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6svgru | how encryption isn't easy to decrypt | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6svgru/eli5_how_encryption_isnt_easy_to_decrypt/ | {
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"Decrypting a file is easy if you have the key. If you don't have the key you have to guess at it. Guessing the correct key is the difficult part \nEdit\nOops didn't read the whole thing.",
"What you're phone probably does isn't encryption per se, but hashing. A hashing function ensures that similar things are encoded in the same way, but no further guarantees are generally made. However, common hash functions usually have some additional properties. For example, different values are usually unlikely to result in the same hash and it's usually very difficult to reverse the process of hashing and to find secondary values that would result in the same hash value. When your phone checks a password, it probably hashes the password and checks whether that hashed value is stored. Thanks to the additional features of the hash function that is probably being used, the program can be very certain that the entered password was the correct one.\n\nedit: That's for password. For encrypted content, it probably stores the encrypted content only... because the decrypted content will be useless gibberish anyway if the key was incorrect.",
"You are right that there are flaws in some encryption systems that store the key in the same place as the encrypted data. This is like hiding the key to your house under your door mat. This is why most systems will ask you for a password to unlock your encrypted data. The password itself is the encryption key. There is also a problem that if you have access to the encrypted data the key have to be located in RAM. So if some attacker is able to access your RAM he may be able to get the key from there. This was the big issue with the heartbleed bug that allowed a remote attacker to read a random section of the RAM which may contain secret encryption keys. One possible solution to this is to use a Trusted Platform Module which is a separate hardware chip that is able to hold a key but will not hand it out. All encryption and decryption will happen inside the device. Cell phones have had such devices for a long time as the SIM card works like that. Although it is not available for any application."
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ab1pih | why do you feel more awake after not sleeping for an extended period of time? | Like if you stay up overnight you start to feel really drowsy at around 24 hours of no sleep, but then after that initial drowsiness you start feeling awake again. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ab1pih/eli5_why_do_you_feel_more_awake_after_not/ | {
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"So there are two independent systems that influences your sleep/wake cycle.\n\nOne is the circadian rhythm which controls not only sleep but also your hunger, how much urine you produce, body temperature etc.\n\nThe other one is Adenosine, which is a chemical in your brain which creates that sleep pressure you feel when you are sleepy. The amount of Adenosine increase as the number of hours awake increase. This is only recycled from the brain when you sleep.\n\nThe key thing here is that this two system do not influence each other, so whether you sleep or stayed up all night your circadian rhythm will still continue as if nothing happens. In a normal circadian rhythm you peak in wakefulness at around noon, so even though your brain is full of Adenosine (which makes you sleepy) you feel awake when your circadian rhythm reaches it's peak.\n\nYou feel more tired early in the morning because your circadian rhythm is at low wakefulness and there is a high Adenosine level."
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40txn0 | in the early universe did planets form before stars? | As mass started to clump together wouldn't planets like gas giants form first until they gathered enough mass to begin fusion? What am I missing? Thanks! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/40txn0/eli5in_the_early_universe_did_planets_form_before/ | {
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"In the early universe there was only gas as everything was hydrogen. Stars create the heavier elements via fusion. So Stars had to exist first in order to generate the material used to make planets.\n\n > As mass started to clump together wouldn't planets like gas giants form first until they gathered enough mass to begin fusion?\n\nNow this is technically true. They would be \"gas giants\" before they were stars. However we tend to just label those as stars before they were stars because a planet as someone else said has to orbit as star to be called a planet."
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4rapok | how do they move giant statues? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4rapok/eli5_how_do_they_move_giant_statues/ | {
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"Depends on the statue- what it's made of, how it was made, how heavy it is, the longest single dimension, the shortest single dimension, etc.\n\nI work for an art gallery and we've had to ship large sculptural works before. IIRC if anything is larger than 12' on its shortest dimension, it needs a special large load shipment to be arranged. Ideally though a piece would be done in multiple pieces, and these pieces would be assembled on-site."
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1tef6r | why don't restaurants take your credit card before serving food? | In most restaurants you order your food, it is served, then you are given the bill. You hand them your credit card and they return with a credit receipt to sign. Instead, why don't they take your credit card when you place the order and then after you are finished eating they give you the receipt to sign. This would take less time as the wait between giving them your card and getting the receipt would occur while you are waiting for your food. It would also reduce [dine and dash](_URL_0_). | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1tef6r/eli5_why_dont_restaurants_take_your_credit_card/ | {
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"I'm not sure if you mean why don't they scan it through, it's because many point of sale systems (registers essentially) don't store credit card information, so there is no way for them to swipe your card and then have it saved for later to charge your meal when you're finally finished. ",
"Nobody wants to give anybody their credit card for any amount of time.",
"people don't want to feel like they have no control over the meal they are ordering. People want to think that they can always refuse to pay if the meal sux. Also people don't want to let their cards to wander off",
"I think it would show distrust and therefor people would be less interested in eating at a restaurant like that. ",
"Because what if they lose it? What if an untrustworthy employee steals it? People don't like just giving power over their money to a stranger, especially for longer then they have to. It really wouldn't save all that much time either, maybe a few minutes tops. The waiter still has to come back at the end of the meal and clear the table, check if they want dessert, etc. It doesn't take that long to run a card. Its a few minutes saved for something that would probably make a lot of people uncomfortable.",
"I would think it has mostly to do with the fact that the restaurants want to leave the option for you to buy more food as open as possible; if they take your card as soon as you order and run the transaction right away, the question \"Did we save room for dessert?\" is more of a hassle for both the server and the customer. They would have to get out the payment medium *again*, the server has to go run the transaction *again*, tips have to be recalculated *again* (in 'Murica, anyway), etc.\nI think there are small flat (as opposed to scaling) bank fees to the business for running card transactions, which means they would want to sell as much as possible while making as few credit/debit transactions as possible."
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30j5t3 | why do people who have college loans seem shocked by or unable to pay their loan amounts? | I understand that the cost of a college education these days is egregious, the textbook racket should be brought under control, and that sometimes people's circumstances in life change. That notwithstanding, it seems like students who have their loans coming due are asking in various forums how they can pay for it, get out of it, or find some other way to reduce their financial burden.
Is this a case of kids not reading the fine print when they agree to a loan? Surely the interest rate, how much they will owe in the end, and the due date are no surprise. I'm not trying to surreptitiously promote my own feelings on the matter. I genuinely don't understand why I see so many instances of this and would like a better understanding.
Edit: Thank you all for such great answers! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/30j5t3/eli5_why_do_people_who_have_college_loans_seem/ | {
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"Because college costs have gone up, and employment rates/pay rates for college graduates have not increased at the same rate. Many college graduates are going into retail and food services, jobs that previously for those in school or without a college education. ",
"Because it is likely the first loan they will ever have. $30,000 in debt is nothing like saving up $2500 from a part time job to pay cash for a used car. $400 a month doesn't seem like much, but the instant you move out and start adding in all of life's other expenses you weren't paying for before, $400 a month for the next 10 years seems like a fortune.",
"I knew how much it was so that didn't shock me, what did though was the method they use to recover it. \n\nIf your employer isn't paying enough tax to cover the debt payment and the tax, then the debt (HECS here is AU) gets it's money first, the remainder goes to tax, so you end up with a huge tax debt. \n",
"A lot of students assume that once they graduate, they'll receive jobs that will make repayment easy. Upon graduation, they find out that's not the case.\n\nThere are certain majors where loans are very high (doctors, lawyers), but repayment is much less of a problem.\n\nThere are other majors where job prospects are potentially quite poor (humanities, literature), where even basic loans are problematic.\n\n\n",
"Because people have been told their entire life \"Go get your degree and you'll be guaranteed a good job\" or \"If you don't get a degree, you'll never get a good job.\" Many students are exiting from university to find, even with their degree, they can't find a job. Many accept jobs paying minimum wage and part time, jobs they could have acquired with their high school degree.\n\nDuring college, they were told \"Just take out loans, you'll be able to pay for them with that nice job we told you about\" or \"your employer will help you pay them back.\" Well, when they take the job at a supermarket that barely supports them, they find themselves unable to pay because they kind not find the quality of job they were promised when they signed up for college.",
"The average freshman college student has no idea what it actually costs to live independently. Even if they have realistic expectations of what they will earn as a graduate (and many grossly overestimate what a starting salary is), they are in no position to budget out debt payments alongside rent, insurance, car payments, medical care, food, clothing, taxes, etc. The result are large debts that have to be paid off with small salaries by people who have little to no experience handling their own personal finances.",
"50 years ago, only 10% of the country had a college degree. Not only was college cheaper, but getting a college degree - *any* degree - was an immediate ticket to a great career because it really set you apart.\n\nEven 30 years ago, college was relatively cheap and made a bigger difference in potential earnings.\n\nToday, 50% of young people are getting a college degree, so it's just not enough to guarantee a good job anymore. It's just sort of expected for any job, and there aren't enough good jobs anymore.\n\nTo make things worse, most young people's parents, teachers, and guidance counselors are still giving them bad advice. They're still telling kids that going to college is the single most important thing they can do and that it will all be worth it.\n\nBasically, older adults are giving the advice that made sense for them when they were that age. That's only natural. Unfortunately the advice is wrong today.\n",
"I think 17-18 year olds don't fully understand what $30,000 actually means. I took on a ton of student loan debt, and it just didn't really sink in until I started repaying them. I think my minimum payment worked out to slightly over $500 a month. Once I realized how much interest I was actually about to pay, I started making HUGE payments to get rid of the debt. I paid $76,099.04 over three years, saving about $22,000 in interest. Most of my loans were federal, but I did have a hefty private loan with an over 12% interest rate. It was a tough few years, but paying down that debt as quickly as I did was one of the best decisions I ever made for myself.",
"Because the amounts often amount to \"your parents didn't pay this much for their house\" while your paycheck is more like \"you work for less than the cost of a Big Mac Combo per hour\" so the two add up to \"you'll finish paying this off just in time to start saving for your funeral expenses.\"\n\nAs for it all being \"no surprise,\" you'd be surprised. When you sign up for student loans, you're often *not* told in advance what the interest rates will be, nor even the actual principal. The interest rate - if you're told at all - is demonstrated in charts on a hypothetical amount (I believe it's $10,000), usually significantly less than your loans are actually for. You're also not told how much you're actually borrowing *total*, they just send you a disbursement notice each semester letting you know how much *more* in debt you are now. If you haven't been keeping track and adding those up, you don't have a clear picture of how bad your circumstance really is. Remember, you don't have to pay back your loans while you're in school, so most people only see those numbers once every six months. Do you remember the exact numbers on a bank statement you got six months ago? If I asked you to right now, could you even *find* a bank statement from six months ago? (Could your college-age self have done so, if you found organization since then?)\n\nAlso, the notices that *do* explain what all of these things mean are often (whether purposely or as a side-effect) obfuscated by pages upon pages of mind-numbing financial jargon and legalese. You know it would take you three years to read all the terms and conditions you agree to every year? Figuring out in advance how much your student loan debt is going to be is kind of like that; way more work and translation than most people are willing to put in. (The cynic in me believes this is by design.)\n\nSo no, it's not a matter of college-age adults not reading the fine print, it's a matter of the fine print not being tailored to the individual but rather an unhelpful boilerplate, and most of the actual relevant numbers being clouded by huge gaps of time, obviously higher priorities (like actually passing classes), and inaccessible language.",
"The colleges themselves have a lot to answer for. Being in the college situation right now with our oldest, she fills out the FAFSA (because she is eligible for some scholarship money) and they AUTOMATICALLY APPROVE HER FOR A LOAN SHE DIDN'T APPLY FOR; all she has to do is go get her \"free\" money. She has to go \"opt out\" of getting a student loan and make sure they are not attaching that amount to her name. The schools are now addicted to selling a non-guaranteed product, with guaranteed non-returnable cash. I don't know how some kids manage. Kids also have NO idea what the final price tag on that four years is (and the schools are no longer incentivized to create workable four-year curricula). If they were told up front that the tuition, books, living expenses, etc. would be $60,000+, it might make more impact.",
"Already been said, but we're overvaluing education as a society while employers value it less and less because it's more and more common.\n\nFar too many kids are doing whatever they want and not what is in demand. Paying for college degree in most arts and humanity oriented things is a ludicrous waste of money from a financial perspective.\n\nWe are making it worse by making it easier to get loans. College shouldn't be an automatic thing for kids at the current prices. There is an education bubble and it's going to burst. ",
"Some of them are just stupid and unable to do math, and don't realize how much they are borrowing. \n\nHowever, some people also overvalue a college education. They might expect to get a job making a certain amount of money when they graduate, only to find that they can barely make half that amount. This is especially true for those from for-profit schools, which are often little more than diploma mills."
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2k5sti | nyc taxi medallions cost ~ $1m | Is driving a taxi really lucrative enough to warrant shelling out that much for a medallion? In general what's the payback period like? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2k5sti/eli5nyc_taxi_medallions_cost_1m/ | {
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"When you buy something like that, you know that it's going to have the same value, if not more, in the future.\n\nIt's not like you pay $1M, spend the next 20 years paying it off & you're done. You borrow the money to buy it, spend 20 years making payments on it & then sell it off for $1M when you retire.\n\nActually paying off the medallion isn't a goal."
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62v5ly | how is a data scientist different from a statistician? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/62v5ly/eli5how_is_a_data_scientist_different_from_a/ | {
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"Generally, a statistician is an expert in inference - making statements about a *sample* of careful measurements which can be generalised to some larger population.\n \nIn some contexts, especially business, data is available about an *entire population* (like: Facebook users). The challenge getting insight from this kind of data doesn't involve inference, the challenge is the scale and messiness of the data itself. Repurposing data collected incidentally (or as part of a business process) so that it is analysable is not easy, especially if there is a lot of data. \n \nData science (for me) is the collection of skills around cleaning, storing, reshaping, linking and otherwise massaging data. Most statisticians have to do a bit of this, but only on the way to conducting an analysis. \n \n"
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673o62 | why isn't there a universal volume level? | Since I'm not entirely sure how to explain it, I'll explain my frustration. When I listen to youtube, I need to raise my volume button, when I toggle over to a game, I need to lower it, when I want to watch Netflix, I need to adjust it once again. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/673o62/eli5_why_isnt_there_a_universal_volume_level/ | {
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"There is, and it's the one you're altering. But they each have their *own* volume sliders, too, and that's because people might be doing more than one thing at once and different people prefer different balances.",
"Your talking about volume normalization. There is such a thing. Not everyone uses it in recording post peocessing. They should.",
"Several reasons. Sound comes in many formats, and is recorded and played back in different ways, with a variety of equipment. YouTube videos can be made by anyone and they might have too much or too little gain in their recording. Gain is like a volume level for a source, which is typically used to maximize the signal from a source. Too little gain and you get a weak signal. Too much gain and you distort the signal.\n\nMovies usually have their sound recorded in a higher dynamic range (the amount of difference between loud noises and quiet ones) because theatres are quiet, controlled environments. Most of a movies sound track will therefore end up being less loud, and can be difficult to listen to in some environments or on some speakers.\n\nGames are a total mix bag. It depends on a whole bunch of things like how sounds are handled by a game engine and things like drivers and the speakers you are using."
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400wqs | why are slideshows so popular on the web, when a simple list is so much better? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/400wqs/eli5_why_are_slideshows_so_popular_on_the_web/ | {
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"Every time you click to see the next image, you go to a new page, filled with new ads. Making visitors look at ads is how websites make money.",
"You should remember that many websites generally prefer to generate as many views as possible from their content. \n\nSo lets say 100,000 people clicked on one of those slideshow articles. If they put that article in one page its only 100,000 views. But spread the article in 5 pages? Lets say its 100,000 for the first page, 70,000 for the second page, 50,000 for the third page, 40,000 for the fourth page and finally 39,000 for the final page. \n\nAs you can see, they almost doubled the page views from this technique for a single article. This is just an example. Sometimes, page views can even triple or quadruple from the initial total impressions if you spread the pages even more.\n\nRemember, Internet is so vast that this will be more profitable despite many people voicing their opinion against this practice.\n",
"Not defending the practice, but some sites do have a \"Show as one page\" or \"View all slides\" option -- not always easy to find -- which lets you view the page without lots of clicking. ",
"While the obvious answer is more clicks equals more page views (as others have mentioned), many websites use a slideshow box within a single page. So they're not receiving any more clicks per article. Why would they do that?\n",
"It's not perfect but [this](_URL_0_) will usually put them all on one page",
"I think \"popular\" is the wrong word, just a choice by the provider to squeeze in more ad revenue.",
"While a lot of people are saying it's for ad revenue (CPC and CPM) and are correct, they are not 100% correct. Even websites that don't display any ads whatsoever would still benefit from having multi-page slideshows and articles.\n\nWhy?\n\nThe answer lies in Google's most recent update for ranking websites. Up until the last major update, SEO (search engine optimization) was the most important determining factor in ensuring that your website got ranked before your nearest competitors.\n\nThis mean that doing things like optimizing your page title, URL, description, H1 tag and content with the appropriate keywords was one of the most important things you could do to rank. Getting quality (and many) backlinks to your website was just as, if not more important.\n\nThe last update changed that.\n\nNow **UXO (User eXperience Optimization)** is what all the fuss is about internet marketing wise. This means that if you want to rank in the #1 spot on Google, you need to make sure people who visit your website are doing some of the following things:\n\n* Not leaving within 30 seconds of entering without taking any further action (this is called a bounce rate).\n* Clicking on something (ie. interacting with your site).\n* Scrolling down once they land on the page.\n* Visiting multiple pages on your website.\n* Having correct spelling and grammar on your website.\n* Having fast load times for your website.\n\nGuess what these multi-page slide show articles have in common.\n\n1) They make you click\n\n2) They make you scroll\n\n3) They make you interact\n\nYes, they are totally gaming the system and will undoubtedly be penalized in the next Google update. But for now they're exploiting the system quite efficiently and raking in the benefits ($$$) because of it.\n\nOn the bright side, a lot of informational-based companies are doing UXO properly by actually giving their users a great experience, which is what UXO is supposed to be all about. Listverse is wonderful for this. All of their articles are on one page. They write extremely interesting content, which makes you want to scroll. They have outbound links within their articles you can click (interact with) for more information, and plenty of relevant related articles for you to read after you're done the one you're on.\n\nThere are many small business websites and solopreuneurs who are doing this correctly too. Pat Flynn, from _URL_0_, is one of my personal favourites.\n\nIt's the slimeball slideshow websites that are out to make a quick buck.\n\nSource: I work in internet marketing.",
"Web developer here. We hate these as much as you do. There are two common reasons why you'll see a slideshow on a website.\n\n1) Clients think a slideshow will make their homepage more exciting, so they ask us to add one, and all too often we don't talk them out of it because it's work.\n\n2) Slideshows in articles are there for ad revenue. The more clicks or pageviews you give the site, the more money their advertisers pay them.\n\nEvery time you don't see a slideshow, thank a developer or the organization itself for taking the high road.",
"Pro web developer here, I work with clients and have built a lot of websites for small / medium /big clients in the last few years.\n\nSlideshows are not popular among web developers and designers in general. They are a bad solution. I will outline some points:\n\nInformation hierarchy is important. Important things go at the top. Less important below. Using a slideshow breaks this convention, because you now have a space (usually at the top of a page) which has no hierarchy - there is an order to the slides but they all take up the same space.\n\nSlides are usually not visible unless you click through them, instead of scrolling for a simple list. You can't scan a slideshow. Most people don't like clicking through things, so they only see the first slide.\n\nAlso some slideshows (carousels) scroll automatically. This is awful, you don't want it happening when people are trying to read a slide (frustrating), but usually these are on a timer. What if somebody opens the tab but doesn't view it for a minute? now they're on the third or fourth or last slide with no context. Stupid.\n\nSo why do they end up all over the fricking internet? Because organizations refuse to order their information in a hierarchy. Marketing and communications want \"DONATE\" messages somewhere prominent. Content wants the real website content organized hierarchically. The CEO cares about their yearly benefit and wants to sometimes inject a bunch of shit on top of the homepage. \n\nSo how do you appease ten people that are all directors and C-level execs that want their shit on top of the homepage? You guessed it, slideshows.\n\nI will say slideshows are appropriate (if well done, codewise and content-wise) for certain things. Like perhaps an image gallery."
