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9cjcib | what is vacuum decay? how will it occur and how will we feel it happening? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9cjcib/eli5_what_is_vacuum_decay_how_will_it_occur_and/ | {
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"Everything in physics tries to be at its minimum energy level. That's why a ball roll down a hill or certain chemical reaction occur. The vacuum (no particle) has a certain amount of energy. But it's possible that's only a local minimum and not a global minimum, kinda like how a ball can be in **a** hole but not **the lowest hole** in all of the earth. **If** this is the case (and I must stress here that we have no idea if that's true) and **if** it's possible to reach the true minimum, we expect all the laws of physics to change upon reaching that minimum, or at least all currently known particle interraction. If it happens it'll happen at some specific point in space (or multiple points) and it'll expand at the speed of light. It's actually possible that it already happened somewhere in space and we just don't know yet. Nor will we ever know because the speed of light is the fastest speed at which information can travel. \n\nWill we feel it? Not really it'll go through the earth in an instant and we'll all be dead, it won't hurt at all because even if your feet get \"destroyed\" first, your brain wouldn't receive the pain signal until after your brain is also destroyed. It's a scary thought but it's also just a hypothesis for now so don't worry too much about it. "
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7kqwlz | why can a portable heater (like my fake fireplace) pump out hot air as soon as i turn it on, but my car takes a long time to warm up? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7kqwlz/eli5_why_can_a_portable_heater_like_my_fake/ | {
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"An electric heater can begin heating immediately, the resistive elements get up to temp almost instantly when powered on - think about how fast a light bulb hits operating temp.\n\nCar heaters draw heat from the coolant, which draws heat from the engine. It takes a few minutes for the engine-coolant-heater system to warm up.",
"Your portable heater probably uses electrical resistance to create heat - all electricity flowing through a wire creates some measure of heat, and the more *resistance* that cable offers to the flow of electricity the more heat it creates . Electric heaters, toasters, ovens, all work by creating a large amount of resistance to quickly create heat. They do this intentionally, and design large amounts of heating area, and little extra that would absorb the heat as they are intentionally creating heat. \n\nYour car, on the other hand, doesn't intentionally create heat, it happens to be a by product of creating lots of little explosions in the cylinders; this is internal combustion. It does this to create energy that moves the piston and then the rods that creates the motion that moves your vehicle. Heat just happens to be a by product of that. The engines are actually designed to reduce that heat to a manageable level so it doesn't do things like warp precision items, melt tubes, etc. The engines themselves are large blocks of metal to help absorb the heat (and deal with the stresses of the combustion and moving parts) and coolant is circulated through the engine to capture that heat and move it out of the engine area. Ultimately despite these measures though the engine will still heat up to a point; that's when it's 'warmed up'. The various fluids involved are then optimized for that temperature since it's inevitable that the engine will hit that temperature, though ideally not exceed it. \n\nBonus question: it should actually be heating up more. If you have an electric toaster, use it without bread at different settings and see how the colors of the heating coils inside change as the amount of electricity going through them changes; an electric heater uses a similar principle. \n\n"
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2aeahn | can dogs really not eat chocolate, bread, onions, or garlic? why not? | If they've been domesticated from wolves to the point they're at now and living off of human food scraps this whole time, shouldn't their digestive tract have evolved to handle everything ours can? Are there any other foods they can't / shouldn't eat? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2aeahn/eli5_can_dogs_really_not_eat_chocolate_bread/ | {
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" > If they've been domesticated from wolves to the point they're at now and living off of human food scraps this whole time, shouldn't their digestive tract have evolved to handle everything ours can?\n\nNo, evolution doesn't work that way.\n\nDogs have different biology and body chemistry than we do. Chocolate, onions, and garlic have compounds that are toxic to dogs but pass harmlessly through us. I don't know the specific reason against bread but I would surmise it clogs up in their digestive system."
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6umevh | why do some people with mental complications have their mouths hanging open? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6umevh/eli5_why_do_some_people_with_mental_complications/ | {
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"It can be caused by a condition called tardive dyskinesia, which is a side-effect of some anti-psychotic medications. It can cause uncontrollable movements of the jaw and lips as well as swelling of the tongue, among other things.",
"I don't know about other conditions, but with Down Syndrome 75% have a proportionally large tongue."
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3zv2xx | how did obama put this new gun law into action with no vote etc | I'm super confused about Obama's last ditch effort of throwing in this gun law where HIPPA is basically ignored and now mental health records are part of any background check. Is that even legal? Doesn't it violate my second amendment rights? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3zv2xx/eli5_how_did_obama_put_this_new_gun_law_into/ | {
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"It's not a new law.\n\nThe president is the head of the executive branch of the government, and the executive branch is in charge of enforcing existing laws, but cannot create new laws.\n\nWhat Obama did in this case is change how the executive branch enforces the *already existing* laws around background checks on customers when selling them guns.\n\nPeople with certain mental illnesses were *already* prohibited by federal law from owning firearms, in a [law passed by congress back in 1993](_URL_0_). That is not a new thing. Obama has simply worked with the Department of Health and Human Services to expand what information is made available during background checks for people purchasing guns so that they can better enforce already-existing laws.",
"read the second amendment and try and think of how this would violate it. \n\nUnless you are saying you are unfit to have a gun, even under the somewhat specific circumstances surrounding the second amendment. \n\nSpecifically the entire amendment and when 'bearing arms' is appropriate, hint it's not written as being all the time.\n\n"
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3jjf2b | why did men's pants move down from the "natural waist" to the hips? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3jjf2b/eli5_why_did_mens_pants_move_down_from_the/ | {
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"Men's waists are still at that height for dress pants (slacks, suit pants, tuxedo pants, etc) and khakis. It is only jeans, shorts, and other casual wear that have lower waists, and then it is only some of them. ",
"Things like this are up to fashion, they have no significance so they can eaisily change based on recent trends. ",
"The trend of lowering the waistline started around the 60's with European suit style influences.\n\nI'm in my mid-20s right now, and I personally still prefer wearing my pants at the navel, rather than at the hips, as I feel it creates the best silhouette when wearing a suit.",
"Is this why old guys wear there pants up to their arm pits?",
"I personally think pants are way more comfortable on the hips. It doesn't give that \"riding-up\" feeling.",
"What is natural about the \"natural waist\"?",
"Do they say \"nice pants. Why do you wear them up to your tits?\"\n\n_URL_0_",
"At a guess I would say it started as a functional change. The higher the belt line, the more flexibility you lose or reign in because of the way your body bends. Wear some coveralls and try to move around, eg crawling, crab walking, bending, squat for lifting heavy things, etc. They'll ride right up into your crotch if they're not baggy enough, because when you bend forward, your back is the outside edge of the curve.\n\nClothes that fit just right when you're standing have a tendency to not fit right at all when you're doing other more active things.",
"My grandmother (when I was like 8) saw that my pants were at my hip and not my waist and yanked them up... the crotch of those jeans were not meant for that fit, let's put it that way."
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2mwd97 | how come most coconut oils we see are solid, yet there are coconut oils in a liquid state - what makes them not solidify? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2mwd97/eli5_how_come_most_coconut_oils_we_see_are_solid/ | {
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"It reacts very easily to temperature. All summer I had a jar of coconut oil in my cupboard that was liquid. The second week of November it finally is solid again like when I bought it. ",
"I believe it has some thing to do with [fractionation](_URL_0_), which allows the oil to be used for different purposes. Fractionated coconut oils are best suited for skin moisturizing and personal lubricant, but beware that it may damage latex condoms. \n\nThe article states that you shouldn't eat this particular coconut oil because it could still contain some contaminants.",
"Plant oils are unsaturated fats, so theoretically at room temperature they should be liquid and not solid. Unsaturated fats have a chemical structure (specifically, a different kind of bond at a certain place) that makes them liquefy at lower temperatures than saturated (animal) fats. "
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1es1r9 | i just got a job that offers a 401k plan, can anyone explain what i should do with that? | Keeping in mind that I'm 22 years old and chances are this is not a super long term career. Do 401k's roll over to a new job? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1es1r9/eli5_i_just_got_a_job_that_offers_a_401k_plan_can/ | {
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"Yes, you get to take your 401k with you if you leave your job. \n\nI'm not a huge fan of 401k's, but unless you've got some other significant retirement savings plan, it's probably a good idea to contribute as much as you can reasonably afford to it.\n",
"Contribute at least to the match. It's free money essentially",
"Yes, your 401(k)s will roll over to a new job. You keep them forever.\n\nMany employers offer free matching funds for some percentage of your 401(k) contributions. Find out what percent they match up to, and contribute *at least* that much. Not doing so would throwing away free money.",
"Just do it. Your 65-year-old self will thank you for it.",
"/r/personalfinance \n\nJust for your knowledge, this is a great subreddit to read up on for someone starting out their career and financial responsibilities. "
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6b6ai8 | sudoku patterns | Can someone please explain the x-wing, swordfish, and finned swordfish patterns please? I've looked this up many times but I have a difficult time grasping the concept. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6b6ai8/eli5_sudoku_patterns/ | {
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"When you get into those patterns, its sort of like running through permutations in your head.\nSort of like when you are playing chess, and you think \"well, if he does this, then I'll do that, and that will force him to do this third thing\"\nIn Sudoku, your running through permutations of what would happen if you filled in a square with a number, how would the other numbers be forced to react. It would force other numbers into certain slots or eliminate numbers from certain slots. Sort of like a domino effect. \n\n_URL_0_"
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b4choy | if there is no actual "touch", just electric impulses between atoms that give the feeling of touching, how does a knife, for example, break bonds to "cut" something? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b4choy/eli5_if_there_is_no_actual_touch_just_electric/ | {
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"Unless it is one of the smallest needle points, the process of breaking bonds of any material is never \"clean\". It actually tears quite a bit, and between several layers of flesh, this tearing actually sets off all kinds of red flags with nerve endings. \"I'm feeling pressure, foreign material or air when I shouldn't be!\" is what they all scream, and this translates as pain because of the overload of this signal hitting your brain. Too much pain and your brain will basically turn off so you don't feel what horrible thing is happening or has happened to you.",
"Because things like an electric field are plenty strong enough to push two atoms apart, after all they are only held together by electric fields.",
"A knife only appears to \"cut\" something cleanly. In reality chunks of the item are plowed out of the way of a very narrow path. Most materials shear, that is flattish chunks break off and make a break along the boundaries of molecules. ",
"It's not really fair to say that atoms don't touch. Rather, atoms repelling each other at extremely short distances via overlapping electric fields is *how touching works.* The concept of a solid surface is a convenient illusion that only works at the macroscopic scale, and disappears at the atomic level.",
"There are two kinds of bonds- intramolecular (forces that hold atoms together in a molecule) and intermolecular (forces that exist between 2 or more molecules). Typically intermolecular forces are much weaker and those are the bonds you can sever to make a \"cut\". For visualization, think of a bowl of uncooked rice and you take a chopstick to make a imaginary line to through the bowl. You are not cutting any individual/singular rice, but your chopstick will still go through because the pressure you are creating are enough for the rice to essentially get out of the way. In this case, each rice is a stand in for one molecule made of atoms. So while you can separate the molecules (rice) from themselves, but you cannot split a single molecule (not with a chopstick at least). A knife works similarly on a microscopic level, by creating pressure and repulsion between the molecules to separate and therefore cut. Hope this helps.",
"Both the knife and the material being cut is composed of atoms. Atoms can push atoms out of the way.\n\nUsually, you don't have to break any other bonds than the weak bonds between molecules. This only requires forcing two atoms apart. Nevertheless, breaking bonds within molecules absolutely does happen, if the molecules are long enough. This is the case with polymers, such as when pulling a cotton or nylon rope so hard it breaks.\n\nDespite what people claim (also in this thread), atoms are very hard and they actually touch. When an atom is probed with another atom, the response is like two billiard balls colliding with each other. It takes astronomically high energy densities to actually compress an atom to a size substantially smaller than its room-temperature equilibrium size.\n\nThe reason people talk of electromagnetic fields is that when an atom is probed with a fast electron, nucleus or X-ray, it breaks through the outer shell of the atom and scatters from the inside, revealing the structure inside. But in this case, we have much more energy around than at room temperature. Normally, you can't \"feel\" any deeper than the uppermost electron shell. (This \"feel\" is real and can be put to use in the so-called \"[atomic force microscopy](_URL_0_)\" (AFM), where a vibrating probe sharpened to an one-atom-wide point is scanned across a surface.)"
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4mui59 | the "freemen on the land" movment. | How did this belief system get started? How long has it been around. Why do people believe it?? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4mui59/eli5_the_freemen_on_the_land_movment/ | {
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"The idea (or so they claim) is that they were not given the choice to be a citizen of the land they were born on and are unfairly forced to abide by arbitrary federal laws, as such they reject the authority of the federal government and often the state government as well.\n\nIn reality it's pretty much just used to justify breaking laws and then having an excuse for why."
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7rlph4 | if you lived long enough, would all your cells eventually become cancerous? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7rlph4/eli5_if_you_lived_long_enough_would_all_your/ | {
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"No, most of them would die normally, unless you are insinuating that by 'living long enough' your cells themselves are immune to anything but cancer.",
"No. You need very specific mutations in order for a cell to get cancerous (although they typically \"stack\" in such a way that the earlier mutations make further mutations more likely, e.g. by removing protections to the DNA, or making more copies of already mutated cells). The reason people still get cancer is because you have many cells, and it only needs to start once. But most other mutations will either do nothing, or even harm/kill the cell. Some mutations might even make the cell less likely to become cancerous (e.g. a mutation that slows down cell division). So most cells will die of something else long before they become cancerous. "
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8r9yuc | how come when we put our phones under sun light it is barely visible, but when we put it under artifical light in our house it is clearly visible? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8r9yuc/eli5_how_come_when_we_put_our_phones_under_sun/ | {
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"That is because sunlight is far brighter than indoor lighting.\n\nPhotography indoors is tricky for the same reason"
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2p6flt | if usa and russa had an all-out nuclear war during the cold war, would there really be a nuclear apocalypse like we see in movies? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2p6flt/eli5_if_usa_and_russa_had_an_allout_nuclear_war/ | {
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"Yes, except everyone would die and there would be no survivors.",
"What do you mean exactly by \"in the movies?\" Give an example. Also nuclear winter may be hypothetical but it may be along the lines of what your looking for. _URL_0_",
"As Albert Einstein said, \"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.\"",
"Civilization would likely collapse because the main targets in a nuclear exchange would be infrastructure and government.\n\nThere are not enough nuclear weapons in the world to render the entire planet uninhabitable, though nuclear winter may cause widespread famine, further reducing the human population and crippling civilization.\n\nYou can reasonably expect humans to revert to a pre-industrial level of technology with an unpredictable recovery rate, as we've never had an example.",
"To be honest, no one really knows.\n\nWe know there are enough nuclear weapons to take out the worlds major cities, but if countries like India, Brazil and South Africa weren't directly involved, they might survive with their populations intact They could emerge relatively unscathed at the worlds new superpowers, and humanity would not take too far of a step backwards in terms of development.\n\nWe speculate that the smoke from the ensuing fires would result in reduce sunlight reaching the earth. That could result in anything from a few lean years to a complete agricultural collapse sending man kind back to the Dark Ages, or worth.\n\nThere would also be nuclear fallout, and this could be made much worse if dirty bombs were involved. This could be the difference between land being resettled in a decade, or being uninhabitable for centuries. It would also impact how much poison enters into the overall ecosystem impacting all humans.",
"Swiss people would be pretty fine. They have a higher bunker-capacity than population",
"There's a novel by Tom Clancy about a war between the Soviet Union and the West breaking out in the late 80's. It's called Red Storm Rising. Nuclear exchange doesn't happen but a full scale ground war nevertheless. It's a nice reading snack.",
"Most people would end up starving or dying of radiation poisoning or getting murdered for their stuff. Some areas of the world would be fine until the radiation got to them as long as they weren't too dependent on foreign supplies or aid. But eventually the fallout would affect everyone.",
"Since nobody truly know what would have happened, then all we have to do is guess, based on the available information. My guess is that if we and Russia have an all-out nuclear warfare, then it would have been a lot more worse. Using the nuclear weapons from the Cold War (instead of the 1945 bombings), it would destroy every living area and radiate the areas for thousands of years, not to mention killing thousands and thousands of innocent bystanders in the process. There is a major risk for retaliation from most countries who has nukes and under the Mutually Assured Destruction theory, it would basically give them a signal to use them against us as well and that would have give us a step close to the destruction of civilization and everything that humans in the thousands of years had worked hard for."
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1vh026 | why is the cosmic background microwave energy in outer reaches of the universe warmer as we look at higher frequencies? | A recent issue of science news shows a series of illustrations derived from the European Space Agency's Planck satellite of the residual background energy in the universe as measured from 30 Ghz to 857 Ghz and, generally, as they looked at higher frequencies the center of the universe looks cooler and the outer limits look warmer. Why? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1vh026/eli5why_is_the_cosmic_background_microwave_energy/ | {
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2favys | why do they not put ebola victims in suits like the doctors wear? would it not somewhat help contain the virus? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2favys/eli5_why_do_they_not_put_ebola_victims_in_suits/ | {
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"Interesting idea. My guess is that it's not very comfortable and the people with ebola are really, really sick. Puking, shitting yourself, etc, is bad enough, but imagine what that'd be like wearing a space suit. ",
"Ebola virus is actually not very contagious. They just protect themselves because they are directly working with patient. If they put suit on patient, doctors would not be able to threat him. But more importantly, biohazard suits are not fun to wear and it could actually kill patients from additional physical demands on their body.",
"The big, positively pressurized suits are designed to keep the virus OUT, not in. \n\nIf you mean the Tyvek suits, it's because the doctors need access to the patient to treat them. They could just zip them up and basically seal them in a soon-to-be body bag, but that'd kind of defeat the point of taking them to the hospital. "
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5wmyvf | what is the true purpose of "tag a friend who ..." spam-posts on facebook? | I guess it has something to do with facebook's algorithm for ads or something? Or is it just a ruse to gather personal information from people? They are annoying as hell and I'd like to understand why they exist at all.
**Just to clarify:** I don't mean the Rolex spam hacks that have *you* involuntarily tag friends.
I mean the posts from random very low-effort pages or just radio stations, often a "funny picture" where you are encouraged to tag a friend to embarrass them. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5wmyvf/eli5_what_is_the_true_purpose_of_tag_a_friend_who/ | {
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"Views are almost like a currency of sort online. To generate more views it's best to widen the net. Tagging people is the easiest way to achieve that. ",
"Generating range, e.g., exposure. Getting a brands' name 'out there'. Every view, every click, every page loaded is, at its base level, an interaction with a brand, or product and a potential customer. \nAny page, be it a standalone website, a facebook page, a blog or whatever kind of means a company decides to use to promote a product, is 'counted' by said customer interactions. This is usually called the 'range' said medium can generate. \n \nAn example from Twitter would be someone with 10 followers, writing a tweet. Let's assume that all 10 followers each have 10 followers of their own and all 10 retweet this one tweet. This means, with one tweet, the tweet is seen by (10x10) 100 possible customers. \nNow imagine a tweet written by someone who has 1000 followers, each with 100 followers. If only half of those followers retweet this single tweet, we're already at (500x100) 50.000 possible customers being exposed to the companys' product. Thus the range in the latter example is way higher, than in the former. \n \nThis range is valuable in terms of what a marketing company, or similar, is willing (or has to) pay for their commercial to appear on said medium. That also is the reason why, in comparison, a print ad is much cheaper, than a tv ad - their range is hugely different. \n \nSo, to come to a stop, all these 'tag a friend that...' sites try to enhance their own range, be it to gain a better position to sell their own products, *or* to have better 'arguments' when dealing with other marketing companies that want to place ads on their site."
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259cl8 | how is basic universal income different than unconditional welfare? | At the end of the day, wouldn't basic income still just be the government giving away free money? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/259cl8/eli5_how_is_basic_universal_income_different_than/ | {
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"Different programs create different incentives. The problem with welfare is as soon as someone gets a minimum wage job they lose benefits. Since it's rare for someone to start out at a high wage, people can get trapped in welfare programs. If all families had a guaranteed $900 a month income, people are free to get jobs, gain experience, and move up to higher paying positions. Milton Friedman, a libertarian economist, was for a version of this that he called a negative income tax.",
"They are similar concepts designed to solve similar problems, but there are subtle differences. \n\nBasically, welfare only goes to the needy. You generally have to apply for it. Basic universal income goes to everybody, rich and poor, whether or not you've applied for it. \n\nThis impacts ideal tax policy at the lower income levels while creating certain buts of bureaucracy and eliminating others. It also means the amount given to citizens goes up, so a corresponding tax has to be raised or deficits have to be incurred. Since taxation is almost always expressed as percentages and the basic income is expressed as a defined amount, this would mean that tax burden is shifted up from the lower middle-class to the upper-middle class, flattening their post-tax earnings somewhat.\n\nThe big theoretical benefit, however, is that it would eliminate some of the worst aspects welfare. Welfare incentivizes people to work under the table (pay no taxes and usually work bad jobs), disincentives them to find a permanent job or part-time job (they can lose welfare benefits and have to work a lot more to earn only a little more), and makes them feel like terrible people when they have to wait in line and beg a bureaucrat for money to survive. A basic income has none of these problems, but it comes at a higher cost to the budget.",
"So they're already giving away the free money, why not implement basic income? You could do away with welfare, food stamps, social security, disability benefits and more and wind up getting rid of tons of bureaucracy that makes those programs inefficient and expensive. With just the one social program there is hardly anything to manage and not much of a tax change because you are no longer funding all of that other stuff. ",
"The thing people keep coming to is the some how people would lose incentive to work or that it means we could abolish the minimum wage.\n\nWhile you could abolish the minimum wage, wages would still have to rise to find worker, the demand would shift from people needing jobs to people needing employees, therefore incentivising employers to offer better working conditions and pay. \n\nBut wouldn't that mean businesses lose money? you're going to ask, here's the thing because people now have enough to cover basic living they can afford to participate in the market, creating growth and also free up time to upskill themselves into more lucrative job markets. Want to take a year to learn a new trade? you can without worrying you're going to starve to death and be more focused on the task at hand.\n\nA lot of jobs are going to become redundant through automation but instead of creating make work jobs people can actual move between fields that need the work. Now will some people drop out of the job market completely? of course but they'll be only living the bare minimum of life. Humans at heart do want to work, do want to create and be fulfilled and something like UBI gives them the chance to educate themselves and care for themselves enough to do that.\n\nThis has been more a response to the comments here than the actually question but I felt it should be said.",
"Yes you are giving away money. I don't understand the question. Are you trying to go \"aha, I caught you lousy liberals trying to hide a welfare program under some other name?\" ",
"I don't understand what you mean by \"Unconditional Welfare\". Welfare is per definition not unconditional. Welfare is for people in more need than others. It's like saying \"Isn't rock just dry water?\". Sure, you can think of it that way, but it will not give you any understanding of the subject.\n\nBut to your question \"wouldn't basic income still just be the government giving away free money?\": Basic Income is unconditional redistribution of wealth. Or more specifically, the government takes a percentage of all peoples income and gives a fixed amount back to all people.\n\nA lot of things change when you go from \"Welfare\" to \"Unconditional redistribution of wealth\", but I think that the other comments in this thread pretty much covers that."
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1p8j7j | what is bank liquidity and how do high rates differ from low rates. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1p8j7j/eli5_what_is_bank_liquidity_and_how_do_high_rates/ | {
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"One sentence answer: the rate is how much of your money the bank has to keep \"in the vault\" vs how much they can invest in order to profit.\n\n----------------\n\nSay you're a bank and I open an account with you and deposit $100. What do you do with that $100? You don't want to put $100 in a vault because then you make no money. That makes no sense.\n\nSo you invest most of the $100. You might loan it to other people, you might buy government bonds, you might buy other financial instruments, and so on. You're using most of the $100 to make money for yourself.\n\nIf you as a bank are really \"liquid\" then it's like you are keeping a lot of the $100 \"in the vault\". You can access the $100 whenever you want. If you as a bank are really not-liquid then you can not access the $100 easily.\n\nLet's go back to you being a bank and I deposit $100. If you're super liquid then you might invest $1 and keep $99 in the vault. If you're super not-liquid then you might invest $99 and keep $1 in the vault. \n\nIt's how easily you as a bank can get the cash if your account holders demand it."
