apply to video games. Think of how many games don't bother with realism, but go for a great visual appearance (Borderlands). There will always be something to improve for \"hyperrealism.\" Take a heavily modded PC version of Skyrim for example: \n \nAs visuals get better, movement or combat (as it applies) will look funny. Once NPCs move better, the water will look dated. After that, lighting will look awkward. Then improve your resolution, then improve your frames per second. Then decrease total latency (FreeSync).\n \nRinse and repeat.",
"Eventually they'd hit some form of perceptual limit, but that's not very close to today.\n\nFor some special cases like static scenery the photorealistic barrier may be quite close or even surpassed, but graphic is so much more than static scenery and the computation load as you start turning up the action to 11 can easily become unbearable.\n\nThe range is quite wide. Imagine a white empty room, marble ties on the floor, no curtains and no visible scenery outside, just blue sky outside and daylight illuminating the floor and floor. We can probably create this example to render in realtime and for it to look pretty close to photorealism, check out the Unreal Paris tech demo for something in this direction. Everything is static in these examples so the lightmap can be baked in ultra high resolution. There's nothing surprising in this scene and it will always look the same.\n\nNow instead imagine you're playing a 10 feet mecha, there's a crowd of fleeing people surging past you. You're unloading rocket pods and HE shells against other mecha, the targets are dynamically destroyed according to your hits. The buildings struck by explosives and shells are dynamically damaged to reaveal offices and homes behind the ruined facades. This is more in line with games, people expect rocket launchers, enemies and things that take damage from heavy weapons.\n\nHere we need to\n* People simulation, people have facial expressions, people have clothes, you're going to simulate all this for all the moving people. And you're 10 feet tall so you cannot cheat and not render the people that are obstructed by the crowd as you tower over it. \n* At this point we already face a big problem: People and clothes are soft, and fabric and soft materials are not cheap to render accurately as they deform in ways that are comptuationally intense to accurately represent, they're also often partially transparent which makes light calculations more complex, and when damaged the tearing and destruction also needs high resolution simulations to look realistic and this cannot really be pre-computed as it's a game, someone can be shot from severeal different angles in several different situations with several different guns wearing several different outfits. The complexity for realism becomes even more problematic as you have to figure in adaptive behaviours for the people that appear realistic. Having someone die because they got lasered in their leg isn't realism, but loading up the same cripple animation for everyone that sustain leg injuries aren't going to be realistic either. Someone getting minor shrapneled in their leg(and boy there'd be a lot of shrapnel and all those wounds would bleed if you want to keep it realistic) wouldn't be maimed in the same manner as someone who had his bone fractured by major shrapnel. You'd need dynamic gait models, skeletal damage model and other tissue models to achieve realistic appearance.\n* Lets leave the flesh for a bit and look at hard geometry; it's a lot easier to break this as it's often more bulk materials, the inside of one concrete block is going to look the same as pretty much any other and there's several different approaches to breaking a 3D model into tiny pieces already. But there's still content to fill up. If I tear down half of an office building I don't want to see carbon copy rooms, or empty rooms inside. The buildings need different layouts, the layouts need to be filled with content and so on.\n\nAnd as games become more and more energetic you'd need more and more destructive calculations. So no, we're nowhere near capping out of graphic presentation due to the existence of dynamic content and dynamic behaviours of said dynamic content.\n\nAnd what's the best solution we can implement? Well probably anything we can think of it really, it'll be an issue of throwing more and more hardware at it while software is a matter of time and effort. \n\nIf you name a game then yes, there will be a maximized graphics solution for it, one where you're essentially doing a realtime physics simulation more than just a game simulation. But as hardware improves so does the game and level design concepts. ",
"I often wonder this with mobile phones... Will there ever be a point where the next upgrade really isn't an upgrade because everything is so good already? What more can be improved?",