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4twx2q | do additives like techron make a difference on your mpg? or is it all just jargon so they can charge more? | Edit: sry I was more speaking to Arco vs 76 vs shell-shocked vs techron | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4twx2q/eli5_do_additives_like_techron_make_a_difference/ | {
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"Those products claim to \"clean\" the engine. If it has less sludge and the injectors and systems are clean the car will have less friction and should have a bit more MPG.\n\nI think the question should be…. is it worth the cost over what it does.",
"They're basically other hydrocarbons (diesel and kerosene are two popular ones) that have detergents in them. The theory is that the additive will lubricate the engine, while the detergents clean the engine. A lot of them work decent, some better than others, but if you take care of your car you shouldn't ever need to use it. ",
"I sell auto parts.\n\nI see damage from ethanol everyday.\n\nSeafoam or another treatment to help with ethanol I would say is a must for older carb engines. Injected engines it does not hurt and can prevent damage.",
"_URL_0_ guy on YouTube called ChrisFix tests a load of them. This is the techron one.",
"All fuels have these additives, they're legally required. All fuels have roughly the same additives. The name is marketing, the additives are important.",
"There is branded and unbranded gas. Branded gas is Shell, Chevron, Mobil and 76. Literally any other brand is unbranded. Unbranded means that it's literally all the same stuff. There is some differentiation between branded gases, the Techron additive has been scientifically proven to be superior to other additives although you can get the same benefits from using unbranded gas and adding Techron concentrate to your car every 6 months. All of the differentiation is really just marketing. Source: I work in Marketing in the O & G field. "
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1sb0be | how does acid dissolve things? | Can't understand what Google gave me :(
EDIT: Thanks for the help! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1sb0be/eli5_how_does_acid_dissolve_things/ | {
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"The acid molecules are proton donors are thus release H+ ions into solution, depending on their PH level. These ions begin to chew away at bonds between most organic molecules due to their uncontrollable proton, it runs rampart destroying all in its path, and disrupts inter-molecular forces of many molecules. ",
"Basically, aacids are really attractive to other molecules/atoms, to the point where they will leave their current bonds to combine with the acid. As parts of the material break off to bound with the acid, it dissolves",
"Chemist here... Ive seen some explanations here which are not the best... \nDepending on the pka(the disassociation, together vs separate) of the acid and the pH(the relative amount of protons)of the solution you can predict how much the acid will come apart. Strong acids like HCl(hydrochloric) or H2SO4 (Sulfuric) will fully disassociate meaning they will be all Cl- and separate H+, but you will not find any H+ free because they do not exist freely. Instead they will pair with another molecule in the solvent, like Water(H2O) to make Hydronium (H3O+), they will do this with other things, so when acid is poured onto something it will disassociate and bond with this new material making it its solvent. Your skin is held together by hydrophobic interactions, and when acids bind to things they tend to make things more polar meaning that they disrupt this hydrophobic character and cause the bonds keeping your skin together to weaken and break. Turning your skin more soluble in water. \nP.S. Carbon is also more electronegative than Hydrogen, but thats beside the point",
"Let me elaborate : Acid solutions range from 0 to 7 pH, and base solutions range from 7 to 14.\n\nAcid solutions = lots of hydrogen\n\nBase solutions = lots of hydroxide\n\nHydrogen and Hydroxide molecules attract each other, hydrogen consumes and Hydroxide gives.\n\nHydrogen consumes everything in search of Hydroxide, and Hydroxide REALLY wants to force you into receiving destructive protons.\n\nAnd btw : water = hydrogen + hydroxide."
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5mei4l | why is it that some people don't know how to swim or even float in water? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5mei4l/eli5_why_is_it_that_some_people_dont_know_how_to/ | {
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"Part of it might be the fact that your friend in amazing shape - muscle is considerably more dense than fat, and sinks while fat floats.",
"Humans have a breath holding instinct annnnd that's it. Swimming and floating (the latter being kind of a beginners version of the former) are learned skills for us.\n\nDespite the aquatic ape hypothesis, we *know* we evolved for a long time or dry, arid savannas, not a lot of call for swimming.\n\nYour friend should take a class - it's not *that* hard to learn enough to save yourself (at least to do a good float or something) and may save his life.",
"Humans don't instinctively know how to swim. Infants have reflexes that imitate swimming motions, and instinctively hold their breath when submerged but they can't keep their head above water or know when to breathe.\n\nWhat seems like instinct to you is simply because you were introduced to it at a young age. Many people don't go in water deep enough to float/swim until later in life. I'm 30, can't float or tread water, and I can barely swim (cover distance) but I plan on taking lessons at the local Y.",
"Our only real evolved instinct is holding our breath. Without basic swimming training most people will flail when submerged in water which causes them to sink in even very salt water. \n\n\nBasically, people need to be taught how to swim in order to swim. Most learn at a very young age at their local pool, river, lake etc but many dont either due to physical, financial or random reasons."
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2j445v | why is it easier to eat healthier/less on workout days? | I've noticed something about myself and need an explanation. I find on days that I go to the gym I have far fewer cravings for junk food, and am far less hungry in general. While on days I don't work out I'm famished all day long.
The lack of desire for junk food makes more sense to me. I imagine it's because my body is craving protein as opposed to fat to repair the muscle damage the workout caused. But if there's a better explanation please let me know.
Where I'm really confused is my overall lack of hunger. It doesn't matter what the food is, on workout days, I'm much less likely to want it. Shouldn't my body be craving more calories to make up for the ones I expended while working out? If it matters for the explination, my workouts are pretty intense with weights and cardio, not just a quick jog or anything like that. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2j445v/eli5why_is_it_easier_to_eat_healthierless_on/ | {
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"I'd imagine that a lot of it is psychological. You just put in all that hard work, the last thing you want to do is to mess that up by eating too much. That and perhaps the shitty food you eat in your moments of weakness is less desirable after feeling good from a workout (endorphins)."
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debx57 | what’s doppler velocity and how is it calculated? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/debx57/eli5whats_doppler_velocity_and_how_is_it/ | {
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"Doppler velocity is something called a vector, which is either negative if the source is approaching, or positiveif it's receding. This is also known as the mean Doppler velocity. You take the velocity vector V and find its dot product with the radial component to find Vr. This is a pretty specialized thing, usually seen in the context of something like a \"speed gun\" aka LIDAR sensor. \n\nIf you're just looking calculate Doppler shift though: _URL_0_"
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65ux0l | why is it that a machine that has no moving parts can start working correctly again after a reboot or a significant period of downtime? | For example, our home WiFi started playing up after everyone came back for the Easter holidays. 6 people in the family, all with multiple devices and whatnot. Anyway, after rebooting it several times to no avail, I decided to leave it off, completely unplugged, overnight. Now it works fine. It's not like it's a living thing that needs rest, or a machine with moving parts that requires maintenance, how is it that this worked? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/65ux0l/eli5_why_is_it_that_a_machine_that_has_no_moving/ | {
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"A device like a wifi router is still connected to the same connection after a quick reboot most of the times. Leaving it of makes the connection to the provider timeout and it has to make a new request and so on and so on.",
"I think part of it is capacitors retaining some charge that keeps memory or data still in play. When off for a longer period, those capacitors fully discharge and the data is then fully cleared from memory. So, if there were conflicts or corruptions they get refreshed fully.",
"For one, and I know this may be a bit nit picky but I think it's an important distinction, your wifi/router isn't a machine. It's a computer. Not a computer in the same exact sense as your pc or laptop, but it's still basically just a computer.\n\nI make this distinction because, like you said, a machine has moving parts and has noticeable wear and tear and thus needs maintenance. However, computers need a degree of maintenance as well. Just because they don't have moving parts doesn't mean they don't experience wear.\n\nThe circuit boards, capacitors, processors, memory, and all forms of electronics and chips that go into them pass electricity and take on a degree of wear. Maintenance for these kinds of components is generally keeping them clean of dust/debris. Dust will insulate the components causing them to heat up and wear out faster. You may already be aware that computers don't like heat. The heat generated as a byproduct of the electric current passing through the components is what actually causes the wear and tear.\n\nWhen the software has a bug/glitch or some kind of hang up that, in this case, doesn't allow you to connect your devices then powering it off can often times allow everything to reset and work again properly. Sometimes this means more than just rebooting. If you've ever had to call the cable company and they helped you trouble shoot anything one step they'll often ask is to unplug it from the wall (and if the device has a battery pack they'll ask that you remove that as well) and leave it unplugged for some duration of time. Often times something like 20-30 seconds. Other times they may say a minute or two. This is to allow any residual energy stored in the capacitors to drain. Once all power is removed it will finally reset. You can reapply power and see how things look once it's booted up.\n\nIf maybe you've ever seen some older electronics (older radios for instance) that had an LED to indicate if it had power and/or if it was on, when power was removed you might see that LED slowly dim until it went out completely. This is due to the residual power still lingering in the capacitors. I believe there's still plenty of current generation electronics that'll do this but I know it was more common in older electronics."
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5qpezo | how did the challenger shuttle explode? | Due to today being its anniversary I attempted to find out how it exploded but I have only found sources stating a complex way of how it exploded. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5qpezo/eli5_how_did_the_challenger_shuttle_explode/ | {
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"It was an O-Ring failure. But what's an O-Ring anyway?\n\nO-Ring joints are rubber and are designed to handle tremendous pressure and to also be flexible (to accommodate any imperfections in the mounting parts). Because they are rubber, if the surface is too rough, they can suffer from abrasion and wear out. Also, because they are rubber, temperature can affect them as well (too cold, they lose flexibility).\n\nSo what happened to Challenger when the O-rings failed? The rockets were made of several tubes joined together. The best description I've heard is that it's like stacking tin cans and filling them with gasoline. The force and pressure of liftoff can pull the cans apart slightly where you tried to join them, so you line them with a flexible rubber seal, like in canning when you have a rubber seal on a jar. If the seal doesn't hold, you loose air pressure in the cans and burning fuel can escape -- you lose propulsion and get a big explosion.\n\nRubber o-rings lined those joints in the space shuttle and kept burning fuel from leaking out. That morning, the temperature was too low, the rubber was not flexible enough, and there wasn't a good seal. Burning fuel, leaking out...an explosion. One big enough to blow apart the boosters and destroy the shuttle.",
"The solid rocket boosters attached to the side failed.\n\nThe SRBs are built in segments; when the segments are placed together, O-ring seals keep the high pressure gas inside the SRB from escaping through the gaps between the segments. Because it was so cold on launch day, the O-rings didn't form as good of a seal as they needed to; the high temperature gas on the inside vaporized the seals, and hot gas started venting out of the gap between the two segments.\n\nThis isn't good. The shuttle continued flying for a little while after this happened, but eventually the structure failed (the rocket is subjected to extreme forces on the way up) and it exploded."
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4v0afq | with all of the evidence and research on climate change, why are there pretty much no significant changes to any country's environmental policies? | I mean if scientists are telling us the world is getting hotter, surely if it were true countries would have to change policies so they don't bring a global disaster? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4v0afq/eli5_with_all_of_the_evidence_and_research_on/ | {
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"Firstly - There are several countries that have changed enviromental policies, especially in Europe.\n\nHowever, the main reason some countries aren't doing more is that those kind of policies won't win your next election. Higher taxes on fossil fuels and meat for example is a good method to reduce CO2 emmisions, but would be very unpopular among the population who then would vote for another party next time because they don't wanna pay the price for it.\n\nUnfortunately most politician makes decisions on what will make people vote for them, rather than what is best for the country in the long run.\n\nAnother popular argument is \"Large countries like the USA don't do anything so why should we?\"",
"There are many and varied reasons. Part of the problem is that politics tends to lend itself to short-term focuses over the long term: if you make policy decisions that could be unpopular *now*, but may (or may not) pay off in fifty years or so, then the *now* is going to be at the forefront of most politicians' minds, because *now* is when they are up for re-election.\n\nThen there are the vested interests and lobbying that seek to rubbish the results, and since these interests often have a lot of money that finance campaigns, etc, again it's hard for politicians to ignore them.\n\nYou could also add the fact that most politicians simply don't have the skills needed to evaluate scientific evidence. This is probably because scientists don't tend to go into politics rather than specifically the fault of politicians, but it does make it harder to sell the case to people who can't follow the details and, therefore, are more susceptible to being convinced by counterarguments no matter how flimsy they are.\n\nAll this is important, but an even greater problem is that fixing climate change, or trying to mitigate its effects, is a global effort and global politics simply doesn't seem to allow such an effort to be successful. It's hard enough to get Russia, China, the US, India, Europe etc to work together at the best of times. There's also the problem that the very factors that contribute to climate change (such as fossil-fuel intensive energy and industry) are also coupled to strong economic growth, so telling developing countries in Africa that they must reduce use of fossil fuels is equivalent to telling them that their economies aren't allowed to grow as fast as ours were.\n\nIn short, then, because politics. ",
"I think it has to do with what activities are driving climate change. Some of them are things we can't see ourselves doing without so we need to come up with alternative sustainable ways of going about things. \n\n\nOne example is energy, there is a constant demand for energy and a need for a sustainable and clean source of energy. \n\n\nWe use electricity, for example, for just about everything such as heating, lighting, e.t.c. We use fuel for transportation and cooking and energy production drives various aspects of modern life. Moreover, when you bring in economic growth that is tied to a particular fuel; and the issue of population growth, meaning that demand for energy will increase... That said, it is known that our production and use of energy (especially from fossil fuels) contributes to climate change, it is something like 80 percent US greenhouse emissions come from this.\n\n\nThe problem here is whether or not we develop alternatives that are cheaper, cleaner and as productive in terms of output. If not then progress slows, countries that benefit economically from fossil fuels are more reluctant to part with their \"cash cow\". Those that are less economically developed are don't have the luxury of choosing a greener but more expensive option. Environmental policies need to be realistic relative to implementation and enforcement. \n\n\nAnother way to look at it is, global disaster is later, I but right now I (we) need to ... This is how policy makers and politicians need to operate. Certainly if they want to be elected and have a term in power that has visible results, and tangible actions making it more likely for them to be re-elected. Short term goals are more punchy, and the general population can get behind them.\n \n\nAdditionally, similar to gun control legislation in the states, there could be some pressure put on some politicians to ignore some of these issues by companies and groups that benefit from these unsustainable activities. \n\n\nOr sometimes you have politicians who are just idiots and don't seem to believe in climate change. For example Theresa May, the current Prime Minister of the UK. One of her first acts was to move the responsibility for climate change to a new Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy. That's just setting climate change up to be largely disregarded. When she was just an MP she often didn't attend bills on climate change or generally voted against measures to prevent climate change. Though, in the interest of fairness, there are a number that she did support. "
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1xjco2 | why have some famous people of jewish ancestry anglicized their last names ( john stewart, bob dylan, natalie portman, etc.)? | I've always heard about the cliche of the self-hating jew, but I have never met anyone I would classify as such. Does this trend I've asked about have more to do with the cliche I mentioned, some fear of persecution or discrimination, or neither? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1xjco2/eli5_why_have_some_famous_people_of_jewish/ | {
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"Many performers are concerned that if they seem too ethnic, they run the risk of being discriminated against and not getting some parts. Particularly when you're trying to break into showbusiness, it's important to take any good part you can get. Nowadays, discrimination is probably less of an issue than it was in the past, but for some people, it's not worth taking any chances. ",
"Because--for a minority that secretly controls the world financial system and runs Hollywood--they seem to get discriminated against an awful lot. I dunno, you'd think they could use some of their secret world domination to fix that...\n\n\n",
"It's not limited to Jews. Did you know that John Wayne's real name is Marion Robert Morrison and Marilyn Monroe was really Norma Jeane Mortenson? Actors change their name so it'll be easier to say, spell, pronounce, and most of all, remember. "
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472hf5 | why is it, in the age of the internet where a virtually unlimited amount of information is available to the public, people are still required to go to college to get their degree? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/472hf5/eli5why_is_it_in_the_age_of_the_internet_where_a/ | {
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"It is also entirely possible for people to self - educate yourself on the internet with nothing other than crap - to become a confirmed anti-vaxxer and climate change denier. College and accreditation both curate the information so you're reading good, true stuff as well as testing your understanding to see if you actually learned anything. ",
"Sometimes, to have credibility in a certain field, you might need to know things that don't interest you and you might not be motivated to study them on your own. There is also the professional guidance of your professors and they challenge you to grow in ways that you wouldn't necessarily push yourself alone. \n\nThat's my experience from engineering school. I think much of it was superfluous, but I'm better off than I would have been if all I did was Wikipedia search what I thought was cool. ",
"In many industries, if you can prove you've got the skills you can qualify for the job. Google even employs plenty of autodidacts.",
" > Is there not a way to go and just take a comprehensive test that proves whether or not you are worthy to hang a sheepskin on your wall?\n\nYeah. It's called the college finals.\n\nNot to be flippant, but all you're doing is taking the burden of testing you from the colleges and putting it on the companies looking to hire people and they have no incentive to accept that extra cost. It's quicker, simpler, easier, and cheaper, for them to simply see that your resume lists a degree (which they can check quickly, simply, easily, and cheaply), toss in a few technical, job-related questions and then evaluate you on the job.\n\nYes. You can be knowledgeable without a degree.\nYes. You can be ignorant with a degree.\n\nBut in this day and age a degree merely gets you in the door. It claims you not only know the stuff associated with the degree, but have the maturity and diligence necessary to complete long-term tasks. And while it isn't an iron-clad guarantee, it's certainly a lot better than: \"You can trust me because I said so. I learned it all from the Internet.\"",
"It's all about the accreditation and proof. \n\nYou can learn everything you learn in a university curriculum on your own - that is a given. You can look up the syllabus of all your classes, buy the books, and do the work on your own. Granted, you won't have a test if you study on your own.\n\nThis is essentially where the accreditation part takes hold. When you graduate from University X and receive a diploma, that is essentially University X vouching for you stating that you completed all of the courses necessary for your major and passed all the tests. \n\nSo why is this \"vouching\" so important? Why can't employers just check the knowledge of candidates themselves? Well... you have to put yourselves in their shoes. Suppose you're running a business and you need to hire individuals with certain skills. You receive resumes and you look through them. You see many of them with diplomas at various universities, but you also see a couple without diplomas but their resume claims they have the skillset. \n\nSo how do you take about making sure that those without the diplomas actually know it? Do you make all of them take a test? Okay, so let's make a test. What type of questions will you ask? Even if they ace the test, how do you know they know more than that or if they just got their hands on your last year's test that some candidate leaked on a public website? There's a lot of dynamics at play when you're looking for a candidate. Remember: your goal is to hire once and the best candidate for the job that is within your budget. \n\nMaking tests and ensuring your candidate knows everything he/she needs to know takes time and money on your part. This is why employers will often prefer to use the diploma. A diploma will, more or less, ensure that this candidate is capable of doing the work ( granted, there are some who 'cheat' their way and the diploma is misleading, but for the majority it is reliable enough). \n\nKeep in mind that a diploma is usually only good for your first one or two jobs... which makes the cost of getting a diploma more infuriating, but it is all about getting your foot in that door. \n\n\nTL;DR: You are an employer. You have candidate A and candidate B. One claims \"self-taught\", the other holds a diploma (which you verified). Are you more in favor of candidate A or candidate B during the hiring process?\n\nEDIT: Oh, the diploma holds higher weight in engineering degrees/fields. This is why engineering degrees in the most prestigious institutes are so difficult to get good grades on or even pass. Schools/institutions will often pride themselves on graduating the most skilled graduates simply because they make their tests harder and curriculum more advanced. Compare MIT to some local community college... not the same right? There's also things you can't \"self-teach\" yourself. Bio/chem labs are a good example of this.\n\nThe only engineering degree you can essentially go from A to Z at home is computer science - and this is one of the appeal of the field; if you have a decent laptop and the internet, you can potentially learn everything you need to know to get into the field. In addition, you can place all your work online for employers to see. However, the bigger question is whether you have the drive and discipline to learn the subject well enough for people to hire you.",
"Honestly, because people need structure and direction and don't often know what they need to learn to learn other topics or to effectively use what they have.\n\nFor example, you can sit yourself down online and teach yourself Python. Will that teach you effective algorithm design? Will that teach you software engineering, i.e. how to structure and manage a project? Will you learn the principles of proper object-oriented design or how to debug projects? Will you learn when Python is an appropriate tool or when you need to use a different language? Will it teach you the OS & hardware underpinnings you need to understand, e.g., the importance of whether a process is memory-bound, CPU-bound, or disk-bound? \n\nThe problem is that you don't know what you're ignorant of if you're self-taught. You can fix the \"known unknowns\" but not the \"unknown unknowns.\" Throwing everyone to the mercy of a test after an unstructured learning period is just a recipe for failure.\n\nNow for some harsh words. Sorry if this chafes a bit.\n\nI get that you're impressed with your ability to pass physics with (only) a B after putting in no effort, and I hope the rest of your college career / life doesn't kick you in the teeth for not developing a solid work ethic and coasting on brilliance. However, you are probably going to face your limits pretty soon and should learn to appreciate that there are things that you won't be able to discover by just coasting and soaking up the world in your magnificence. \n\nCollege is in part there to teach you what you need to know and give you a chance to exposed to people who know more about a subject than you -- if you are willing to actually *use* that opportunity and not toss it away in a fit of smugness. You *will* regret it if you just blow off the whole experience as a waste of time, and if it actually is a waste for you, then you should have put more effort into a better school instead of being content with that B in a freshman level class. This world is going to roll you, if you don't grow up, kid.",