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5d6gdr | huygens-fresnel principle | I read about light diffraction and this comes up. Couldn't understand the explanation on wiki | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5d6gdr/eli5_huygensfresnel_principle/ | {
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"The Huygens-Fresnel principle is an explanation for diffraction, or the phenomena that occur when a wave (such as light) hits an obstacle of some kind. It can be basically stated as: obstacles in the path of a wave serve as sources of spherical waves themselves, which can interfere with each other and produce interesting patterns.\n\nWhat does this mean? A common example: consider a wall separating two rooms, with an open door joining them. A friend of yours is in one room, you are in another, and your friend starts talking loudly to you. His voice creates sound waves by vibrating the air, and these compression waves travel through his room, until they reach the door. \n\nWhat happens here? Let's assume the walls reflect sound waves well, to simplify things. The sound waves spread out as they approach the door (one can picture a spherical wave being emitted from the source, your friend's mouth, which travels by expanding outward). Every surface is going to disturb this wave; that is, the part of the \"wave front\" (the sphere) that hits the sides of the door (the walls) will reflect back into your friend's room. Every spot on the wall the wave front hits essentially produces its *own* spherical waves, and is hence a \"source\" -- this is the idea of Huygens.\n\nNow, for the part of the wave front that passes through the door, one can imagine that the wave front changes due to the size of the door. The door then serves as a *source itself*, producing a new spherical wave. This wave propagates to you, on the other side of your room. Note that if your friend stands right in front of the door and talks, you will clearly hear him/her (since the wave is less disturbed) but if he/she stands at the back of his/her room, muffling and echoing occurs due to the various reflections and interference patterns.\n\nWhat happens with two doors? If a wave front travels towards both of them, you will now have two major spherical wave sources (both doors) that are emitting waves towards you! Fresnel (and later Kirchhoff, who put it on a firm mathematical footing) used math to explain how the two waves would interfere with each other, since they add together/mix to form a new pattern. In fact, if the waves have the right *frequency*, roughly the rate at which the spherical waves hit the doors, you can tune the sorts of sound patterns you hear in your room.\n\nFurthermore, the same concept applies to light. A CD is basically a surface of many grooves or ridges, which serve as little doors (in our analogy). Thus, when light hits them, each surface acts as its own source, producing new light waves that interfere with each other to produce those beautiful rainbow colors if we view from the right angle. (Quiz: How/why does the angle matter?) "
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cw0yes | how is peter popoff's "magic spring water" not shut down for false advertising? | Title. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cw0yes/eli5_how_is_peter_popoffs_magic_spring_water_not/ | {
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"For one he doesn't charge for the water - what he charges for is if you want his ministry to make a prayer on your behalf. All that requires him to do is to have someone at the ministry think about you. So long as that happens, Peter Popoff has met any obligation he incurred to you as a result of your \"donation\" to him. \n\nHe also doesn't claim that the water itself does anything. He claims that it has been blessed by God - but the claim is that its God's blessing that is responsible for the promised miracle and *not the water itself.*\n\nThe 1st Amendment gives Peter Popoff the right to believe that his water is blessed by God. It gives him the right to tell other people that his water is blessed by God. And it gives him the right to believe and tell other people that he believes that God will reward your faith if you use blessed water.\n\nYou may disagree with that, but in the same way that the 1st Amendment protects you from having to worry about Peter Popoff jailing you for not believing in his water it also protects Peter Popoff from being jailed by you for having his beliefs.\n\nIt doesn't give him the right to make non-religious claims about the water. IE, he can't say that the water is an effective medical treatment. But he doesn't do that. He confines his claims to the water's blessing providing financial miracles from God."
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uh9v3 | what is the significance of the relativity of time? | Any impact on our daily lives? Any expected impact to come? Can we take advantage of it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/uh9v3/eli5_what_is_the_significance_of_the_relativity/ | {
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"The reason it took so long for someone to really and truly understand that time was relative was because it doesn't greatly impact our daily life. In general the relativity of time only truly becomes meaningful when you have clocks that are really accurate, and possibly also vehicles that move really fast.\n\nWhile it might not impact you directly, the knowledge that time is relative has been applied in a huge amount of technology, the most obvious example would be your GPS, which runs off of satellites that function correctly due to the fact that they consider the relativity of time."
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sh0sy | how was life created from the primordial soup? | I understand the whole primordial soup thing, where electricity + gases + heat = amino acids, but beyond that I'm kind of lost. What drove these random bits and pieces to become bacteria, then species? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/sh0sy/eli5_how_was_life_created_from_the_primordial_soup/ | {
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"We don't know. We do know that observations support the theory of evolution extremely well though. The theory of spontaneous life from primordial soup is called abiogensis if you'd like to research it yourself once you get a little older. :/",
"One current theory is that RNA actually came first. Here's the basic gist:\n\nFirst, individual nucleotides (the subunits of RNA/DNA) get formed from some non-biological mechanism. This isn't terribly unlikely since a lone nucleotide is very simple - just a [ribose sugar](_URL_1_) stuck to a basic [nitrogen-containing ring](_URL_0_). \n\n These nucleotides, while simple, posses two critical attributes that seperate them from all the other random molecules that are swirling around in our primordial soup - they can form complementary pairs, *and* they can stick together to form long chains. Together, this allows a chain to form, and then a second, complementary chain to assemble on it by base-pairing to it. The complete second chain can then come off (The chain-bonds are stronger than the base-pairing bonds), and then float off and make more identical copies of itself by the same mechanism. \n\nNow, it follows that chains that are more stable and better able to replicate themselves will become more common. From here it's all just a logical application of natural selection - the molecules that can make the most copies of themselves will eventually displace the once that can't. \n\nIf getting absorbed into a lipid membrane helps the RNA make more copies, or be more stable, then RNAs encased in lipids will become dominant. Now let's say some short chain of amino acids sticks to our strand and helps stabilize it somehow. RNA can catalyze the addition of amino acids (remember ribsomes ? They're mostly made of RNA.), so RNAs that can assemble these small chains will be selected over those that can't. \n\nNow we have both simple proteins and RNA inside a membrane. Fast forward 4 billion years and here we are.\n\n\nUnfortunately, we will likely never know how it actually happened. We can certainly do experiments that would replicate these conditions and see if the results match our predictions, but such an experiment would only confirm that it was *possible* that life started such and such a way, not that it necessarily happened in that way. \n",
"Imagine that the \"Primordial soup\" is just a big pool of different building materials (atoms). These materials can be thought of as K'Nex pieces, each one is a little different. If you take the pool of K'Nex, and give it a good shake (lightning strike), sometimes a couple of pieces will accidentally connect together (molecule). Do this a billion times and eventually some of these pieces will accidentally fit together in a very specific (and lucky) way. These “lucky” combinations are a bunch of K’Nex pieces that actually work like little robots (Amino Acids). These robots are very simple, and they each can do a different little job. Some have a little arm that can bend and straighten, some have a claw that can grab, some are just solid blocks, but they each have a specific job. Now, take a big pool of these tiny robots, and give them a shake. Just like before, sometimes a few will lock together, and make a bigger and more complicated robot, maybe a couple of claws attach to an arm. You now have a robot that can grab two things and put them together or pull them apart. This is an enzyme, and it could grab two other tiny robots, and stick them together. Now we get building! Shake that pool of tiny robots for a million years, and sometimes you make so many bigger robots, and sometimes they combine to even more complicated robots and they all do their own jobs. Some build walls, some build ladders, some build tracks, and some even build other little robots. Now, each little robot does his job, and as long as there are building pieces around, they will each keep working. Now, what happens when a whole bunch of these robots get shaken up, and fall into a very precise circle, where each robot seems to be working with his neighbour? \n\nWe have just accidentally created a factory! Factories are pretty awesome; they are full of little robots, which can make some really cool and complicated things by working together. so, maybe we just accidentally made a factory that makes pianos. Cool. But what if we keep shaking the pool and try to make the robots fall into a different kind of factory? We could have a factory that makes desks, or cars, or submarines. But what happens when we make a factory that makes more factories? That is DNA. Now we have something really special, and as long as we have pieces in the pile, our factories can keep making factories that make more factories! Now, these factories are not perfect, sometimes they make mistakes. Sometimes a factory will make a factory that is missing some little robots, and the new factory does not work at all. Sometimes a factory will make another factory with doors instead of windows. Maybe a factory will make a factory with an extra wall, or a ceiling that is twice as high. When a factory is making a little mistake like this, each factory it makes will make the same mistake too. This is called mutation. Now, if a factory makes another factory with an extra wall, maybe that factory makes a new factory with another extra wall. Soon we may see a factory with a whole extra room, and maybe with little specialized robots inside that room that make cars. If one factory gets all the right mutations, we may end up with a factory that looks like a city, with many other types of factories and other big robots all over the place, but they all work together to build new cities. So now we have a city, full of factories, with cars and roads to help move all the tiny little pieces of K’Nex that it needs to make another city, and trucks to move all the pieces of the new city somewhere else where they can be put together. All this city needs to do is mutate a new factory that makes a giant wall around the whole city, and we have the first living cell. \n \nNow we get into evolution. When the city mutated a wall, it didn’t know what a wall is, or why it would be good, it just made a new car factory that was broken, and it just made one big long car that circled the whole city. But it turns out that it was a bad move, because now the city was blocked in and couldn’t get any more K’Nex bits to make more robots. This city will not make new wall-building cities. But what happens when another city makes almost the same mistake, but instead made a super long car that almost circled the city, but left a little bit open. Now this city could still get K’Nex pieces from outside, and it could ship new robots outside and still make more cities! On top of that, the crummy car-wall thing it made turns out to also block the cold wind, keeping the factories warmer and working faster. Every city with a car-wall works just a little bit faster than non-walled cities, and so they make more of themselves faster. Every new city has a small chance of having a mutation. And most mutations are either kinda dumb (like a car with five wheels), bad (like a car with bricks for wheels) or rarely it turns out to be good (like a car with a bigger gas tank). When good mutations happen, the city works better than other cities. It makes more cities like itself faster, and soon it may be the only type of city around. With enough random mutations, anything is possible, and sometimes a good mutation, will only be good under specific circumstances. A thicker wall might keep a city warmer, but it takes longer to build, so it’s only worth it if it’s really cold out. A bigger gas tank is great if you have to go a long way to find building pieces, but seems like a waste of effort if you have plenty nearby. Soon we have many different types of cities, that each do what is best for the area it is in. Sometimes it is best for cities themselves to work closely together, and even share building pieces between them. A city could even build more than one type of city if it had the right mutation. Lets say it’s really cold. If a city could build two types of cities, one with a really thick wall, and not much else, and another regular kind of city, it could build a big ring of walled cities around a centre cluster of normal cities. \n\nNow we have a bunch of cities that can survive in the cold, but not everyone needs to waste resources on building a big wall. This is the first animal. Millions of years of random mistakes will eventually make so many different mutations, that every part of the world can be covered with little cities. Soon, some cities can survive better by building a giant arm that crushed other cities and uses their pieces to make new city-crushing cities. Now with a predator city, some other cities will find it easier to survive if they build bigger walls, and others find that being able to move the whole city away saves them just as well. If a city had a random mutation that made the streets gold, they would still get crushed by the city-smasher, and soon that mutation would die out while the thick wall and fast moving cities continued to thrive. If the city-smasher doesn’t mutate a stronger claw, or being able to move faster, it won’t be able to survive either. This is how different creatures evolve together. Often when a city builds many different cities together, it is easier for them to specialize. Imagine building a whole city-sized claw, you would need a city-sized wall to stop it! Soon, big animals grow, each competing for resources, and trying to survive the climate around it. This process never ends, even now animals are being born with tiny mutations. Most of them are dumb (red hair) or bad (cancer), but sometimes one really helps the animal to survive (sharper teeth) and be able to have more children who will have the same mutation.\n\nAnimals that use sexual reproduction is just a way of shaking up the factories some more, increasing the chance of mutation. Faster mutations, means that a species can evolve faster, and cope with new problems before they die out.\n\nAll this is possible because of a tiny special factory that can make other factories that can make specialized factories that can make more factories.\n\n I hope a five year old can understand this, I’m tired and am going to bed now.\n\nTL;DR DNA is the most awesome thing in the universe.\n"
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8mj9ai | how do dimensions work and what does each one mean? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8mj9ai/eli5_how_do_dimensions_work_and_what_does_each/ | {
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"A dimension is something that you need a single number to describe. This number can represent literally anything: the height of something, a length of time, the population of a city, the number of chickens on a farm, anything you can think of that can be represented by a single number could be a dimension. If you're working on a problem where you have to think about the populations of five different cities as they change over time, your problem is five-dimensional.\n\nWhen physicists talk about dimensions, they're usually talking specifically about dimensions that represent distances in space and lengths of time, but the basic idea is the same - how many numbers does it take to describe where and when something happens?\n\nIn our everyday lives, we can see three dimensions of space and one dimension of time, which just means you need three numbers to tell you where something is and one number to tell you when it happens. You can see this on your GPS, which tells you your latitude, longitude, and altitude (three numbers for space) and the current time (one number).\n\nHowever, some physics theories need more than four dimensions. All that means is that in these theories, you need, say, 11 numbers to say where and when something happens - the familiar four, plus seven more. We don't yet know which, if any, of these theories is accurate, though, because the only experiments that can detect which one is correct need extreme energy levels or extremely sensitive instruments that are beyond current technology.\n\nThe thing to remember is that the dimensions in these physics theories are, so far, just mathematical tools - the universe being five-dimensional is no more profound than the population of five cities being five-dimensional. There may be nice, intuitive meanings behind the dimensions, but they probably don't have anything to do with parallel universes or alternate histories or any other romantic explanations that non-physicists come up with."
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1m59p6 | why are vision problems more common than problems of other senses (ie. hearing, smell, etc.) | Are the eyes more fragile than other organs? Are vision problems simply more genetically prevalent? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1m59p6/eli5_why_are_vision_problems_more_common_than/ | {
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"Eyes require their exact shape to work. Vision is done by a reciever (rods and cones) that needs a focused light on it. That light comes from the front of the eye and gets put through the lens, which can be adjusted, and the iris (which opens and closes to allow more or less light as needed.)\n\nContrast that to an ear or the nose or touch. Hearing, smell, and touch are all 'fixed' things, for the most part. The nose either smells or it doesn't, there's no adjustments that can be made. Ditto with touch. \n\nHearing requires a bit of mechanical things to get done, with the tympanic membrane, and the small bones connected to it and the cochlea, plus the hairs in the cochlea, the shape of the chochlea, and the fluid in there, all have to be in working *order*... but they do not adjust. Once it's built, it kinda stays that way... then deteroirates slower as we get older, unless acted upon by extreme pressures, or over used in a way that causes damage.\n\nThe eyes, though, those are constantly being adjusted and played around with. This causes more wear and tear. Also, fluid pressures can cause problems with the eyes shape, and therefore cause the focus to be out of whack.\n\nBecause it's a more complex system than any other form of senses, it's the one that's more likely to break down during a person's life. At the very least, one will need reading glasses before they expire from this plane of existence, and those who don't? Extremely lucky, or adjusting to the fuzziness.",
"Your assumption may not be correct. Hearing problems are pretty [common](_URL_1_) as are problems with [sense of smell](_URL_0_) especially as you age. Vision problems might seem more common because the problems they cause can be more life altering."
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62miit | how do companies push updates to your phone without an actual app update?. | Some of you may have noticed the recent twitter update that no longer counts usernames towards character limit (finally) but this was done without the app updating. How does this work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/62miit/eli5_how_do_companies_push_updates_to_your_phone/ | {
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"the change was on the server end, not on the user end. \n\nThat is why there wasn't an app update.",
"I am not familiar with the twitter app, but I can imagine one or two scenarios. \n\nFirst, most of that limit was enforced server side, and the change was done on the server.\n\nSecond, when the app starts up and checks in with the server, the server sends a reply saying \"ignore character limit\"",
"With the app, you make a post that goes over the character limit, it sends it over to Twitter's servers which replies that you can't do that, where your app forwards the reply to your screen.\n\nHere, twitter updated their servers to not reject such requests. The app doesn't need to be updated as a result, the character limit is built into the server, not the app."
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42hy8n | how does information become classified (secret, top secret, etc.), who determines access to the information, and how many levels exist? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/42hy8n/eli5_how_does_information_become_classified/ | {
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"Automatic declassification\nIn accordance with Executive Order 13526, published January 5, 2010 (which superseded Executive Order 12958, as amended), an executive agency must declassify its documents after 25 years unless they fall under one of the nine narrow exemptions outlined by section 3.3 of the order. Classified documents 25 years or older must be reviewed by any and all agencies that possess an interest in the sensitive information found in the document. Documents classified for longer than 50 years must concern human intelligence sources or weapons of mass destruction, or get special permission. All documents older than 75 years must have special permission.\n\nSystematic declassification\nThe Order also requires that agencies establish and conduct a program for systematic declassification review, based on the new and narrower criteria. This only applies to records that are of permanent historical value and less than 25 years old. Section 3.4 of Order 13526, directs agencies to prioritize the systematic review of records based upon the degree of researcher interest and the likelihood of declassification upon review.\n\nMandatory Declassification Review\t\nA Mandatory Declassification Review, or MDR, is requested by an individual in an attempt to declassify a document for release to the public. These challenges are presented to the agency whose equity, or \"ownership\", is invested in the document. Once an MDR request has been submitted to an agency for the review of a particular document, the agency must respond either with an approval, a denial, or the inability to confirm or deny the existence or nonexistence of the requested document. After the initial request, an appeal can be filed with the agency by the requester. If the agency refuses to declassify that document, then a decision from a higher authority can be provided by the appellate panel, the Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel (ISCAP).",
"I work for the DoD, hopefully I can shed some light on this.\n\nInformation is classified based on how much damage the material would do to National Security. There are technically only 4 levels of classification: Unclassified, Classified, Secret, and Top Secret, but there are other descriptions that can be attached to those classifications to further instruct how to handle those materials. As an example SBU refers to something that is Sensitive but Unclassified. There are also things called \"Read Ons\" where you may have the correct clearance to handle a particular level of classified material but you need to be \"read on\" to some special instructions that are specific to that document, building, room, etc.\n\nThere is a classification authority that provides guidance and determines what is and is not classified and what level of classification is proper however 1) it really isn't clear what the difference is between the varying degrees of damage information may do and 2) individual agencies in the government are responsible for labeling material the proper classification.\n\nAs far as who gets access, everything is needs to know. So even if you have a Top Secret clearance you are only given access to information that is necessary for you to do your job regardless of the classification of the material that you want. Typically the highest ranking person in the chain of whoever has that information and whoever wants that information makes that determination. \n\nOther important notes: \n\nThings that can hold a classification:\nDocuments, CDs, Thumbdrives, Computers, Phones, LAN lines, Networks, Rooms, Buildings, Etc.\n*All of these things have a level of classification and you have to ensure that you are not handling high level classified material on things that have lower levels of classification. IE You can't have a conversation about Top Secret information on an unclassified phone.\n\nMaterial is classified \"at birth\". As soon as you have a piece of information whether it is in writing, verbal, or digitized, that material is classified. If I am discussing via phone, activities that I am conducting with my job, that discussion is classified at one of those levels regardless of whether or not anyone formally puts a stamp on the conversation or announces that the conversation is classified. At some point I would need to put that information into a report and label it correctly but not labeling it doesn't mean it's unclassified. If anything me not labeling that information in the correct manner or not having the conversation over a properly secured channel is grounds for punishment and potentially losing my clearance.\n\nThere is also a procedure for \"declassifying\" things but typically, at least at my level, once something has a certain level of classification we only make it more classified, not less. We don't declassify things because it's timely and there really isn't a reason to have to do it. The whole point of classification is to compartmentalize information, not make it so that more people can see it.\n\nAn entire conversation, report, etc also all holds the level of classification for the highest classified material of any piece of that thing regardless of how much information is present. So if you have a 500 page document that is all unclassified but one line is Top Secret, the entire document is labelled Top Secret. There is a \"proper\" way of doing this that prevents the entire document from having to be labelled Top Secret but it's extremely time consuming so it's just easier for us to label entire documents by the classification of the most sensitive piece of material.\n\n*Edited for readability and to fix my word vomit.",
"Which country are you referring to, as they are all different in terms of how they handle sensitive information?",
"Not to be Dickhead McBuzzkill here, but if any of you do or have actually worked with classified information, please be aware of what you are posting. It is fairly easy to violate your NDAs, and something as simple as \"I work for X and know Y\" may get you into more trouble than it is worth, especially if you want to keep access that you currently have. Remember, even Unclassified info can and most often is FOUO. Additionally, you are putting a large target over your head for many intelligence gathering entities worldwide. \n\nYes, the public should know the rules, but I highly suggest you redirect those questions to official channels or publications. Please be OPSEC aware as well.\n\nTL;DR be careful what you say, pic if you forgot.\n_URL_0_"
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44plcz | why doesn't the american government prop up the oil companies currently struggling the way it did banks during the great recession? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/44plcz/eli5_why_doesnt_the_american_government_prop_up/ | {
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"I suspect it's because even though their profits right now are at a record low for recent years most are still making profits. Then there would be the political cost of using taxpayer money to prop up an industry that's been breaking profit records year after year even as the average American was struggling.",
"Why should it? The banking system continued liquidity and operation was critical to the economy continuing to function in any way, and the banks risked complete bankruptcy without aid. The oil companies are still doing fine, just not raking in money hand over fist as they had been... and their relative well being isn't mission critical to the U.S. economy. "
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2jjzv8 | why do some works of fiction try so hard to avoid using trademarks? | For example, would Marvel Comics really be in hot water if they had Peter Parker drinking Starbucks instead of Starducks? Or Pepsi instead of Pipsi? Little things like that? Why do some stories have no problem with it while others do?
By trademarks, I mostly mean things like product or business names. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2jjzv8/eli5_why_do_some_works_of_fiction_try_so_hard_to/ | {
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"Several reasons come to mind:\n\n1) The puns that authors make are often funny, and add a bit of humor to the work\n\n2) Authors don't want to look like sellouts by having ads for products all over their work\n\n3) Some companies are pretty up tight about the use of their logo without permission"
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1v23at | how did criminals 'hack' target card readers? | What process did they use and how does this enable them to commit credit card fraud? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1v23at/eli5_how_did_criminals_hack_target_card_readers/ | {
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"It's my understanding that the card readers themselves weren't compromised, but the large database that they connect to which stores customer information.\n\nBy accessing this database (no one's sure how they did it yet) they obtained the credit card numbers, expiration dates, names, and everything they need to commit fraud."
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9mx2j9 | what is radiation? how does it change the atomic structure of atoms? how and why does it go away after thousands of years? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9mx2j9/eli5_what_is_radiation_how_does_it_change_the/ | {
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"Radiation is the emission of energy in the form of electromagnetic waves or particles. You most commonly see it as all light around you and the UV radiation that gives you a sunburn. The radiation that you are referring to though I imagine is nuclear radiation.\n\nThe reason this radiation is dangerous is because it consists of high energy particles that can pop electrons out of place in your body and ionize atoms that should not be ionized, causing chemical damage and increasing risk of cancer for reproducing cells.\n\nIt doesn't go away for so long because the source of this radiation is decaying material. Unstable atoms eject high energy particles (radiation) over time and become more stable and less radioactive. The problem is that a lot of radioactive material decays at a very slow rate so unstable atoms remain for decades.",
"Atoms are made up of a nucleus of protons and neutrons, and an orbiting cloud of electrons, right?\n\nRadiation is (easiest to think of as) a stream of particles with a positive or negative electrical charge. Light - a stream of photons - is also a form of radiation.\n\nThe dangerous forms - alpha, beta, gamma radiation are different according to the size of the particles. When they hit the nucleus of a stable atom, they break that atom apart. Or the smaller particles can get absorbed by an atom - so an atom can now have an extra electron, for example. But it's still unstable and wants to balance out the extra electron with a new proton, or emit that electron back out.\n\nAlso, any radiation that gets absorbed by an atom - even the smallest discrete unit of energy, a quant - will, at minimum, make an electron jump from one orbit to another. This also destabilizes the atom.\n\nAn unstable atom will emit the extra particles. Over thousands of years, all the extra particles in a given clump of matter will be emitted to the outside world, they won't be hitting each other's nuclei any more, and the clump of matter will stop being radioactive.\n\n(Physicists, please don't yell at me for the super-basic and technically wrong explanation.)"