"With 4k (and soon 8k) screens becoming widespread consumer products, we are quickly reaching the point where the eye can no long even distinguish the level of resolution being displayed, or the rate at which that resolution is refreshed. So from a purely physical limitation of the human eye standpoint, yes there is a point of no progression.\n\nThat being said, there is still an incredible amount of room left for improvements in all of the parts of a scene that make up the total overall feeling of realism. 4k photo-realistic textures and extremely detailed 3D objects are not the only things that make video games look \"real\". \n\nThere are a lot of subtleties to texture and how light plays on and through objects that games (and movies) can only approximate. There are a lot of cheats and work-arounds that are currently used just to get something close, while still being playable on today's computers. Even movies are limited in a lot of ways, and they are forced to add lots of motion blur and lighting tricks to compensate. \n\nSo once the resolution and refresh rates are maxed out, the \"progression\" will move into rendering speed, physics (think fluid dynamics), refraction and reflection, and randomization so that no two trees look alike and no windows have exactly the same pattern of raindrops on them.",
"No. It's just like any technology. It will continually get better and better. People will always continue to push the barriers of graphics and what you can do with it. ",
"no, because even if we all collectively decide as a species on something that looks \"exactly\" like real life then the medium will move towards abstraction and render the question meaningless",
"Stage 1: Fully realistic CG. Think Avengers movies and Iron Man, graphics indiscernible from reality.\n\nStage 2: VR. Realism graphics, but now with full motion sensing, VR goggles, body movement, walking, touch, etc. The closest we can get to being in a game without actually going there.\n\nStage 3: Full Immersion. Matrix style plugin, or Sword Art Online helmets. Basically rerouting your brains sensory inputs for artificial ones, so you *actually are in the game*. This will be the ultimate stage, and will basically revolutionize the world. The real world will just become one of the many inhabited options.",
"isn't life just a video game with really good graphics?",
"The modeling engines will continue to be able to model a greater number of finer and more discrete physics interactions - it's the \"display screen\" that will be replaced with a more direct interface into your brain at some point, giving you a more realistic impression of actually being there. For example, this research: _URL_0_\n"
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3wf38r | why does ice stick to an empty cup when you're trying to get it in your mouth? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3wf38r/eli5_why_does_ice_stick_to_an_empty_cup_when/ | {
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"When the ice cube melts, some water will stay surrounding the cube, \"connecting\" it to the cup, sorta like a vaccum.",
"The little amount of water left around the ice cube has surface tension that doesn't allow air to get between the ice cube and the cup, which makes it \"stick\" to the cup.",
"Two wonderful properties of water are at work here, cohesion and adhesion.\n\nAdhesion means a substance sticks to other substances, and has the same root as adhesive.\n\nCohesion means a substance sticks to itself.\n\nAs soon as some of the ice melts, it sticks to the ice (not sure if it's cohesion or adhesion at this point, since both the ice and water are h2o, but in different phases). Then some of the water layer touches the cup, and sticks to the cup through adhesion.\n\nNow you've got a chain of ice, which sticks to the water, and water that sticks to the cup. The whole chain is held together by the cohesion of the water touching the ice to the water touching the cup.\n"
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2ypuml | why are local mexican and asian markets cheaper than super markets? | Can someone explain, using basic economic terms, why the local mexican and asian markets are able to provide meats and produce at cheaper prices than the large super markets like raleys or safeway? how is it these tiny stores are able to undercut the large retailers? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ypuml/eli5_why_are_local_mexican_and_asian_markets/ | {
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"Bigger markets will have more overhead. More employees, larger store, lots of steps on the supply chain.\n\nSmaller, independant stores will have fewer employees, fewer managers, smaller storefront, and may be willing to take a smaller profit since they have less other stuff to pay for. ",
"In a big chain supermarket, distributors are actually PAYING the store for shelf space... that's why the brand name kids cereal is at arms' reach, while generic or \"off brand\" KaKa poofs are on the bottom shelf.\nA small specialty store only has so many brands to deal with, and some of these places import only one brand of foods for some items.",
"1: They can, and people still shop there\n2: Lower overhead (and usually not unionized)\n"
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