"A college degree is proof of more than textbook knowledge. \n\nBetween general education requirements, consistent *testing* and *analysis* of skillset, homework and the social aspect - the degree not only certifies the person's credentials, but also implies their education is well-rounded, they can do the work, and they can work well with peers. \n\nWhen you get a job, your level of knowledge is the least important factor. Most jobs are reachable. But you do need to be a good 'fit', especially if you're there to spend 8 hours in the same building everyday as coworkers. Most jobs are a collaborative, after all. The degree helps differentiate a person in this way. \n\nGranted, not all college graduates are well-adjusted and not all self-taught folks are difficult to work with. But there are tendencies in life. \n\n\n\n",
"The facts that you know is only a small part of a college degree. Having a college degree means that you spent 4 years or more focusing on a single goal. It shows you have a work ethic to stay with a task. You have had to deal with work life balance in the form of classes and studies vs friends and parties. There are a bunch of life skills that you learn when you are finally on your own, but there are also a ton of skills that are valuable to an employer that you learn in college. \n\nLearning at your own pace, when you feel like it, and having no accountability along the way does not foster the same work ethic as having to read chapters within a week, being quizzed on them, and having to retain that knowledge until the end of a semester.\n\nAlso, a college degree includes all the gen eds and side parts of a field of study. You may have learned everything there is to know about mechanical engineering from the internet, but you never had to take an English class, and can't write for shit. You also focused on mechincal engineering, and didn't learn any civil, or agricultural that would have been touched on in 100 and 200 level classes. \"Simple\" things that an employer would just expect you to know related to the field of engineering, you don't know.\n\nIf I was en employer, and the job required a college degree, I'd require one. I may filter out 3 in 100 candidates without degrees that could have done the job well, but the other 97 were not worth the time interviewing. That's a gamble I'm willing to take.",
"From \"The Function of Schools: Subtler and cruder methods of control\", by Noam Chomsky (in *Education as Enforcement: The Militarization and Corporatization of Schools*, Saltman & Gabbard, eds., 2003, Taylor & Francis, NY):\n\n\n-\n\n\n > The basic institutional role and function of the schools, and why they're supported, is to provide an ideological service: there's a real selection for obedience and conformity",
"Education generally brings people positive returns in a few ways:\n\n1. It teaches them skills\n\n2. It creates networking opportunities\n\n3. It provides a signal to employers\n\nYoutube videos and TED talks can do 1, but not 2 and 3. Moreover, while we have access to unlimited facts via the Internet, people need systems of knowledge and critical thinking by which to understand and evaluate those facts. And it can be useful to have an expert evaluate whether you are learning and applying knowledge in appropriate ways. If I googled \"climate science\", the first hit could be some denier website with cherry-picked evidence which would send me in very much the wrong direction. \n\nFor what it's worth, most research on online and hybrid classes finds poorer results than brick and mortar universities. Though certainly, highly motivated people like OP can and should follow their passions outside university.\n\nFull disclosure: I'm an educator, so I'm definitely biased here :). ",
"Nothing wrong with being self taught and whatnot, hell if you can prove it, even better, but what a degree gives you a certificate that says you learned all that stuff from a credible source. \n\nlet's say you're hiring a new engineer for a company. Why would would you just take somebody word when they say they spent a lot of time online and studied a shit ton of engineering and upper level mathematics? Even if they can verify this level of skill, why waste your time verifying his/her credentials when you have somebody else applying who has a degree in engineering from MIT. The first person might have taken free MIT classes, but with the second applicant, the academic institution has effectively vouched for their qualifications by way of the schools reputation. In this universities have an incentive to still provide quality educations. Even if all of MIT's courses are available online for free, an MIT engineering student is still expected to come out with an expected degree of quality implicit to the degree. \n\nFor most entry level positions, for most companies, it'd be crazy irrational to waste valuable time and resources testing every autodidacts qualifications when they could just limit their screening to people with degrees. ",
"College is not just about learning the material, it's also a chance to grow personally by interacting with other people. ",
"Okay, wall of text incoming.\n\nCurrently studying computer science and to quote one of my professors \"Watching someone write code is like watching someone juggling, just because you can see how it works doesn't mean you get any better at doing it yourself\" we're basically digital plumbers who need to learn how to think \"right\".\n\nAny basics can be easily covered by watching tutorials online, but beyond that the internet isn't really helpful when it comes to writing, debugging or optimizing code.\n\nI'm sure you *could* get the necessary knowledge from surfing the web alone, but you'd have to sort through tons of useless/repetitive information, which you won't have to in a well-structured education. \nBesides, half of my education so far have been comparing code and ideas with my classmates, which really is the best way for learning new ways to look at a problem and trust me, you'll need to learn that when you get stuck, and you **will** get stuck with sufficiently big projects.\n\n6 months in we were told that we had the necessary knowledge to make anything we could think of and that the rest of our education was about giving us the tools to handle any kind of work environment we could encounter when we'd get a job. So far they've been right and yet I've found myself banging my head against a wall on several occasions.\n\nTo sum it up..\n\nWith traditional education you've got experienced people teaching you what they know is expected of you to know when you get a job, what order is the best to learn it in, where your avaiable tools excel and how to emphasize on the strengths, but also where they are lackluster and how to overcome that.\n\nAlso.. Proof that you know what your doing is helpful when you're trying to get hired by people who don't know what you're doing.\n\nTL:DR Traditional education has people who've had a job teach you what you need to know to get and keep a job in the same profession. (You really should read the rest too, though)"
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3o66zn | if the boiling point of water can change depending on the air pressure, can its freezing point change as well? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3o66zn/eli5_if_the_boiling_point_of_water_can_change/ | {
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"Yes! \n[This is called a phase diagram for water](_URL_1_). \nIt shows what state water will be in, just look up what pressure and temperature it is. \nThe take away is that if you compress water enough, it will freeze nearly regardless of temperature. \nBut it would probably not be the kind of ice we are familiar with. Those roman numerals indicate the different kinds of ice that would be produced under those temperatures and pressures. The difference between them are how the water molecules are arranged. \nNow you may have noticed that there is a point where all 3 areas meet called the triple point. \nSo will it boil, freeze or melt when it hits that triple point? The answer is [Yes](_URL_0_)",
"Phase diagram of water.\n\n_URL_0_\n\nBasically, freezing point can vary, but not nearly as much as boiling point.\n\nEdit: And, yes, at the air pressure on the surface of Mars, liquid water can exist in a narrow temperature range."
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3zivgs | how is media allowed to extensively cover the details of a crime investigation if it essentially makes it impossible to form an unbiased jury later for the trial? | Yes, I've been binge watching "Making a Murderer." Is it simply a right provided in the first amendment which allows reporters to cover anything they can about the investigation as it progresses? At least in today's modern society, it seems to me that by not restricting access to the details of a crime investigation to reporters, it is inevitable for at least some of the jurors to be previously exposed to the information through media (and therefore form their own biases) prior to the trial. Wouldn't it be more consistent with the right to a fair and unbiased jury to conceal the details of the investigation until the actual trial is underway, and then allow reporters to cover the trial in real time? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3zivgs/eli5_how_is_media_allowed_to_extensively_cover/ | {
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"In the USA, freedom of the media is an extremely strongly protected right -- *especially* coverage of things the government is doing.\n\nThey can always find a jury, since (1) not everyone follows the news and (2) if necessary they can relocate the case.",
"First Amendment, freedom of speech, freedom of the press.",
"Your beef should be more with the prosecutors than the media. Media was just doing its job. The prosecutors have an ethical duty not to cover \"facts\" about a trial that will have a \"substantial likelihood of materially prejudicing\" a trial. That's what the defense lawyers on the show were mad about. The prosecutors went on record describing a grisly scene that turned out to be, if not a lie, then completely uncorroborated by any evidence at trial. Prosecutors likely did it to influence the potential juror pool in the case. "
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4frfnr | why can we associate songs with different memories?? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4frfnr/eli5_why_can_we_associate_songs_with_different/ | {
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"In short: Music is not associated with only one part of the brain, but all of it in an interconnected fashion to such an extent that Audio therapy is actually used to assist patients suffering from Alzheimer's and Dementia.\n\n\nedit: Suppose I could explain this a little better. Sorry, it's early here. Music is comprised of many different parts-- e.g Rhythm, Pitch, Tone-- all of which will be linked to different parts of the brain. Most of it will be processed by the auditory cortex, Broca's area and wernicke's area (if the song has language or lyrics) but we can also associate memories of music as being involved in both hemispheres of the brain-- e.g associating the sound of rain with say, the image of a rainy day.\n[Relevant wikipedia article.](_URL_0_) Not really ELI5 though."
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47ilvr | why hasn't anyone come up with an alternative / modification to democracy that works better? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/47ilvr/eli5_why_hasnt_anyone_come_up_with_an_alternative/ | {
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"Two reasons, \n\n1) People in power **like** the way the current system lets them abuse it.\n\n2) The \"little people\" ie, you, me and every other citizen, has to **want** the change, has to call for it. If that doesn't happen nobody will ever look for a change.\n\noh and a third.\n\nDemocracy gives the illusion of choice to the masses so it placates us and slowly removes the mob anger when we feel like we choose how our countries are run.",
"On the same principle that any standard modern democracy functions by - Majority Rule - the same principle applies to it's application and use.\n\nQuite simply, because the majority wills it, it stays.\n\nPlus historically speaking, many other alternative systems have been found to be either too complicated for the layman to understand, or, those alternatives have been distorted and perverted by those wanting to abuse it for their own ends.\n\nDemocracy - ***arguably*** - has the least chance for possible corruption, while still promoting a large degree of self determination.",
"There are many *alternatives* to democracy. But why do you assume that there must always be something *better*? What great rule of political science have you discovered that always requires people to invent completely new systems that are better than those already in existence? Your question relies on an assumption about the world which I don't think is true.\n\nPart of it is that the essential ways which people can organize themselves are limited. The basic question is, who has the power, and how is it transferred? A single person, a clique, an upper class, the masses? Is it transferred by heredity, meritocratic appointment, elections, rule of the strongest? The possibilities are not infinite.\n\nNow, if we get down to the particulars, there are many ways to organize democratic systems, and people often experiment with new voting schemes, parliamentary rules, the balance between representative and direct democracy, etc. There is certainly some innovation in democratic governance. There's also much disagreement about what is best, which is why there is so much variety in practice. But there is no essential reason that the democratic concept must eventually be discarded in favor of something new.",
"Maybe because there isn't a better system. Why would you not want a say in your government? Who do you think should rule over you? Or did you want to rule over us? Best to spend our time improving democratic systems, not replacing them with something undemocratic.",
"Who says they haven't? Implementing a new system of government is really hard. You need to take over a country and get rid of the existing regime. We don't just test new systems of government on test cities, then say \"that worked, now let's change the Constitution.\"\n\nDemocracy fought an uphill battle for a very long time. People said it was tried by Greece and Rome and didn't work. That it just decended to mob rule and corruption, and pandering to idiot voters. It took a long time to get over monarchies.\n\nWe can't even get new voting systems, like instant runoff or proportional vote. We still have the electoral college!!\n\nSo what would an alternative to democracy look like? One idea is randomly sampling people from the population, instead of voting. That way you avoid many of the issues with democracy like pandering to the public, instead of voting for what they really beleive.\n\nYou could also filter them with an IQ and educational test, so only the top 5% of the population gets in.\n\nAn idea I've had is to do ideological Turing tests. Every representative would have to write an page defending the other side's position. Then they would have to distinguish it from writings of people who really believed it. If you understand your opponent's views enough to be indistinguishable from them, you get a vote.\n\nI'd also like to see a government tried that works more like the supreme Court. The supreme Court is pretty rational compared to Congress. They actually debate things extensively and carefully come to a decision. Maybe this is because appointments are for a lifetime, and they aren't influenced by normal politics. Or maybe it's because the culture and the way it's set up to debate issues instead of just voting for their existing opinions. I don't know.",
"It is frequently claimed that Winston Churchill once said “democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others”\n\nWhat would OP suggest as the alternative or modification?",
"You think you live in a democracy? The only correct description of the current system is of it as a parliamentarian representative based benign oligog, The democratic part is between the members of the elite collective, not the public and statistically based on their opinions.",
"I have been pretty obsessed with New Zealand's Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) system lately. They have a video explaining it here:\n[_URL_0_](_URL_0_)\nBasically though, one of the big problems with first past the post systems (first person to win 50% plus 1 vote win the election) is that elections are almost always closer to 50% than 100%. If there are two seats up for election, and one party wins each race 55% to 45%, they have only gotten 55% of the vote, but have won 100% of the seats. In an MMP system, you vote once for a candidate, and once for a party. This allows cross party voting, since the party and the candidate you vote for do not have to be from the same party, and means that win 55% of people vote for a party, that party will end up with about 55% of the seats, not all of them.\n\nIt seems to be a much better system than most; but lemme know if you are from NZ and I am wrong",
"We have, it is called a Democrat Republic. That is the form of government that The USA has. It is still not perfect but it is an improvement on just pure democracy.. ",
"Churchill said, \"Democracy is the worst form of government, except all others.\"\n\nIt's the best we got. This comes up a lot law, government courses. If you really want it explained like a five year old, why don't I give you a five year old task? Go invent your own government! See it all the way through, and see if it would work, and try and implement your government into either one of our complex industrialized countries or see if an up and coming nation will adopt your system of government. And remember, no flaws, people's lives are on the line or even though the other systems have flaws developing nations will then immediately revert back to original government, if it's not too late.\nHope that helps",
"Well every county has their own system, and some really are better than others. \n\nDemocracy is a concept not a system. \n\nIn practice though, what matters to the public is policies, not the system that creates them. Any country which has a political system capable of copying or developing good policy can function reasonably well. India and China are a good example, up until the 1960s both were very poor, Indian democracy hasn't had them adopt the policies that produced growth in both gdp and education that China has. In that regard you could say Chinese 'communism' (capitalism with one party rule) is superior to the democracy in India. \n\nOn the other hand, if you look at Europe vs the US, Americans are much more likely to be murdered, and much more likely to go bankrupt if they get sick, but Europeans on average are less productive per hour and the European Parliament and Eu in general had proved somewhat disastrous for several countries, and they are incapable of making it better in the short run (hence the British considering a vote on exiting, since they aren't getting what they want). So you could say European government is better at some things, but worse at others. \n\nEven the UK, Canada and Australia all have very similar systems, having been the same system ~100 years ago, but health care, crime rates, labour productivity, etc are all different. Even very similar democracies can produce different results, because the variations between a house of lords, a Senate, provinces vs no provinces etc, all matter. \n",
"We have plenty of alternatives and modifications to Democracy. The democracies of Denmark, the UK, and the US (for just three examples) operate totally different and handle elections and representation differently. ",
"The west is obsessed with promoting democracy and even if there was a better system developed somewhere it wouldn't get mentioned by the western media so no one would hear about it. Also that country would get regime changed in no time at all.",
"This is a weird question. You're asking why a super complex system isn't better. Maybe because it's difficult to properly balance the many variables? Solutions to problems don't magically appear out of nowhere, and sometimes imperfect systems are the best you can do.\n\nBut let's make your question slightly more complex in order to give you a better answer: What are some of the factors that go into government systems, and what are some other forms of government that might be able to reform and improve our system?\n\nGenerally, government operate on a spectrum of fairness on one side compared to efficiency on the other. Maximizing fairness involves getting more people and more opinions in on the process--after all, you should have a say in your own future. Democracy obviously favors fairness. Maximizing efficient minimizes the opinions available, favoring quick decision-making over hearing everyone's thoughts. Monarchies tend to maximize efficiency.\n\nSo really it depends what you want. Monarchies have a very, very good track record--most of society and technology is due to monarchical regimes. Because they're so efficient, they can be very powerful, but their lack of oversight and other opinions creates strong potential for abuse.\n\nOf course, monarchy and democracy are not a strict dichotomy. There's ways to make democracies more efficient and monarchies more fair. The UK, for example, has a constitutional monarchy, which is a monarchy with so many democratic elements mixed in that it's actually a democracy. \n\nWithin democracies, there are two ways to adjust the system--voting process, and institutional barriers. By far the least complicated is institutional barriers. For example, not all democracies have a division of powers or bicameral legislature. Many of the key structures of the US democracy are not necessary to democracy, but were specifically designed by the Framers to add inefficiency. Fear of tyrannical central power plus a desire to concentrate power in the states led to the US creating one of the most inefficient systems there is.\n\nIn the couple hundred years since the Constitution, a lot more thought has been put into voting behavior. Up till then, most democracies operated on an SMDP model--everybody gets one vote, for one person, for one seat. Simple, easy, but hard to implement when the numbers get really big. How is a single representative supposed to represent a diverse population of over 10,000? That's where other voting systems come in. SMDP is very efficient, but it's not very fair. So you could allow people to rank the candidates in their vote, and drop out candidates who don't get enough of the vote. Or you could put multiple seats in a district. Or you could vote for parties, not candidates. There are many, many options.\n\nSo the short answer is, you have to decide what you want. You can move away from democracy towards a more efficient model. Or you can alter your current democratic rules to allow increased fairness or efficiency. Nothing is \"better\" in a vacuum. It depends on the preferences of the people.",
"This question doesn’t have an answer, something that can be *explained*. First you’d need to define ‘better’. Dictatorship is better for some people, at least.",
"The current US system has a good basis, but variables have come into play that weigh the whole system down and make it teeter quite flimsily between the will of the people and the will of the rich. The Founding Fathers didn't truly want a democracy, they wanted an oligarchy and that is exactly what we have. \n\nRemove the ability of lobbyists and corporate interests to have greater influence over the people and we would be headed in the correct direction. "
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yecgz | prop 30 in california? | I'm really confused and I hate going to a YES for Prop 30 or NO for Prop 30 website. I feel like either way its skewed and confusing. If I'm understanding this correctly, they want to increase taxes to generate money that is NOT going to schools, yet if it doesn't pass schools get the cut? Sounds like a ransom? But please, non-biased, and like a 5 year old, what's the dealio? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/yecgz/eli5_prop_30_in_california/ | {
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"Taken from Balletpedia\n\n > Provisions of Proposition 30 include:\n\n > Raises California’s sales tax to 7.5% from 7.25%, a 3.45% percentage increase over current law. (Under the Brown Tax Hike, the sales tax would have increased to 7.75%)\n\n > Creates three new high-income tax brackets for taxpayers with taxable incomes exceeding $250,000, $300,000, and $500,000. This increased tax will be in effect for 7 years.\n\n > Imposes a 10.3% tax rate on taxable income over $250,000 but less than $300,000--a percentage increase of 9.71% over current policy. The 10.3% income tax rate is currently only paid by taxpayers with over $1,000,000 in taxable income.\n\n > Imposes an 11.3% tax rate on taxable income over $350,000 but less than $500,000--a percentage increase of 17.7% over current policy.\n\n > Imposes a 12.3% tax rate on taxable income over $500,000--a percentage increase of 24.39% over current policy.\n\n > Based on California Franchise Tax Board data for 2009, the additional income tax is imposed on the top 3% of California taxpayers. \n\nTrying to be neutral here as best I can. I could not find any information about schools being hurt by this bill's passage or it's failure to.\n\nSo far it looks like sales tax will be raised a little bit (an estimated $1 billion, which in the grand scheme of things, is NOT a lot of money), while the upper class will have their taxes increased (see above for exact numbers).\n\nOpponents to this proposition believe that there is no guarantee (no literal guarantee in the text) that the money generated from the new taxes will go to the schools.\n\nThe proposition also does not address cutting of waste expenses (unneeded programs/administrative overhead).\n\nOpponents have stated that the money will most likely be used to \"backfill the insolvent teacher's pension fund\".\n\nTo the best of my research, we have over $500 billion in unfunded pensions. The proposed sales tax increase would only provide another $1 billion, nowhere near enough to fund any significant portion of the pension funds. \n\nNOTE: I have no idea how much money would be generated by the new income tax rates.\n\n**Please let me know if my math is wrong**\n\nTo make it easier to understand how the sales tax would affect someone, say you pay $60 during a trip grocery shopping. Currently you would pay $4.35 in taxes for a total of $64.35. With the tax increase, you would pay $4.50 in taxes for a total of $64.50\n\nNow say you're going to buy a brand new TV at Costco. The TV costs $1,500. With the current tax rate you will pay $108.75 in sales tax for a total of $1,608.75. With the new tax rate, you will pay $112.50 for a total of $1,612.50\n\nAs you can see, the sales tax rate increase by itself would not affect the average citizen in a major way."