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dmas7e | how does my body know to blink and stop something from hitting my eye that i couldn’t even see? | I was cooking earlier this evening when the grease popped in my pan causing me to blink. This stopped a piece of grease from hitting my eye, and instead burning my lower eyelid. There is know way I could have seen that projectile, much less time my blink perfectly. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dmas7e/elif_how_does_my_body_know_to_blink_and_stop/ | {
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"It's a defense mechanism hardwired to your brain. Instinct if you will. Kinda like knowing how to breathe even though no one taught you that. Or accidentally touching a hot pan and immediately avoiding it way before your conscious mind has processed what the fuck happened. When you touch something painfully hot, do your consciousness process it like *shit bruh this thing hot af, better remove my finger from it*. NO. We involuntary react away from it as it is natural for us. It's part of our default instruction set; which can be summarized into something like **DON'T DIE**",
"The visual system has two pathways, a longer one that processes more detail, and a more primitive, faster one. The faster one gets information from your surroundings to the visual cortex more quickly than conscious thought, and it triggers the reflex to blink or otherwise avoid what is coming towards your eye.",
"The corneal reflex (blink reflex) can be triggered when sounds greater than 40-60 db are made. I'm guessing the sound of the oil popping is why you blinked."
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4dk6hj | people say that o.j simpson was found not guilty because the prosecution mishandled the case. what does this mean? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4dk6hj/eli5_people_say_that_oj_simpson_was_found_not/ | {
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"The prosecution didn't have a cute rhyme to counter \"If the glove don't fit, you must acquit\". \n\n \nAlso, the glove didn't fit.",
"It means they really didn't do a good job of presenting their case. They took months to gather the evidence. Some of the evidence had been tampered with. They really should have left Mark Fuhrman off the stand. A few other things as well, some of which you probably need to be a lawyer to properly grasp, but [here](_URL_0_) is an article where various lawyers were asked what they feel went wrong.",
"Everything from the police who got to the scene all the way to the state attorney did a terrible job. Because a lousy job was done by the state, the lawyers of oj were able to pick apart the evidence and have it thrown out therefore the jury wouldn't have been shown. Going by the evidence that the jury was shown, they voted not guilty and rightly so. They felt they could not vote him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. So in terms of the law, they voted correctly. ",
"The prosecution made lots of mistakes:\n\n* They didn't call certain witnesses who could have bolstered their case\n* They had OJ try to put the glove on. When it didn't fit, the jurors concluded it wasn't his. (We now know he spent days before drinking water and doing other things to make his hands swell up) \n* The put on Mark Furhman as a witness despite his racist past\n* Probably most importantly, early on when they were picking jurors, the prosecutors decided the case was about domestic abuse rather than race. So they tended to favor women, when instead they should have favored white people. They ended up with a jury that was highly sympathetic to Simpson. \n\nAll of these mistakes added up to reasonable doubt, which led to an acquittal. "
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buhyu3 | why are wide open eyes and a gaping mouth the physiological responses of extreme shock? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/buhyu3/eli5_why_are_wide_open_eyes_and_a_gaping_mouth/ | {
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"Fight or flight \n\nIt’s the body getting ready for extreme action.... more breathing in and better visuals"
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2eiwz9 | why isn't russia's intervention in ukraine getting more (us) media attention? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2eiwz9/eli5_why_isnt_russias_intervention_in_ukraine/ | {
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"Because the Ukraine situation has been going on for months and it lost its novelty value."
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a8na16 | why does cuba have 2 currencies ? how is/was it economically beneficial ? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a8na16/eli5_why_does_cuba_have_2_currencies_how_iswas_it/ | {
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"They had their own currency but it was such crap that people started using US Dollars instead. In an effort to avoid US power creeping into their country, they introduced a second currency that was directly linked to the US Dollar but was Cuban."
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6kzxbd | what are the rules around finding 'treasure' on land and in the sea? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6kzxbd/eli5what_are_the_rules_around_finding_treasure_on/ | {
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"Anything found in US waters is subject to the [Abandoned Shipwrecks Act of 1987] (_URL_0_): it belongs to the USA. The law was brought in to stop treasure hunters damaging ships in the process of seeking treasure. The law does not apply to military shipwrecks, which always belong to the nation who commissioned the ship. "
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57j1bm | how can baby animals instantly walk? | I'm fascinated by machine learning and human learning. I did a 6-week course on creating a self-driving car and was amazed how easy the software part is. The teaching of the machine is the hard and time intensive part.
So I just watched a video of a chameleon hatching (_URL_0_) and only after a few minutes it was walking and ready to face the world.
How is it that such complex "learned" behavior is just instantly available to animals?
| explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/57j1bm/eli5_how_can_baby_animals_instantly_walk/ | {
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"The premise here is that walking is a learned behavior for most animals, when in reality it isn't. Walking is a primitive reflex (meaning it's an inborn reflex, not a learned behavior), present at birth even in human babies. You can test this out at home if you have a newborn by picking it up under the armpits and \"walking it\" forward, so that the soles of their feet touch the floor, and you'll see their little legs making the walking motion; they just can't hold their own weight yet.\n\nMost animals have this reflex.",
"ELI5 version (though you could probably handle more complex): All babies are geared in favor of what they'll need immediately post-birth. For something like a chameleon, or even like a deer, it will need to walk and avoid danger more or less instantly. So evolution favored the babies that were already moving around from the start. Adding to this, most of their growth is physical, rather than mental.\n\nA human baby, however, does not need to walk or run away from danger on its first day. Nor in its first month, or any other sooner time. Human babies are selected for the only thing they need to do: make mothers and fathers go \"aw,\" cry for attention, and crawl the short distance to the nipple (they can do this almost immediately). The human baby could have been evolved for walking, if it needed it, but since we're an investment-and-payoff kind of species, it makes more sense to give birth to a crying-sponge-brain that will eventually add walking to its repertoire.",
"Its less of why can baby animals walk within minutes and more why can't human babies walk within minutes.\n\nThe answer is that human babies have such a large head that you're born premature and underdeveloped. If the fetus is fully grown and ready talk, it would never make it out of the mother's birth canal."
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cwzxjn | how did the singularity end ? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cwzxjn/eli5_how_did_the_singularity_end/ | {
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"I think of singularities and black holes a bit differently than most, but maybe it’ll make sense to you. \n\nMass cannot be infinitely compacted into a single point, instead I think it gets pressed closer and closer together until all of the empty space between electrons, protons, neutrons etc is squeezed out, forcing a collision between and a subsequent burst of cascading explosions. These explosions send out so much energy and mass from billions of years of collection, that it can form entirely new solar systems & galaxies as the process begins anew of mass coming together, forming another black hole after enough time that eventually becomes a singularity that has swallowed up all the other black holes.\n\nIt’s really hard to explain succinctly :|",
"It might be better to think of the \"singularity\" as an artifact of the way we understand and model how our universe works. Generally speaking, a singularity implies that our theories (and mathematics) don't explain something well enough at that instance. Rather than imagining that the singularity is an object, it is probably better to think of it as the limit of our knowledge at this time. \n\nIf we could explain how we get from a \"singularity\" to some place and time where our models of the universe works, this probably goes a long way to understanding the nature of what happens there (in which case, there probably isn't a singularity any more)\n\nAn analogy might (maybe?) help. Lets say that our best microscope allows us to see objects as small as 0.01mm. Any object smaller than that cannot be described - it looks like an indistinguishable blob. This blob is the \"singularity\" of the microscope - there may be things there but we just don't have any means to figure it out.",
"You are thinking of time too linearly. \nHere's how I like to think about it: \n \nAs you approach light speed, or go into really high energies, time slows down. Like, if you were to fall into a black hole, you would never \"hit\" the black hole, because you would be accelerating so fast that time would stretch out infinitely long. \n \nThe same kind of thing happens with the big bang. All the matter and energy in the world was at such a high state of energy and moving so quickly that time was stretched out infinitely. \n \nThink of it as [the graph for log(x)](_URL_0_), with the x axis as literal time, and the distance along the line as perceived time. If you zoom way to the right, at say, x=100, then we can see that time is moving pretty close to parallel with the x axis. So for every one second of perceived time, 1 second literally passes. If you stand at that point and look back in time, it is very clear where the beginning of time is. We don't see anything before the beginning of time. If you slowly go back in time though, you never actually hit the beginning. Your perception of time stretches out infinitely long and never actually touches zero. \n \nSo sure, to us, it looks like the big bang happened over a very short period of time, but if you go back, it is stretched over an infinite period of perceived time. So depending on how you look at it, the universe is both finite and infinite in time. The big bang was never actually a singularity, but it approaches a singularity as you go infinitely back.",
"So we know what happened immediately after the big bang. However your right in saying that time, didn't really exist (not in the way we understand it) until the big bang. So the big bang is the start point. We know from cause and effect and conservation laws that matter can not be created or destroyed, so we worked out the big bang happened, and for that to have happened the way it did everything in the universe must have been packed together (in a space so infinitesimally small it is beyond our understanding, so we call it a singularity. \n\nSo there is no before .... if you were to write that sequence again according to the laws of our universe (as we currently understand them) it would actually go 0,0,0,0,0,1,2,3,4...... Because time didnt exist, everything both did and didnt exist at that moment of time that hadnt started yet! It sounds really confusing but thats because it is. \n\nEssentially the question your asking here, Is what started the universe? too which I dont think we have a collective answer, just lots of theories, ranging from purely speculative scientific theories \\[such as white holes - my favourite theory of universe creation but still leaves a mystery of how did that cycle start\\].... to a flying conscious spaghetti monster just one day decided it was so."
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2g7sbb | how do the underground pipes that deliver water for us to bathe and drink stay clean? is there no buildup or germs inside of them? | Without any regard to the SOURCE of the water, how does water travel through metal pipes that live under ground, or in our walls, for years without picking up all kinds of bacteria, deposits or other unwanted foreign substances? I expect that it's a very large system and not every inch is realistically maintained and manually cleaned. How does it not develop unsafe qualities? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2g7sbb/eli5_how_do_the_underground_pipes_that_deliver/ | {
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"The water supply contains sanitizers once it has been treated for use. If you have a sealed system that you're constantly pumping sanitized water through, it's unlikely to get contaminated barring some failure of the sanitation or the piping itself.",
"Tap water is slightly chlorinated, so as it travels through the pipes, it kills anything growing in them.\n\nAdditionally, water flowing through the pipes keeps anything from building up on the walls of the pipes. As long as no breaks occur in the pipelines, nothing else can get into them.",
"Our water is treated in a way that makes it hard for stuff to live in it. There is chlorine, flourine, and a few other chemicals in trace amounts present in our drinking water for this sole purpose.\n\nThey work very hard to put enough in to keep it clean, but not enough to harm us.\n\nThere is a surprising amount of deposits in our water, but honestly, it doesn't matter for the most part. Traces of iron, nickel, copper, and other metals are found in nearly all tap water, but the amount is small enough to not cause harm or any ill effects as our bodies can flush or utilize it.\n\nEDIT: _URL_1_ link with what you'll find in water, some regulations, and some FAQ's. NSF5 year olds, lots of big words. _URL_0_",
"Growth, in the microbiology field, is defined as the increase in quantity of microbes.\n\nTo grow you need:\n\n1. A carbon source. 2. A nitrogen source. 3. Additional minerals/nutrients/salts/etc. \n\nThe major input of water systems lacks all of the basic conditions. Carbon and nitrogen can come from fixed sources (like other organisms) or from inorganic sources (like CO2 and N2) but fixing CO2 requires light. Pipes simply don't have any of these at appreciable levels.\n\nTrace nutrients in pipes can lead to growth. This is inhibited by antimicrobials (copper and water treatment) but even without those the rate of flow is sufficient such that microbes don't usually have enough time to grow to reach harmful levels to humans. ",
"Another, related question:\n\nWhat's to stop someone from hooking up a pressurized system to their home pipes, and pumping contaminants back INTO the system?",
"Go thank your public workers and water treatment guys",
"Dam I work in clean water distribution, wish I'd seen this earlier! ",
"[cross section of 100 year old pipe](_URL_0_)",
"All the replies refer to treated water supplies. What about well water?",
"Follow-up questions:\n\n1) What about folks with private wells? You still have pressure, but water isn't *treated*. Is the water already sufficiently filtered by the ground? Are the little harmful bits just in levels too low to be a problem?\n\n2) When a structure's plumbing is drained (for repairs, winterizing, etc), \noxygen is introduced. You now have a dark, moist environment. Why is this never a problem?\n\nEDIT: Wow - great responses everybody! Thanks!",
"Ooh, I work in the drinking water industry. Maybe I can contribute.\n\nWater can pick up yucky stuff as it travels, because water pipes can fail over time, especially very old ones. New York, for example, has a lot of old wooden pipes that have been there for many, many decades. But they can't just rip them out and replace them -- there are so many, they'd have to built a whole new system first and then transfer the water there. \n\nThe EPA does a lot of ongoing studies into the health effects about stuff that comes into contact with water, so the laws are always changing. Just recently, a new law was passed that doesn't allow pipe and component makers to make products above a certain percentage of lead. Because water continuously is pushed through these pipes and will come into contact with other parts of a water system, lead (and other bad stuff) can leak into the water and you will end up drinking it.\n\nWater can pick up bacteria, too. If a pipe is too close to a wastewater pipe, or your water source gets dirty, there is a chance that poopy water can get into the drinking water. That's why it's a bad idea to leave a hose out in the grass where you have a (very small) chance of fertilizer, poop, and other gross stuff going back down into the hose and getting mixed into your house's drinking water.\n\nLuckily, water utility companies constantly are testing their water every day to see if there is anything dangerous or new in the water. If something does show up, there are many procedures in place that will minimize exposure of bad things to the public. However, this is a moot issue if the actual contamination is coming from within your house. And, if you're on a well, it's up to you to test and treat your water.\n\nThere will always be *something* in the water, whether it's coming from the water company or from a dirty faucet in your house, but the water is treated to the best known levels of safety, and it's much safer to drink than having it straight from a lake.\n\nAlso, you mentioned not saying anything about the source, but you can't talk about treating drinking water without saying where it comes from. Groundwater that is not exposed to the surface (thus, a different source than surface water) tends to not have nearly the same amount of infectious micro-organisms, but can have a heavier load of minerals and metals based on its source. So, the EPA dictates different treatment processes for groudwater, surface water, and GWUDISW (groundwater under the direct influence of surface water). A water treatment facility will be built and operated based on where the water is coming from.\n",
"Former journeyman plumber and biology/chemistry grad here. The underground water pipes that you drink out of would probably surprise you with how dirty they are. Microorganisms and debris do form slime layers on the pipe. If you would like to see some of this slime, try cutting open a very old water filter. The good news is that the scum is relatively harmless. Plumbers go through a great deal of training in the protection of the water system and past events like the Cryptosporidium outbreak in WI are reflected upon. In short, the water supply in your town is very likely contaminated with small amounts of bacteria, mold, and feces, but the microorganisms are mostly avirulent or dead.",
"I am an Illinois EPA licensed water operator......\nThe water here in Chicago is taken from Lake Michigan. The plant filters the water many times, then chlorine is injected into the water. It is then pumped out to various other facilities. Most of these facilities are counties. The county facilities also inject more chlorine into the water, then they pump it out to different city's in their county. The city's then are responsible for delivering the water straight to the consumer. Most larger city's with many residents and lots of businesses will also treat the water with more chlorine before they pump it to the customers. Smaller city's generally don't need to add more chlorine, because there is still plenty of chlorine in the water from when it was pumped to them from the county. Different water temperatures will dilute the chlorine, and therefore more or less chlorine might be added depending on the time of year, if it is winter when the water is colder, or summer when the water is warmer. \n\nPS. Don't listen to people saying fluoride is bad for you. It is a huge addition to your water. Be very happy you have it. It has done wonders for us here in America. ",
"Let's just say they don't always work.. *cough* MEXICO *cough*",
"If someone answers this honestly and truthfully, you are going to have a bad time.",
"If I turn my tap on and it sprays a bit of air (kind of putts out for a sec), does that mean my water is compromised?\n",
"Woah for once in my life I actually have the answer to a question. I worked at a water company for five years. This company pumped water from the ground into the pipes and over a large area to hundreds of thousands of customers daily. So as the the water comes out, you could imagine all of the he bacteria and viruses that would be in the water plus the pH of the water would need adjusting. So for one of the years at this company, I worked rotating shifts actually monitoring the water quality. I'd take samples at each station for how much bleach was in the water and what the pH was. Bleach was used to sanitize while we used powdered lime to regulate pH and clean the pipes of any rust. This monitoring was done 24/7 to ensure the highest water quality. If an individual house had rusty water then we'd turn that persons water on and off and quickly to create a rush of pressure and rid the system of whatever was causing the rust. ",
"Hmmm.... your'e not Bane, OP, are you?",
"The short answer is it doesn't. There's a ton of junk sitting in the bottom of our water pipes. \n\nThink of public water like an underground lake. The lake is just contained within a bunch of pipes. Much like a lake the amount of water flowing through this system at any one time is so small compared to the amount of water in the system as a whole that you can't usually tell it's moving. That's why the lake may not look like it's moving but water still comes in and goes out.\n\nNow Even in the calmest clearest of lakes there's still a bunch of junk on the bottom of the lake: dirt, leaves, rocks, dead animals and so on but it stays on the bottom because there's nothing to stir it up and mix it in with the \"clean\" water on top. This is true for your water system too. There's a bunch of rust, grime, some dirt, even rocks but the there's not enough flow typically to stir it up. \n\nIf we could open up an outlet big enough to drain some of our lake quickly(like a fire hydrant) the flow would be fast and large enough it would stir up the junk and some of it would come out of the pipe. \n\nWe don't get sick from the germs that are in the water because of all the antibacterial chemicals we put in there to kill them. \n\n---\n\nThat's as close to 5 year old speak as I can get. \n\nSource: I get to play with some public water systems for my job. I've seen all the shit that's in your pipe water. It's gross but waters fun.",
"Yippee I'm actually relevant on reddit for once! The water remains safe to drink by monitoring the supply water daily throughout the system. There are also sites throughout the system that the department of health tests weekly for bacteria. Most water systems have chlorine In the water which kills organisms and bacteria. There is build ups in the pipes from different minerals in the source water like manganese. Manganese is non harmful but when stirred up can cause the water to look almost like coffee and have a bad smell. It won't taste good but you can drink it without worrying. If you live in a big city with a professionally maintained water system you will almost never need to worry about your water being safe to drink no matter if it looks Dirty or not, letting your water run for a bit will clear it up. Hope this explains everything :-) ",
"As a civil/structural engineer...\nMost modern water authorities filter and treat their water with a series of chemicals to remove a great deal of the contaminants. This is done before the water is treated with chlorine, fluoride, and carbon dioxide (to adjust ph). All along the way the water is constantly tested to ensure that the right amount of chemicals are added. \nOnce the water is healthy for consumption it is pumped into the delivery system. There are also automated stations throughout the delivery system, that monitor the water and add additional treatment chemicals as needed. This ensures that the water remains safe by the time it travels from the treatment station to your sink. \n\nAs for potential contaminants entering through poorly maintained pipes, the delivery system (pipes) are under constant positive pressure. Its very difficult for contaminants to get in, when the water is pushing everything out. Think about trying to somehow put something up your garden hose, when its on full blast. \n\nAnother way to think about things... every time you run your sink, you are flushing out the \"old\" water, and it is being replaced with \"new\" water. Now think about everyone on your block doing this. And on top of all of them, most water authorities also conduct yearly maintenance where they flush entire water mains to keep them free of sediment.\n\nI could get way more detailed, and go on for longer than anyone cares to listen...so i will shut up, but feel free to ask questions",
"I work in water utilities and have toured a treatment plant before. \n\nAs the water goes through treatment it gets subjected to all sorts of disinfectants including chlorine. And as per state and federal regulations a certain amount of chlorine has to be present in the water from treatment plant to your faucet. However those chemicals do break down and can put the water supply at risk. So if you ever see a city employee flushing a fire hydrant what they're doing is keeping a \"fresh\" supply of water flowing through the system and dumping out the \"old.\"\n\nAnd old iron pipes do break down over time especially now that it's being subjected to chemicals that weren't previously being added to treated water. You could end up running into problems with red water as a result from corroding pipes. So now PVC is the standard. \n\nSource: GIS guy with water. ",
"What about the pipes from the main water supply into houses? Are those considered sealed systems as well? Couldn't someone with copper pipes or PVC pipes have a chance of lead or pipe-cement contamination not related to the main water supply?",
"This will most likely get buried since I'm really late to the party, but I'll take a stab at it since this is right in my field of work. I'll break it down into categories based on the type of \"unwanted substance\" that water will commonly encounter in pipes. \n \n**Bacteria**: There are types of bacteria that water will encounter inside of the distribution pipes. This is why your treated water has chlorine in it. There are different forms of chlorine that I won't get into, but after sitting for a long period of time the chlorine will go away because it reacts not only with bacteria but also with many of the materials pipes are made of. To keep fresh water in the lines water utilities do what is called flushing. This is done simply by opening fire hydrants to dump old water on the ground, or using specialized devices to do the same thing. \n \n**Rust, Corrosion, Buildup**: Pipes are metal, most of them will rust. There are two major ways to prevent this. One is the use of phosphates in the water. This is not harmful to us, and they coat the pipes in a waxy type of substance that water and chlorine does not react to, minimizing actual contact with the metal of the pipes. Eventually, however, various types of buildup can accumulate inside of pipes. Once again, flushing of the system is used to keep this in check. \n \n**Hydrogen Sulfide and other odor causing gasses**: This is usually a problem related to well water, but can occasional pop up in a treated water system. This is a symptom of water sitting for too long. This can happen in a system when you have a large diameter pipe supplying a small amount of water. You can see it in places where water demand may have fallen over the years due to business closing and other factors. The best way to knock this problem out is the old standby of flushing the lines. \n \n**TLDR:** Chlorine, phosphates and flushing the water lines keep the water systems clean.\n\nSource: Work in water treatment.",
"It is very common for underground pipes to have cracks and leaks, however you don't have to worry about it because in big cities there is a computer system that tests water continuously in many points of the water grid, if there is a point where water arrives dirty it automatically adjusts the whole water treatment plant to inject more chlorine into the water for disinfectation of the whole system. Even then pipes grow a lot of shit in them, for example sediments, its normal to have a layer of sediments on the walls. If it's within an inch thick it's actually a good thing because it lowers friction (makes water flow faster), but it becomes a serious problem when it clogs up to 50% of the pipe's section, sometimes even up to 90%\n\nAlso a teacher told me once that he found a bike inside a sanitation pipe.",
"One word. Chlorine. \n\n\nSource: work for water utility",
"PSA: Don't drink hot water. The water can sit in your hot water tank for long periods of time collecting rust particles and other hard water type minerals. It's not poisonous but after you look inside one of those water heater tanks you will understand. \n\nNote: This does not apply to the 1% of using super modern tank-less water heaters ",
"Civil engineer here. Finally relevant to reddit. Water treatment plants leave a chlorine residual in the water supply as it leaves the plant to make sure it is sanitized, yet safe to drink on the receiving end. This accounts for any unknown contaminant and germ infiltration and buildup. ",
"This thread is full of horrifically inaccurate responses. Water pipes are not clean and they're certainly not sterile. While it's true that vast amount of money and resources have been spent on making the water distribution systems germ-free it's an impossible undertaking. Furthermore, no one knows how a closed system becomes contaminated without breaches in any of the pipes, but they do, either from failures in cleansing the source water or through backgrowth from the points where pipes have an entry point built in. The reason we think of drinking water as clean is because most of the microbes growing in there are harmless, in too small quantities to do much damage and/or resulting illness is generally blamed on bad food - no one suspects drinking water. Lastly drinking water systems certainly have conditions suitable for microbial growth - microbes grow in jet fuel too, they're unphased by addition of biotoxic compounds, the flow rate of the water does nothing to prevent communities building on the pipewall and outbreaks caused by contaminated water are far more common in the Western world than you'd think. Source: pathogen microbiologist, gf did a PhD on the microbiology of drinking water _URL_0_",