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3xzdpt | if a civilian thinks i've committed a crime, and orders me to "stay there", am i legally required to do so? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3xzdpt/eli5_if_a_civilian_thinks_ive_committed_a_crime/ | {
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"The answer to this question is entirely dependent on the location of the alleged crime, and the nature of the alleged crime. And when I say location, I mean what country. And if you're talking about the US, its probably going to depend on what state you're in.\n\nAdditionally, the exact location of where you are, and why you're in that spot is going to provide additional information (e.g. in a store and accused of shoplifting, etc.)\n\nSo, you're going to need to provide a lot more information before this question can be answered. ",
"In very, very very special cases they are allowed to detain another. \n\nIt very much depends on the exact jurisdiction, language used, and situation. \n\nUnder the citizens arrest laws, in situations where a citizen is 100% sure another citizen has committed a crime and not immediately detaining them would mean they are likely to put someone in danger to to other be findable in the future, a citizen may very clearly say he is putting another under citizens arrest and may forcibly detain them. \n\nHere's a basic overview _URL_0_\n\n\nThis is almost always a very bad idea. Even if 100% in the right, not being able to prove with 100% certainty that they knew without a doubt at the time that the person was guilty and that detaining them was so beneficial to the public that it outweighs the forcible detainment would land them in a lot of legal trouble, as would not being able to prove they used the right language and followed every legal requirement to the letter. \n\nPolice have a lot of built in legal protections to let them do their job reasonably and safely, taking this into a citizens hands is dangerous not only in the immediate situation, but legally in the future, as well as for the erosion of personal rights. \n\n\nIn short, sometimes it is legal for a citizen to hold another, most of the time not. As with all legal matters on reddit, consult a local lawyer for specifics in your area and on specific cases, there are no general answers",
"This really depends on where you are. In most parts of North America, another citizen is not allowed to physically restrain you, as that is assault. Legally, you are free to leave. In most places, you are allowed to defend yourself as long as you use \"reasonable\" force and can show that you feared for your safety. This might be hard to prove. If you do choose to leave, do so as passively as possible and make sure that witnesses can verify that you are not the aggressor."
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pr7p2 | why, when i fall asleep with my socks on, does my foot hair hurt to move in the morning? | Whenever I go to sleep with my socks on and take them off the next morning, the hair on my feet hurts whenever its moved in a different direction than its the one its matted down to. Why does that happen? Does it have something to do with my hair follicles being pointed in a certain direction or what? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/pr7p2/eli5_why_when_i_fall_asleep_with_my_socks_on_does/ | {
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"I figure it has to do with the hair shaft being bent by the sock all night, so the follicle is strained by the hair being tugged the wrong way.",
"Frodo, is that you?",
" > Does it have something to do with my hair follicles being pointed in a certain direction or what?\n\n[/r/askscience](/r/askscience) ",
"Sorry you didn't get any good answers, I am interested to know as well. As a guy with extremely hairy legs, I get the same feeling when wearing long socks/leggings",
"This probably won't be like you're 5 but I'll try...\n\nYour body hairs have their own little [muscles](_URL_0_). It is possible that keeping your socks on all night leaves these muscles \"strained\"--different than their normal resting length--which causes discomfort by morning.\n\ndisclaimer: this is speculation based on 1 year of medical school",
"I'm just guessing here, so here's my idea. Each hair follicle is attached to an Arrector pili muscle. These muscles account for your hair standing on end etc. So, I would think that by wearing socks while you sleep, your are also forcing the hair follicle and the muscle into the same position for a long period of time. I think, like any muscle left in the same position for an extended period of time would become sore. As I said, I've no idea if this is correct.",
"It's like people have mentioned, keeping them stuck in one position overnight \"sticks\" them that way and when you try to move them it hurts since they are stuck where they are. It's similar to hat hair, when you wear a hat all day, taking your hat off and moving your hair can be uncomfortable. ",
"My best explanation: \nYou know how when your hair is in a ponytail for a while and then hurts to move? (sometimes called a hairpin headache)\nit's the same principle. The hairs are being continuously pushed in one direction, pulling the skin at their base with them. When you move them, the hair/skin isn't used to that way and it hurts. \n\nI don't really know, but I think this is right!",
"Same thing happens when I wear a hat too long. ",
"Where I'm from, we say you've \"got the sockfoot\". ",
"Fucking hat hair on my feet! Half the time when I bring this up people look at me like I'm crazy and the other half are relieved to not be alone in their suffering. Since this isn't /r/askscience I'm just going to throw out a guess. When you get hat hair on your head it's from the follicles being tugged on. Just like it hurts when someone yanks your hair, imagine it as someone gently tugging on it for an extended period of time, then when they let go the scalp is understandably a bit sore. Same principle with the feet I think.",
"My cousin and I have been calling this phenomenon \"scoodgums\" since we WERE five",
"Holy shit this happens to me too. On my feet and on my legs if I wear long socks. ",
"With this post it has been revealed to me that the absolute smallest thing that I thought only I noticed is actually something that other people notice too. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS INDIVIDUALITY.",
"I hike and backpack quite a lot, and I have come to the conclusion that whoever solves this problem will make billions from hikers alone.",
"...am I the only one who always sleeps with socks on?",
"This is why I shave my feet hair. ",
"Fourth year med student here. You're going to have to post a picture of your foot, complete with hair, for me to accurately determine the cause. "
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5ofnb0 | how is it possible to be able read text and think about a completely different subject simultaneously. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5ofnb0/eli5_how_is_it_possible_to_be_able_read_text_and/ | {
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"This legitimately was always my problem with trying to get into books. \nI would be reading the words but thinking about something completely different haha. Good question. I'd like to hear an explanation as well. ",
"I always catch myself doing this and having to go back and reread a page or 2; especially when studying "
]
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1xrlo4 | why do we learn the times table up to 12 instead of 10? | Is there any point to the 12 times table? why stop at 12, it seems like the 11 and 12 are basically useless in this day and age 10 is way more appropriate.
Edit: Thanks to /u/DFOHPNG for pointing [this](_URL_0_) interesting read | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1xrlo4/eli5why_do_we_learn_the_times_table_up_to_12/ | {
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"[This may help.](_URL_0_)"
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3rkrl0 | wireless vs wired internet and the usage of bandwidth. | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3rkrl0/eli5_wireless_vs_wired_internet_and_the_usage_of/ | {
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" Let him plug it into the router since its next to it. It will be no difference.\n\nThe reason for slow down is bandwidth related...either you have a really low bandwidth (or speed) and his xbox gaming eats up a ton.....or something else in the chain is causing issues and you guys are just noticing it.\n\nWhat internet package do you have and speed?\n\nSome ISPs have datacaps and throttle speed...."
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5rpgo2 | how come if i start at a warm-toned light long enough it will look blue? | I noticed this when I was staring at the lights in my school's library while laying on a couch. The lights are a warm white, but when I stared for about 30 seconds they looked cyan blue. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5rpgo2/eli5_how_come_if_i_start_at_a_warmtoned_light/ | {
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"This is based off of (at least in psychology) the opponent process theory. Your eyes, are able to process the three main colors of light, red, green, and blue, separately. As you stare at a light that may be a bit red or yellow, the receptors that take in these colors eventually become \"tired\" causing you to sense less of that color, thus seeing more blue. This same concept helps to explain colorblindness as some will only confuse one or two colors rather than all colors because only one part of the eye doesn't work right."
]
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z84gw | please eli5 why does it take my printer a full 5 minutes to cancel a scan when i push the cancel button? | It seems to me that to stop doing something should be as simple as, well, stopping. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/z84gw/please_eli5_why_does_it_take_my_printer_a_full_5/ | {
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"I'm sure there's a technical answer, but the long and short of it is printer software is terrible and that is because they sell the hardware for nothing and make their money on the ink. ",
"I haven't programmed printer/scanners before, but basically electronics only check for input every once in awhile and respond to it even less often.\n\nIt's kinda like if I told you to go to sleep, but then at 4am said \"nevermind, wake up.\"\n\nIt's hard to make programs respond to input at all times, especially on limited processors like you find in cheap electronics. Also, you typically press cancel when it's misbehaving, which increases the chance that this is an area of code that was written poorly.",
"part of it is bad code, and the other part is that the printer hardware is sensitive to calibration, and you have to wait for it to be in the right position before it is ready for the next step, before it can do the next one.",
"You see, printers speak a different language and they are really bad at reading or speaking incomplete sentences. So when your computer sends it a letter to do work, the letter told the printer everything he needed to know to accomplish the task- printing. Now imagine the work method of a printer like a LARGE ship( titanic). Once it gets a full wad of steam and the letter explaining where to go and how, it can only go full speed. When we stop, we have to send a new letter which has to be translated again and then a careful calibration of the motors have to take place so that these new instructions can even be performed, if that is we didn't already arrive to our destination, which results in a face in a desk bc the printer has arrived but your new letter says to stop. That takes a lot of philosophical thought from our printer. Meanwhile we are angrily staring at the screen or printer sending more and more letters to translate. Often times the simple mind of a printer just can't handle. \nHope that explains a bit. ",
"It probably gets the signal as soon as you press the button, but wants to spend five minutes emptying the ink cartridges while it's at it.",
"Buy different brands, maybe not wide advertised or available in big stores (they want to earn on cartridges too). Not sure if Brother products are available in you area. They got large amount of ink in cartridges and cancelling scan and print works immediately when you press red STOP button on the printer. My printer is [this one](_URL_0_), bought it couple years ago for something like 130 USD (I choose this model because it has fax in it), is used as main printer in small office (about 200 - 300 sheets printed monthly), still works flawlessly, even when replacement cartridges are used. ",
"It pretty much has almost nothing to do with the printer hardware. its the combination of lousy software design on the Windows side, AND the printer side. ",
"Because printers come from hell to make your life miserable and you shouldn't owe and use one.",
"Follow up question. ELIF why do printers always seem to fail? They become unconnected and just difficult in general",
"This is just going to turn into a rant about why we all hate printers. I would be surprised if there was a genuine answer here.",
"I'd recommend getting a Brother printer. I've used Canons/Epsons/HPs my entire life and thought that printers were just universally pieces of mechanical shit, but then I got a cheapo $100 laser printer from Brother and jesus I never thought I would evangelize a printer but goddamn this thing is awesome. Prints so fast, auto duplex. They make versions with scanners, too, much quicker. \n\nCan't comment on their inkjets, thought -- but if they're of the same quality as their laser printers they'll be a damn good value. ",
"In technical terms it's because it's shit. Get a wireless printer like an Epson.",
"Because every page you print, whether you want it to or not, is one page closer to you having to buy a new ink cartridge."
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38wjg1 | how does rubbing batteries together restore their charge? | Sometimes when my batteries are low I rub them together and they seem to have more life in them, for example a torch might be brighter with the same batteries after rubbing them together, why does this happen? Thanks! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/38wjg1/eli5_how_does_rubbing_batteries_together_restore/ | {
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"You are probably just heating the batteries up. Heating them up causing the chemical reaction to accelerate, producing more current, but then reducing their life.",
"It doesn't. \n\nWhat does happen, is that since you're holding the batteries, you're warming them up due to the warmth of your hands. Chemical reactions happen faster at higher temperatures, and as such, warming the battery produces a slight boost.",
"Sometimes batteries can appear flat if they are no longer making good contact with each other, or the device. Moving them around can restore the contacts and make them work."
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3vcaxw | the infrastructure for cell phones seems very different than the infrastructure for landlines. how do they communicate with each other? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3vcaxw/eli5_the_infrastructure_for_cell_phones_seems/ | {
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"Cell towers communicate with central stations over dedicated data lines, typically fiber optic data links. It's not that different that the system copper wire phone exchanges use to communicate with each other."
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599z4y | why after a train stops moving, do i still feel/see it moving? | So I'm currently sat at the back of a train now, looking out the window at the back. I've noticed that when the train stops at a station, if I look out the window, I feel like I can still see it moving ever so slightly, even though it's not. Why? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/599z4y/eli5_why_after_a_train_stops_moving_do_i_still/ | {
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"Liquid sloshing around in your inner ear. \n\nThat's how balance works - the movement of the liquid, tiny hairs etc. in your ear tells your body that you're moving. If you stop reasonably suddenly they continue to move for a short while which your brain interprets as movement. "
]
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36wdq6 | what causes the strange "haunted house" noises when no one is home, sounds like running footsteps, bangs like someone knocking, and other clear loud noises? | Curious about it in general, but I've also recently been experiencing these in the house I'm staying at. We've had stuff fall over, sounds of footsteps like someone running, sounds like someone rummaging through stuff in another room, a weird rattling noise like someone shaking a cup of coins, and whistling. I'm curious what the rational explinations for these things could be. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/36wdq6/eli5_what_causes_the_strange_haunted_house_noises/ | {
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"Most noises from a building that are not directly from human activity (walking, etc) come from a few sources:\n\n* Thermal expansion and contraction: As the sun heats the structure, some parts expand more than others. This causes creaking, popping and sometimes even loud bangs. The opposite can happen when it gets dark or even when a cloud goes overhead.\n* Water hammer effect in a pipe: If water is running in pipes (because a dishwasher or other appliance is using water, for example), it can produce a repetitive banging sound. This is called a \"water hammer\" and usually means you should have a plumber look at it.\n* Rodents, insects or other pests can make sounds in the walls or attic.\n* The building's foundation or other parts of its structure may settle and cause noises.\n* The wind may make the structure shift or cause it to sway, creating pops, bangs or other loud noises inside.\n* Birds may peck at exposed flashing on the roof (I've had a woodpecker use my chimney flashing as a mating call. It's amazingly loud).\n\nThere's plenty more totally mundane reasons for noises to occur in an unoccupied (by humans, anyway) structure, but these are some pretty common ones.\n"
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1j12nt | why are homeowners able to refinance their mortages at a lower interest rate, but college grads are not able to refinance their student loans? | Consolidating is an option but typically this will not lower the interest rate, just minimize monthly payments by extending the payment schedule. Why is there no legislation that exists to assist college grads in refinancing during a low interest rate environment? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1j12nt/eli5_why_are_homeowners_able_to_refinance_their/ | {
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"Sometimes you can, but it is definitely less common because houses increase in value, college educations normally decrease in value.\n\nLegislation isn't what causes home refinancing (normally). The reason it happens in houses is because it's often profitable for lenders to do it. It isn't as likely to be profitable to refinance student loans.",
"Collateral. You can't foreclose on education. A degree has no resale value. ",
"I did. I'm not sure why I'm apparently a special case but I consolidated my student loans from 5.3% and my interest rate is sitting at 1.7% right now.\n\nI did this back in 2005 or 2006, I don't know if that makes a difference.",
"One factor is that student loans are in many cases backed by a government promise to repay the loan if the student defaults on their payments. It is very unlikely that a bank would be able to write new debt at an interest rate that is beneficial for the student to refinance and to compensate the bank for the risk of default by the student once the government backing of the original loan is lost. \n\nThe lack of collateral and the fact that the rate of student loan default is much higher then that of mortgages makes student debt a risky bet for banks if it is not guaranteed. \n\nThere are also very high upfront costs when refinancing a mortgage that a bank charges to underwrite the loan. The long length of a mortgage generally helps to reduce the average cost of the refi over time. Many times refinancing a student loan wouldn’t be beneficial to the student because of the upfront costs that would be involved also."
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9j7nl0 | how do color changing cups work? | I am talking about the plastic cups that change color when they get hot or cold. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9j7nl0/eli5how_do_color_changing_cups_work/ | {
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"Most color changing paint works off of Leuco Dyes. The Leuco Dyes change form from being colored to transparent with temperature changes. The dye is mixed with salt crystals that are either very acidic in nature or very basic, and the paint is sensitive to changes in the pH of the environment. Therefore, when the temperature changes, a chemical reaction takes place and those crystals mix with the dye. The optical properties of the dye change, making it appear either opaque or completely transparent! In short, it’s the melting of those crystals that change the pH of the environment, causing the color change.\n"
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4nzfe2 | if humans are so much smarter than cats and dogs, why can we potty train our pets in much less time than a baby? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4nzfe2/eli5_if_humans_are_so_much_smarter_than_cats_and/ | {
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"Potty training has more to do with neurological maturation than intelligence. You actually can train pretty young babies to use a toilet Pavlov-style, but that's not really the same as them mastering the \"skill\" of controlling it. Dogs can walk earlier than humans can, too. ",
"It's generally frowned upon in most social circles to be seen rubbing your baby's face in its own mess...",
"Also, humans infants are **far** less developed than most animals, including other great apes. For example, a human fetus would need an 18-21 month gestation to emerge roughly equivalent in mental development as a chimpanzee newborn [(link)]( _URL_0_).",
"Humans are smart and walk upright, which means we have big heads and small pelvises. That makes giving birth tricky, so we've evolved to give birth as soon as possible, well before the baby has any ability to care for itself whatsoever, and in fact well before the brain is even fully functional (which is why you don't remember anything before about age 4). We can get away with this because we're smart and walk upright (important because we have our hands free).",
"Humans have big brains -- this means humans have to have big heads. Because humans walk upright, there are certain mechanical requirements on legs / thighs that limit how big a woman's baby making parts can be -- this means humans have to have narrow hips.\n\nThese constraints on human physiology mean that childbirth is a lot more painful and dangerous for humans compared to most animals.\n\nOne way to get around that -- to allow babies with bigger brains/heads to be born while still retaining the capability of walking -- is to have babies be born earlier when they're smaller overall.\n\nThe end result? Even full-term human babies are born incredibly premature compared to other animals. Having a long \"helpless infant\" stage in our lifecycle is basically a price the human race pays for having the combination of intelligence and walking upright.",
"The trick is to remove all other outside distractions, this way your child can learn through repetition and reward. Alternatively, have you ever just turned off the TV, sat down with your child and hit them?",
"in addition to all the posts about big heads + small hips = early birth, i would like to point out that very few people have succeeded in training their dogs or cats to take off a pair of pants before relieving themselves.",
"Wife and I had two daughters. We never made a big deal about potty training and they just adapted to it very quickly. I guess we were lucky. One important thing, we never showed anger when there were 'accidents' or messes. If you really can't stand shit and piss you should not have kids.",
"And humans are born earlier in their development than dogs because of our big brains. If we were to be born at the same stadium of development as dogs that would kill the mother 100 %of the time.",
"If animals took as long to learn these things as humans, they wouldn't be potty trained until they were halfway through their lives.\n\nI suspect that their lifespan and speed at which they mature has a lot to do with this.",
"Not sure if it's been said but human babies just can't control it. The nerves that control pooping and peeing are not \"insulated\" at birth. ",
"It is pretty rare for a dog of any breed to live past 15. This is where the dog years expression comes in. A normal dog takes about 3 months or more to properly house train. So if you take in account dog years , the amount of time to train your dog and your human is actually pretty close. "
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c4ncky | how do they come up with names for new medical conditions? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c4ncky/eli5_how_do_they_come_up_with_names_for_new/ | {
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"There are a couple of different ways. This one is to name a new disease after the first patient diagnosed with it, like Lou Gehrig's Disease or Asperger's Syndrome.\n\nAnother common technique is to give it a descriptive name, like acquired immune deficiency syndrome.\n\nEventually, if the disease is caused by a pathogen like a virus or bacteria, the scientific name given to that virus or bacteria might become associated with the disease it causes itself. But that is the least common way of naming new diseases, since we tend to discover the disease before we figure out what is causing it.",
"Many are named after the doctor who first documented it or first documented in depth like doctor John Langdon Down whose work lead to the Down Syndrome being named after him.\n\nOthers syndromes and diseases get named after patients who have them.\n\nSome are merely known for what they do like AIDS.\n\nIn the past diseases where often named based on where they were thought to be from, but since every country had their own idea where the diseases originated (other than not here) that led to everyone having their own name and wasn't really helpful."
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5vly7z | how would an interplanetary civilization measure time? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5vly7z/eli5_how_would_an_interplanetary_civilization/ | {
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"If they have FTL travel without timey-wimey effects, they'd probably use the standard time on the home planet. If multi-racial, they would probably decide which species' system is used through war or diplomacy.\n\nIf their FTL travel DOES come with time dilation, then they would probably not be traveling to and from frequently enough for them to use a standard system. Any communication would take years just to send a message and get a reply. Any dealings between colonies would probably work on an \"It'll get there when it gets there\" system."
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2p3w2c | the superhero "universe" | I don't know diddly about how all the superheros are connected. I honestly didn't think they even were until recently when they are all in each others movies.
So what's the deal with the overarching universe? Common enemies? Same time periods?
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2p3w2c/eli5_the_superhero_universe/ | {
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"Comic book companies, specifically Marvel and DC, in the past would have several lines of comics, each with their own heroes. Over time, in order to mix things up and keep the comics interesting, they would do crossover stories where heroes in different comics series would get together in a single series. However, Marvel could only mix their heroes together, and DC could only mix their heroes together.\n\nEventually, these crossovers became really popular and a mainstay in comics, creating their own series like Avengers and Justice League."
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65j997 | how do glass and other transparent materials work on a molecular level? do they have more space in between molecules? does the light interact a lot less with their molecules? how does the light come through where in other materials the light is absorbed? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/65j997/eli5_how_do_glass_and_other_transparent_materials/ | {
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"Glass does absorb light, but not in the visible spectrum. Molecules have molecular energy levels for their electrons (and atoms also have atomic energy levels the same way). When they absorb light, the energy of the light matches the energy difference between the energy levels, and an electron is promoted to a higher energy level. It just so happens that typically, the molecules in glass (mostly SiO2) don't have a difference in energy levels corresponding to the energy of visible light. They do happen to have a difference in energy level that corresponds to light in the UV spectrum, hence UV light does not pass through normal glass very easily (unless it's pure SiO2). This also means you're unlikely to get a sunburn in your car with the windows up.\n\nIt also happens that the glass molecules are generally not the right size or shape to scatter visible light either very much. However there is some light reflected from the surface because glass has a different refractive index than air (ie. light travels slower through glass). At any boundary where there is a refractive index change, some light will usually reflect (see the Fresnel Equations). Hence if the surface of the glass is not smooth, it will reflect light in many directions, and it will effectively scatter light at the surface. \n\nEDIT: like Mariofosheezy pointed out, also remember that most matter is not very dense, most of the volume is made up the \"electron clouds\" hence if the molecular orbitals of the glass don't interact much with the light, then it is basically passing though 99.9% empty space as far as it's concerned. \n\nEDIT2: It get's more complicated than this. Many other materials have other properties that make it so that visible light can't really pass through. Some have very good absorbance in the visible spectrum, others have very densely packed molecules/atoms that attenuate light very rapidly, etc. ",
"The interactivity, attenuation, and refractive index of a material varies with the frequency/energy of the emr. Glass is mostly non interactive with visible light but will usually absorb infrared and ultraviolet light.\n\nYour cellphone still works indoors even though you can't see through walls.\n\n[Here is a stove top that is opaque to visible light but transparent to an infrared camera](_URL_0_)\n\nA photon needs to be able to excite a molecule in order for it to be absorbed so it would need to have an energy near the band gap of its electron's next highest level or able to rotationally excite the molecule. \n\nDensity matters some but only as it places more matter for light to travel through and the same effect could be achieved with a thicker window of less dense material. ",
"It's best to think of light in terms of waves for this. If ray of light hits a molecule, it will absorb part of it and emit another ray of light in the same direction as it usually can't absorb it. However the time it takes for the molecule to re-emit the wave varies. \n\nIf a molecule re-emits the wave fast enough, it will appear that nothing has changed, and the light just passed through. \n\nIf a molecule is too slow to emit, the new wave might vibrate in the opposite direction to the old wave, hence reducing the amount of light getting through. If the material is thick enough, no light will pass through at all, such as in wood.",
"Is pitch a solid then? If it takes fifty years or more to drop and at the present appears solid? Of course it's a thought experiment.",
"Essentially the answer is one of your suggestions. The light\n interacts less with the molecules. Detail below:\n\nFirst, we need to understand that light is weird. It's neither strictly a wave, nor a particle. Under certain metrics it behaves like one or the other. This is called the \"wave-particle duality\". When referring to light when it behaves like a particle we call it a photon.\n\nNext, light of different colours has different wavelengths. Each individual photon has a specific wavelength, and light is essentially made up of a constant stream of photons. Smaller wavelengths are more energetic (this may seem counterintuitive when first introduced to the concept but you can think of a smaller wavelengths as vibrating faster). Blue has a smaller wavelength than red, thereby giving it more energy per photon. Similarly, ultraviolet has more energy then blue. The spectrum of light ranges from radio waves (1km+) to gamma rays (1nm-). The smallest wavelengths are incredibly energetic, enough to break apart chemical bonds and can even cause damage to a person's DNA. Visible light is approximately in the 500-1000nm range.\n\nWhen an opaque object is struck by these photons, the energy is absorbed. For each photon absorbed, a corresponding electron is bumped up to a higher energy state. The \"space\" where that electron used to \"fill\" is called a hole. These holes generally want to be filled again with electrons. After a very brief delay (incredibly brief for almost all materials), the electrons that are energized \"fall\" back into the hole. When this happens, they are no longer in a high energy state and need to expel the excess energy that they absorbed earlier. Depending on from what energy level they fell from, different amounts of energy needs to be expelled. This energy is released as new photon. However, the electrons don't fall back down in one step. There are only certain ranges of energy levels that electrons are allowed to be in (depending on atomic/crystal structures). This is different for every material. The electrons falls back down in a few steps and emits a photon for each jump down. For many objects, the energy between these gaps results in photons that have an energy level that puts them in the visible spectrum. Some have multiple jumps in the visible spectrum, and to the human eye they'll appear white or brown or some other \"non-rainbow\" colour.\n\nNow let's look at transparent objects. In glass (SiO), the bands of allowable energies that the electrons can have is quite limited. When a photon strikes the glass, it wants to give it's energy to an electron so it can jump up in energy levels. However, since the gap between allowable electron energies is so large, there would be nowhere for such an energized electron to go. Thus, the photon does not get absorbed and remains the same colour as it entered the glass and passes through unchanged in wavelength. (A percentage of photons may change direction due to reflection/refraction, but the colour remains the same) Photons that have a higher energy level may be able to overcome this bandgap. They will be absorbed and re-emit new photons just like if the glass were opaque. However, this isn't within the visible spectrum and can't be seen.\n\nSidenote: The energy absorbed when the photon strikes an object doesn't have to ALL be re-released as new photons. It can also create \"phonons\" which are essentially molecular vibrations that increase the thermal energy (heat) of the object. That's why objects that don't re-emit the light (appears black to the human eye) get hotter when exposed to light.\n",
"To put simply, most visable light doesn't have enough energy to be absorbed by the moluclues which causes them to pass right through.\n\n_URL_0_\n\n",
"Professor Moriarty explains it well in [this](_URL_0_) video.\n\nHe is a photon trying to get through his office, there are lots of ball pit balls on the floor (atoms). He wants to move them onto the shelf. If he manages to move the balls he uses his energy to move them off the floor and doesn't get through the room. If the shelf is too high to reach (the energy gap is too great) he doesn't move any balls and continues through the room and gets out the other side. "
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prvkc | factors of supply and demand in an economic sense. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/prvkc/eli5_factors_of_supply_and_demand_in_an_economic/ | {
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"It should be pretty intuitive...\n\n* If you have something for sale and 100 people want it, then you can charge a very high price for your item. Supply is low since you are the only one selling, and Demand is high since there are a lot of buyers. The \"Invisible Hand\" will push the price up as everyone bids high to try to be the one to buy the good.\n* If 100 people have something for sale, and only 1 person wants it, you must charge a very low price. Supply is high since 100 people are selling, and Demand is low since you're the only one who wants any. The \"Invisible Hand\" will push the price down as people bid low to try to be the one to sell it to you.\n\nWas there something else you were getting at?"
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4r1n0f | what are the different jihadist and islamist groups, how do they relate to each other and why are there so many? | I figured they would all be fighting for the same cause, but it looks like muslims are killing muslims and i want to know what all the different groups are, when they arose, what they are fighting for, and why they are dangerous, like I'm 5 of course. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4r1n0f/eli5_what_are_the_different_jihadist_and_islamist/ | {
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"Let's look at ISIS. They consider themselves to be **the** One True Islamic State that will rule the world. If anyone who wants to have a radical Islamic group has differing opinions on politics or theology, they're going to have to find another group. They all *claim* to be the one true interpretation but lots of people will disagree with them.\n\nThis isn't exclusive to Islam - any religion has numerous factions and denominations within it. If [you look at Christianity](_URL_0_) you'll also see countless groups with different interpretations of scripture & dogma.",
"Simplest answer I can give. The Arab world was tribal for a long time. Islam split into two general camps when one king usurped another (origins of the Shia-sunni divide). As it developed , more interpretations of Islam occurred. However only one interpretation could hold Islamic caliphate. When tribes start to coalesce into states, the concept merged with concepts of Arab unity and Arab hegemony. Political powerplay seeped into this religious divide and each took on tenets of the other. They started creating and funding radical groups to uphold their interpretations. Things got out of hand and we're here today. "
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69g6no | what is a "trick" in a card game (i.e., bridge or spades) and why is it called that? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/69g6no/eli5_what_is_a_trick_in_a_card_game_ie_bridge_or/ | {
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"It's one \"round\" of play. E.g. in Hearts, each player plays one card and then whoever played the highest card of the lead suit takes that trick. Then the cards are cleared and someone leads a new trick.\n\nI can't find the etymology. It may be \"Tarocco\" which is an old style of tarot card deck that was used to play trick-taking games.",
"In trick-taking games, a trick refers to a single round of play or winning a single round of cards.\n\nYou do this by either playing the highest value card in the suit when no trump cards are played, or by playing the highest value trump card in the round.\n\nIt is unclear why it is called a trick. But it probably comes from a combination of Trionfi and Tarocco (tri plus cco to trick). Trionfi is also where the term trump comes from, it is a shortened version of triumph. "
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15uonr | why is ethanol so "bad" for a vehicle? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/15uonr/eli5_why_is_ethanol_so_bad_for_a_vehicle/ | {
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"in reality its not as long as the vehicle is meant for it.\npeople saying ethanol is bad is like saying diesel is bad in a gas car. if the car is not designed for it bad things can happen.\n\nwhen using ethanol in a car you need to burn more of it as it needs less air when compared to gasoline(for a given volume). 1lb of gasoline needs 15lbs of air to burn correctly, 100% ethanol needs somewhere around 9lbs of air for 1lb of ethanol. This is called a stoichiometric ratio. well we cant really change the amount of air we have available to the engine so we have to change how much fuel is injected. inject too little ethanol and the engine will run lean and it can actually burn the metal of the pistons or valves, too much and you get bad wear. the ecu (the cars computer) takes care of this.\n\nmodern cars have o2 sensors that can check the amount of left over oxygen from a firing event and adjust the next injection so that it comes in line with a more stoichiometric ratio of air to fuel. some new cars can take strait gasoline all the way to strait ethanol and adjust perfectly for any mixture. old carbureted cars cannot, they meter the fuel with little needles in jets(a tapered needle that moves in a small hole). they can however have the needles and jets replaced to allow the correct amount of fuel to flow, but they lack any ability to adjust on the fly in real time like a modern car. once they are set they are good for only 1 fuel.\n\nalso once upon a time the rubber we used in cars was not compatible with alcohol, this was pretty much before the early 80's. so if a car from then is running ethanol it needs to have the fuel lines changed."
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yt5ki | nascar. is there a difference in the cars/driving that really makes one driver better than the other? how to people like jeff gordon and jimmy johnson win so frequently? | Yea...being an African American man from Long Island...I do not have much experience with Nascar at all. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/yt5ki/eli5_nascar_is_there_a_difference_in_the/ | {
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"Not a Nascar fan here, but I can give a little bit. There are basically 3 companies that make cars for Nascar: Ford, Chevrolet, and Dodge. There are others like Buick and Pontiac, but I don't know if they still make NASCAR cars anymore.\n\nEach car has to have requirements to be in a NASCAR race, but there are minor adjustments done to the car that can make a huge difference. Adjustments include the spoiler angles, wedge adjustments, gears, tires used, springs, etc. Some teams of mechanics are just damn good and you see that with teams that support drivers like Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jimmy Johnson, etc. \n\nHowever, there is a lot of teamwork involvement too. The crew chief will often set up drivers (usually under the same owner) to support each other through drafting, which is where one car provides another car support so the engines don't have to work as hard to keep up with the pack. This is where you see two cars within 1 foot of each other with one behind the other. \n\nThe guys that win frequently often get set up with the best cars on the track and have the combination of a car that's well-tuned for that specific track. There is also some skill and it mostly involves strategy in winning. The best drivers will rarely lead a race for the first half and hang out somewhere in the middle behind other drivers to save their car from pushing itself too early on. Then they'll figure out how to draft behind the fastest cars in the last half to take over the lead and hopefully win.",
"Not a fan and other people have already answered this, but I would like to add I gained a lot more respect for NASCAR racers after playing Gran Turismo 4 and 5. If you ever have a chance, I'd recommend playing some of those tutorials. In GT4 tire ware factors into your car's control and ultimately your driving and pitting strategy. They show you the mechanics of drafting, passing strategy, and other things people don't consider. ",
"_URL_0_ This clip from Top Gear UK does a fantastic job of explaining why Nascar is an incredibly skill based sport. The drivers that win are the best."
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3o41yy | how nasa can get clear undistorted images from satelittes and probes thousands of miles away but my radio signal or phone signal is shotty at best? | I understand the type of technology is a big factor. They are using way more powerful stuff, but on a lower energy level. But how do things like planets, the asteroid belt, and solar flares not distrubt, distort, and destroy the connection when sending the data to or from? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3o41yy/eli5_how_nasa_can_get_clear_undistorted_images/ | {
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"Yes, they're using vastly more sensitive equipment, but perhaps the most important factor is the data rate. New Horizons, for example, is transmitting as low as [125 Bytes](_URL_0_) per second. At those rates you can receive amazingly faint and distorted signals with a great deal of success.\n\n3G by contrast, can offer a minimum of 2MBitsPS and that's without the voice traffic on top.",
"What /u/skipweasel said about bitrates is bang on - it's like the difference between me slowly spelling something out letter by letter compared to shouting it at you quickly and being surprised that you didn't catch it all.\n\nThere's also the matter of clutter.\n\nNASA are using enormous dish antennas on the top of mountains, with nothing between them and the spacecraft - remember that space is pretty much empty, there won't be a planet that just randomly appears between the transmitter and receiver!\n\nA mobile phone in an urban environment doesn't get these luxuries. It has a tiny little antenna, and there could be all manner of things between the base station and handset. Just the walls of a modest house will have quite an effect on the received signal level.",
"A key to this is a *massive* amount of error correction built into the signal. NASA knows that the transmission will get degraded over the long distance for several reasons...and so they put a lot of redundant information in the signal to ensure that they have a complete file once they receive it.",
"It also has to do with the bands (range of frequencies) that are used. Certain bands have better propagation, but have lower data rates. The power is also a huge factor. Mobile devices are very low power devices compared to long distance transmitters.",
"I think based on the collection of response, this can be answered on a higher level. It's way more important. So important NASA gets to spend a little bit of everybody's money to make it happen. This means they can do a lot of things to make it work. Your cell phone or the radio? No big D. "
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4gsbmh | why different languages have different onomatopoeia. why do things sound different in different languages? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4gsbmh/eli5_why_different_languages_have_different/ | {
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"It's not that they sound different in other languages, but that other cultures have come to develop patterns of speech independently of other regions and thus they've come to represent the sounds they're hearing with onomatopoeia differently.",
"Ask 4 other people to write down what an alien spaceship hovering sounds like. What are the odds you all right down the exact same thing?\n\nI'd write \"hworrrr\". I can also make the sound by whistling and humming at the same time, but I wouldn't say there's an R there.\n\nNow take that and expand it over thousands upon thousands of years over continents and cultures, languages and dialects. ***And*** consider that some animals do in fact make different noises depending on the breed. Beagles don't bark for instance.\n\n**EDIT: I wanted to post more information (so explaining it like you're 10) because more questions are being raised by others. Stop reading here if 5 was enough.**\n\na) I feel the need to clarify that Beagles do a sort of half bark, but the verb you hear is \" bay\". It's a sound distinct to them that's a half bark, half howl. If you haven't heard it, well, this can be an exercise in what OP was asking.\n\nb) A lot of people are making dog puns. \"Ruff\", \"bark\", \"woof\" - well, these are examples of different interpretations *in the same language*. English probably didn't say \"bark\" all the time - then consider Middle English and Old English and how not everything then was written down.\n\nc) With regards to other languages - I speak Russian and Norwegian. \"Jeg kjenner\" is one way of saying \"I know\" in Norwegian, and the kj is pronounced like a \"sh\", but with the middle part of your tongue on the roof of your mouth. It's probably a sound you can't imagine right now or wouldn't be able to replicate immediate. Russian has щ, which is explained as \"shch\". English doesn't have the equivalent, but English does have the letter w, which Russian doesn't, which is what a German r can sound like if the native German speaker has trouble. Which is always cute as hell. So really, these things we take for granted in our own languages are worlds apart in others.",
"So this comes down to the sound structure of any given language, That is, different languages utilize different sets of sounds to make words which others may use less or not at all. This causes speakers of a given language's ear to be \"tuned\" to the sounds more common of /more comfortable in their language. Though they are hearing the exact same sound input. It's Similar to how certain words are pronounced different in two languages even though it is they are essentially the same (direct cognates) word. like the word \"baker\" is pronounced something like \"b-ay-kur\" in English but \"bea-kur in German. English \"likes\" a slightly different a-sound than German \n\nSource- just received my bachelor's degree in linguistics ",
"I found [this](_URL_0_) video not too long ago that answers your question exactly in a very ELI5 way. "
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82jvrn | how come we haven't completed the periodic table? | How is it not complete? i kind of know the reason we believe there's still more to discover.. but why haven't we yet? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/82jvrn/eli5_how_come_we_havent_completed_the_periodic/ | {
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"Because its hard. Its not like as soon as we imagine something is done. We don't even know how many stable elements there could possibly be either so there might never be a \"done\" ",
"Could you clarify what you mean by \"complete\" here? It might help people understand what you need to have explained. How would a complete table differ from our current table?",
"We're busy making elements that don't occur naturally because they break down incredibly quickly. The most stable isotope of element 118 lasts just 69 milliseconds. It is believed that the most stable isotope of 119 will last an incredible 20 microseconds. That makes it incredibly hard to confirm you actually measured what you think you measured and they have to successfully create it hundreds or thousands of times so that can take quite a long time to get.",
"Atoms behavior is dictated by quantum physics, and shit gets screwy. Electrons in heavier atoms have to move faster than that of lighter atoms, to keep from collapsing in on themselves. Gold electrons are moving at more than half the speed of light, and are pulled into tight, low orbits, which is why gold absorbs blue light and gives it its distinctive color.\n\nNucleus are composed of protons and neutrons. Protons repel each other, so more the protons in larger nuclei, the more unstable the nucleus is. Uranium, with 92 protons, is the largest naturally occurring element on Earth.\n\nLarger molecules are created in particle accelerators, principally in Russia, where they collide heavy elements until some fuse together. Most tend to exist only for fractions of a second before decaying into smaller, lighter elements. We learn what we can about these elements through their interactions in detectors and with their decay products.\n\nRichard Feynman predicted the largest possible element could have 136 protons; any larger, and the outer most electrons would have to orbit faster than the speed of light. This result was the product of late 70s/early 80s quantum physics, and a simplification he made in his math. Today, physics supports the notion of elements up to 173 protons, but this isn't actually an upper limit. It's just that any larger, and atoms will have to be able to pull atoms out of the vacuum of space itself - you get weird results in the math.\n\nThere are other relativistic problems. The faster an element goes, the heavier it gets, and that changes it's properties, including stability. And then you have super dense gravity, like you find in neutron stars, where a teaspoon in volume of material weighs as much as 3 Mount Everests, and all the nuclei are physically touching one another, making neutron stars effectively singly large atoms (but not really).\n\nFinally, there are theoretical islands of stability, where the neutrons balance out the protons. Elements 114, 120, and 126 are expected to be stable enough to stay as an element long enough to study. The heavier you get, though, the shorter lived these atoms are going to be, to where we won't even be able to detect their successful formation, if only for trillionths of a second.\n\nSo in truth, we've no idea just where the upper limit even is, and there's no way to predict it. We just don't know enough, even about the elements we do have.",
"For one, what do you mean by complete? Atoms just keep getting bigger and bigger. Even if there's a theoretical upper limit, how do you know you've hit it? The question will still be open if it can be surpassed.\n\nAs for why new elements are discovered very rarely, the stuff on the bottom of the periodic table doesn't exist on earth. We can only make it by using a lot of energy to accelerate stuff in a particle accelerator and smash it together, and even then it doesn't last for more than a fraction of a second. Its hard and expensive to run these tests, and they'll only get harder as you need more energy to form heavier elements."