"As a Plumber I can tell you once we have sealed a water line there will be little to no chance of cross contamination. A common problem with underground drainage lines is tree roots growing around and cracking the pipes but you will not have this problem with mains water due to them normally been made of high pressure bluebrute or copper.",
"Water engineer here! This is a great question!\n\nAll distribution systems are maintained, first lets assume you live in a developed country. \n\nFirst the water is treated. You specifically excluded water source from your ELI5 question, so I'll be brief and say that we treat water to a standard safe for consumption (let's think of it as killing bacteria and viruses, just to keep it simple). In larger systems, we keep a \"disinfectant residual\". The disinfectant residual is the amount of chemical left in the water to kill future bacteria/viruses after initial treatment. The amount of chlorine used in the initial treatment is called \"Disinfectant Demand\", typically, chlorine is used, so we use the phrase \"Chlorine Demand\" also.\n\nHere is a simple dosing scenario:\nRaw Water Chlorine Demand: 20 mg/L\nRaw Water Bacteria/Viruses present: Yes\n\nChemical Dose: 24 mg/L\n\nTreated Water Chlorine Demand: 0 mg/L\nTreated Water Bacteria/Viruses present: No\nChlorine Residual: 4 mg/L\n\nThis means that 4 mg/L (milligrams per liter) of chlorine is available to kill any bacteria that manage to show up elsewhere in the distribution system.\n\n\nAlso, we go to great lengths to keep water distribution systems pressurized. By keeping the system pressurized we make it much harder for bacteria/viruses outside the system to get into the pipe.\n\nNow, this isn't to say that the inside of the pipe is perfectly clean. A few phenomenon can occur resulting in a dirty pipe. Encrustation corrosion create hiding places for bacteria/viruses to hide. So to avoid this we monitor pH, and something else called a Langlier Saturation index. This helps us predict where the 'high payoff' areas are for cleaning with a \"pig\" are. \n\nAlso, we do BAC-T (term for Bacteria Test) at various user points in the system. If a BAC-T comes back positive for E-coli, we know to investigate the system (but more commonly the testing technique).\n\n\n-------Edit----------------\n\n_URL_0_\n\nHere is a picture of encrustation that occurred in steel pipe. This was part of a 'forensic' project where I had to figure out what was happening in the pipe. These pipes were part of an irrigation system (not potable water). My working theory is that we have deposits of solids floating on the surface of the water, You'll see that long straight lines of encrustation formed, the only explanation I have for this is that the pipe was horizontal and the encrustation occurred right along the water surface, which 'stick' to the interior of the pipe. The red color indicates iron reduction.\n",
"Ever googled \"inside water main\"? It's fucking disgusting. ",
"I am a underground pipe layer and some of the iron cast pipes have layers of mineral deposits.\n_URL_0_",
"LA resident here. I know nothing of this \"clean\" water you speak of.",
"One of the last steps in municipal drinking water purification and wastewater treatment is the addition chlorine. Unlike other sanitation practices such as slow sand filters or ultraviolet light, chlorine sticks around in the water as it travels through the pipes acting as a residual disinfectant.\n",
"I've always wondered this!! glad to see this on then front page :)",
"The pipes do get dirty.\n\nThe water contains chemicals such as chlorine and ammonia to kill the bad stuff. These chemicals leach out after awhile, which is why engineers use software to model systems to see the age of the water in the system. In systems that get old water they have to put equipment in the piping system to add more chemicals to the water, usually at boosting pump stations or water towers. Heat is really hard on these chemicals, so time spent in a water tower in summer is bad.\n\nThe pipes build up minerals and slime inside. Many system operators either flush their systems or \"pig\" the lines. They flush by systematically opening fire hydrants, letting the high water flow scrub the pipes. Some systems are set up to \"pig\", where they run put foam plugs nicknamed pigs in the pipe, and use water pressure to blow them down a line segment to an open pipe. Some operators do one of these on a schedule, such as every summer, some just let their lines slowly fill up. If they do either in your neighborhood you will have bad tasting water for awhile.\n\nThe other thing that protects the water is pressure. If for some reason water pressure goes negative the operators have no way of knowing something bad did not get sucked into the lines.\n\nNot an expert, but I used to model water systems for an engineering firm, and know several operators that run systems with hundreds of miles of pipes.",
"**YEAAA about that \"clean\" tap water ....**\n\n_URL_0_ ",
"The simple answer is that it ABSOLUTELY DOES pick up all kinds of bacteria as it travels through the pipes between the treatment plant and the tap in your house. If you want to know all about this, check out the work Norm Pace at the University of Colorado has done on the environmental microbiology of water distribution systems. \n\nHere's a newspaper article about it : _URL_1_\n\nHere's a paper about the stuff that grows in shower-heads : _URL_0_\n\nFull disclosure : I am a graduate student funded by the same Alfred P. Sloan Foundation initiative (microbiology of the built environment) that has funded Norm's work on this. ",
"This will probably get buried, but I'll say it anyways. \n\nFun fact: Unscrew the aerator from your faucet, look at the little screen and you'll probably find a few pebbles. \n\n\n",
"Environmental engineering student here. When water is disinfected with chemical disinfectants we leave what is called a residual. This means there is residual disinfectant chemicals in the water which haven't been used up yet. Any material in the plumbing, which should be small because all the water going through has been treated, will be taken out by this residual.\n\nPlease note the residual is not strong enough to hurt you, so don't be afraid to drink your tap water. Feel safe in the knowledge that your water is clean from the plant to your tap.",
"If you're worried about your tap water, don't get fountain drinks (unbottled soda/pop)\n\nUnless the nozzles are removed and cleaned DAILY they grow mold inside of them. The sticky syrup residue accumulates whenever the nozzle isn't being used (when restaurant is closed) and it gets moldy. I've seen clumps of mold that looks like a Greek man's shower drain hanging from the pop nozzle\n\nSource: worked in restaurants that served soda",
"Have you ever seen a 60+ year old water main pipe when its removed?\n\n_URL_0_\n\nthe rust can swell so much it cuts their flowrate to 20% of its original capacity. And it looks nasty as hell.",
"The primary methods for keeping the system clean are chlorination and positive pressue. The pipes will get pretty nasty looking over the decades but aren't harmful to health if these two things are maintained.\n\nThe positive pressure thing can get pretty messy when a main breaks. I used to work for a water utility which served over 2 million customers, and most of the water came from a treatment plant in the far northwest of the service area. It was carried by a 6 foot diameter line, which ruptured a few years ago. To maintain pressure in the system they had to pump as much water as they could from the treatment plant, which led to massive flooding on a nearby road. Several motorists were stranded and had to be rescued by helicopters and swiftwater crews. However, they maintained pressure and were able to isolate the line without contaminating the entire system. If they failed to do this it would have degraded the area's drinking water to 3rd world quality for several days.",
"Galvanized pipes become rusted and deteriorated, worse if under ground. This will lead to contaminates floating around in your drinks, ice, and bath water unless you have a filter installed. \n\nDepending on your main water source, I.e. city water plant, water tower, etc, things will always have a bit of debris coming through, but if your water service from the meter is fairly new and the water lines underneath the house ate in good shape, you shouldn't worry too much. \n\nI still would install some kind of filtration system. Not too expensive. ",
"Hydraulic engineers add just enough chlorine bleach (or other genocide) to the water supply after filtration, and sedimentation, so that the bleaching lasts until it reaches the farthest point in the water main system. This results in taps that are closest to the municipal reservoir delivering a noticeably chlorinated water compared to the furthest reach which may not smell of chlorine at all. Needless to say, there is just enough chlorine at the very end to ensure that germs are nixed at the very end of the tap. Furthermore, the water supply is protected by reduced pressure zones at the point of connection to a building or house, to prevent any backflow of contaminated water. Of course this only applies to highly developed regions of the world. Throughout the vast majority of the world, you are taking your chances. Guardia and Cryptosporidian are the rule not the exception. Diarrhea anyone? Boil that water! ",
"There are many organisms and bacteria that still exist in a chlorinated distribution line. Some include bacteria that nitrify excess ammonia from chloromination, sulfer reducing bacteria, iron bacteria, and even cryptosporidium. Most harmful organisms are rendered \"inactivated\" by proper filtration (where applicable) and disinfection techniques. The water is never STERILIZED, which indicates the destruction and inactivation of all living matter. \n\nOn cleanliness, proper filtration, corrosion/scale control (via pH adjustment or phosphate addition), and most importantly regular sufficient flushing of mains are the main tools of pant and distribution operators.\n\nOften people will complain we they see us opening hydrants, or operating automatic flush valves. \"Why can you waste water and we have to conserve\" Often their water quality is a direct result, good or bad, of proper or inadequate flushing and treatment. \n\nIn the end many people might be a bit shocked if they ever seen the condition of a water main in their area. We have systems which span a variety of materials, from PVC, iron and steel, brass, concrete, galvanized steel, even water mains made of large copper pipes and pipes which contain asbestos! I have seen galvanized pipes autopsied which showed a shrinking of the cross section from a 2\" diameter down to less than a 1/2\". \n\nPressure is mighty important. It prevents any compromises in a main from causing a siphoning of localized groundwater and its contaminates into the system.\n\n\nAll in all, the mains and pipes conveying the water to your home provide a safe product. There might be times where issues arise, and said water will be compromised, hopefully your utility will let you know and take quick and decisive actions to resolve the problems.\n\n\nIf you are ever interested in your utilities water quality, request a Consumer Confidence Report. It will contain results from many tests required by the EPA and your state and local counterparts. Some years more times are checked for than others, so you can surly request multiple years, a good start would be three years (most everything is tested at least every three years). These are also mailed or made available in July each year. ",
"Remember nerds, explain to a 5 year old. So, chemicals...the answer is chemicals",
"This is a great question.",
"My father's company actually installs them in florida.. the water inside the pipes normally stays around 200 psi like other people said if there's a small leak the pressure won't let the bacteria in... now before we completely seal off the pipe and have it ready to begin delivering water we do a \"cannon flush\" where we flush as much water through the pipes as fast as possible to get all the little pieces of dirt and stuff out, we cap it then pressure test it.. I haven't done the process in over 2 years but if I remember right we have to turn the pipes on and they have to hold 200 psi for like a half hour, if there's leaks the pressure goes down if there's no leaks the pressure stays the same. Along with the small amounts of chemicals at the water plant by the time it reaches you your water is safe for your use. Damn I got excited answering this I never thought anyone would ever question that, I always thought everyone takes where they get their water from for granted, hell I even did until I started working labor intensive summers for my dad.",
"I worked in a water treatment plant as a summer job once. Chlorine was added to the outgoing water, this prevented bacterial growth in the pipes.",
"A lot of responses here but not enough mentioning of the flushing. Every once in a while some cities will open a fire hydrant. The massive pressure and rapid flow of fresh water removes some of the loose buildup that accumulates.",
"This is why building codes do not allow your fresh water pipes and sewer pipes to be near each other. I used to work in a correctional facility that was not subject to city code rules or inspections. Subsequently (among many other violations) they laid their water main and sewer main in the same trench during construction (in 1959). The water main burst for whatever reason and ruptured the sewage line next to it. We had no running water for almost two weeks. They put a line of porta Potts in the yard and more in the main corridor. A facility holding 1200 men already has a funk, 3-4 days in it was fucking unbearable. \n\nTL:DR PORTAPOTTYS AND NO SHOWERS FOR TWO WEEKS. LOL ",
"Most water questions were already answered here but if anyone's curious I work as a water service engineer and can handle come basic q's.",
"Genetically modified scrubbing bubbles: _URL_0_",
"The chlorinates kill the water born bacteria, and the pressurized lines mean no oxygen, which non water born bacteria need to grow. ",
"while the water is purified and treated with chlorine to prevent biology from causing a problem, a quick google image search of [water main cross section] (_URL_0_) shows that it is definitely still pretty gross, it's mainly just rust and stuff which isn't bad for you",
"When the infrastructure is built the piping is subject to 'hyper chlorination'. this kills damn near anything in there and then is flushed with treated water after. Positive pressure keeps contaminates from entering the system. There are also cross connection practices to stop potential hazards, such as your faucets stop above the top of your sink, this is called an air gap. Things like this keep you safe, thanks to your friendly neighborhood plumber like me ",
"In some countries, for example post-communist Poland in 1991, the capital city had major problems with rusty pipes. The first time I let the taps go in Warsaw during the summer of 1991, rusty flakes came out, then brown water, then yellow, then finally (nonpotable) clear water.\n\nOver the summers I came to visit, it was steadily getting better (I remember the constant pipe replacement, the sidewalk outside of my grandmother's apartment in Ochota was always jacked up) until it peaked in 1996 - Clean water, right off the bat. \n\nSoviet era pipes = bad news. They're about as corrosion resistant as Ladas. Interestingly, my grandmother lives *just across* the city's water treatment plant, indeed the street name is *Fitrowa*, meaning loosely *Of filters* or *pertaining to filters* (likely Filter Street) so I can imagine how people in older parts of Mokotow or Praga received their water! Interestingly, Ursynow, where my mother had a flat, had \"clean\" water from the 90s on. Probably because it was a relatively new tower block residence. \n\nStill, I'll never forget that rust water! ",
"Simple answer is Chlorine. I run multiple towns in NZ in relation to water treatment plants. ",
"Yes positive pressure and the requirement to disinfect and maintain a chlorine residual in the water help prevent contamination, but it is still common place to have build-up or deposits form in water mains, and this is why you will occasionally get \"dirty water\" from your faucet.\n\nThe discoloration you occasionally see is from mineral deposits that have coated a pipe and then broken free from some sort of trauma to the pipe. A water system that is not maintained can have a 10\" pipe that's choked down to about the size of a quarter (extreme situation but I have seen it first hand). What happens is, as water travels through the system dissolved solids like (iron and manganese which are very common) become oxidized over time and drop out of solution into a solid form and stick to the pipe. The important thing to remember though is these are not harmful, they are primarily just an aesthetic issue.\n\nHow do we combat this? If you have a serious issue then you need to start by treating the water at the source. What I mean is you need to put in a process that oxidizes these minerals and drop them out of solution prior to the water passing through filtration. Well why don't they automatically do that? Good question, the answer is that it costs more money to install another treatment process and it also is another chemical that must be added to your water to cause the reaction.\n\nAnother way to handle it is simply flush water from fire hydrants. When a hydrant is flushed or a water main breaks, 2 very traumatic things can occur. First is the rate of flow of the water through a main will increase dramatically creating a scouring effect and ripping the mineral deposits off the pipe wall interior. Secondly, depending on the hydraulics of the system the water in a particular main can reverse direction during one of these events which really amplifies the scouring effect. IMO simply flushing hydrants on a regular basis is the best way to prevent build-up. If substantial build-up exists already because of lack of regular maintenance then more dramatic cleaning measures need to be taken, but I won’t get into those. There are also additional chemicals additives that you can add that will help coat the interior of pipe walls to help the minerals from sticking to them.\n\nTL/DR: Minerals oxidize and drop out of solution and stick to pipes interior. Not dangerous, just aesthetic issue.\n",
"Once treated, and the system is pressurized, any flow of water should be from inside the pipe to out. \n\nChlorine is added to account for your neighbors who can't or won't use a licensed plumber. \n\nSometimes when there is a water main break, especially a large main, there CAN be some backflow. That's why in cases of a water main break, they do what they can to prevent it, but sometimes a boil water advisary may still be needed for a day or so. ",
"Chlorine and fluoride - it also keeps the pipes inside your body nice and clean.",
"Living in NJ, I have never, nor will I ever, drink from a sink. ",
"Manhattan pipes are over 100 years old. There's lots of junk settling on the bottom of those pipes. Also lots of living organisms in the water as well (along with dead organisms that the chlorinated water killed in the treatment plant before being sent down those pipes). It's just that the living things are not deemed hazardous to your health. Someone on Reddit enlightened me to what's in the \"clean tap water\" that's supposedly just as good as bottled water. I'm just going to use the 'ignorance is bliss' philosophy and close my eyes when drinking tap water.",
"Hi, i've been working in construction for 10 years here in sweden, some of my many different tasks involve working with new (and old) water and sewage lines. I did a job in my old home town demolishing existing water and sewage and replacing it with new, fresh lines. In one particular stretch of piping there was a whole lot of rust buildup in the existing pipes (which were 4 or maybe 5 inch cast iron piping installed in the 50's or 60's)\nIn some small places the rust was so built up that the former around 4\" hole through the pipe was reduced to around 1.5\". This is the reason some households experience brown/red water after their water has been shut off due to maintenance or a pipeburst. the water stops in the pipe, the pressure drops, and then it returns, shaking loose rust particles from the walls of the pipes. which colors the water.\nI'm told that rust formed this way is sterile and germ free, though, so no worries. just run the tap until the water's clear. \nIf there's been a pipeburst, or a pipe has been damaged by accident while digging with an excavator or something like that (believe me, it happens. ALOT!) there's a chance that the end of the waterline with pressure in it has been flushing gravel or dirt into the non-pressurized end, or the recieving end so to speak. if that happens, you can experience lower water pressure in your taps, especially if you live towards the end of that particular water main. if this happens, there's (at least here in sweden) usually a little round thing right there at the end of your tap that contains wire mesh netting and acts as a sieve. you can screw this right off and rinse the gravel out, which was probably blocking your tap and reducing your pressure. afterwards, screw the sieve back on so you don't get gravel in your coffee if it happens again, and run your tap for about an hour. redo the process if nessecary. and i am aware that it's essentially \"wasting water\", but it's possible that contaminants got in your water when the water main was damaged, better safe than sorry. plus you can always boil it if you're feeling very environmental.\n\nSo i'm pretty good at english, but it isn't my native language, so i apologize for overusing parenthesis and commas and any spelling or grammar errors.\nfeel free to ask away if you wanna know anything more, i'll answer to the best of my knowledge.\n\nRun free, reddit"
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2ff8tu | what's the deal with anita sarkeesian and why do so many people seem to think that she faked the recent death threat on twitter. | So I saw a few of her videos on youtube a few years ago. Sure her ideas were a bit too much, but, at least in my opinion, she raised some valid points. So, why does the gaming community hate her, or rather why do they care so much. Also is there any decent proof that she faked her own death threats? If so what could her motives have been? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ff8tu/eli5_whats_the_deal_with_anita_sarkeesian_and_why/ | {
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"The general hate comes from her admitting in some places she's not a gamer, she's a pop-culture critic. She doesn't really play the games she 'reviews' but rather looks at let's plays and takes parts of the game out of context. (Like showing a female victim on violence when there's a room filled with dead men next door.)\n\nIt's also often argued she hardly needed the ~120k she got from kickstarter to make the videos she makes taking into account production value and all that, and she's not even churning these videos out as fast as people that do it for free or rely entirely on views for payment.\n\nAnita has gone on to some great lengths about the harassment and hate women get in technology and games and has spun the threats to great advantage and publicity. Anytime someone benefits from 'negative' experience someone is going to suspect it was staged, whether that's fair or not.\n\nI've heard some people saying the accounts that threatened her were both only hours old and disappeared shortly after the threats, and that Anita allegedly logged off just before the threats and logged in right after or something like that.\n\nNo idea if it's true, but it's what some people are saying.",
"This article (_URL_0_) explains it in detail. She's a non-gamer criticising games she doesn't really understand or play, and accusing gaming of promoting sexism. She's the new Jack Thompson.",
"ELI5 TL;DR: Girl who Cried Wolf.\n\n\nHer videos generally distort and utilize very selective portions of media that she utilizes to portray gamers and females in a negative light. She has been caught outright lying and uses deceptive tactics to portray small portions of games as horrible and sexist. \n\nThis is not to say some video games are not sexist. However, you cannot take one fragmented situation, out of context, and use it as factual evidence, especially when you are in control, in a sandbox. \n\nWith her videos, you could portray any film or media with the very small, biased clips that she uses, as incredibly sexist.\n\n[Here](_URL_0_) is an analysis of Joss Whedon's work using her framework and also addresses the death threat situation. \n\nI feel this is needed background for the simplified explanation.\n\nShe distorts the truth as part of her job, (which intertwines very closely with her personal life), and has played professional victim before, repeatedly. In addition the the Zoe Quinn affair (ha, double-entendre) (and faked 'attacks' on her) , people are asking for proof before they believe. \n\nThey want these things to be investigated, which I don't think is too far out of the question. She says that these threats were so dangerous she left her house, but they also coincided with asking for donations/money to support her video, and she should be talking with the FBI/Police about what to do with this cyberterrorist attack.\n\n\nIn addition to all this, everyone in places of public purview receive death threats, and she is no exception. If you'd like to know more about this (quite an interesting topic) I suggest Gavin De Becker's \"The Gift of Fear\". However, in the large majority of cases, these threats mean little to nothing. In fact, talking about them is one of the worst things you can do because it empowers the threat-maker. It gives them power to know that you have responded to them, and I sincerely doubt the police/fbi would recommend posting on twitter about how you moved to a friend's place. I don't know if the death threat is real or not, and I'm not entirely swayed one way or another. The \"proof\" that sways it toward being false is easily argued against. \n\n\n(It was 12 seconds old when they screenshotted it, how did they find it? Why isn't she logged in? Maybe she's compulsively checking herself on the web or it was one of her PR workers or one of her friends who wasn't logged in and decided that she wanted to check this out. Why is the pathetic threatener so eloquent? Maybe he/she wrote the messages out in advance and posted them very quickly. Why was the account deleted? Maybe because it didn't realize it would get noticed so fast. Maybe it was a friend or someone who wanted to help spur her cause on, maybe that's it too. ) There's way too many things that make the 'maybes' not definite, but are enough to sway me toward not trusting and erring on the side of doubt in this matter. I want a proper investigation, especially if she is benefiting like she is from this matter.",
"_URL_0_\n\n\"The meta-textual irony of Anita is amazing. She talks about how gamers, in playing their Mario games, have come to see women as victimized damsels in distress who lack agency. She then professes she’s a victim after she receives the usual celebrity bullying from Internet trolls, which she ought to have the agency to ignore like everyone else. Later, a bunch of Mario fans rush in to save her, and she profits. Either she’s oblivious, or Andy Kaufmann has faked his own death and lives on as Anita in 2014. It’s legitimately brilliant.\"\n\n"
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1ks3ok | why can't we make a single led that can display all visible colors? | All LEDs I know of are a single color, with some being composed of a green, blue, and red to provide most of the colors of the visible spectrum. Why can't we make a single LED that can vary it's color? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ks3ok/why_cant_we_make_a_single_led_that_can_display/ | {
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"To make an LED at all, we have to carefully engineer the \"band gap\"...the energy transitions made by the electrons in the semiconductor. By raising electrons to a higher energy and then letting them fall back (\"recombine\"), we coerce them into emitting light. That energy difference, between the excited state and the state they fall to determines the color of the light emitted. \n \nSo why not just give the electrons a bit more or less energy to get different colors? Because quantum mechanics. Electrons are not allowed to go to just any arbitrary energy levels (when they are in a material, and not \"free\" electrons), but only certain discrete ones. Those allowed energy levels are determined by the specific material properties. \n \nIn order to change the allowed energy levels in a material, you'd have to change some of those properties across the material. And then also control which parts of the material have electrons getting excited/recombined and which parts do not. That may be possible, but for now it is much simpler to make different devices for different colors, and put them nearby each other. Since we can make them each small, it works. "
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2oxslp | how come my mind goes blank and i fluster when i become nervous. from a biological standpoint, shouldn't i be thinking and talking clearly? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2oxslp/eli5_how_come_my_mind_goes_blank_and_i_fluster/ | {
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"From a biological standpoint you should be either running away or attacking, talking your way out of situations is a pretty new thing"
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2hks3x | who does a state attorney general have to listen to? | At the federal level, the attorney general is appointed by the president, so he takes his orders from the president. At state level, I believe most, if not all, AGs are elected. Does that then mean that they do not have to take orders from the governor? And if they do what is the point of electing AGs in the first place | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2hks3x/eli5_who_does_a_state_attorney_general_have_to/ | {
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"They aren't all elected, some are appointed by the governor.\n\nAnyway, they can be impeached by the legislature and I know here in Michigan the governor has no authority over the AG whatsoever. Illinois is the same. I think that's probably pretty common."
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t3yxx | how do we know about how much of a given element is still to be mined? | I hear that there is a finite amount of gold in the world, which makes perfect sense to me. However, when people tell me that there are around 33 cubic meters of gold in the world, of which we have mined 25 cubic meters, I want to know how we know that there are 7 extra cubic meters to mine!