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96icto | why does the air above gasoline look wavy? is it the same for natural gas and propane? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/96icto/eli5_why_does_the_air_above_gasoline_look_wavy_is/ | {
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"Every medium/substance refracts (bends) light at a different angle. Since the fumes from gasoline differ from our atmosphere so strongly, the bending is enough for us to see as waves in the air.",
"The gasoline is evaporating, and the fumes, while moving themselves, bend light slightly differently than normal air. ",
"What you see is the actual gas,\nLight moves at different speeds through different materials, so with the right conditions you can get light to change speed in such a way to bend",
"To answer your second question, yes methane, propane, butane and the other hydrocarbons in cng do the same thing alone or as a mixture. When you open the carb on a natural gas engine it is pretty cool watching the gas flow out of the mushroom head shaped mixers.",
"Know how when you boil water it releases steam? Some liquids boil really fast and easily, so easily you barely have to heat them up very much. When you do this, the liquids become gases. Like steam but steam we can't see because it is clear. What we can see is when the gas fumes mix with air. When they mix, they need a little time to mix up. During that time, when its not fully mixed, you get these little waves that sometimes cast shadows. These are called Schlieren. \n\nIts like if I have a black coffee, and I add milk. When the coffee and milk are mixing, you can see swirl of milk and coffee dancing around in the cup. When they are fully mixed, it just looks like coffee thats one color. The air is the coffee and the gas fumes are the milk but only they are invisible to us. When they mix, we get the swirlies, but we can only really see the shadow of the swirlies.",
"For the same reason that the air above hot asphalt can look wavy towards the horizon. When two gasses with different densities interact, it has a lensing effect just like optical glass. It bends the light, causing objects behind it to appear distorted. \n\nGasoline has a very high vapor pressure at outside temperatures and it readily turns to, well, a gas. The gaseous gasoline rises off the surface of the liquid and because it is a different density to the surrounding air, it bends the light. ",
"Gasoline fumes have a different index of refraction than air, so light passing through gets bent off course a little. That's why everything looks wibbly. You can see it in liquid as well if you pour some alcohol into a clear glass of water. Until you mix it all together, you're gonna have blobs of alcohol floating in water, with different indices of refraction.",
"The gasoline evaporates, and because it has a different density than air the light passing through that area is distorted by this \"curtain\" of evaporating gasoline.",
"Because it's volotile. That means it evaporates a lot at room temperature into fumes. The borders between air and fumes bend light around in funny ways.",
"You can also see the same effect when opening your car on a hot day. Just open the door and look at the ground. If you see the wavy shadows. Then the car is very hot inside, and you should just wait a minute to let it vent.",
"The top comment doesn’t quite ELI5. It’s because light travels at different speeds through mediums with different densities. So it travels fastest in a vacuum, the denser something is the slower light travels through it. On a hot day you see waves off asphalt because it’s so hot that it heats up the air right above it, which makes that air less dense than surrounding air. Also the density of the air around the asphalt widely varies and be it’s being heated up and swirling around etc, so light is traveling through it at all different speeds so it looks wavy. Gasoline probably lets off some gas/evaporates and changes the density as well resulting in the same effect. Same thing happens if you look just above a flame on a lighter or campfire or natural gas from a stove ",
"Air wavy. Gasoline more wavy. Light bends. Light pass through air, get wavy. Light pass gass, gets VERY wavy"
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7pavm6 | what is the point (points) of having personal relationships or friends? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7pavm6/eli5_what_is_the_point_points_of_having_personal/ | {
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"First of all, we are social creatures. Most people have an innate desire to be around other people and form meaningful relationships and feel lonely if they fail to do so. Often just having someone to talk to and share experiences with is enough to make people happier.\n\nFor a more utilitarian response, people are more likely to help those they have a relationship with. People are more likely to share with friends, offering a place to stay, a bite to eat, or being allowed to borrow a tool or money that you may need. The are also able to allow for opportunities you would not otherwise have, and many careers rely heavily on maintaining a network of personal relationships to succeed.",
"Practically speaking today? The vast majority of people derive meaning from social interaction, both meaningful and otherwise. Even if strongly introverted, the vast majority of people at a bare minimum find value in if nothing else, the financial and emotional benefits of having a partner.\n\nHistorically/Evolutionarily? Strength in numbers. A group of 15 humans living together has a dramatically better chance of survival, procreation, and chance of offspring reaching adulthood and procreating themselves if they work together instead of against eachother. If you show interest in Ug and help Ug out when Ug needs help, Ug will be more likely to help you with tasks that you are ill-suited for or assist when you need an extra set of hands. Both parties benefit from mutual cooperation. Mutual cooperation is safer when you know and trust the person you're working with.\n\nOur entire civilization is based on human social interaction."
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6dz6w2 | why does it take significantly more force to get an object moving on a flat surface than it does to keep pushing it after the initial movement has begun? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6dz6w2/eli5_why_does_it_take_significantly_more_force_to/ | {
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"When you start pushing it, you need to use enough force to get the object moving. Seems obvious, right? The more mass the object has, the more energy you need to put into it. But that energy doesn't disappear. The object will continue moving in that direction forever, unless something acts on it. Something does, of course. The friction of the surface it's traveling on, as well as the air it's traveling through, act to slow it down and get it to eventually stop. So to keep it moving, all you need to do is add enough force to make up for the friction. ",
"because of inertia: the resistance of any physical object to any change in its state of motion.",
"The are 2 types of friction - dynamic (while moving) and static.\nThe static friction is mostly larger than the dynamic, therefore when the object is already moving it's easier to push it forward",
"The coefficient of friction changes between a still object and a moving object. Sorry I don't know the English translations for the two. With the former you get forces like adhesion and surface roughness increasing the friction. \n\nImagine a zig-zag pattern. When you have two of the same and you put them on top of each other the zig-zags will fit right into each other. Now when you wanna push you have to push the zig-zags out of each other to get it moving. Once it moves fast enough it won't have time to fall into the zig-zags again. I'm sure there's a great illustration somewhere on the internet that explains this much better. ",
"It can depend on the surface and how you are moving it. For example a railway car has a metal rail with a metal wheel on it which is very low friction and very efficient as it is low friction. It still requires force to get the train car moving though and this is caused by the need to overcome the static force that is holding it still, as well as the initial rolling resistance of the wheels. The wheel may be metal on metal but it still bends slightly where it contacts the track which makes the wheel slightly less round and requires energy to over come this and get it moving. Even the metal bearings in the axle are compressed and out of round slightly as the resting weight of the car pushes down against bearing, axle, wheel, and rail. Once moving though the wheel will deform less and stay more round as it's rolling which requires less energy. \n\nContrast that with pulling a sled over ice. There is friction on the rails of the sled against the ice that holds it in place. As you pull or push on the sled you have to overcome this initial friction and as you do so the friction causes some of the ice to melt forming a very thin layer of water between it and the sled rail which reduces friction and helps it slide. \n\nAnd finally imagine pulling or pushing a piece of furniture. At rest the legs of the table are stuck to the ground due to friction and the legs of the table make good contact in a wide area around the feet with the ground. You have to push harder to overcome this initial friction. However once the table starts sliding, it causes the contact patch between the wood and the floor to start undulating slightly, as the two surfaces grind against each other. Similar to a tire that is skidding hopping up and down on the road due to it's inability to get a firm bite on the pavement. The wood in the table legs starts skipping and hopping fractions of a second which reduces the amount of wood touching the floor and makes the amount of force needed to keep the wood sliding less than the amount it took to get it moving. \n\nFinally there is the actual inertia of the object which must be overcome to get it moving. You are expending energy not just moving the object, but accelerating it. When it's at rest it's not moving. When you begin to push, some of the energy keeps it moving, but some of the energy makes it accelerate. If its not moving and you can't accelerate it's movement then it's going the same speed IE not moving. Say that you push a shopping cart from a stop to 2 miles an hour (walking speed) Some of that initial energy you pushed into it went to keep it moving 2 mph, but some of it was also needed to 'get it' to 2mph. However once it's already moving at 2mph, you only need energy to keep it moving, not to accelerate it further, so from that standpoint. Standing still requires lots of energy to move and accelerate it, then less energy once it's moving because you're not accelerating anymore. \n",
"Short answer: to move an object , you must overcome its inertia , which is directly proportional to its mass\n\nBut to keep it moving, you don't need to apply any force (by Newton's first law of motion) all you have to do is counter the friction produced by the surface which is generally much less"
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dvivrm | how do llcs work? | I’m very curious about LLCs and layers of ownership (like in large-scale energy projects). How do they work? Why is it so difficult to pinpoint the owners/investors behind LLCs? Thanks in advance. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dvivrm/eli5_how_do_llcs_work/ | {
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"(ok keep with it because this one gets cool)\n\n**Because fuck you, that's why!!!!!!!11!1!!11!1!!!!**\n\nAn LLC is essentially a legal and very simple way of protecting a person form losing their stuff if they make a mistake.\n\nLLC, and its explanation is *exactly* its name.\n**Limited Liability Corporation.**\n\nThe key here is LIMITED LIABILITY, meaning the things that the owners are responsible for is LIMITED. The limits very state by state. Lets play a game.\n\n* I, SoundTech69LLC^TM, build a deck for Jeff.\n* Jeff walks out on his deck for the first time\n* Jeff falls and breaks his dick off\n* Jeff is mad and wants to sue me\n* I did not do anything wrong, he broke his dick off because of things outside my control.\n\nNow in the real world this lands us in one of two places.\n\n1. If I have an LLC as SoundTech69 that billed Jeff to build his deck, he can sue my Company, and therefore not affect me, SoundTech.\n\n2. If I, SoundTech accepted a check form Jeff to build his deck, he can sue me.\n\nIn Scenario 1, he can take my company tuck and tools, but not my house. In Scenario 2, he gets my kids college funds.\n\nIts a legal protection against certain aspects of responsibility for the work. It does not protect against fraud, or oter types of scams. I cant just set up an LLC and scam people."
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58lbu7 | if i pull the iphone wall socket and cable out of the wall then plug the cable into the phone why does it register a charge for a second? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/58lbu7/eli5_if_i_pull_the_iphone_wall_socket_and_cable/ | {
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"I'm guessing that there are capacitors inside the charger. A capacitor is a circuit component that is used as a power source much like a battery. The difference however is that capacitors store energy in an electrical field as opposed to the battery which does so through chemical reaction. A capacitor needs to be charged for it to store energy, and then it needs a place to release that energy. So when you insert the plug into the wall socket you charge the capacitor and when you connect it to your phone you discharge it through the cable and to your phones battery. I guess it doesn't really take that long to discharge it though seeing as the charge only last a second.\n\nPS not sure if this is 100% accurate. Please if anyone knows better let me know if I'm wrong. "
]
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2dp2wp | why are american troops stationed in peaceful places? | It seems pointless to put soldiers in peaceful nations (especially in regions such as western Europe). Why are they there and what do they do during their deployment? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2dp2wp/eli5_why_are_american_troops_stationed_in/ | {
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"Either the peaceful place might not stay that way, or there are dangerous places close by, so the troops are better prepared to respond, because they're already close to where the trouble is."
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4yjmt1 | why do numbers on credit cards have to look all funky, instead of just being in a normal font? | Most of the numbers don't look that weird at first glance, but that 8 is barely passing. Is there a reason they are printed this way? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4yjmt1/eli5_why_do_numbers_on_credit_cards_have_to_look/ | {
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"It's historical at this point. In the Olden Days stores would process credit cards by basically writing the amounts on a piece of paper that had a layer of carbon copy, and then they'd put your card and that paper in this device and swipe a handle over it, so the raised numbers on your card would leave an impression through the carbon copy. \n\n[Here is a video](_URL_0_) on what that looked like - it's really instructions on how to assemble/configure the swiper, but it'll give you the idea. \n\n",
"Modern cards that don't used raised numbers might use a sensible font. The reason for the wacky font on raised numbers was for the benefit of those old devices that used carbon paper to copy card information. Fonts that are good at being read by machines, and transfer well through mechanical processes aren't always pretty.",
"Back in the day (and still occasionally today), instead of using a magnetic strip or a chip, a vendor would make a physical impression onto carbon paper, using a machine like [this](_URL_0_).\n\nThe font was designed to make good, unambiguous impressions."
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68hanc | why do some restaurants charge a service fee for larger groups? | I see it often that restaurants charge an additional %age in addition to your bill if your group is above a certain size. Why is this? One would think it's easier for the restaurant to serve one table with 8 people than 4 tables with 2 people each!? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/68hanc/eli5_why_do_some_restaurants_charge_a_service_fee/ | {
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"Generally because big groups are poor tippers, and are more work for the servers, bussers, and kitchen.\n\nIt's easier to take and prepare 20 orders from 10 tables spread out over 15 minutes than it is to deal with 20 orders from the same table all at the same time.",
"Unless all four tables with two people show up at precisely the same time, there's a big difference. When a party of 8 hits the floor, that's 8 drink orders, 8 food orders, etc., that all need to happen roughly the same time. When it's four groups of two, with their arrival staggered out, the server can pay attention to one table while the others are busy, the bartender can make groups of smaller drink orders as they arrive, and so on.\n\nMeanwhile, back in the kitchen, the chefs now need to make four tables worth of food at once, and coordinate when each item is finished up so they can arrive at the table all appropriately warm/cold/fizzy/sizzling/whatever, instead of just having to coordinate groupings of two items; picture a table that ordered 3 steaks, 2 burgers, 2 pasta dishes and a personal pizza, and having to stage the cooking process so they all go out the kitchen door at the same time, as opposed to a table that ordered 2 burgers, a second table (that got seated minutes later) that ordered 2 steaks, another short time gap, one steak and pasta table, and then a pasta and pizza table. It's the same amount of food, but the individual orders have far fewer moving parts. ",
" > One would think it's easier for the restaurant to serve one table with 8 people than 4 tables with 2 people each!?\n\nI take it you've never been a server. It is absolutely easier to take two tables of 4 than a single table of 8 simply because two tables will be at different stages of their meal and you can space out their needs better. "
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dzg5ch | why do cracks grow in some materials + | I understand it's to do with the energy liberated and the energy taken in by the crack growth, but I don't understand what this energy is, where it comes from and why one term is "positive" energy and the other term is "negative" energy. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dzg5ch/eli5_why_do_cracks_grow_in_some_materials/ | {
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"Water gets in, freezes, ice expands, causing the crack to widen.\n\nSomething like that, perhaps?",
"When you have enough force applied to any material, it will break. However, once you have a crack in a material, that crack acts like a tiny lever, and increases the force of the material at the tip of the crack. This means it takes less force applied to grow a crack than create one. Things like growing or shrinking materials due to hear are not even, so create internal forces that may be enough for cracks to grow.\n\nDifferent materials and ways of processing result in different behavior, such as pre-stressed glass that resists some cracking from tension compared to normal glass.\n\nThe exact mechanics are part of things like crystalline chemistry, and how objects deform under compression and tension."
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1s80no | why so many websites fall victim to the reddit hug of death, but imgur is perfectly fine during our prolonged make out sessions. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1s80no/eli5_why_so_many_websites_fall_victim_to_the/ | {
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"Because they have the server infrastructure to handle its users. However, a smaller website that only sees a few thousand visitors a month isn't going to invest in a larg server capacity because they don't need it. So, when Reddit links to a smaller site and it receives thousands of viewers all at once it is going to crash because there aren't equipped to handle that level of traffic.",
"A) Imgur was *designed* to serve images to reddit so they have a server capacity to handle it\n\nB) Imgur just serves up static pictures - the server doesn't need to \"think\" about how to put together a complex, dynamic page.\n\nImagine you're throwing a nice party. You're planning on having about 20 people and mixing drinks for everyone. Your scumbag friend goes and posts the invite on a public Facebook page and 200 people show up. You're fucked.\n\nIf, OTOH, you're planning on having people there and you've got a few kegs of beer, it's not too hard to handle all those people. You've got space set aside for the people & giving each person their drink doesn't take any major work."
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45ijvq | where does the universe exist? | This always hurts my head | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/45ijvq/eli5_where_does_the_universe_exist/ | {
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"That's an invalid question, much like \"What color is the smell of cinnamon?\" or \"What is the temperature of happiness?\"\n\nEvery \"where\" that exists is part of the universe, because we define the universe as \"everything that exists\". There is no \"outside the universe\". Thus you cannot even attempt to treat the universe as having a location, because for something to have a location, you must compare it to the location of other things. But there are no other things, and no other locations.",
"Well this is a rather interesting question. If you tackle it with a theory like string theory, the answer is \"in the multiverse.\" Leonard Susskind created a lot of fancy math for string theory, and to the best of my knowledge, it is the best guess we have. To which one might ask: where does the multiverse exist? The best answers to this question are just educated guesses. The technology and math behind these solutions are just too primitive to call them theories. \n\nAlso to get your brain cooking, think of a 3d environment generated by a PC. Lets choose Rocket League. Those cars have an X,Y & Z axis to move around on. To them they have those dimensions. However in reality they are just a binary stream. Our dimensions could just be a stream of sorts, or something even more foreign. \n\nImagine intelligent sentient life inside a computer. Imagine how hard it would be to figure out the \"universe\" is a PC. Imagine if that PC was running some kind of virtual platform. Each instance, or universe, would be separate and self contained. \n\nSo what if in one universe they discovered \"RAM.\" Imagine they figured out how to tamper with the RAM in their environment to communicated w/ another universe. Imagine if they found a glitch? What if a black hole is a glitch? \n\nSee the thing, for these kinds of questions, they are certainly worth asking, but not for the answers. They are worth asking to see what we can dream up. That's how science goes forward. You ask really big questions, and stumble along the small stuff on the way. \n\nEdit: I also want to point out there is A LOT more than just string theory that takes a stab at this question. If you want to research it further go on youtube and search \"multiverse.\" \n\n\n",
"Hurts my head too, nobody knows. We just keep pushing things back in time and space with advances in physics, but can't get beyond them. Perhaps like Kant would imply, we can't think beyond this, that's as far as we can know. Because then imagine we say universe is inside X, and then you'd ask but where's X, or similarly about what happened before The Big Bang and before that, etc. \n\nAll we know is that Kaley Cuoco auditioned, and the rest is history."
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11i0s4 | why does a dislike for one ingredient cause me to hate all others? | I have a strong aversion to hops and coffee. All coffee tastes the same to me (awful, even when it's loaded with sugar and milk and caramel and chocolate), and all beer tastes the same to me. All I can focus on is that one flavor that my taste buds are really sensitive to. Why is that? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/11i0s4/eli5_why_does_a_dislike_for_one_ingredient_cause/ | {
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"Coffee and hops both have a strong component of bitterness. Some people are so-called \"supertasters\", and are extra-sensitive to bitterness. Perhaps you are a supertaster?\n\nOther foods that supertasters commonly dislike: brussel sprouts, cabbage, kale, grapefruit juice, green tea, soy products. Do you strongly dislike any of those?",
"Look at it from an evolutionary point of view:\n\nIf something tastes good to an animal or human, it's because that food is nutritious (=contains a lot of energy). Sugar and fat are obvious examples.\n\nIf something tastes or smells bad, that's because it may be dangerous. Rotten food comes to mind.\n\n\nMany naturally-occuring bitter-tasting compounds are actually toxic to humans, so we have evolved to dislike those. Those who liked bitter food didn't get to pass on their genes because it killed them, made them sick or infertile.\n\n\nBasically, you just have a more sensitive 'poison detector' in your mouth, and being able to ignore poison warnings isn't such a good trait to have if survival is the main goal."
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2pxb9l | what does being charismatic mean at the scientific level? | What exactly does it mean to be charismatic? Not the dictionary definition, but scientifically. What makes somebody charismatic, and why are these charismatic traits attractive to other people?
What going on in our brains when we notice that somebody is charismatic? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2pxb9l/eli5_what_does_being_charismatic_mean_at_the/ | {
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"Human beings are social animals and our evolutionary past is also of social animals that live in communities. There is some instinct to follow the dominant individual of the group that you are in, or alternatively to seek to become dominant yourself, although that is not practical for most individuals. We see this type of behavior even in chimpanzees (who are genetically very close to humans). Being the intelligent species that we are, we have greatly complicated this process by creating more elaborate forms of social organization and more elaborate mechanisms by which people can rise to positions of power, but in the end, we are still following a dominant individual, whom we trust to help our group to survive and prosper. That would be the biological basis for the phenomenon of charisma."
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3zafkf | how does the crossplatform gaming works and why is it so rare to see a game with crossplatform support? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3zafkf/eli5_how_does_the_crossplatform_gaming_works_and/ | {
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"if the engine on witch the game is developed (like unreal engine) is allready cross platform, developing crossplatform can be fairly easy, just scale it back for consoles, and develop for pc, if its an in house engine you have to basically make the game engine twice or what ever consoles you are supporting, and you can only use the assets of the game like textures/models ai, physics etc, but you are literally building the game from scratch.\n\nthen you need to quality test the fuck out of it, on all platforms.",
"ahh, you mean multiplayer? they tried that with some fps game, pc with mouse and keyboard just slaughtered console players.\n\nforget what game that was.. google is not helping much.\n\n\n_URL_0_\n\n > According to Sood's sources, \"many many months ago,\" Microsoft set out on a Xbox Live project that would let PC and console users interact on some form of united multiplayer platform – a grand idea on paper. In practice however, it's said that PC gamers \"destroyed\" console players every time.\n\nthats from 2010, there is some other game i think..."
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"http://www.techspot.com/news/39738-microsoft-killed-cross-platform-project-because-pc-gamers-wrecked-console-gamers.html"
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1zvxdg | why are black peoples voices so deep? | According to some studies I've read about a voice usually correlates with a persons size. Women = Small = High pitch. Men = Bigger = Lower Pitch.
But black people of all sizes seem to always have a much, much deeper voice than white / any other ethnicity men, why? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1zvxdg/eli5_why_are_black_peoples_voices_so_deep/ | {
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"As a black man idk but I'll stab at it. Think back to African civilizations things are so much more distant/ spread out than other settled civilizations where there is a town center, neighbors 10 ft away, etc. Bass carries further so maybe at one point a deeper voice/ more bass was a necessity to communicate effectively. No science there but my best educated guess. Take it for what it is :)",
"Black people tend to have higher testosterone levels than other races. One effect of this is a deeper voice."
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ba9xmh | how interval training is better for endurance running than actual endurance running | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ba9xmh/eli5_how_interval_training_is_better_for/ | {
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"You're body aclimates to whatever you do to it. By doing interval training, you're training yourself to treat the regular endurance running as your cooling off /regeneration period. \n\nTo get better you must always push yourself past what you feel is your limit.\n\nIt's a way of moving your tolerance forward.",
"It’s not. It’s collusion between sports scientists and Big Cycle to sell 30 minute cycling classes for the price of a monthly gym membership ",
"Think of it this way: You want to be able to life 10 lbs a LOT, in a very repetitious motion. You can pick up a 10 lbs barbell and move it a lot, but you will peak at being able to lift 10 lbs, and will tire. But if you acclimate your muscles to lifting 15, 20, 25 lbs...then 10 lbs is going to feel easy.\n\nYou push your body to be capable of doing MORE than you need it to, and what you need to do will be easier.",
"Avid runner here. Here are my thoughts. It's very challenging to consistently pull of endurance runs (hence why most marathon training programs have just one long run a week). Odds are that if you try for two long endurance runs two days in a row you're second one is going to be fairly sluggish and not very beneficial. Recovery is so important in endurance running. I'm currently training for an upcoming race. Two nights ago I did a 15 mile run in which I'm fairly used to, but the next day I knew I had to fully rest. Tonight I went on a 14 mile run and I believe a bit of residual fatigue set in. In a perfect world it would be awesome if recovery was a non issue then you could just do endurance runs/training to your hearts content. Interval training helps with overall \"shock\" and \"impact\" on your body/recovery. I wouldn't say interval training is better, you need a good mix of both. I recommend the book \"Advanced Marathoning\" by Pete Pfitzinger especially Chapter 2 \"Elements of Training\" and Chapter 4 \"Balancing Training and Recovery\". Cheers!"
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2hau6t | is there intelligent life anywhere else besides earth in the universe? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2hau6t/eli5_is_there_intelligent_life_anywhere_else/ | {
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" > \"Two possibilities exist: Either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.\"\n\nBottom line: we don't know. So far there has been no evidence that intelligent life exists anywhere else, but to be fair we haven't been looking for that long. The Earth has been around for billions of years and the universe has been around about 3 times longer. Humans have been around for only about 200,000 years and we haven't been keeping history for more than a few thousand. We've only been looking for a few decades, and even then we've only been looking in a few common ways of *human* communication. To conclude that life definitely does not exist would be unsupported at this time. I think that [this](_URL_0_) comic sums it up nicely. \n\nThere have been some attempts to figure out this question mathematically. The most famous of these is the Drake equation, which involves multiplying various constants together to figure out how many sentient species there are at any given time in the Milky Way galaxy. Some of these constants can be directly measured (like the number of stars). Some can be estimated by looking at enough stars (like the percentage of stars that have planets, or the number of planets that are in a position to develop life). Some of the terms are nearly impossible to estimate unless you have a large sample of extraterrestrial civilizations to estimate off of (at which point the equation is pretty much moot).\n\nWhen people have attempted to put numbers to the Drake Equation you come up with the idea that life ought to be downright common in the universe, but that's not supported by observation, leading the Fermi Paradox: if life is so common in the universe, where is it all? Science fiction likes to resolve this by assuming that the aliens exist but they're not revealing themselves to us until we reach the necessary level of technology, the same way that humans may study a lesser species on earth without revealing to that animal that they are the subject of observation. \n\nAnother resolution to the Fermi Paradox is that perhaps the assumptions that went into the Drake Equation's constants were wrong: maybe life is *not* common. In that case we as a civilization may never come into contact with other planets' species. The finite rate at which information can travel (i.e. the speed of light, assuming our model of the universe is at least correct on that count) means that forming ties with an alien civilization would be quite difficult if not impossible, even if we did figure out that we're not alone in the universe. \n\nI, for one, prefer to take a [more humorous resolution to the Fermi Paradox](_URL_1_).",
"There are plenty of good answers in this thread already, but I wanted to drop in and mention [SETI](_URL_0_) (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence). This program is designed to look for evidence of intelligent life in the universe, and is something I find very interesting. It was also featured in the movie Contact :-)\n\nSadly, they haven't found any definitive evidence of life outside of Earth. If they ever do, I'm sure everyone will know about it."
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]
] | ||
4lzhjb | is kim jong un being used more as a puppet in terms of making decisions, or does he actually make decisions on his one, and based off of his own morality? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4lzhjb/eli5_is_kim_jong_un_being_used_more_as_a_puppet/ | {
"a_id": [
"d3rctjr"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"All signs point to him really being in charge, and not making his decisions based on any sort of personal morality."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
5r98sh | if phone numbers are public record why can't they be reverse searched? | I get so many calls on a weekly basis by numbers I don't know, some local, some across the country. When there are phone books with addresses and phone numbers, why do they charge to find out who's actually calling you? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5r98sh/eli5_if_phone_numbers_are_public_record_why_cant/ | {
"a_id": [
"dd5dn51"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
" > why do they charge to find out who's actually calling you?\n\nBecause they *aren't* public record, so those companies need to buy the data from somewhere. Granted, most land lines will appear in the white pages/directories, but those you obviously do not need to pay to get info (just go on the whitepages website). _URL_0_ literally has a section that says \"reverse phone lookup\"."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"Whitepages.com"
]
] | |
byapbm | how can plastic contain acid that can dissolve a human body? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/byapbm/eli5_how_can_plastic_contain_acid_that_can/ | {
"a_id": [
"eqfc2d5",
"eqfr0ft"
],
"score": [
6,
4
],
"text": [
"The issue is chemistry. Acids aren't just magic fluids that destroy all things they touch, they are chemicals that react in specific ways with other substances. If you mix vinegar and baking soda it foams up, but mixing vinegar with corn starch doesn't despite it on the surface appearing to be a similar white powder.\n\nThe chemicals which make up a plastic bottle are different than those that form the human body (with exceptions for some bolt on accessories) and so acids that attack one don't necessarily effectively attack the other.",
"When you have an aqueous solution of an acid, the acid dissociates and an H^+ ion (a single proton) splits off from each acid molecule. This H^+ ion readily reacts with a lot of things, allowing acids to eat away at stuff by reacting with their molecules to form different ones. They react particularly aggressively with metals.\n\nHowever, not all materials react with acids. Glass does not undergo normal acidic reactions at all (hydrofluoric acid is able to corrode it because of the highly reactive fluorine, but the H^+ doesn't do anything). Plastic is fairly inert, and does not easily give away electrons to react with H^+ ions, which means that it does not readily react with acids."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] | ||
56yimz | what does a company like samsung do with all the note 7 hardware (the actual devices) it'll be recalling since they won't be continuing the line? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/56yimz/eli5_what_does_a_company_like_samsung_do_with_all/ | {
"a_id": [
"d8nf29i"
],
"score": [
8
],
"text": [
"Not considering the costs itself, companies break down phones to extract precious metals, silicones and other swappable parts that they could later use in other models. It's a common practice in many companies like Apple and the computer industry."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
1z8dst | why is it legal for a police officer to lie to me about the law ? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1z8dst/eli5_why_is_it_legal_for_a_police_officer_to_lie/ | {
"a_id": [
"cfrfyce",
"cfrg267",
"cfrg3n0"
],
"score": [
2,
4,
3
],
"text": [
"It isn't.\n\nPlease give some examples to elaborate, it might be that you are confused on the law.",
"An example would be a police officer telling a person that filming them is illegal.\n",
"The justification here is that this allows the police officer to trick the suspect into telling the truth. However, there is evidence that this does not actually happen. In many cases where the police have utilized deception as an interrogation tactic a false confession was elicited by the suspect. Source: _URL_0_ \nRichard A Leo. (2009) False Confessions. Causes, Consequences and Implications. American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law. (In case the link didn't work) "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[
"http://www.jaapl.org/content/37/3/332.full"
]
] | ||
1h5dvl | a calabi–yau manifold and other higher dimensional shapes. | My understanding of higher dimensions mostly includes the notion of dimensions tightly coiled on top of each other (which I suppose I can't exactly picture either), and I can't quite rationalize how extra shapes are formed in those coils.
Help!
Edit: Of anyone is still lurking around looking for an answer, _URL_0_ has a really good documentary series breaking down fourth dimensional shapes that you can find [here](_URL_1_).
Thanks for the feedback! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1h5dvl/eli5_a_calabiyau_manifold_and_other_higher/ | {
"a_id": [
"caqztel",
"car3da1",
"car6na5"
],
"score": [
2,
3,
3
],
"text": [
" > My understanding of higher dimensions mostly includes the notion of dimensions tightly coiled on top of each other (which I suppose I can't exactly picture either), and I can't quite rationalize how extra shapes are formed in those coils.\n\nNot necessarily. Certain theories of physics predict higher spatial dimensions, but we appear to live in a universe with only 3 spatial dimensions. So one possible explanation is that there are small, \"curled up\" spatial dimensions that we can't see.\n\nBut dimensions, as an abstract mathematical concept, don't necessarily have to be \"curled up.\" You can have as many dimensions as you want. And you can shape them however you want. It won't necessarily correspond to anything in the real world, but in abstract mathematics, things rarely do correspond to real life.",
"It sounds like you're mostly interested in the extra dimensions from the perspective of string theory, where (perhaps) they exist in the real world and are curled up.\n\nBut if you're interested in higher dimensional shapes from a purely mathematical point of view, where they only \"exist\" in the mind, then start with all the many cool pictures on this wikipedia page: [Tesseract](_URL_0_)\n\n",
"You're not alone. Our brains evolved in a world with only three extended spatial dimensions and that means we simply don't have the mental wiring to be able to \"visualise\" more dimensions than that. Some scientists and mathematicians who've spent years working on concepts of multidimensional objects claim to be able to mentally \"see\" 4-dimensional (or even higher) shapes but I suspect even then they're using some kind of simplification."
]
} | [] | [
"Dimensions-math.org",
"http://www.dimensions-math.org/Dim_regarder_E.htm"
] | [
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesseract"
],
[]
] | |
21rhm2 | how people can sue for "emotional damages" in the millions of dollars. | I am mainly referring to stuff like
_URL_0_
Where 1 person has to pay millions for his crime, in addition to prison time. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/21rhm2/eli5_how_people_can_sue_for_emotional_damages_in/ | {
"a_id": [
"cgfsx9k",
"cgfsymv",
"cgfuilt"
],
"score": [
6,
9,
4
],
"text": [
"Jail time is punishment. Restitution is compensation for damages (and who pays depends on who's at fault).\n\nHow do you calculate damages by being raped by your uncle when you're 8-9 years old? You can't, really -- so she gets tons and tons of money.\n\nMost reasonable people would rather have their lives back, but since they can't (and they may have massive emotional damage), they get financial compensation, since it's pretty much the next best thing.",
"You can sue for emotional damages for eleven hundred trillion dollars. Doesn't mean you will get that much if you win. ",
"Because their crime, in addition to breaking a law, which would cause the prison time. Also causes so much stress, or emotional harm to the victim(s) family(ies), that they are held liable for things like lost work, psychiatric help, etc."
]
} | [] | [
"http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2014/01/22/restitution-case-scotus"
] | [
[],
[],
[]
] | |
24n4bb | why are people allowed to create merchandise for others' works, like sailor moon t-shirts or calvin & hobbes decals, and sell them for personal profits? | Is this really legal? It seems so common in online craft stores like etsy. Why do the companies allow it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/24n4bb/eli5_why_are_people_allowed_to_create_merchandise/ | {
"a_id": [
"ch8q3ms",
"ch8q7vc",
"ch8q8h2",
"ch8qotp",
"ch8r5i9",
"ch8t36f",
"ch8tuv3",
"ch90clj",
"ch98f3m"
],
"score": [
6,
17,
47,
9,
2,
3,
3,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Do you know for sure that these people are not paying a license fee? Are you sure the copyright/trademark hasn't expired? Maybe it's too costly for the companies to pursue legal action for what they'd get in return. Honestly, a lot of companies don't care because it can drive further profit for them anyways. Brand recognition, bro. ",
"Because what happens? They eventually get a cease and desist letter from the copyright owners and they stop making those particular items. Even if they do get sued, if they had an LLC they just go bankrupt, and start another one.",
"Technically, it's illegal, but most of those people are so small potatoes that the companies don't care. They're mostly worried about missing out on a potential revenue stream. They'll only really take action if anybody on Etsy ever gets big enough to cut into their profits. Even traditionally protective companies like Disney are loosening up on their restrictions.",
"It's not allowed, just difficult to enforce.",
"Also these big companies don't care or have time to go after small companies or people on etsy. They go after big time abusers and counterfeiters . ",
"They aren't actually, which is why I've never done it. Most people that do it either don't know or don't care but could face very heavy fines or jail time depending on how much they profited and for how long!",
"Is it only bad for the person creating and selling them or can a person purchasing one get in trouble as well? ",
"I also wonder this! There's so much random Star Wars shit out there...sometimes I get ideas for random Star Wars shit, but I don't want to get my ass sued.",
"Try producing a shirt that says \"Harley Davidson\" and see what happens. At this point, I'm surprised Harley hasn't sued tattoo shops for a cut of Harley-tattoo profits."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] | |
1v85hp | the belief behind someone who claims to be pantheistic | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1v85hp/eli5_the_belief_behind_someone_who_claims_to_be/ | {
"a_id": [
"cepn1mp"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"[\"Pantheism is the belief that the universe (or nature as the totality of everything) is identical with divinity, or that everything composes an all-encompassing, immanent God. Pantheists thus do not believe in a distinct personal or anthropomorphic god. Some religions have highlighted the importance of pantheism, most notably Hinduism and Taoism.\"](_URL_0_)"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantheism"
]
] | ||
1vdjnn | why do low fat and "lite" salad dressings and other foods have higher carbohydrate contents than their "regular" counterparts? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1vdjnn/eli5_why_do_low_fat_and_lite_salad_dressings_and/ | {
"a_id": [
"cer5rgd"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"It's common to add more salt and sugar (often in the form of corn syrup) to make up for the the lost fat. Try it out sometime with a \"bland\" food such as plain oatmeal. Make a bowl like you normally would, adding cream or butter to finish it off. Tasty! Now, do the same thing without adding any fat. Blech, library paste! However, add a good pinch of salt and loads of sugar, and presto, it tastes good again."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
57s0he | how do libraries make reasonable profit when they buy so many books but don't have many ways to gain that money back? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/57s0he/eli5_how_do_libraries_make_reasonable_profit_when/ | {
"a_id": [
"d8ueoxh",
"d8uewdk"
],
"score": [
12,
3
],
"text": [
"Tax money collected and paid to cities and counties pay for libraries. They are not profit-driven organizations. Libraries are a service provided by the government.",
"They are funded by the state and city. Just like public schools, certain museums, civil services, roads, etc."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] | ||
bzai96 | what affects the rate of air cooling down at night? | Had hard time formulating the sentence. But why some locations cool down very rapidly at night while here it barely cools down. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bzai96/eli5what_affects_the_rate_of_air_cooling_down_at/ | {
"a_id": [
"eqr47s9"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"It maybe because of Microclimate. Areas closer to water body cool down faster because of land breeze and sea breeze phenomenon. Whereas some other areas with lots of green cover may also help in rapid cooling down of that area. \n\nIn case of desert, sand's physical properties leads to rapid cooling at night. \n\nIn other places, altitude of the place may also affect the cooling down at night."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | |
2jatwp | why does hydrocortisone cream work on bug bites? | If I were to scratch the bites for relief and then apply the cream, would I get the best of both worlds? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2jatwp/eli5_why_does_hydrocortisone_cream_work_on_bug/ | {
"a_id": [
"cla574m"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"When you're bitten by a bug, your immune system's reaction to the bite is what causes the itching and skin irritation. Mosquito saliva, for example, triggers an immune response when injected into the skin during a bite, which is why these bites tend to be particularly itchy and unpleasant.\n\nHydrocortisone is a topical corticosteroid, and this type of drug works by suppressing the immune system. Applying the cream on a bite stops the immune reaction that causes itching.\n\nYou still shouldn't scratch, though. You could end up with an infection or a scar."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | |
1ebvx8 | why is throwing/writing/catching with your non-dominant hand so awkward for most people? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ebvx8/eli5why_is_throwingwritingcatching_with_your/ | {
"a_id": [
"c9ypqdc",
"c9yqmps"
],
"score": [
5,
3
],
"text": [
"Same reason brain surgery is awkward for you with your dominant hand. Lack of practice (assuming you're not a brain surgeon).",
"For the most part, you don't need to do these things with your non dominant hand, so it is a waste of time to practice them enough to development the neural pathways and muscle memory to do them well. That time is better spent improving your dominant hand or teaching it a new skill."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] | ||
ka08l | if my graphics card is using ddr5, why is my motherboard only using ddr3? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ka08l/eli5_if_my_graphics_card_is_using_ddr5_why_is_my/ | {
"a_id": [
"c2ilv6g",
"c2ilvos",
"c2ilv6g",
"c2ilvos"
],
"score": [
3,
3,
3,
3
],
"text": [
"Because it's different types of RAM. Your graphics card uses **G**DDR, which is specifically designed for graphics cards. And that technology is up to version 5, while normal DDR SDRAM is only at version 3.",
"Graphic cards uses \"GDDR5\" and motherboards use DDR3. GDDR5 is based upon DDR3 and DDR4 doesn't exist yet.",
"Because it's different types of RAM. Your graphics card uses **G**DDR, which is specifically designed for graphics cards. And that technology is up to version 5, while normal DDR SDRAM is only at version 3.",
"Graphic cards uses \"GDDR5\" and motherboards use DDR3. GDDR5 is based upon DDR3 and DDR4 doesn't exist yet."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[]
] | ||
66o0hp | why is the va better than regular hospitals/clinics for vets? | With all the talk lately of allowing US veterans to go to private hospitals for care instead of the closest VA due to waiting periods and what not it got me thinking. Does the VA provide specific care that is specialized for Vets, or can we just take the same amount of money and provide free healthcare for our nation's veterans (I am one btw)? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/66o0hp/eli5why_is_the_va_better_than_regular/ | {
"a_id": [
"dgjyd5h",
"dgk4t4r"
],
"score": [
6,
2
],
"text": [
"VA hospitals exist because it is more efficient and cheaper for the government to group them together when they are paying for their medical care than it is to have them scattered among civilian hospitals who then bill the government for their care. \n\nVA hospitals also have more doctors that specialize in the kinds of damages they have, such as amputation, which make them better. \n\nBut for basic medical care or emergency care any hospital can do what they can do. It just generates more paperwork and costs more for the government as the civilian hospitals charge higher rates for procedures. ",
"For Veterans the VA is a last resort. It is cheap/free in most cases, but the conditions are notoriously bad. Funding is far too low to make the staff/facilities/care equal to private hospitals. Our government loves to say they take good care of Veterans but, just like everything run by the government it is rife with poor management, corruption and too much burocracy. If a veteran has private insurance, they go to a regular hospital."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] | |
9avf4j | why do propane tanks get really cold when they’ve been used for a long time? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9avf4j/eli5_why_do_propane_tanks_get_really_cold_when/ | {
"a_id": [
"e4yes76"
],
"score": [
6
],
"text": [
"When gases expand, they cool down. So when you pull gas from the propane, the gas is expanding to occupy more space, meaning it cools down. \n\nTo understand this, think about what temperature means. It’s proportional to the average speed of particles. So when a clump of gas expands, the particles that move away first are going to be the faster moving ones, allowing them to move away. So what’s left behind are slow moving particles that didn’t have enough relative speed to move out of the clump (this is how evaporating sweat cools your skin - the only molecules of water that can evaporate are the fast moving ones, leaving slow moving ones behind).\n\nThis is simplified, but it’s pretty near the truth! I hope this helps!"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
32i9wj | how come when i (a male) shave a portion of my legs, it becomes irritated when a female shaves their legs it's smooth and there is no irritation? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/32i9wj/eli5_how_come_when_i_a_male_shave_a_portion_of_my/ | {
"a_id": [
"cqbgele"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"You might be using a dull razor or not enough lubrication (soap or shaving cream). Women can get irritation from shaving. Have you ever seen a woman shave her legs? If not then how do you know they don't get irritation? "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
2eunnp | in areas where several different police departments operate (local, county, state, etc.), how is it determined who responds to emergency calls? | Where I live, it's common to see town, county, state and university police cars on the road. I'm sure they have their designated areas of responsibility, but they operate in close proximity to each other. So in an emergency situation where there is no exact location, or the location is vague, how does the police response work? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2eunnp/eli5_in_areas_where_several_different_police/ | {
"a_id": [
"ck33ahp"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"The emergency call is made to a particular agency. That agency initiates response. Most police agencies operate under a mutal aid agreement, so other agencies will dispatch their officers to assist or, if they are closest, take the lead in the response."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | |
5uup4b | bio/organic chemists:can you identify whether a particular organic is edible (fat/protein/carb), a drug, a poison, or not edible (ex: byproduct of crude oil)? | If so, is there some way you can describe it (ELI5) how you know? Would you be able to to describe it to a person that passed high-school biochemistry?