Sorry if this is really dumb, but I can't help but think that my friends could be counting surveyed gold that hasn't been mined yet. Help? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/t3yxx/eli5_how_do_we_know_about_how_much_of_a_given/ | {
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"I am a civil engineer, but I use the same methods of extrapolation as miners do to estimate how much ore is left without actually digging it all up.\n\nIn my line of work, its important to know where the bedrock is, and what is on top of the bedrock and how much of it, so we can figure out how much it will cost to dig out, and if we can reuse any of the the dirt that we dig out for anything else.\n\nWe do this by drilling what we call boreholes, and carefully looking at what comes out, recording what comes out and at what depth. We do this several times over a large area, and we use some fancy math called [Kriging](_URL_0_) and some computer modeling to figure out the thickness of these layers underneath the earth, called [stratum](_URL_1_)\n\nWe can figure out how much stuff is in a given area using this method. How do we figure out where we want to drill the boreholes? Geologists pour over air photos like the kind on Google Earth and look for signs that are indicative of Gold, Diamond, or whatnot. Once they have a rough area, they go to the site and poke around some more, before drilling boreholes, since that costs a lot of money.\n\nAs for world estimates, they're estimates based on basically \"we found x amount of y in z area.\" that means there must be \"1000x of y in 1000z area\" and extrapolated to the entire world. "
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49ar9t | why is a sudden loud sound startling? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/49ar9t/eli5why_is_a_sudden_loud_sound_startling/ | {
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"It's an evolutionary adaptation. Animals that reacted strongly to loud noises were more likely to survive. Animals that didn't react to loud noises were more likely to die. As such natural selection increased people's reactions to loud noises. "
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by3tkw | how did the beef between the chinese government and falun gong start? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/by3tkw/eli5_how_did_the_beef_between_the_chinese/ | {
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"Falun Gong was a kind of hokey mish-mash of Buddhism, Taoism and qigong exercise. \n\nIt was founded in 92 and got real popular fast. The CCP was trying to get people to be less devoted to it by smearing it in the party controlled media. \n\nThe Falun Gong practitioners staged a non violent protest in Beijing (because that has such a great track record). It woke the party up to how much influence Falun Gong had acquired in a very short time and a few weeks later they banned it as a cult."
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a62qor | the differences between the 3 forms of buddhism | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a62qor/eli5_the_differences_between_the_3_forms_of/ | {
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"You said ELI5, so here goes. \n\nThere are basically two versions of Buddhism: poor man’s Buddhism and rich man’s Buddhism. \n\nThe latter emphasizes salvation through good deeds. But peasants and others who had neither the time nor the money to perform good deeds or pilgrimages gravitated to Buddhism that said you could get into Nirvana by chanting. "
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36kcbs | what is a microwave actually doing to my food? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/36kcbs/eli5_what_is_a_microwave_actually_doing_to_my_food/ | {
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"Certain frequencies of radio waves cause molecules in your food to vibrate. This vibration generates heat which cooks the food.\n\nYour oven focuses and generates these waves. The walls of the microwave reflect the waves back so you aren't cooked yourself as you stand nearby.",
"A microwave emits electromagnetic waves tuned to a specific frequency that causes water molecules to vibrate. As they vibrate they produce friction which in turn produces heat. This why an empty plate in the microwave won't get hot."
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c38c1k | how does the stomach let fluids through without the stomach acid flowing out with it | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c38c1k/eli5_how_does_the_stomach_let_fluids_through/ | {
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"Across the stomach lining, or from the stomach into the intestines?",
"I believe the acid is neutralized when it enters the duodenum and the stomach shuts off further production until it is needed again.\n\n & #x200B;\n\n\"In the duodenum, digestive secretions from the liver, pancreas, and gallbladder play an important role in digesting chyme during the intestinal phase. In order to neutralize the acidic chyme, a hormone called **secretin** stimulates the pancreas to produce alkaline bicarbonate solution and deliver it to the duodenum. Secretin acts in tandem with another hormone called **cholecystokinin** (CCK). Not only does CCK stimulate the pancreas to produce the requisite pancreatic juices, it also stimulates the gallbladder to release bile into the duodenum.\"\n\n[_URL_0_](_URL_0_)",
"It doesn’t. The stomach’s digestive secretions pass into the intestines with whatever food / fluids you’ve ingested. This usually takes about 2 hours for fluids and 6 for solid food.\n\nAs someone else has already said, the acids are then neutralised by secretions from other organs",
"Your stomach processes your meal (food, liquids, etc) and produces chyme. Which is the collection of everything (acid + food products). This is then passed onto the duodenum. In the duodenum, S cells secrete secretin which causes the pancreas to release bicarbonate which will help neutralize the gastric acid coming into the duodenum. \n\nLots of other hormones act as well but that’s the short answer for the acid part!",
"The stomach walls are protected by a thin layer of mucus, which turns into a gel under low pH (i.e. when acid is secreted to break down ingested food). There are some cases where that gel lining is compromised (like the bacterium helicobacter pylori which can swim through it by secreting some kind of enzymes), but in general there aren't any fluids going through the stomach wall in a healthy person. \n\nThe ingested food turns into a sludge and passed through to the duodenum (the part of the small intestine connected to the stomach) where the acidic chyme is neutralized by bicarbonate secretions and then that goes further into the intestinal tract.",
"Your intestines have things like Brunner's Glands which have a sole purpose of releasing bicarbonate to get rid of acid. Other places that release bicarbonate can be from the pancreas, the liver, and general intestinal cells called enterocytes.",
"The stomach releases gastric acid but it also has specialized cells that produce mucus (mucin) which lines the stomach. \n\nCombined with the basic mix of digestive enzymes and baking soda made by our pancreas, that acid gets neutralized before it can do any damage.",
"TL;DR: Acid does leave your stomach along with the food, but an organ called the pancreas recognizes when acid will enter your intestine (place where food goes) and in response spits out some “anti-acid,” sodium bicarbonate, which makes the acid less harmful and allows your cells to happily do their job without being burned too much. \n\nAcid is created in the stomach by cells called parietal cells that actually don’t even make the acid, they release the components and it becomes acid as it is quite corrosive and would destroy the cells if they actually secreted it. Luckily your stomach is covered with cells that make mucus, a physical barrier, and bicarbonate, more of a chemical? Barrier. Bicarbonate is a “buffer,” which essentially means it is one major way your body regulates pH. pH is a 1-14 logarithmic scale that measures the concentration of hydronium ions with a low pH being an acid and a high pH being a “base,” which bicarbonate is. Basically the acid is, obviously, acidic, but when it come in contact with the mucus and the bicarbonate, the buffer/base/opposite of the acid it becomes mostly “neutralized” so takes on properties closer to water, and is kept at physical distance by the mucus so your stomach cells can continue to live a little longer. \n\nOkay so now that the food is churned, broken down mechanically, and (hopefully) cleansed of bacteria due to the acid, the food and some acid goes to the pylorus, the end do the stomach. Here is the pyloric sphincter! The stomach has muscles that can open and close either keeling the stomach contents inside, or allowing a small amount to exit into the proximal small intestine called the duodenum. Small intestine is where most nutrients are absorbed. \n\nRight at the beginning there’s a tube that branches off to the liver, gallbladder, and pancreas. These all secrete substances in response to different chemicals and signals that tell them when you’re eating and when the bolus of food/acid is coming in. Actually a somewhat interesting process as thinking about food, smelling it, seeing it, all of this begins to let your body know you will eat! There different hormones being secreted in response to what the contents of your food was, how much, etc as well as a bunch of nerves that also help all control your GI tract! \n\nSo the pancreas is an exocrine and endocrine organ, meaning it not only manages your blood sugar with insulin and glucagon secreted into the blood via ducts, it also makes enzymes, and the important answer to your question, bicarbonate! which we discussed is the anti acid and makes the acid less acidic and therefore more similar in properties to water, so now your lovely cells are not being constantly killed. It knows when the sphincter will open and is ready with bicarbonate to protect your precious cells of the duodenum which take in the stuff from your food! The nutrients are still too big and complex for your body to take it, so the pancreas enzymes helps get them broken down into small enough pieces. \n\nThe liver has over 200 known functions, really quite the incredible organ. Suffice it to say relevant to this process it created a substance called bile which is an emulsifier, where the process of what that is made from and where it can go wrong or blocked is really a very interesting thing but another topic. Bile is given to the gallbladder which holds it and concentrates it and released when you eat fatty foods and “emulsifies” the fat so it splits into smaller pieces. Though another interesting thing is the fact that fats, lipids, are actually still too big to be taken in by the intestine the same way the rest of the nutrients are! So while most nutrients are taken into the blood and brought to the liver, fats actually get shoved a different way, into the lymphatic system! Which is a distinct fluid carrying system than your blood supply.\n\nHope I made it somewhat understandable while also not making any mistakes. I’m no expert so any input is welcome! Hopefully at least one person will read this and be slightly interested. 😊",
"I haven't seen mentioned: the point of mixing food with acid in the stomach is to begin the process of breaking down complex substances in the food into simpler nutrients that can be absorbed during passage through the small intestine. So, at least some of the acid is actually consumed by reacting with the food in the stomach.",
"Oh! My nosey-ass son asked this a while ago (I think it was instigated by acid spitting zombies, but I digress.) This is how I explained it: \n\n(First off, we've did the vinegar and baking soda experiment, so I used that as a foundation.) \n\nWe don't eat stuff just because we're hungry, and it tastes good. Our bodies are like big, squishy machines, and machines need fuel and maintenance to keep running properly. Luckily, our \"machines\" are super complicated, and can make a good deal of the materials it needs to keep running off of what we gobble down. The only problem is, it has to break the stuff we put in there down into easier pieces to move around, then build them again into something different. One way of doing that is by us cooking stuff to loosen up the itty-bitty \"legos,\" so small we can't see them with our eyes, that makes up the foods. \n\nAnother way is by chewing it; by making it mush before we swallow it, our stomachs can break it down a bit faster. When it gets to our stomachs, it oozes out some acid to break it down even more! This acid is made by our bodies by stealing some of the \"legos\" that makes up table salt, then mixing it with some \"legos\" that's in water and air. Just like how you can turn a lego castle into dinosaur after you break up the castle, our bodies can do that too, and turns the salt and water/air \"legos\" into acid; hydrochloric if you want to be fancy. \n\nThe inside of your stomach is lined with \"snot,\" so that acid doesn't try to break your stomach \"legos\" too, so you don't have to worry about it eating up your stomach too (at least until you grow up, have kids of your own, and have to go to work every day like daddy does, but that's another story sweetie.) \n\nYou know how sometimes you burp, then this nasty stuff comes up and burns the inside of your throat? That's the acid finding it's way to somewhere it's not supposed to be, and it can hurt you if it happens too much, but that's not something we *should* have to worry about, too much. \n\nNow, after your stomach's done all it can do, it squeezes the mushed up \"legos\" down into your guts to try and get more \"legos\" out of it. Your guts have snot in them too to help protect you from the acid, but it's not as used to it as your stomach is, so it needs a little help. \n\nRemember that vinegar and baking soda thing we did? It made the vinegar bubble up, and made it not smell as funny? When that mush is squeezed out into the lower guts, another of your guts \"sprays\" it with juice that's basically baking soda, that it made from some of the leftover \"legos\" from salt, and some \"legos\" you get out of the air you breathe. This \"juice\" then starts swapping out its \"legos,\" with the \"legos\" in the acid, and makes a whole new type of stuff that won't eat up the guts that ain't used to having the acid in it. Sometimes when you're sick, or have eaten too much, or too fast, your body makes it all go out the way it came in, and you puke. If you've thrown up some nasty, bitter, yellowish-green looking spit, some of that is the liquid \"baking soda\" and calmed down stomach acid. Sometimes the stomach acid hasn't been broken down enough, and that's why your teeth feel all gritty, and it burns your nose if it flies out of there too. Puking sucks, and if you do it too much, it'll burn up your throat and mouth and inside of your nose. \n\nSo, never make yourself throw up for funsies, it can hurt you a *lot,* kind of like how the zombie's barf hurts you in the game; our puke isn't as strong as the zombie's, that's the people who made the game running with their imaginations a bit, it's called exaggeration; much like how daddy says he's starving to death if doesn't eat dinner on time, but since he's a fat, lazy dork, he could skip a dinner or five and - although I'd be even lazier and *very* grumpy - be fine. \n\nOur bodies are fun, weird little super-factories that run full-steam day in, and day out, and does *really* fancy crap if you read up on it enough (some scientist think we're nothing but big ol' fleshy mech-suits that are piloted by our stomach germs!! It makes sense if you read up on it, but daddy's bored you enough by now.) \n\nObviously all that is *way* over simplified, but since he hasn't asked much about it since, something must've worked. Hope it helps you understand how out flesh mech-suits work, at least in that department. \n\nEdit: stupidity.",
"There are two sphincters that control the flow of stomach acids in the body. Stomach acid containing hydrochloric acid to break down connective tissue and the enzyme pepsin used to break down protein.\n\nThe cardiac sphincter prevents acid from moving upwards to the esophagus, and the pyloric sphincter controls the amount of food moving from the stomach to the first portion of the small intestine, the duodenum.\n\nIf food from the stomach called chyme, rich in fat, reaches the duodenum, it stimulates the release of a hormone called enterogastrone, slowing down the entry of food through the pyloric sphincter.\n\nThe chyme that enters the duodenum is partial digested by the stomach acid, and so is acidic. The acidic chyme stimulates the release of the hormone secretin, making the pancreas release sodium bicarbonate into the duodenum and neutralizing the acidic chyme.",
"The acid passes through with the food, and is then neutralised by the pancreas, using sodium bicarbonate.",
"General surgeon here. Work on the stomach regularly as well as small bowel.\n\nThis question has been answered above. \n\nBut I just wanted to add that this concept of acid going into the duodenum and activating pancreatic enzymes as well as neutralizing bicarbonate has very real world application for people with duodenal injuries or surgery. \n\nWe use proton pump inhibitors to shut down the acid production in the stomach for people with recent duodenal repairs, but that’s not just for the acid, it’s also because pancreatic enzymes will break down your own cells also. The classic example is after a whipple, the gastroduodenal artery will break down and the patient will hemorrhage. So they get PPI’s to stop activation of pancreatic enzymes. \n\nBefore PPI’s they use to staple off the pylorus so no acid could get trough, called pyloric exclusion, but people have gotten away from that."
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dtw8ww | why do our ears and nose continue to grow as we age, but not other facial features? do other animals have this same progression? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dtw8ww/eli5_why_do_our_ears_and_nose_continue_to_grow_as/ | {
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"We stop growing because our bones stop growing. During childhood/adolescence, parts of our bones called *growth plates* create cartilage which then hardens and *calcifies* into bone. This adds more material to the bones, making them longer, and is how we grow. Towards the end of adolescence, these growth plates stop creating more cartilage, and they also calcify and become normal bone. At this point we can't grow any bigger (without surgical intervention) because the bones can't get any longer/larger. This also applies to the skull, so past adolescence your skull remains the same size for the rest of your life. \n\nYour ears and nose aren't just bone though, they are also made of cartilage and soft tissues like skin. Cartilage *can* grow more, but it's debatable whether or not that's responsible for ears and noses getting bigger if we age. What definitely *does* play a part is skin becoming less elastic and looser as we age, which makes the ears and nose appear larger as they sag.",
"To expand on the first answer, collagen and elastin are part of what comprise cartilage. As we age, these break down, and it is apparently actually due to *gravity* that things began to sag and look larger.\n\nThe common misconception that cartilage continues to grow is due to sharks, whose cartilage does continue to grow throughout their lifetime.\n\nUnfortunately, us human. Not shark.",
"I had no idea our ears and nose did that until now, but that explains why Harrison Ford looks so different compared to his younger days and I’m not talking wrinkles, gray hair, etc."
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8maomr | why do students typically only learn their multiplication tables up to 12? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8maomr/eli5_why_do_students_typically_only_learn_their/ | {
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"There's not as much use in memorizing larger tables. At some point it's just easier to use a calculator or write it out.",
"Multiplying numbers greater than 12 comes up infrequently enough in most people's life that the time taken to memorize larger numbers is greater than the time required to open up the calculator app on your phone. \n\nBefore smartphones became ubiquitous they would try to get us all the way up to 20, but despite never managing this I managed to get a degree in mathematical modelling, so I suspect most people could get through life without it. "
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crzpa2 | why do plants like poison ivy cause skin to bubble? why does the reaction appear to spread through skin contact? | So itchy. So confused. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/crzpa2/eli5_why_do_plants_like_poison_ivy_cause_skin_to/ | {
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"Poison ivy and other similar plants contain an oily chemical called urushiol. When you touch it, it causes a type of allergic reaction called urushiol-induced contact dermatitis (contact dermatitis is a skin rash you get from from physically touching an irritating substance). This triggers the familiar blister-like rash where the oil touched the skin. If you touch a part of your skin that's been in contact with the plant and hasn't been washed, you can spread the oils on that part of your skin to other things you touch, including clothing and other body parts. That's why you want to thoroughly wash the affected area as well as any clothes you were wearing to prevent spreading the rash-causing oils around."
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2hvkfk | what does steam really do when it verifies the game cache? | I play ArmA 3 with the 10th Mountain Division (check them out if your into milsim. My first time, and it's amazing so far) and a man on our squad was having trouble launching. IT told him to verofy the game cache to no avail. So if this doesn't help, what does Steam actually verify and why do things not become validated?
Tl;Dr Steam verified ArmA 3 Cache. 100% validated. What is Steam really doing? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2hvkfk/eli5_what_does_steam_really_do_when_it_verifies/ | {
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"Cache is just a word for somewhere pre-computed/pre-downloaded data is stored.\n\nI don't know which it is in your situation, so i will just say generally.\n\nWhen you play something that requires graphics models that are not currently on your computer, it will download them. Instead of downloading it every time it will save it to cache to be reloaded later.\n\nSometimes, things can go wrong (programming bugs, crashes, etc) and this cache could be corrupted. This means that the data it expects to be there is incorrect so will fail when it tries to use it. To fix things, you can compare the files to those on the servers and redownload them.\n\nIn the other case, pre-computed cache it is pretty much the same. One good example is minecraft, which world is so large it has to be computed on the fly, but to compute it constantly would be wasteful and slow so it caches area which it has already done. If something goes wrong (say it crashes mid saving) you could end up with cache that is broken and needs to be re-computed, or live with having a huge hole in the ground."
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2bqxlh | why don't we have famous mainstream classical composers like mozart and beethoven today? | Is it because there isn't a market for it nowadays or that classical music simply cannot compete with pop and dance music nowadays, so any composer for the orchestra remains relatively obscure?
I'm sure there are talented composers who can write original music that rival the works of Bach or Mozart but they are simply not marketable enough.
why aren't there very famous classical composers today? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2bqxlh/eli5why_dont_we_have_famous_mainstream_classical/ | {
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"Film and video game music composers. They are today's Mozarts and Bachs. Jeremy Soule, John Williams, Hans Zimmer, Jesper Kyd, John Powell, just to name a few.\n\nAlso, classical music has fused with \"mainstream\" music like chillout, ambient, trance, pop even. It is all there, you just have to look around."
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1vrpyx | why is the commercial sex illegal? is it anti-social? does it harm someone? | Just trying to understand the reasoning in considering the paid sex as illegal.
Edit: Also would like to understand the validity of those considerations in the modern days. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1vrpyx/eli5_why_is_the_commercial_sex_illegal_is_it/ | {
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"Sex management has been an important feature of many human societies for as long as we have record, but the form of this management varies quite a bit. This is an active topic in psychology and sociology with quite a bit of disagreement. Here is a take on it.\n\nIf we look at primates as less-complicated models which to better understand ourselves, then we can glean some insight as to the nature of sex in relationships. As background, a simple view of of the spectrum of sexual behavior in primates has very hierarchical groups with a few dominant procreators on one extreme and very egalitarian groups with very stable relationships on the other; humans tend to be in the middle of this spectrum, with things to learn from either end. Humans usually have semi-stable relationships, but with a moderate amount of extra-relational sex. Both sexes, but particularly males, will often feel threatened by their partner's extra-relational associations leading to various sorts of social and violent conflict.\n\nAs societies grow and people become more interdependent, the value of relationship stability increases as does the cost of interpersonal conflict. People have difficulty resolving conflicts well as social size increases (our brains can only handle so many interpersonal relationships), so society will develop standard rules to prevent these conflicts from occurring and prescribing remedies which limit the scale of conflict should they occur. If someone from my neighbor's clan steals some of my livestock, this can lead to clan-on-clan warfare, so it is to everyone's interest to agree to rules which reduce the likelihood of such thefts and to deescalate the situation should it happen. If people are predisposed to have extra-relational sex and these encounters can lead to conflict, rules managing the availability of these encounters and prescribing what to do should they occur are reasonable.\n\nThis is further complicated by how many social groups have defined property ownership and inheritance. If someone with a lot of wealth dies, society has to decide what to do with that wealth. Since humans do have semi-stable relationships where they feel invested to some degree in their children, they tend to keep their stuff with the other stuff in their family, so familial inheritance isn't a terribly wacky idea.\n\nDefining 'family' can very often get quite contentious, however, particularly when we start talking about the wealthy elite who have extra influence in defining society's rules. It benifits everyone for anyone with a sizable amount of inheritable wealth to keep that inheritance simple which avoids conflict when multiple parties disagree over who should inherit what.\n\nThe result is that some societies have taken the route that it is best to strongly manage sex such that people are limited in their opportunities to anger each other by having sex and babies with the wrong people. This results in quite a lot of cultural baggage regarding sex, what it means, and why it is restricted. It takes an interesting story to explain why it is not appropriate to have sex with your neighbor's partner, but it is appropriate to have sex with this person you don't know all that well in exchange for money, so some societies have gone with a simpler story of sex outside of socially prescribed relationships is right out. This gets codified into law and is the major reason why some places have laws discouraging prostitution.",
"My country has a little different spin on it. We make it illegal to buy sex. The idea behind that, is that if there is a victim, it would be the woman forced to sell her body. So pimping, promoting, buying, even renting out appartments you know to be used as brothels is illegal, but not selling.\n\nThe rational is that people can end up in tough situations, and thus risking their lives, health and \"dignity\" by being forced to sell their bodies. ",
"It's conservativism plain and simple. It's also one of the few neat little coalitions of interests between feminists and conservative christians."