Edit: When i say organic, i mean organic compound looking at the picture of the carbon structure. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5uup4b/eli5bioorganic_chemistscan_you_identify_whether_a/ | {
"a_id": [
"ddx50l6"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"In general, simple crude oil derivatives are long, straight chain carbon chains with just hydrogen attached. For example, butane (like in camping gas) is 4 carbons with 10 hydrogens around it. A heavier, longer carbon chain of 8 carbons (octane) is a liquid. The longer the chain, the stronger the interaction between each chain and so it follows gas > liquid > solid. Now as for proteins, they're made up of amino acids, which are small carbon chains with an amine group (NH2) on one end and a carboxylic acid (COOH) on the other. These have various side chains that make 20/21 separate amino acids. These link together through peptide bonds (amine + carboxylic acid) to form long, curling, complicated structures called proteins. Fats , or lipids, are generally harder to classify, but they will have long, long chains of carbons attached to some head group. As with crude oil, the longer the chain the more viscous the fat - unsaturated fats (with double bonds causing the chains to bend) cannot stack together as well as saturated chains, so do not have as strong interactions and so are less likely to build up and clog your arteries (in very simple terms). As for poisons and drugs, that's a lot harder. They will be cyclic (have ring structures) but they vary massively. There is usually a functional group that will attach to whatever needs to be affected by the molecule, and contain nitrogen, sulphur or a few other natural elements. They could have amine, alcohol (OH), methyl (CH3) or aldehyde (COH) groups. If you google pictures of LSD, morphine or epinephrine (adrenaline) , you can see the similarities. It's also worth noting that a lot of poisons are proteins (like ricin) or bacteria (like anthrax) or salts of elements (like arsenic) rather than single molecules."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | |
1oiqvl | why are women comfortable being seen in swimwear but not underwear? | They cover the same amount of skin. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1oiqvl/eli5why_are_women_comfortable_being_seen_in/ | {
"a_id": [
"ccsb765",
"ccsbfg3"
],
"score": [
5,
2
],
"text": [
"Not gonna lie, it is totally a mental thing based on how \"lady-like\" you were raised. Underwear are \"intimates\" and are not supposed to be exposed unless in private moments. I hate having my bra show through my shirt but I have no issue if I am wearing a bathing suit top instead.\n\nWe are weird. We know.",
"Perception. Underwear is private, but swimwear, even ones that look like they're made out of dental floss, are for public wear. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] | |
1ma406 | how do computers know which instructions to send to the cpu and which to graphics card? where is this decision made? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ma406/how_do_computers_know_which_instructions_to_send/ | {
"a_id": [
"cc77d3f"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"The instructions have addresses. Imagine that the CPU, graphics card, hard disk, memory, etc. are houses along a street. When the county sends water bills to everyone on your block, you don't get whichever one the postman feels like putting in your letter box, you get the one that's addressed to you. Same thing with instructions in a computer - \"Hey, hard disk, store this data.\" \"Hey, RAM, hold onto this for a while for me.\" and so on."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
3c8axb | why the new shoes have no grommets? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3c8axb/eli5_why_the_new_shoes_have_no_grommets/ | {
"a_id": [
"cst5phi"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"What are you doing that the eyelets wear out after a year? I personally wear Nike's for my everyday shoes, and they use loops instead of holes."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
2utx24 | why is sars that killed 299 people an epidemic and a new type of flue that can kill up to 500 not an epidemic? | Title. Back in 2003 SARS has claimed the lives of 299 people in a span of a few months, and recently a new type of H3N2 has claimed 118 lives in a week, with vaccines not working against it. Yet the government is insisting that we don't need to wear facemasks as it will discourage social interaction, but they estimate there will be 500 deaths this month---that's way more than deaths caused by SARS right? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2utx24/eli5_why_is_sars_that_killed_299_people_an/ | {
"a_id": [
"cobpjzk"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"An epidemic is when it effects more people than usual. That's all the word means."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | |
n1jjf | why al qaeda chose to target the united states? | or tell me why i'm wrong? what, exactly, is their reasoning for their US hatred? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/n1jjf/eli5_why_al_qaeda_chose_to_target_the_united/ | {
"a_id": [
"c35jhc0",
"c35joij",
"c35jhc0",
"c35joij"
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"score": [
2,
7,
2,
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],
"text": [
"Now, there is a lot of controversy/conspiracy with this group and I won't delve into that, but if and when you have a moment, I'd suggest looking it up. Who told you that this group hates us? This is not a dumb question, rather, I'm just pointing out that due to the circumstances we (US) are in, propaganda plays a huge role on the citizen's perception. But, outside of that, the US plays a huge role in World Policy and World Policing. If you were in a country, let's say Iraq, and the US comes for no legit reason, bombs your schools/villages/cities/etc..., tells you to change your views/ways from an islamic centered system to a democratic system, and does this without compromising, how would you feel? The US and many other allies have had a historical habit of doing these kinds of things and this group got fed up with it.",
"I'm by no means an expert on this topic, but I'll see if I can shed a bit of light on the topic.\n\nIn Al Qaeda's early years still part of the mujahideen they were actually funded by the U.S. (funneled through pakistan's equivalent of a CIA agency of course) to fight the soviets who were helping the afghani governments (who were pro soviet) tighten their grip over the region against these rebels. At the time mujahideen was pretty loosely aligned, and although they were jihadist they weren't opposed to one group or another, with the exception being the soviets. Afghanistan's government wasn't all that bad, but because it was pro-soviet the Americans didn't have any of that.\n\nNear the end of the war versus the soviet union, the mujahideen began operations in other parts of the region, such as Israel. During a later conflict in which Iraq invaded Kuwait (ruled by the House of Saud), Bin Laden offered the King of Saudi Arabia protection against the Iraqi army through his mujahideen troops. The King refused, instead allowing U.S. protection (they wanted to secure oil fields, of course), which angered Bin Laden. He saw Saudi Arabia as an extremely sacred Islamic sovereignty and couldn't stand the thought of U.S. troops there. Bin Laden later works for Sudan, opposes peace between Palestine and Israel, and does plenty of other dickish things against other countries.\n\nOf course Al Qaeda doesn't JUST terrorize the USA, but they are the most colourfully painted target out there. They invade sovereign countries like a rash, which allows Al Qaeda to easily recruit by justifying the repulsion of these 'foreign devils'. The USA provides a picture perfect antithesis of modesty required to condemn them by sharia standards. Furthermore, if you were to ask any run of the mill illiterate farmer's child if they could name one other country in the western world, odds are that country would be the USA, due to it's presence, both positive and negative, world wide.",
"Now, there is a lot of controversy/conspiracy with this group and I won't delve into that, but if and when you have a moment, I'd suggest looking it up. Who told you that this group hates us? This is not a dumb question, rather, I'm just pointing out that due to the circumstances we (US) are in, propaganda plays a huge role on the citizen's perception. But, outside of that, the US plays a huge role in World Policy and World Policing. If you were in a country, let's say Iraq, and the US comes for no legit reason, bombs your schools/villages/cities/etc..., tells you to change your views/ways from an islamic centered system to a democratic system, and does this without compromising, how would you feel? The US and many other allies have had a historical habit of doing these kinds of things and this group got fed up with it.",
"I'm by no means an expert on this topic, but I'll see if I can shed a bit of light on the topic.\n\nIn Al Qaeda's early years still part of the mujahideen they were actually funded by the U.S. (funneled through pakistan's equivalent of a CIA agency of course) to fight the soviets who were helping the afghani governments (who were pro soviet) tighten their grip over the region against these rebels. At the time mujahideen was pretty loosely aligned, and although they were jihadist they weren't opposed to one group or another, with the exception being the soviets. Afghanistan's government wasn't all that bad, but because it was pro-soviet the Americans didn't have any of that.\n\nNear the end of the war versus the soviet union, the mujahideen began operations in other parts of the region, such as Israel. During a later conflict in which Iraq invaded Kuwait (ruled by the House of Saud), Bin Laden offered the King of Saudi Arabia protection against the Iraqi army through his mujahideen troops. The King refused, instead allowing U.S. protection (they wanted to secure oil fields, of course), which angered Bin Laden. He saw Saudi Arabia as an extremely sacred Islamic sovereignty and couldn't stand the thought of U.S. troops there. Bin Laden later works for Sudan, opposes peace between Palestine and Israel, and does plenty of other dickish things against other countries.\n\nOf course Al Qaeda doesn't JUST terrorize the USA, but they are the most colourfully painted target out there. They invade sovereign countries like a rash, which allows Al Qaeda to easily recruit by justifying the repulsion of these 'foreign devils'. The USA provides a picture perfect antithesis of modesty required to condemn them by sharia standards. Furthermore, if you were to ask any run of the mill illiterate farmer's child if they could name one other country in the western world, odds are that country would be the USA, due to it's presence, both positive and negative, world wide."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[]
] | |
1prtv9 | what does splenda mean when it says "it's made from sugar" and why is it effective for diabetes patients? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1prtv9/eli5_what_does_splenda_mean_when_it_says_its_made/ | {
"a_id": [
"cd5by6z",
"cd5d0zv"
],
"score": [
3,
2
],
"text": [
"as far as I now splenda is refined sugar. They take some of the atoms in it and replace it by something else, to make it worthless for the body to digest.\nWikipedia says on that: \"It is manufactured by the selective chlorination of sucrose (table sugar), which substitutes three of the hydroxyl groups with chlorine.\"\nTherefore on the tongue it is perceived as sweet. As the the body is not able to digest it, it has no effect on your weight or calorie input. However side effects might be possible.\nIt is good for diabetics, as far as it is not bad for them. Diabetics have to watch how much carbohydrates they take in per day.\nIf splenda is replacing carbohydrates (like ordinary sugar) it helps them to reduce their total carbohydrate intake.\n\nEdit: The correct name for the product is \"Suclarose\". Splenda is just the branding.",
"Splenda is made by taking sugar and 'breaking' it chemically. Your body still thinks it *tastes* like sugar but it can't get at the food energy of it. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] | ||
27qnt7 | is cause and effect compatible with free will? | If cause and effect is absolute does that mean everything that has happened/will happen is inevitable and unavoidable? Is it possible that there's more than one effect for each cause (and then what determines which effect happens)? Does cause and effect apply to everything in existence without exception (including thoughts etc.)? Are there several competing schools of thought or a general consensus on the issue? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/27qnt7/eli5_is_cause_and_effect_compatible_with_free_will/ | {
"a_id": [
"ci3ejs8"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"We don't know. We have lots of philosophical arguments one way or another, but we can't really say for sure because concepts like free-will tend to be ill-defined and too abstract to really nail down properly."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | |
2p9m3a | how does living near a time zone border work? | Say you live in a town right on the border of a time zone, How does everyone co-ordinate the set time for everything? I assume by mentioning Mountain or Pacific,for example, but that must get old fast. I can't imagine the next town over operating on a different hourly schedule. Can anyone maybe living in such an area she'd some light on how that all works?
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2p9m3a/eli5_how_does_living_near_a_time_zone_border_work/ | {
"a_id": [
"cmukv24",
"cmul87r",
"cmulaaq",
"cmumkwe",
"cmuo3eh",
"cmuq22k"
],
"score": [
2,
3,
7,
7,
5,
2
],
"text": [
"Cities and towns that are split by time zones are very rare because the government of whatever country the time zone split is in generally tries to work it around population centers to avoid this problem.",
"Here's a news story about exactly such a thing:\n\n_URL_0_\n\nBasically, there's a lot of clarification needed, and then there are still mistakes made sometimes.",
"My college is within maybe 30 miles of the central/eastern line. Some of my professsors work in eastern and live in central. We actually have a branch of the college that is in central time. Most of the time stuff will just list a time and what zone it is. \n\nFor example. My calc 3 final is at noon eastern time. This is the same as 11 central time. So my professor who lives 55 miles away in central time zone has to leave his house before 10 a.m. central to get to campus by noon eastern. \n\nIt sounds complicated, but they've said they get used to it pretty quick.",
"In Arizona we don't observe daylight savings time. Except the Navajo nation does. And the Hopi do not. The Navajo nation is in Arizona and in that is the Hopi and in the Hopi is a small area of Navajo. So there is a unique situation in the summer that you can drive about an hour and go in and out of five timezone changes. ",
"There's not much to explain. If you're crossing the time zone line, its going to be different over there than it is at home. You just plan for it. Say your work is in eastern and you live central. Your work shift is 8-5, that means your alarm is set for 5:30am, give you half hour to get ready and hour to get to work. You leave work at 5pm, drive hour to get home and arrive at 5pm.",
"One effect is that if there a major population/business center on one side of the line, some areas that would otherwise be on the other side of the line will aling themselves withthe large city. \n\nSome folks in Indiana have long pushed to have the whole state on one time zone. But, folks in the SE want to be on Eastern time, since so many work or otherwise conduct business in Louisville KY, while folks in the NW want to be on Central time for the same reason, except change Louisville to Chicago."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"http://www.cbsnews.com/news/town-in-two-time-zones/"
],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] | |
5n94gh | what changed in technology to allow for ubiquitous quadcopter drones? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5n94gh/eli5_what_changed_in_technology_to_allow_for/ | {
"a_id": [
"dc9mn2j"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
"There's a few things. Batteries are one of the big ones. Cell phones have really pushed the development of high capacity, long life, lightweight batteries. They've also pushed the development of low power CPUs, which are essential to keeping a drone flying. Thirdly, thanks to things like the Nintendo Wii controller, tiny gyroscopes & accelerometers are also widely & cheaply available."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
8ysvep | why does the ground look wet when it’s hot, from certain angles? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8ysvep/eli5_why_does_the_ground_look_wet_when_its_hot/ | {
"a_id": [
"e2df9jk",
"e2dfe1h"
],
"score": [
4,
2
],
"text": [
"It has to do with the air beeing hotter (and thus less dense) close to the ground. This changes the refractive index of the air which causes light to change direction when entering this hot region. This is however not stable, as the air is continuously moving around, and therefore it looks like it moves around a bit, kind of like water :)\n\n_URL_0_",
"This is caused by the refraction of light (the same effect that causes your hand to not line up with your arm if you stick it underwater). Basically, when light enters a different medium, it will bend. In this case, the different medium is air of different densities. Close to the hot ground, the air is hot and is therefore less dense than the air above it. The light coming down that would usually just hit the ground is bent a bit back upward. When you're far away, the angle is shallow enough that it is bent upward enough so that it misses the ground and goes into your eyes. This creates what our brains interpret as a reflection and so we conclude that the ground is wet. \n\nInterestingly, a similar effect can be caused by cold surfaces. For example, water in midday/afternoons tends to be cooler than the air above it. This means that light that originates from near the surface and would typically go off into the sky is bent back downwards. This is how people are able to see skylines over lakes when the city is far enough away that the curvature of the earth should prevent them from seeing it. It is also why, sometimes boats appear to float: _URL_0_"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirage"
],
[
"https://www.moillusions.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/floating-Ghost-Boat-580x319.png"
]
] | ||
1zsb02 | why does my facebook app need to do these things. | Specifically why does it need the ability to use my hardware and read texts. What possible applications could that have malicious or otherwise?
Edit: added link to permissions screenshot.
_URL_0_ | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1zsb02/eli5_why_does_my_facebook_app_need_to_do_these/ | {
"a_id": [
"cfwqjpt"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"I read somewhere on here (can't find source, sorry) that they don't really \"need\" to read texts. They claim they do for some phone verification process where they send a code to your phone and read it. They'll say it's to make your account more secure.\n\nI say bullshit."
]
} | [] | [
"http://imgur.com/yCIgszr"
] | [
[]
] | |
fb7qfq | why is every time i take a survey for cash or not, they are always concerned if i'm hispanic, i understand the use of race for statistics but they seemed more concerned about hispanics over anybody else. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fb7qfq/eli5_why_is_every_time_i_take_a_survey_for_cash/ | {
"a_id": [
"fj2t9kw"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Which country are you in?\n\nI live in australia, and every legal form will ask me whether I'm an aboriginal or a torres strait islander"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
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