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411ahm | if an electrical outlet (120 volts) can kill you, how come a taser (50,000) can't? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/411ahm/eli5_if_an_electrical_outlet_120_volts_can_kill/ | {
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"It is the current that kills you, not the voltage. An electrical current between 0.1-0.2 amps through the heart will cause instant death. That being said, the higher the voltage, the higher the current. Current is equal to voltage divided by the electrical resistance. Just so you know, the average human body has about 100,000 ohms of resistance.\n\nNow, let's compare the electrical outlet to the taser. If you get shocked by a power socket, you will feel about 0.0012 amps of current, which is not lethal. However, if you are soaking wet, especially if you are sweating, your electrical resistance drops down to around 1000 ohms, meaning you feel 0.12 amps, which is borderline fatal. After some exposure to current, your skin cells deteriorate, which drops your resistance down to around 500 ohms. At 500 ohms, you would feel around 0.24 amps, which is lethal. You also have to keep the track of the electricity in mind. If you get shocked by plugging something to the wall, the electricity goes in your hand, through your body, and down and out to the ground by way of your foot. There is a good chance that the current will pass by your heart and kill you.\n\nTasers work differently. Firstly, a taser may be rated for 50,000 volts, but it will only deliver about 1200 volts to the body. At that voltage, you would feel 0.012 amps, which will hurt like hell. When you get hit by the taser, you don't experience a constant shock, but a short burst. This short burst should not be long enough to break apart your skin's resistance. Finally, the path of the electricity is a bit different. When you get hit with the taser darts, you usually get hit below your heart line, which means the current does not cross your heart. People do sometimes die from taser blasts, and that happens when they are constantly shocked, are sweating, or have poor resistance in general (soft skin).",
"Current is the important factor and it's right when people say you need 0.1 amps or less across your heart to end you, however people are then tempted to say voltage has nothing to do with it. Voltage is used to carry that current. **You need both at the same time to cause damage**.\n\nA few definitions: \n\n* Current \n\nA flow of electrons \n\n* Current capacity. \n\nThe ability of a power supply to deliver current. \n\nHousehold voltage has a fairly decent current capacity of around 15 amps or so. And there's enough voltage there to carry that current through your protective skin to the bits that matter, like your heart. \n\nCompare and contrast this to a car battery, which has a current capacity of **six hundred** amps or more. But, this won't kill you because your skin is enough to block the measly 12 volts it has from carrying enough of that current to do damage. Current capacity is only potential, remember. It depends on the resistance of whatever is being connected to it, and you're too high a resistance for 12 volts to be able to carry anything more than an utterly trivial amount of current.\n\nA taser has **plenty** enough voltage to carry current anywhere within you, but its current capacity is hugely limited by design, so it remains below a safe threshold. Don't hold any illusions - the current it *can* deliver will put you on your back and temporarily paralyze you very effectively, but it's not enough to cause permanent damage. \n\n",
"ELI5 version:\n\nVoltage is like the speed of a projectile. Current is the weight of it.\n\nA pea from a pea shooter may have the same speed as a cannon ball, but the cannon ball will hit harder.\n\nSo, the taser can deliver a lot of voltage, but not much current. So, basically, it's a pea shooter with an extreme muzzle velocity. It has a lot of sting, but it's still not a cannon.\n\nThe wall outlet, on the other hand, has less muzzle velocity, but it can deliver a really heavy projectile. Basically, a mortar.",
"[Here's an electrical engineers take on it](_URL_0_)\n\nBasically, whether or not it will kill you is a question of voltage and current. Not one or the other. ",
"A feather dropped off a sky scraper won't hurt you when it hits you. A sack of bricks dropped from a short building might kill you.",
"If you find an old car battery that will no longer hold a full charge, then try this...charge it as high as it can go, and then connect both posts with a solid copper wire (outdoors, with eye protection in case of an acid explosion or hydrogen fire).\n\nIt should heat the wire to glowing and then melt it (if it doesn't explode first). This is the result of low volts (only 12V), and high amps.\n\nDry human skin can insulate you from voltage penetrating it up to around 60V (depending on a variety of factors). To throw your muscles into disarray, needle probes must penetrate the skin, or...you must use high volts. Very high volts will easily penetrate the skin, but if those volts have low amps, you are likely to not have any burns or damaged tissue.\n\nThe reason so many police departments don't use tazers as often as they should is for two reasons. Many people have had heart attacks from being tazered, and drawing a pistol frequently gets a suspect to stop what they are doing. If you pull a pistol out first, it is sometimes untimely to put it back to allow you to draw the tazer...once you committed to pulling the pistol.\n\nThe second reason is that many police officers fear the probes will miss the subject, or they will hit and yet not penetrating their clothing deep enough.\n\nI believe tazers are most often used when two officers respond, which allows one to deploy the tazer, while the other can cover his partner with the pistol. Many jurisdictions cannot afford pairs of officers.",
"I worked as a theatrical electrician for a while. The thing that kills you is Amperage. I once touched an exposed 20 amp cable by accident (half of the housing for the socket had broken off and it was the half I couldn't see from where I was working). Even though the power was turned off, there was enough idle current running through it to make my arm go numb and my hair stand on end. Needless to say I got the rest of the day off.\n\nAnyway, think of electricity as a river. Rivers have current, right? A fast current has more extreme water conditions. So you can do that by making the riverbed steeper, so the water moves more quickly (voltage), or by making the river wider (amperage). So a taser has lots and lots of voltage but has very little amperage. An electrical socket in your home has only 120 volts, but can have as much as 220 amps. Think about that. The inactive (near zero voltage) idle amperage of my theater light at 20 amps numbed my arm for over an hour. The active, 120 volt, 100-220 amp electrical socket in your home will fucking kill you. That's not a very steep riverbed, but it's as wide the mississippi. The taser, on the other hand, is a vertical drop, but it's only a tiny trickle."
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1esw9n | what is bayesian logic/reasoning, and what are its uses? | I've been reading Harry Potter and the Methods or Rationality lately, and Bayesian, as a both a term and an attitude, gets mentioned a lot. I think I have a slight grasp, but comments like this
_URL_0_
just blow me away. Thanks. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1esw9n/eli5_what_is_bayesian_logicreasoning_and_what_are/ | {
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"Suppose you wonder about dinosaurs. You state two hypotheses: \"There are dinosaurs\" and \"There are no dinosaurs\" and assign some probabilities to them. What probabilities? It's tricky, it depends on your knowledge and the complexity of the statements, but they are strictly between 0 and 1. After that you go for a walk and you see no dinosaurs. That doesn't prove that there are none, but it's something, so you update the probabilities to reflect that: \"There are dinosaurs\" gets smaller, \"There are no dinosaurs\" gets bigger. How exactly smaller or bigger? That's tricky as well. After that you go for a walk again and so on. \n\nWhat's great about it? Suppose I also wonder about dinosaurs and do the same, but with different starting probabilities (that is because I have different knowledge). After that only go for a walk together. The cool part is that the probabilities that we are going to get for our hypotheses are going to converge to the same numbers regardless of the starting probabilities as long as we make a lot of walks. So in a way it's the truth. The not so cool part? It has to be a lot of walk, like really.",
"Bayesian probability can be very simplistic defined as considering a prior probability and adjusting it with new data.\n\nSo, if you performed an experiment and got a result, instead just testing its significance (the probability of it happening by chance in your experiment), you'll input this new data on your model against a prior probability distribution (which you got from all the other knowledge already out there on the subject).\n\nOn the HPMOR it's more likely mentioned as a way for reasoning, for logical thinking. \n\n\n Because someone will post it: [Relevant XKCD](_URL_0_).\n\nAnd since the comic kind makes fun of frequentists, here's another joke:\n\n*Why did the Bayesian reasoner cross the road?*\n\n*You need more information to answer this question*.",
"Video: [Bayes' Theorem - Explained Like You're Five](_URL_0_)\n\nPost: [An Intuitive (and Short) Explanation of Bayes' Theorem](_URL_1_)",
"To answer your second question: many mail servers and email clients use bayesian filters to detect spam; Spamassassin and Thunderbird are two big examples. You mark emails as spam or not-spam (ham) and over time they learn what you consider to be spam. \n\nI don't understand why I'm downvoted. He asked for how it's used and I gave a specific example of that. ",
"I know it's against the spirit of the subreddit to link to external resources, but [this](_URL_0_) is a fantastic visual explanation of the concept. ",
"Your kindergarden class has a pen pal somewhere in the United States. Your teacher won't tell you where he lives.\n\nYour mom asks where your pen pal lives. You say \"I don't know.\"\n\nYour pen pal writes and says that he liked going to the ocean all summer.\n\nYour mom asks where your pen pal lives. You say \"I don't know. Maybe Los Angeles or New York.\"\n\nYour pen pal writes and says that he went to an NFL game with his dad last night.\n\nYour mom asks where your pen pal lives. You say \"I don't know. Maybe San Diego or Miami.\"\n\nYour pen pal writes and says that he went on a field trip to the local governer's office.\n\nYour mom asks where your pen pal lives. You say \"Around Boston, Atlanta, or Baltimore.\""
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5h9sr8 | how are the numbers for life expectancy calculated? is it based off your current age or the year you were born? country of birth or residency? | So many question! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5h9sr8/eli5_how_are_the_numbers_for_life_expectancy/ | {
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"There is no actual figure for life expectancy. It does indeed take all these into account if you try to actually calculate your life expectancy but the most common way of doing it is 'oh you're x gender from x country and you have x habits, given the previous life expectancy of someone in your situation plus our medical advances, you'll probably live about this long.'"
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5ufa8p | what's the difference between whistleblowing and leaking? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5ufa8p/whats_the_difference_between_whistleblowing_and/ | {
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"Whistleblowing would be a person reporting some type of wrong doing, usually by a government entity. This involved using official channels for that purpose.\n\nLeaking is using unofficial channels for different kinds of purposes, not necessarily to point out a wrong doing."
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1vs61t | how does peeing after sex prevent infections when the urethra and vagina are two different holes? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1vs61t/eli5_how_does_peeing_after_sex_prevent_infections/ | {
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"The urethra is pretty close to the vagina, so stuff's gonna get in it when you're having sex.",
"Basically sex is messy. Stuff kind of gets everywhere. Peeing can prevent opportunistic pathogens (bad bacteria that aren't always bad) from setting up residence in the urinary tract. As for the vagina itself. It has a few defenses including bacteria that don't harm us but out compete bad bacteria. "
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4ipso8 | why do some women complain about "luxury" tax on tampons but accept taxes on other necessary hygiene products like toothbrushes, toothpaste, toilet paper, etc? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4ipso8/eli5_why_do_some_women_complain_about_luxury_tax/ | {
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"Why does anyone have double-standards or make statements that aren´t 100% based in fact and logic?\n\nWe are all people, women that do say that probably just think that tampons are more important to their daily lives then other things. Maybe they also think they are too expensive compared to other toiletries or they just don´t see the connection between those items.\n\nEdit:\nSince it seems unclear, I am talking about why women would be against luxury tax on tampons and not against luxury tax on other toiletries and hygiene necessities.\n\nI´m not talking about whether a luxury tax on tampons is justified or whether the above is even true i.e. tampons really are taxed the same as toilet paper.",
"Because only one gender use tampons.\nIf you're in the UK,I'd also suggest that the epetition on the issue,widely reported in the media, also suggested \"men's razors\" weren't subject to tax,and this myth proved to be inflammatory",
"In some locations, most hygiene products are exempt from certain taxes but feminine hygiene products are not. This is seen as unfair and discriminatory against women. [Details here.](_URL_0_) More details [here.](_URL_1_)",
"~~Tampons, in some states at least, are considered a luxury item and are therefore taxed at a higher rate than other hygiene products. Common sense tells us that tampons are clearly not a luxury item, so this is bullshit, and this tax only applies to women, which is also bullshit.~~\n\nDon't confuse this issue, which is the incorrect tax categorization of a sex-specific necessary hygiene item, with the issue of companies just generally charging more for women's products. Both of these things happen, and both are bullshit, but the \"Tampon Tax\" is an actual tax issue, while the other is a corporate price-gouging issue.\n\nEdit - after looking into it some more, I found that my first paragraph was wrong. Many US states just specifically exclude tampons from the no-sales-tax list of items because they view them as luxuries and not necessities. My second paragraph stands on its own and I believe is still correct. This is a tax issue, just not exactly the tax issue I originally thought it was. Sorry y'all, and sorry to the other commenters that I incorrectly corrected.",
"I can only comment on the 5% VAT applied to them in the UK. The anger towards the tax from some women in the UK mainly stems from 1)a fundamental misunderstand of how the tax system works, and 2)misinformation.\n\n1) \n\n* 5% is the minimum level of tax permitted by the EU. A finite list of items are exempt and cannot be added to without unanimous consent of member states on an EU wide amendment to the VAT directive\n\n* The UK has a 0% rate only as a legacy of the previous system that the EU permitted us to keep on the basis that no more items can be made 0%. Other members who do not have a 0% would likely consider any proposed addition unfair and not allow it.\n\n* Making sanitary products tax exempt would likely INCREASE their price as manufacturers cannot reclaim VAT on costs relating to production of tax exempt goods\n\n\n2)\n\n* Many wrongly claim such items as 'men's razors' being tax free when this is completely false. They are in fact taxed at 20% as are 'women's razors' and toilet paper.\n\n* It is also claimed that sanitary products are classified as a luxury item. This is not the case. There is no such classification. They are already taxed at the lowest rate allowed by law.\n\n* There is often a price discrepancy between 'men's' products and those marketed to women but this has nothing to do with a difference in tax. It is the brands that set higher prices for women's products.\n\n* It's often stated that woman would save £100s per year without the tax, but this would mean an enormously unrealistic amount of sanitary products being purchased per woman per year equivalent to using several boxes per day. The actual saving would be more like £5... Not taking into account that tax exempt status would INCREASE the price.\n\nSo in the UK at least the argument does not make sense. I can't speak for other countries though.\n\nEdit: reddit noob and typed on mobile. Apologies for poor formatting.",
"Because they have an additional luxury tax on them, above and beyond other hygienic necessities.\n\nThere is also a bit of dishonesty here. When tampons were introduced, they were a sort of luxury item, compared to other feminine hygiene products. Today, many women use other forms that are not subject to the addition luxury tax. \n\nWhile a luxury tax is outdated, it is not the arbitrary attack on womanhood that some people are making it out to be."
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[],
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"https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/01/08/the-tampon-tax-explained/",
"http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article53009920.html"
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5gukw0 | how do countries with low education rankings, such as the usa and the uk, continue to be economically effective and influential? how can a successful economy not be represented in its educational standards? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5gukw0/eli5_how_do_countries_with_low_education_rankings/ | {
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"The us and uk have fantastic education systems. Much better than anywhere else. Most people want to go there. Thats why theyre rich",
"Pretty simple, global education rankings are usually applied broadly (like, to the entire population). If you look at those in the US who are in the top, say, quintile of educational attainment and ability, they receive educations that would be elite worldwide.",
"These countries have low education rankings in their schools *for children and teens,* but once you get to the elite level, they have numerous outstanding universities.\n\nA country's economy doesn't need *everyone* to be unusually well educated, but it does need the *top fraction* to be unusually well educated. I don't care if a bricklayer can't spell, but the guy who designs a bridge had better be great at math.",
"Because they aren't that low at all. While primary education has it's fair share of issues, and in some areas the school system is a disaster, in other (largely rich, white) areas, the schools are just fine. Higher education, especially graduate schooling, is excellent in the US and UK with prestigious universities that near exclusively dominate based on pretty much any metric. [Example: there are only 2 schools outside of the US and UK anywhere near the top 10.](_URL_0_)",
"Plus importing. The US and the UK both will pay a lot of money to get other countries citizens to work for them. If you recruit the top fraction plus keep your own, you get an advantage"
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6bjwgo | why do the terrorists' sources of weapons very seldom appear in the news while we always hear which country or rebel groups get their weapons from which country? | So many times there are news like "*This country will buy this many tanks and fighter planes from that country*" or "*This country reacts to the weapons they sold to that country to be used in this way*" or as it happens now "*US decides to arm this friendly rebel group*"; but we rarely get any reaction towards the countries which sell weapons -perhaps indirectly- to terrorists like ISIS or Boko Haram and such. Is it too hard to figure this out or is this not newsworthy? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6bjwgo/eli5_why_do_the_terrorists_sources_of_weapons/ | {
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"It's the same people. The US armed the Taliban to help fight the Russians when they invaded. Countries who sell weapons will pretty much sell them to anyone they can. ",
"Because they media does not want you to know that YOUR OWN COUNTRY may have supplied the weapons that are being used to kill your brothers and sisters that are fighting in those regions. ",
"With ISIS, a lot of their weapons come from the US. The US did not give them these weapons, but rather they stole them from the Iraqi Army when they took over large regions. Standing against the terrorists and helping your allies is more difficult if it turns out some of those weapons also are given to terrorists.",
"The first kind of sales are public events, important aspects of international relations and the finances of weapon producing companies.\n\nThe second kind are---presumably---secretive black market-type events that media is not likely to be privy to, though [stories about it crop up occasionally](_URL_0_)."
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39nfrs | why do packages often say bring cold water to a boil? | Why cold? Why not hot? I always did hot so it boils faster. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/39nfrs/eli5_why_do_packages_often_say_bring_cold_water/ | {
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"They're saying not to use hot tap water in your food anymore. The hot water more easily dissolves impurities in the pipes, meaning that more of them would get into your food."
]
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86tiqs | why do gaming servers maintanence times happen on tuesday morning in america? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/86tiqs/eli5_why_do_gaming_servers_maintanence_times/ | {
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"You'll always ruin someone's primetime. You just gonna choose who will be the unlucky winner.\n\nAlso it makes sense for companies to do maintenance in the morning so if something goes wrong, they have the full workday to fix it, so then it depends on where is the actual company located. ",
"Tuesday morning was calculated to be the least played time of the week for games like WoW and Everquest and so they started to do maintenance on those days. When WoW first started it was an all day event too, not just an hour or two. \n\nAnd yes, when you have a global game it will always be prime time play for someone. They chose the most efficient time where they would inconvenience the least number of their customers, which means scheduling for US. \n\nAdditionally it is a good day to do things because you can prep on Monday, and have the rest of the week to handle any major issues that the maintenance may have found or made that can't be done in a single day. "
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5o3j0f | how do 64kb demos work? how is a video generated from such a small file? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5o3j0f/eli5_how_do_64kb_demos_work_how_is_a_video/ | {
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"My thesis supervisor was interested in these demos ([here's one he made](_URL_3_) and [here's](_URL_1_) his thesis on it, though it's in Czech, but there's a lot of pictures) and he told me a little bit about them. Here are the main things:\n\n- The demo in not a video, it is a program that renders the animation. Program is small because it is just a small amount of instructions.\n- Procedural generation: Data, such as textures, is what takes up absolutely the most space in programs. Here instead of having the data embedded in your program you create algorithms that generate all the data, somehow randomly but within certain rules. Algorithms are extremely small, even if they are complex, because they are in result just a few instructions, of which each only takes a few bytes. These algorithms can however generate huge amount of data - textures, 3D models, music, everything. For example you can generate so called [Perlin noise](_URL_2_) and use it as a heightmap for terrain. If you're more clever, you can make images like [these] (_URL_0_) (these are from my bachelor's thesis on procedural textures).\n- Getting rid of any unnecessary stuff: In normal programs a few extra kilobytes usually do not matter, so most programming tools add extra layers to programs to make the programming more comfortable, faster, safer etc. If you want your program to be small however, you can give up these advantages and save memory. You can do this by using a low level programming language (assembler, C, ...), using special programming styles, telling the compiler you want to optimize for size, giving up platform independence etc.\n- Some data, such as camera movement, can be embedded in the program since they are very small. Camera movement can consist only of a few keyframes and the program then smoothly moves the camera between them. Camera keyframe may look like this: time (4 bytes) camera position (x,y,z = > 12 bytes), camera rotation (x,y,z = > 12 bytes). This is a total of 28 bytes for each keyframe. If you have 20 keyframes, your whole camera movement is encoded in 0.5 kb.\n- Compression: to make it even smaller, everything is compressed in the end."
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"https://i.imgur.com/eQ1L145.jpg",
"http://www.fit.vutbr.cz/study/DP/DP.php?id=9301&file=t",
"https://i.stack.imgur.com/38co6.png",
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mm44p1b5xYo"
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jsnek | how can a few satellites serve so many people and devices? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/jsnek/how_can_a_few_satellites_serve_so_many_people_and/ | {
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"You can think of a satellite like a speaker in a super crowded convention. The speaker, thanks to the microphone, is able to deliver his message to a big number of people at the same time, because he is \"broadcasting\" his speech, which means he does not need a personal communication with each individual in the room, he actually only needs to shout his message, and whoever is interested is able to listen to him. The satellite is the speaker talking, and your parabolic antenna, or your GPS device, is the listener in the audience. That's why a satellite is able to serve millions of people at the same time.",
"Just for a little mind-blowing information, there are considerably more that \"a few\" satellites orbiting the earth. Here's something that will blow your mind:\n\n_URL_0_\n",
"You can think of a satellite like a speaker in a super crowded convention. The speaker, thanks to the microphone, is able to deliver his message to a big number of people at the same time, because he is \"broadcasting\" his speech, which means he does not need a personal communication with each individual in the room, he actually only needs to shout his message, and whoever is interested is able to listen to him. The satellite is the speaker talking, and your parabolic antenna, or your GPS device, is the listener in the audience. That's why a satellite is able to serve millions of people at the same time.",
"Just for a little mind-blowing information, there are considerably more that \"a few\" satellites orbiting the earth. Here's something that will blow your mind:\n\n_URL_0_\n"
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3kr85o | what's the difference between hebrew, jew, and israelite? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3kr85o/eli5_whats_the_difference_between_hebrew_jew_and/ | {
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"Hebrew- 1. The spoken/written language of the Hebrew people. 2. The Hebrew people were descendants of the biblical Abraham. 3. If you are familiar with the story of Moses, you will remember that the Hebrew people were being enslaved by Pharaoh.\nIsraelite- 1. Technically, one who is a descendant of the biblical figure Jacob, the grandson of Abraham. God changed Jacob's name to Israel, and that then became the new name for the \"promise land\" that Jacob was to inherit. There it became the nationality of the people who resided there. It is now considered improper to refer to an Israeli by this term.\nJew- Basically, a descendant of the Hebrews, and/or one who practices the religion of Judaism.\n\nSo technically, a person could be a descendant of both the Hebrews and Israelites, while being a practicing Jew. Does that help at all?"
]
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3s952v | why do some people think psychology is a pseudoscience? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3s952v/eli5_why_do_some_people_think_psychology_is_a/ | {
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"Because it mostly is. _URL_0_ \n\n The studies can not be replicated and it is biased _URL_1_\n\nSo it does not meet the definition of Science.",
"A lot of people think that only the \"hard\" sciences - physical sciences like physics & chemistry, where every experiment has absolute results & is perfectly repeatable - is \"real science\".\n\nSince psychology deals with people, it's kinda fuzzy around the edges. You can only really deal with statistical tendencies of large populations or abstract theories of behavior that are \"mostly right\".\n\n",
"In general, psychology is considered a soft science because it is neither devised from elementary laws or axioms (as are physics and math) nor developed through rigorously tested and repeatable experiments (like biology and chemistry). For example, see [this article](_URL_0_) in Science, which, \n > [describes] the replication of 100 experiments reported in papers published in 2008 in three high-ranking psychology journals. Assessing whether the replication and the original experiment yielded the same result according to several criteria, they find that about one-third to one-half of the original findings were also observed in the replication study.\"",
"Because it's not 100% certain. You can't ever determine exactly how depressed a person is, or come up with a mathematical number to quantify happiness. It has a shit ton of subtleties and variables, many of which we don't even fully understand.",
"I would suggest that because of the biases and flaws so far revealed in the extant psychological papers that the body of knowledge referred to as psychology is not scientific knowledge at this time. If the scientific method were rigorously applied to the field it could become scientific, but at this moment; while the papers are written in a scientific style yet fail tests such as repeatability it can only be called a pseudo-science. ",
"PhD student in Psychology here. I see this as having a few answers:\n\n1) Undergraduate psychology degrees typically focus on the history of the field as it has developed since 1879, and so spend more time on things that don't really deal with what we do today.\n\n2) The field of clinical work is fractured. Whereas most scientific fields identify newer and improved methods for study or practice, therapy is...complicated. While we have found therapy methods that are empirically validated and reproducible (cognitive behavioral techniques), a large portion of the field still uses techniques that simply work \"sometimes\" or if you wait long enough for the problem to go away on its own (existential, psychodynamic, or intersubjective).\n\n3) Most people don't know what makes someone a Psychologist, or what they actually do. A bachelors degree or a masters does not make you a psychologist. At best, they qualify you to do substance counseling (B.A./B.S.) or talk therapy (M.S.). A Psychologist (PhD) typically uses psychological assessments, statistically normed with large groups, to help either inform diagnosis (clinical psychologist) or to help identify what part of the brain might have physical damage (neuropsychologists). It should also be noted psychologists often end up as administrators rather than practitioners.\n\n4) People who study psychology have no clue of how statistics are supposed to work. If something doesn't fit what they were hoping for, they run the data through mathematical processes until the data is \"massaged\" (or tortured) into what they want it to say. This, I could rant about forever.\n\nAnyways, I know this isn't really \"like I'm 5\" material, but I hope it helps.",
"I like to think of it as this way: let's assume we are in 1900s. There are some fundamental ground work regarding electricity in place but there is nothing fancy like electronics theory. Suddenly out of nowhere, a laptop appear out of thin air. People start to poke around with the computer and are curious why this thing is able to do all these impossible calculations like magic. But without development in electronics, transistors, integrated circuit, computer science, and all the technological advance leading up to personal computers, there is no way that they can fully understand how a laptop truly works. All they can do is to conduct scientific observational study (i.e control, hypothesis, statistic and stuff) and formulate theory on why it may work base on observations. They can't replicate it because they don't understand it, but at least they can predict its behavior most of the time.\n\n\nNow think of the human mind to us right now is like laptop to the 1900s dwellers. People right now doesn't have the prerequisite technology (a fully developed neurobiology) to understand it and to replicate it. So people develop psychology to begin observational study. Even if you don't understand how a computer fully works, you still can use it and reap its benefits if you done enough observational study on it. The same goes for psychology. \n\n\npsychology studies often look foolish when compared to other hard sciences because we can't connect/explain psychology finding to hard sciences. For example, molecular biologist can explain the beating heart with starting with cell theory - > protein function - > organic chemistry - > chemistry - > physics. But when psychologist theorize on ridiculous topics like penis envy, all they can do is reason through it like Plato (smart dude, but wrong on a lot of stuff) and make observations. It is that lack scientific foundations for psychology to stand on make it feel like pseudoscience (Make no mistake, psychology is a real science employing scientific principles). This is why the findings develop by psychology are all functional at best, no where near the quality of other hard science that we can develop additional technological advance on. \n\nBiology is a good example of a field of discipline that is connected to hard sciences later on. No one respected biologist before and thought they are just a bunch of people who likes to collect insects and name them. But when we connected the dots and develop unimaginable capabilities and explain the very fundamental mechanism of life, no one doubts on the hardness of biology anymore. I believe the same case goes for psychology. Psychology is still in its insect collecting phase."
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4mabcr | watching nba tonight. what do the vegas odds mean? | I don't understand how the odds are written. ESPN is showing GSW - 210 and Cavs +180. What does that mean? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4mabcr/eli5_watching_nba_tonight_what_do_the_vegas_odds/ | {
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"If you put $210 on the Warriors to win the game--and they do--you get your money back, and you win an additional $100.\n\nIf you put $100 on the Cavs to win the game--and they do--you get your money back, and you win an additional $180.",
"This tells you that GSW is favored to win. \n\nA negative number (-210) shows how much money you must wager to win $100, while a positive number (+180) shows how much money you will win if you place a $100 wager."
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24dgqq | why do some people consider the united states government an oligarchy? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/24dgqq/eli5_why_do_some_people_consider_the_united/ | {
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"I am actually an accounting grad but think I will be pursuing an advanced degree in something else because I spend most of my time reading politics and history. Here's my best shot: \n\nTo understand America's current state of affairs lets look to the past... the way past... and the British. In 1066 an English king (William of Normandy) instituted feudalism in his country. Why? From history we know William of Normandy as William the Conqueror, probably not well liked by most people. Being careful not to anger too many, thus keeping his power, William decided to govern over the nobility of the lands he took control of. He took the step of including the nobility and formed a council. Growing accustom to their privilege and realizing they still had plenty of power over their own people, the council grew irritated by the ebb and flow of countless royals with varying personalities. BAAAM! The council gives the current king (John) the Magna Carta. The document limits the king's power and establishes the councils 'rights'. Thereby paving the road to what is now known as British Parliament and the start to the end of concentrated power. \n\n... British Parliament charters governments in 'the new world'. American colonists are British subjects, thus, cultured in the British customs including government. \n\n... Colonists rebel. Win. But still need government. Colonists set up their government *similar* to Britain. \n\nTo define an oligarchy is to say the \"the masses ruled by the few\". Indeed that is exactly what the US is. We elect Presidents, Senators, Representatives, Governors, state senators, state reps, sometimes: state auditors, judges, sheriffs. We elect them to preside/rule over our daily lives. We try to elect good, honest, smart, and fair leaders. If we did not do this and instead chose to go down the 'true' democracy route things would get very bottle-necked. Every eligible citizen would vote on every issue brought before them. It is said this form of government works well on small scales but for modern civilization government would be painfully slow. \n\nFinally, we get to something that looks like the United States of America. Again, while there is no 'king' to deal with there are still the wealthy nobility. Wealthy colonists regarded themselves as 'the responsible, educated, minority worthy of government and leadership'. This worked well back then... Ben Franklin, George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, were all very wealthy and suitable governors. But long ago the US was an even more concentrated oligarchy. Those *allowed* to vote were only landowning males, and could vote only voted for state legislatures. The state legislatures voted for federal legislatures, and federal legislatures elected a president. \n\nThe system was easier to handle for the layman/masses since they often had no control over such matters, and forgot about them. It was only though corruption/fraud/abuse of the system that voting power was distributed to the masses. (A good article to read is William Andrews Clark and how he became a US Senator.) Thus, you could say because the 'responsible, educated, worthy of government' select few could not act honestly is the reason why we vote for federal officers. \n\nTL/DR: The US was never a true democracy (one man, one vote, all issues). The US was always, in some capacity, an oligarchy. A small group of elected officials who preside over the affairs of the state.",
"a lot of people feel that the largest companies with the most lobbying power are making a lot of the country's decisions for us. \n\nwhen the power to make those decisions is weighted more towards those companies than the people as a whole, there's gonna be trouble.",
"The paper from Princeton which you can [read here](_URL_1_) found that policy implemented by the government has little to no correlation to the desires of the majority of Americans but a strong correlation to the desires of very wealthy Americans.\n\nThis is the problem that must be solved before the issues people care about can be worked on in a meaningful way. [Wolf Pac](_URL_0_) and [Rootstrikers](_URL_2_) are the two organizations most effectively tackling the problem and they need our support!",
"To the extent that we, the people, are removed from control over our lands, marketplaces, central banks, and media we are no longer empowered. In practice, those few who do control the land, central bank, media and \"free market\" are the real rulers of our corrupt and declining \"democracy.\"\n\n_URL_0_\n\nIt is something that will be up for debate for awhile, but to me, this nation has been an oligarchy since 2001-2004 ish.",
"The rich and powerful have set up laws for many years now that consolidate power amongst a small group of people, and creating a tangible barrier between them and everyone else. One needs to be a member of the Democrat club or the Republican club in order to be in most forms of elected office, and can only have mild public funding with a really high bar to entry, forcing you to look to ally yourselves with corporations/wealthy donors to have enough money to compete. ",
"McCain-Feingold attempted to fix the problem... it was shot down by the supreme court.\n\n_URL_0_",
"The fact that companies like verizon are doing what they're doing to net neutrality regardless of what the people want is evidence that we live in an oligarchy. ",
"I think when the majority says the same thing, then we all need to look into it a lot more, I think one of the reasons most people think this is that laws passed by Congress have allowed businesses to use their large profits to pass laws even if it is not in the interest of the people or the country.",
"People don’t think it be like it is, but it do.",
"Because.. It is? "
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"http://www.rootstrikers.org"
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203lvv | do we have any system of "direction" in outer space? | With everything moving and no obvious cardinal directions, how do we tell which way is which? Is everything just relative to what it orbits? With the message on voyager giving our "address" would other planets even know which way to go? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/203lvv/eli5_do_we_have_any_system_of_direction_in_outer/ | {
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"Orienting yourself in space is admittedly kind of strange. Obviously, concepts like up and down no longer have useful meaning, but some other concepts still work: \n\nConsider that a galaxy has an axis and a rotation the same way that a planet does. Galactic north and south exist, and relative to that axis, you can have directions like \"in\" and \"out\" as well as galactic north, south, east, and west.\n\nWant to pick another scale? you can create a coordinate system out of any three points, so long as those points are *more or less* holding station. ",
"Let's just talk about navigating within the solar system.\n\nFirst, you have an easy direction - towards or away from the sun.\n\nSecond, you pick a couple of fixed points in the sky, really bright stars that you can easily identify.\n\nWith those 3 points you can determine your position anywhere in 3D space around the sun. This is how spaceships beyond Earth navigate in deep space.\n\nTraveling between the earth and the moon, the Apollo astronauts used star sightings and known landmarks on earth (like Cuba, Hawaii, Baja California, Madagascar, etc.) to determine their location. Modern travelers will use the sun + stars system.\n\nIf you travel beyond the solar system but within the local group of galaxies, the best way to navigate is probably using pulsars. Pulsars are all unique - they rotate at varying speeds, and those speeds can be detected. Finding 3 pulsars in the sky, and having a catalog of known pulsar speeds would allow you to ID the three pulsars and triangulate your position anywhere in the galaxy.\n\nEssentially any time you can get 3 fixed points of reference in the sky, you can determine your exact position.",
"The enemy's gate is down. ",
"The short answer is YES. \n\nwhether we are on Earth or in outer space we always choose to orient our selves based on a reference system, with the specific reference system chosen based on need.\n\nfor example, GPS used the WGS84 reference system (world geodetic system) it is essentially a reference surface (in the shape of an ellipsoid) which we use to describe our position on it (in latitude longitude) and our height above or below the surface of this ellipse. It is known as a Terrestrial reference system because it is centered at the center of mass of the Earth and rotates with the earth (ie. a spot on earth is always at the same coordinate) which GPS needs if we want consistent coordinates for a stationary point on earth.\n\n\nif i were flying through space i would need a \"celestial\" reference frames, which instead of being fixed to earth is fixed to the distant stars which seem motionless. since from the perspective of something flying through space, everything other then the distant stars seems to be moving.\n\nthe point is; we define these systems (almost) arbitrarily based on need, all you need is an origin, orientation, and a [Tensor](_URL_1_) which is a bit more complicated to explain (but i will if asked)\n\n[this image ](_URL_0_) shows the arbitrary shift between two coordinate systems orientation and origin\n\n\n**TLDR:\nYES, we get our orientation in space by referencing stars that are so far awat they seem motionless.**",
"Well the gods of Kerbal space program teach us that we have altitude, Velocity, Prograde/Retrograde, Normal/Anti-normal, and Radial/Anti-radial"
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6y9qw9 | why does your body feel physically ill after experiencing emotional trauma? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6y9qw9/eli5_why_does_your_body_feel_physically_ill_after/ | {
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"Yes I want to second this question, I've went through something rather awful in my relationship and wondering why I feel absolutely physically wrecked, it's honestly so strange ",
"Cortisol is a stress hormone and can be increased by emotional trauma. Increased cortisol has been found to suppress the immune system, for example it reduces wound healing. So if you have a virus the body won't fight it off as efficiently as it would normally.",
"Acute stress causes an adrenal response which involves a spike in blood sugar. High blood sugar can cause you to feel sick/nauseated. The blood sugar was meant to give a person the energy to run or fight and brain fuel to think quickly or focus. ",
"Your body has to be relaxed to digest food.. Emotional trauma makes you stressed which stops you from digesting food properly which is what upsets your tummy! ",
"I've heard that it's basically a flight response to a bad situation. Your body stimulates all the things that give you a better chance at running (jittery legs, etc.), which doesn't include your stomach.",
"It's because your limbic system (emotions) is directly connected to your autonomic nervous system (involuntary actions like breathing, etc.). \n\nWhen you experience severe emotional trauma your body can respond in many different ways, such as throwing up when seeing something gross or crying when stressed out. Some people even faint; their brains just say \"nope\" and remove itself from the stressful situation. ",
"Your brain use too much energy ( sugar or even attention ) focusing on emotions so your body is left behind. That's why you feel tired and vulnerable to diseases because during an emotional trauma like grief, that's because your brain is like that, tired and vulnerable. \nI do not know how to explain thing, i do not know why I am on this sub but i hope it's enough ! ",
"It's because the bacteria in your gut are connected via various pathways to your brain. The connection goes both ways. So, in the same way that sugary drinks can make your brain feel bad, your brain can send signals that upset the bacteria in your stomach.\n\n_URL_0_",
"Emotional trauma has a complicated action on the body.\n\nMost of the responses are regarding the initial \"survival\" response.\n\nHere's my brief explanation of that:\n\n > The specific part of the autonomic nervous system which is activated is the sympathetic nervous system. \n > \n > The sympathetic nervous system is part of the body's \"flight or fight\" response. \n > \n > Essentially, your body releases adrenaline into your blood stream which interacts with routine organs and blood vessels. \n > \n > [Here is a nice diagram.] (_URL_0_) \n > \n > Essentially, it explains why you get nausea, dry mouth, butterflies, etc when you are stressed. \n > \n > For completion, the other part of the autonomic nervous system is the parasympathetic nervous system. This is the body's \"rest and digest\" response.\n > \n > This is why they say that you should wait an arbitrary amount of time after eating before you swim\". So, you have time to digest before activating a different system which will divert blood away from the gut. \n\nHowever, there's also the impact of low mood. The question is referring to the somatic effects, such as loss of vitality, headaches, chest pain, nausea, abdominal pain, etc. \n\n[Here's a table with a more comprehensive list.] (_URL_1_) \n\nThis is due to dysregulation of serotonin and adrenaline. But it's more complicated than that! And I don't understand it beyond that.\n\nFor example, in conversion disorder, the patient can have somatic/physical symptoms which don't fit into a particular physiological response.\n\nEdit: how to link ",
"The limbic system is responsible for this feeling! The limbic system is the emotion and memory part of your brain, and is hugely important for how you experience and perceive things. The limbic system has a direct impact on the autonomic nervous system. If you perceive that you're in a calm situation, your limbic system will impact the rest of your brain, and thus the rest of your body, to make your body act as if it's in a calm situation. The hypothalamus is also part of the limbic system and plays a role in your body maintaining chemical balances. It is also a reason why you feel physically ill.\n\nTo give a little bit more detail on a few things: \n\nThe sympathetic portion of the autonomic nervous system is the the part of your body that makes your heart beat faster, makes you breathe faster, makes your pupils dilate, makes you sweat, and makes you stop digesting food (your blood is diverted to your muscles so you can run if needed). It is the fight of flight response in your body and has a cascade effect on the rest of your body. If your limbic system is going crazy with emotional trauma, it'll make your sympathetic nervous system ramp up as well. If you just ate and your body all of the sudden stops digesting food, you may throw up.\n\nThe limbic system (emotion and memory area of the brain) also directly impacts almost every other part of your brain. The limbic system is smack dab in the center of your brain, thus connects to everything. This is why being in a really intense situation can change how you feel physically and how you even perceive (time slowing down) a situation. One of the important parts of the limbic system is the hypothalamus. \n\nThe hypothalamus plays a huge role in maintaining your body's \"natural state\". If you need food, your hypothalamus is the part that makes you feel hungry. The hypothalamus is part of the limbic system, so it is under these same controls of emotion. Under a really stressful situation, your hypothalamus will react with the release of cortisol, which will affect your blood sugar and can make you feel sick.\n\nNow, all of this kind of paints the limbic system as the bad guy, but that's not really true. The limbic system is also what integrates emotion into what we experience when something is positive. It's why your mom's cooking tastes better if you have fond memories of her. It's what makes your heart flutter when you're in love. It's what makes you remember things. Heck, it is even the reason why a truck horn can go off in the dead of night and you won't wake up, but when someone whispers your name you will.\n\nEdit: /u/dr_bewbz goes into the same thing in her response but with more focus on the autonomic nervous system. It is very accurate and a great response.",
"Great read here. I experienced a very traumatic incident almost two years ago and have felt emotionally numb and have had a weak nervous system ( feel stinging sensations in my body and numbness in my fingers sometimes) \nI am just wondering if anyone has any therapeutic methods or ways to improve my overal wellbeing and returning to my previous well-being that I really want to feel again. Any reply would help.\nI've heard meditation, essential oils and exercise in general will help. Sadly, I haven't taken time to do any of those and have therefore not improved how I feel, yet I've been very discontent with how I feel",
"Great read here. I experienced a very traumatic incident almost two years ago and have felt emotionally numb and have had a weak nervous system ( feel stinging sensations in my body and numbness in my fingers sometimes) \nI am just wondering if anyone has any therapeutic methods or ways to improve my overal wellbeing and returning to my previous well-being that I really want to feel again. Any reply would help.\nI've heard meditation, essential oils and exercise in general will help. Sadly, I haven't taken time to do any of those and have therefore not improved how I feel, yet I've been very discontent with how I feel",
"Because it is. We like to pretend like the mind and the body are separate things, but they're not separate at all. When you experience emotional distress, your body reacts physically to that distress. It releases hormones and endorphins that trigger things like your fight or flight response. And afterwards, it needs time to get back to normal. Also, once you calm down, your body assumes that whatever life-threatening issue has happened is over and it wants you to calm down as well and take stock of your situation and recover. Ultimately, your body really doesn't know the difference between your girlfriend dumping you and a tiger chasing you through the jungle.",
"Is there any way to stop becoming physically ill from physical trauma? ",
"Brain: \"that was bad for us\"\n\nBrain: \"hey body, that was bad for us\"\n\nBody: feels like that was bad for us\n",
"Thoughts and emotions are like software. Organs and all the different systems in your body are like hardware. When your software is running normal it doesn't ask much of your hardware. Sometimes the software is a strain on the hardware like when you run a game that maxes out your graphics card. When that happens it's not just the graphics card being overworked your RAM, processor, cooling system and power supply all get taxed. Same thing with your body. ",
"Can anyone explain how clutter and a generally \"bad environment\" can also be exhausting? ",
"There are plenty of other factors, but one that shouldn't be overlooked is our psychological aspect. Our bodies have a nasty feedback loop. Pavlov and his investigations into classical conditioning (in dogs) whilst cruel as fuck did shine some new light on it. If you're physically ill, you'll end up worn down, you'll be throwing up, sweating, shivering and begin to end up with things like anxiety or even health worries. \n\nYou'll begin to associate these sensations with the symptoms. For the really unlucky, if you have anxiety, you'll throw up. If you have food poisoning or some other 100% legitimate reason to throw up, you'll end up feeling anxious.",
"I went through a 6 month divorce and went from being a 6'5 Army deploying machine to a 200 pound skin and bones. Stress can kill you. Broken heart can kill you. You have to eat. I still am not doing well. So take my word for it. Your mind can kill you.",
"Really enjoyed the read on the Limbic system. As a musician I thoroughly enjoy composing and playing emotionally dynamic songs, but have always felt ill after shows. \n\nGoing to start a new project with inspiration from this called Limbic Skit. ",
"This is a great book about this exact question: The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk",
"You're getting a lot of right answers but more simply put, in such high states of arousal your body releases a lot of adrenaline and cortisol which are both really hard on your body and use a lot of energy and a lot of your physical and mental faculties are put on high blast during trauma. Cortisol especially is really hard on your body in large amounts and for long periods of time and all of your less immediately crucial need such as sleep, food, etc. are put on hold until the trauma has subsided and the fight or flight reaction has subsided so you can devote all energy to what you're currently experiencing. And later on your body has to catch up.. with\nIt all has to do with the limbus system and the sympathetic nervous system but more directly, it's due the the chemicals released from the brain during trauma. With all the adrenaline and cortisol in your body, you're likely to exert yourself a lot more than you're realizing and use a lot more of your physical and mental resources than normal and once the adrenaline is gone and you're safe, you can begin to feel all the effects of that on your body.",
"Top answer is extremely thorough, but if I explained that to a five year old they would walk away about 15 seconds in. The basic of it is: your body experiences emotional trauma and processes it as an actual injury needing to be healed, the same as when you have a cold or scrape your knee.",
"Licensed Chemical Dependency Counselor here, may be able to shed some light.\n\nFirst, we must explain trauma (emotional distress) at a finer level. There are different \"types\" of trauma according to the DSM-5, so I will attempt this ELI5 as general traumatic experiences.\n\n\nImagine a 5 year old boy and his red ball. He loves his red ball. He plays with it every day, sometimes even with friends and family. He becomes proud of his ball, even begins to make sure it's in the \"right spot\" every night. Take the ball away from the boy. The boy might look for the ball day and night and never find it. He might ask his friends and family where the ball went, but to no alas. The boy might go to bed dreaming of the ball. It may preoccupy the boy, and a strange him from the same friends and family. The red ball was the boys proudest asset. Thus, traumatic experiences are not static. Many parts of an individual's life become affected by a traumatic experience.\n\n\nAs a 5 year old boy, he *cannot* understand where the ball went. The brain sends signals throughout the body that something is wrong. Trauma works like this, on a much deeper level. The physical sickness is a direct response of the brain being unable to dictate emotions. When we look at severe cases of PTSD, we even see that critical parts of the brain become lackluster to say the least, and we don't really know why some people are more or less prone to recovering. \n\n\nAs a side note, this is just a small analogy to a very complicated process. Feel free to critique or reword.\n\nEdit: clarification \n\nEdit2: mobile devices ",
"Does anyone get super sleepy after (sometimes even during) highly emotional situations? I know I should be contemplating big life decisions but all I want to do is sleep. ",
"It's because your limbic system (emotions) is directly connected to your autonomic nervous system (involuntary actions like breathing, etc.).\nWhen you experience severe emotional trauma your body can respond in many different ways, such as throwing up when seeing something gross or crying when stressed out. Some people even faint; their brains just say \"nope\" and remove itself from the stressful situation.\npermalinkembedsavereportgive goldreply",
"This popped up on my feed and it was alarming how well it aligns with my current situation.\nLast month I cut contact with someone who was controlling, manipulating and gaslighting me to the point where I was too confused/intimidated to say \"no\" to anything they asked me to do. It feels like they invaded my brain and played with my emotions like a toy. Later learned they were a textbook narcissist, but the damage is done. And I'm sure they wouldn't care how it makes me feel.\nThe worst part is that we attend the same college so I have to see them daily. Generally I avoid them face to face, but even when I see them from afar, I start to shake, feel nauseous and lose my appetite.\nSince starting classes I've lost ten pounds. I run, take antidepressants and eat very well, but this is absolutely shattering.\nThanks for the cool answer, though. As a bio major it's very interesting.",
"It does? Mine doesn't.",
"“Sorrow prepares you for joy. It violently sweeps everything out of your house, so that new joy can find space to enter. It shakes the yellow leaves from the bough of your heart, so that fresh, green leaves can grow in their place. It pulls up the rotten roots, so that new roots hidden beneath have room to grow. Whatever sorrow shakes from your heart, far better things will take their place.”\n\n",
"When I went through a severely depressing situation (like finding out I'm now homeless two days ago) I put on some music to fall asleep in a Greyhound station. I found that I could will my brain to perceive time slower or faster. Not by much, just a few bpm. It was really weird and frankly cool, despite wanting to jump in front of a truck. I did it a bunch of times and the exact same song could sound fast, but then I'd \"slow\" it down. I have no idea what the real one was because my brain was a little broken. ",
"Holy shit. I was always traumatized and made fun of because when I would be overly nervous or heartbroken etc I would become overwhelmed with emotion and throw up.\n\n\nTHANK YOU SO MUCH FOR MAKING IT MAKE SENSE."
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6tbv1s | charlottesville protest & violence | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6tbv1s/eli5_charlottesville_protest_violence/ | {
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"Biased prejudiced people are feeling empowered since the last general election. So they are coming out in a mass rally. Some of them are quite willing to use violence.\n\nThis is reminiscent of the Brown Shirts in Germany before \nWWII. \n\nThe Psychology of this behavior requires a book. Books have been written about this. [Here is a list of 16 good books](_URL_0_) I especially liked the one about Henrietta Lacks.\n\nBut these books do not really describe the mind set of the protestors. \n\nBeyond Hate: White Power and Popular Culture (The Cultural Politics of Media and Popular Culture) may be one book which does. I have not read it.\n\nMany people in these groups feel disenfranchised. They actually yearn to return to the days not long past when being white automatically meant being selected for a job or admission to college."
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6m4zj6 | why do stores throw out packaged long-expiry-date foods and non perishable products (like software, chairs)? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6m4zj6/eli5why_do_stores_throw_out_packaged/ | {
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"In stores, floor space is always at a premium. You only have a limited amount of space to put products to sell, so sometimes it is better to throw out a product you could still theoretically sell if you can put other products in that place that will sell better.\n\nTake that chair. Maybe it is kind of an ugly chair that doesn't sell well. There is nothing wrong with it, just not up to the modern style. They could leave it there and maybe in a couple of months someone will buy it. Or they can toss it out, eat whatever it cost to make that chair, and put a different chair in its place, one that does line up with what customers want right now. And because that chair is out on the floor, people can actually see it, try it and buy it. they couldn't do that if you still had that ugly chair up there. "
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90wk14 | how were elements like hydrogen and helium found hundreds of years ago without being able to see them? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/90wk14/eli5_how_were_elements_like_hydrogen_and_helium/ | {
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"Even today we can't 'see' elements but like many years ago we identify them based on their differing physical and chemical characteristics. Melting points, reactivity with other chemicals, electromagnetic spectra, to name a few of the early techniques.",
"So there's something called a *prism,* which is basically just a piece of glass that's structured in such a way that when light passes through it, the light is *refracted,* or split into all its wavelengths. In other words, it turns light into a rainbow. In fact, that's literally what a rainbow is: the moisture in the air after a thunderstorm acts as a prism that refracts sunlight and makes a rainbow. The cover of Pink Floyd's \"Dark Side of the Moon\" also depicts a prism.\n\nWhen we discovered the properties of prisms, we started holding them up and looking at the rainbows made by different kinds of light...fluorescent gases, reflected light from objects, etc. \n\nWhat we found was the rainbows weren't complete...there were gaps in them. These gaps formed patterns, and an object or gas made of one material would always emit the same pattern. We realized that each kind of substance - each element - had a particular \"signature,\" meaning we could identify it as long as we could see how light passed through it, or bounced off it. This was due to how each element's atoms had their own arrangement of electrons and protons and so forth, and so when light hit an atom some wavelengths would bounce away and some would get \"stuck.\"\n\nHydrogen had been discovered already, by observing its production in certain reactions and the way it created water when it was burned (hence \"hydro\" gen).\n\nBut after we used our prisms (called *spectroscopes*) on every material and gas we had available around us, we hooked them up to telescopes and turned them toward the sky. We looked at the patterns the sun made, and we found hydrogen and a little bit of oxygen and neon and so forth. But there was another pattern we didn't recognize. It was a new element, and since we found it on the sun we named it after the Greek god of the sun, Helios. It wasn't until later that we found helium on Earth; it took us a while because helium doesn't interact with other elements, and will float out of the atmosphere unless it's trapped underground.\n\nIncidentally, spectroscopes led to another important part of science. When we started looking at galaxies, we noticed that they had the patterns of all the different kinds of stars in the galaxy, just as we expected...but the patterns were *shifted* toward the red end of the rainbow. Now if a train or other vehicle is making noise as it approaches you, the noise it makes gets higher in pitch until it gets to you, then lowers in pitch as it moves away. This is because sound travels in waves and the waves emitted by a moving object will bunch up in the direction that it's moving. It's called the Doppler effect. It turns out that light also behaves as a wave, and so the light emitted from moving objects will also bunch up and stretch out. Instead of changing pitch, they will change color: approaching objects appear more blue, and departing objects appear more red. You don't notice this except at very large scales when an object is moving very fast. We do notice it in galaxies, and we soon realized that every single galaxy (except Andromeda, which is the closest galaxy and attracted to us by gravity) is \"red-shifted\" and thus moving away from us. Not only that, but the farther away a galaxy is, the more red-shifted it is...the faster it's moving away. The only explanation for this is that the universe is expanding.",
"It actually took a lot of time for Helium to be discovered despite it being the second most common element in the universe.\n\nIt is pretty rare on earth and does not chemically react with much of anything, so chemically it was easy to miss.\n\nIt wasn't until people figured out that specific elements will absorb specific wavelength of light and started looking at the sun that Helium was discovered.\n\nThe saw a black like in the spectrum of the light of the sun and concluded it must be a previously unknown element and named it after the Greek sun-god Helios. Later people figured out that the stuff is also present on earth.\n\nHydrogen on the other hand is not just the most common element in the universe, it also does lots of chemical reactions with other elements, forming among many other things water.\n\nThere is a lot of water on Earth. It is hard to miss.\n\nCenturies before discovering helium people discovered hydrogen by looking at some strange gas that was giving of by some chemical reaction.\n\nEven more astonishing, they realized that is fou burned that gas, you ended up with water.\n\nThus it was named hydrogen, because it was *gen*erating water (hydro-).\n\n"
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9hb479 | how do hard-disc drives (hdd) store data i.e. images compared to solid-state hard-drives (ssd)? | Looking for a layman's explanation please? My lecturer banged on about how HDD's 'read/write head aligns magnetisable domains in one direction for 1's and other for 0's' which literally makes no sense to my computer naive self. I do remember my dad recommending me to get a SSD instead because they're faster and slimmer. But I have no idea how these hard-drives 'physically' store the data and why solid-states are faster? Thanks peoples | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9hb479/eli5_how_do_harddisc_drives_hdd_store_data_ie/ | {
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"Imagine a hard drive as a giant field on switches. I can alter the state of any given switch, however, i have to walk between switches to read or alter the position of any given switch.\n\nSolid state drives are a bit harder to explain. There are no moving parts, and blocks of flash memory can be written to, and that data persists even without power.",
"This is very non-technical and way way over-simplified but: \n\n- a HDD stores information on a disc that spins, like a DVD. \n- an SSD stores information in memory chips, like your phone or a flash drive does. \n\nTo retrieve a specific bit of information from the HDD, the correct disc has to be found and the drive has to physically spin to a certain speed, whereas the SSD uses non-linear memory and there’s no moving parts. \n\nThe data is exactly the same on both, but the spinning disc is much slower than memory chips. ",
"Hard disks are magnetic. \n\nCompare to an audio cassette tape, where the magnetic tape just scrolls by the recording head, and the head magnetizes its 1's and 0's on the tape as it scrolls by, like this --- - ---- - ---- -- ---. \n\nThen you have VHS video tape, where the tape still moves by the head, but now the head spins at an angle, so the tape gets magnetized with lines of information (1's and 0's) like this ///////// with each spin of the head.\n\nSo hard disks are actually disks, like LP records but magnetic instead of plastic indentations. And each hard disk enclosure has a stack of, like, 3, 4, or 5 of these disks, all welded to the same motor so they spin in unison. And the magnetic heads are on an arm that can swing across the surface of these disks, to reach any piece of information. So to write information the head magnetizes the surface of these disks with magnetic NORTH for 1, and magnetic SOUTH for 0. It's just like tape, but it's arranged on several disks. [Wikipedia article](_URL_1_) explains it in full detail.\n\nSolid-State Drives (SSD) are electronic. The SSD has some memory chips inside, and the memory chips have transistors and really tiny capacitors that can actually store electricity. A few electrons are stored in the capacitor, and the transistor attached to it detects these electrons (via the electric field, basically), and responds with a 1 or a 0 (transistors in integrated circuits are, basically, on/off switches that are controlled by electricity rather than by a person flipping the switch). [Wikipedia article](_URL_0_).\n\nSo the SSD is faster because the information is stored with electricity, and electricity reacts basically at the speed of light (it's slower than that because the electronics does take some time to do its stuff, but the speed of light is the limit, more or less). Whereas hard drives HDD's are limited by physical constraints: how fast the motor is spinning, how fast the arm with the magnetic heads can swing a certain angle (with precision), etc.\n\nThink of an LP record vs. music on your phone; the phone can find your mpg song and play it almost instantly; the LP record you have to wait for it to spin up, then the needle-head has to move to the correct spot, lower itself, and then you can hear the song.",
"There's a couple ways to look at this. As far as the method used to store and retrieve data on the two technologies, here's a good analogy:\n\nEver been to a restaurant with a Lazy Susan? You know, those big turntables in the middle of the table? That's like a hard drive. All the food you could want is there on the table somewhere, but to get to it you have to spin the table around to get to it, which wastes time. That represents the spinning platter used in a HDD, where you are the read/write head. Also, you might be dining with friends, and they've interrupted your spinning to pull out something they want as it goes past them, so you have to wait for them. That represents the bottleneck of multiple applications trying to access the hard drive at once.\n\nAn SSD is more like a fast food burger joint, where all the items are pre-cooked. You want the cheeseburger? The server grabs one and it's in front of you straight away. Chicken burger? Same deal. It's all pretty much instant, and it doesn't matter what you order, it takes the same time to get to you. That's basically solid state storage technology. It's not magic, if you go to the counter with 10 friends and you all ask for a burger at once, it's going to take longer for the server to grab them all, but it's still faster than constantly spinning that Lazy Susan back and forth.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nNow the other way to look at these things is how the bits are actually stored in their respective technologies. No analogy this time, I'll just try to give a simplified explanation:\n\nA HDD is a metal platter. The disk surface is divided into billions of tiny magnetic areas. You know how magnets have two polarities: North and South poles? Each of these areas can be magnetised in a certain direction. Reading data from the drive means checking which direction it's magnetised to determine a 1 or 0 bit. Writing data to the drive means changing the polarity of the bit. The thing which does this reading and writing is a mechanical arm called the read-and-write head. The whole disk spins really fast, and the head can move up and down the disk to read or write chunks of data. The needle-on-a-vinyl-record comparison is a good way to visualise this.\n\nAn SSD uses flash memory technology to store data, same as USB flash drives. The 1 and 0 bits are stored as electrons inside memory chips. Each bit is stored at a particular address inside the chip, and each address takes exactly the same time to access. There's no moving parts, you're not waiting for platters to spin or heads to align, you're not testing/switching magnetic polarisation, the whole process is much faster, hence why SSDs are faster.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nI'm not sure if the whole 1s and 0s thing was also part of your question, it's an ELI5 on its own which has probably already been answered somewhere, but the short explanation is; our computers work with binary logic which we represent as 1 or 0 (on or off, true or false, north or south, > 5volts or < 5 volts, etc). We do this because it's easier, electronically, to determine the state of something if there are only two options. Each of these is a bit. All data and communications that a computer works with, can be represented in bits. The instructions to your processor? Bits. A text or image file? Bits. Download something over the internet? Bits. The HDDs/SSDs store lots of these bits."
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9fygdx | why does the independent film channel air reruns of two and a half men? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9fygdx/eli5_why_does_the_independent_film_channel_air/ | {
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5gnham | does dreaming take energy? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5gnham/eli5_does_dreaming_take_energy/ | {
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"Yes, anything the brain does including staying alive takes energy. It isn't clear that dreaming takes any more energy than just staying alive though."
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1zde5a | why do we have a registry and notification system for sex offenders but not murders? don't they pose a greater threat to society? | I'm 100% behind the registration of convicted sex offenders because people need to know who poses a threat to their safety. But why aren't people notified if someone who has committed a murder moves in next door?
I imagine part of it is because sentencing for murder is much more severe, but plenty of murderers are not given life sentences and they are much more likely than the general population to commit murder again.
edit: By murderer I mean someone who has been convicted of murder, not necessarily someone Dexter is gonna be hunting down. Far more people are killed in escalated violent crimes and random slayings than by serial killers. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1zde5a/eli5_why_do_we_have_a_registry_and_notification/ | {
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"[Within 3 years, 2.5% of released rapists were arrested for another rape, and 1.2% of those who had served time for homicide were arrested for homicide.](_URL_0_) It looks like sex offenders are more likely to re-offend than murderers by at least a little bit. Culture might also play a part in this by viewing murders and sex-related crimes differently. ",
"Since sex offence is usually associated with psychological disorders, offenders get lower sentences, this means they are less likely to be reformed by the prison ways, so they are likely to re-offend. \n\nSex offence has a higher recidivism (relapse into crime). Not every murderer is a serial killer, and they have longer sentences so it's more likely that they will be reformed by the prison sentence. Murderers are therefore less like the to re-offend.\n\n**Edit:** Shutup, no one saw.",
"There's a myth that sex offenders are highly likely to reoffend. In fact, they have a really low rate of recidivism compared to theft, drug use and assault. They have the lowest rate of recidivism according to some studies (this one doesn't include murderers, possibly because they're in jail for so long);\n13.4% of released robbers\n22.0% of released assaulters\n23.4% of released burglars\n33.9% of released larcenists\n19.0% of released defrauders\n41.2% of released drug offenders\n2.5% of released rapists\n\nThe sex offender registry is a popular idea politically, but it is not backed by science. Common sense alone says that ostracizing someone from society will not help them turn their life around. Also, stranger rape or child molestation by a stranger are very, very rare. Knowing there is a sex offender next door will have very little practical impact on safety. Children are almost exclusively molested by a caretaker or family member. According to a report on Violence Against Women based on data from the National Crime Victimization Survey, 82% of rape victims knew their attacker.\n\nThe sex offender registry sucks because even when someone pays their debt to society, voters insist they \"have a right to know\" even though \"knowing\" is very unlikely to protect anyone. Being on the registry can mean receiving threatening phone calls and letters, getting angry knocks at the door, or vandalism.\n\nThere really should be a registry for daycare providers, schools, nursing homes etc to use for screening employees. Way more harm than good is being done with our current system, where anyone can google someone's name and find out their criminal history and their home address for the rest of their life.\n\nAlso, not registering within three days of moving is a felony in most states. The problem is that many people who have done prison time have a hard time finding a permanent place to stay. It's a felony for failing to properly do paperwork within 72 hours, which is ridiculous. By definition, it carries a year in jail and hefty fines.",
"It is possible for sex offender to abuse multiple victims without being reported. A murder victim creates a dead body or at the very least a missing person.",
"As someone who has served as a counselor to both and has been trained to treat sex offender, here is the reason. Most murderers have only one victim before conviction. Recidivism rates aside, if you kill, you are going to prison and usually quite soon after the offense. \n\nOTOH, most sex offenders have on average of 60 victims before they are incarcerated. Many times, sex offenders have had several accusations before they get a conviction. It ain't the risk of re-offense that is such a great deal, it is the fact that these guys are going to have a pattern of behavior the neighbors should be aware of.",
"I thinks its because they don't want people finding them and hiring them for contract killings. I saw this on Elementary.",
"Urinate in public = Sex offender registry.\n\nMurder a child and piss on the corpse = No registry.\n\nSeems legit.",
"Much lower recidivism rate, the registry isn't based on sound policy as much as fear. ",
"From a legal and psychological standpoint, they're not the same. Murders are in most cases, a crime of passion. Someone at a point in time in their lives totally loses it for a brief moment and commits murder. The murderer may not have a criminal history and may not even have a predilection for violence but something snaps, a punch goes a bit too high, or a bit too low and someone dies. Once released, these murderers are not likely to find themselves in a similar situation or have been rehabilitated enough to not react in the same destructive way. For those that murder repeatedly, or with grave indifference to life, or in the commission of another felony, these murderers usually get life or the electric chair and their release is a non-issue. Pedophiles on the other hand cannot (according to current literature) be rehabilitated. That's one of the reasons pedophiles are ranked based on the likelihood of re-offending. From a criminal standpoint, they may have served their time, but they still pose a threat to society and therefore, must be monitored. In fact, some pedophiles are released from prison and sent to civil confinement in a mental institution. This allows the government to circumvent the criminal sentencing statutes while maintaining the offender in a closed environment.\nTL;DR Current rehabilitation efforts on pedophiles are ineffective and upon release, they still pose a threat to society whereas murder is usually a one time deal.",
"I would guess because unless you're a serial killer, most murderers had one person they wanted to kill for whatever reason and once done, that was it, whereas rapists/pedophiles have a type they go for and that urge is always there even if they already acted upon it. ",
"If you were given the choice of either never masturbating again or never getting into a fight again for the rest of your life which one do you think would be easier?",
"The simple answer is that it's always politically smart to take a stand against pedophiles. True, sex offenders aren't always pedophiles, but in the eyes of the public raping kids is like the worst thing anyone can do and nobody would ever defend a child rapist.\n\n_URL_0_\n\nIt's a way to pass a bill that has a 0% chance of facing resistance.",
"They do have murder registries in some states. Example: [Illinois](_URL_0_)\n\nAlso, murderers have one of the lowest recidivism rates. Sex offenders are actually pretty low, too. From Wikipedia: \"Released prisoners with the highest rearrest rates were robbers (70.2%), burglars (74.0%), larcenists (74.6%), motor vehicle thieves (78.8%), those in prison for possessing or selling stolen property (77.4%) and those in prison for possessing, using or selling illegal weapons (70.2%).\n\nWithin 3 years, 2.5% of released rapists were arrested for another rape, and 1.2% of those who had served time for homicide were arrested for homicide. These are the lowest rates of re-arrest for the same category of crime.\" [Link](_URL_1_)\n ",
"Because the registry doesn't want the pedophiles to know that their neighbor is a murderer. That way if pedo steps out of line the \"neighbor\" can intervene.\n\nBut on a serious note, pedophile has a higher likely hood to strike again compared to a murderer. ",
"There are things worse than dying.",
"I am writing my thesis to obtain my PhD in criminology. Just about every study of recidivism has shown that sexual offenders are the LEAST likely group to recidivate and its not even close. Your typical offender re-offends at about 60% (National average). Sexual offenders usually re-offend around 3%\n The reigstration of Sex Offenders is completely political. Every politician wants to create a problem that doesn't exist so that they can come up with a cure that we don't need and obtain re-election. This is how we get a lot of policies like \"3 strikes your out.\" Not only are these policies NOT based on any sort of research but actually, the research done in these areas, shows that they are a complete waste of resources. That's what sexual offender registry is. \n\n In my opinion, drunk drivers, drug dealers, and prostitutes present a much more lasting, detrimental effect on neighborhoods over the span of their entire lives. The difference is that these groups of offenders usually don't have any lack of people willing to represent them. A politician who takes the position that drug dealers suffer from a collective disadvantage or drunk drivers are usually just kids who make mistakes are usually considered \"enlightened.\" Even those that favor locking them away and throwing away the key fit a political archetype that we like to elect (The tough on crime type). No one in their right mind would ever introduce legislation to support sex offenders. What effect does this have? Sex offenders, despite being over 20 times less likely to reoffend than the average offender, are forced into a life of homelessness and poverty after release from prison:\n\n _URL_0_\n\n My point is not that sex offenders are \"ok.\" But rather that we should either keep them in prison or give them a fair shot at becoming a contributing member of society. ",
"What I want to know is where people get off making sex offenders out of people who stop along the highway to take a piss. That has always pissed me the fuck off, and furthermore any behavior can be corrected. This \"prison counselor\" or whatever must have not taken any psychology whatsoever. I am all for stopping sex offenses and a registry but what's classified as a \"sex crime\" is getting stupid. Poor bastards are getting years in jail, felonies and fines as well as a sex offender tag because they torrented a porn stash that had maybe one \"child notable\" in it, (look that up and behold that assumption) and convicted even after they deleted it. And talking about \"age verification\" is a whole other assed-up grey area.\nThe police commonly use the \"Tanner Scale\" to identify underage people in child porn, but Dr. Tanner himself wrote to the Journal of Pediatrics insisting his scale is for reference and should not be used for child porn investigations.\nThere are studies done by universities with endocrinologists and pediatricians that basically ask, \"pick the underage from this line up...\" wanna guess the failure rate? As high as 80%.\nFYI the Tanner Scale was the line-drawn depictions of pubic areas you saw in elementary school sex ed.\nAlso, victims of child porn receive compensation from convictions that involve their pictures. That sounds great until you read about victims like Kylie Freeman (wikipedia her) who went public and is sitting on over $500,000 in compensation from the courts... because every scumbag (and poor fucker who accidentally ended up with it) had to pay her compensation. More than ten years after. Sure, what happened to her is terrible but there is a line to draw on how much trauma costs.\nSource of information: I live in the county that Kylie Freeman's case was tried. Watched a good friend go through two years of a CP case only to have his roommate confess to using his computer without his permission to download it. Friend was found not guilty, but the rest of his life and family say otherwise.",
"I can't imagine the law has very much of a practical effect, just more so the lawmakers can say \"I saved your children and women by making sex offenders register.\" \n \n\nAlso sex offenders are considered worse by society. I think most people can imagine a situation where they justifiable murder someone, but not many people would be okay with thinking of themselves as forcing another person or child to have sex with them.",
"Here's an answer I saw to when this question was asked before: \n\nChildren are seen as innocent, so as a society it's easier to make people care immensely what happens to them.\n\"Protecting the children\" is a phrase that shuts down debate immediately. Once there is a shred of doubt that a candidate wants to \"protect the children,\" that candidate has already lost. So nobody would ever vote against strengthening anti-child-predator laws, regardless of how strong they already are or whether such action would have any meaningful impact.\n\"Candidate X voted against harsher penalties for child rapists. Who is he trying to protect? Because it's not your children. Vote for Candidate Y.\"\nIt's too easy.\nEvery year, all over the country, people invent the need to \"strengthen laws that protect the children.\" There is no logical end.",
"Without anything to back this up excepting experiences with some very unwholesome people...\n\n\nMurderers (excepting murderous addicts) are either killers, or one off passion crime perps, the former works for a living and just does it for the money, the other did it once (or twice) and is over it. The money killer doesn't like bystanders getting hurt, and has goals and targets that are not likely to spill over into the suburbs (so to speak).\n\n\n\nSex offenders - man they could be looking at ANYONE!!! Flippant as that statement sounds the issue is one of targets and risk (percieved), you and your whole family could be minding its own business and then BAM PEDO, the guy living next door or the woman who runs the church craft group are wolves in sheeps' clothes, and it makes people very nervous. \n\n\nThe conservate Bob Smith never met a killer before, but Bob knows of a few people who he doesn't want near HIS kids. Bob as such doesn't name names (of his associates/acquaintances) but instead pushes for anyone who's been detected to be registered... because he knows there is a concealed issue.\n\n\nMy 2c at any rate.",
"Register smegister. \n\nAll a registry does is make it difficult for the registree to find somewhere to live and work. All of which may increase rage in anger rapists, or in pedophiles.\n\nEither of which can go out and select a new victim if they really want to.\n\nIt makes for good headlines and great community gatherings to have a fair trial and a hanging on the presumed innocent released con.\n\nWhy not apply different ways of control?\n\nInstall a must wear monitoring device and a list of no-go zones for the rehabilitated offender, plus ongoing regular supervision.\n\nAll this presupposes adequate FUNDING and sufficient STAFFING, neither of which exist in the US due to Republican opposition to having big governments intruding on citizens' lives.\n\nFrom what I read here the usual staff for things like renewing a driver licence are staffed at about 1/4 the needed for quick efficient service.\n\nSo its back to the same old same old - throw the problem back at the people, issue them handguns and a list of potential murderers and rapists, and let them defend themselves and stand their ground.\n\nOr emigrate to some more civilized place.",
"[This interview](_URL_0_) perfectly sums up for me why I think sex offenders are so vile and really opened my eyes about the depths of pain they inflict on their victims.\n\nWhile I don't mean to trivialize murder in any way, I think fundamentally there's a higher chance that there's some switch that's on wrong for sex offenders than murderers.\n\nI sincerely urge everyone to listen to it.",
"when someone says \"all sex offenders\" its like saying \"all white people\"or \"all black people\" it has NO meaning. ",
"ITT: People throwing around the word pedophile like it matches the description of every sex offender out there..\n\n A pedophile is someone who is exclusively or primarily sexually attracted to a prepubescent child. Whether or not they act on those desires is what determines whether or not they end up on the registry I suppose. It is by no means illegal to be a pedophile. Or a hebephile for that matter. (Someone exclusively sexually attracted to post pubescent children) ",
"This was a good discussion, and it made me look at the sex offender registry in my city. I was surprised to find out that a sex offender lives just across the street from me. He was convicted of attempted forcible sodomy. Thanks, Redditors, for bringing up an issue that I gave too little thought about until I read this thread.",
"Can we, for just a minute, stop pretending that everyone who is on the sex offender registry is just someone who got caught urinating in public? Seriously, I've seen *Horrible Bosses* too, but goddamn, that really cheapens the millions of victims of abuse that are a result of the offender's actions, doesn't it?\n\nSure out of the millions of people that are on the registry, I'm sure there are some that don't belong there. However, want to know where this \"urinating in public\" thing got momentum? When someone who is exposing themselves to *children* or masturbating in public gets caught, what do you think their first damn excuse is when the police catch them? \"Gee officer, I was just taking a leak!\"\n\nAlso, when Fred/Daphne down the street gets outed as being on the registry, what do you think they use as their excuse? Do they say \"Oh, I was molesting my 9 year old cousin for 5 years.\" No. They say \"oh I was just peeing in public! Damn the man, so unfair!!!\"",
"People who are convicted of murder get much longer sentences than sex offenders. Hence, the registry, because statistically there should be a lot more sex offenders walking the streets after doing 3-5 years in Sing Sing than murderers doing 25-life. ",
"Sex offenders registries are, in general, a tad overzealous. \n\nThe thing with say, a serial murderer, who cannot help but be compelled by his or her affliction to murder people they meet, once you catch them, they're in jail for good. \n\nBut a sexual predator is harder. Accused of fondling a young boy/girl... given the degree of grey areas here it's hard to throw someone in jail for life over it. Sure, if they are caught in the act they may be in jail for life. But you don't usually catch them in the act, you catch them trying to start the act, and that's a harder case to make. \n\nHow hard do you have to hit someone before it crosses from assault to attempted murder? We wouldn't want to throw every idiot who got into a drunken brawl in jail or we'd have to build a lot of jails. \n\nBut sex offenders... ugh. Murderers and thieves in many cases can grow out of the violent behaviour, or they made some bad choices in bad time in their life. Very few murderers are in it purely for the pleasure of killing many people, many more did it for money, for gang turf etc. But sexual predators, particularly the dangerous ones, they have a problem not easily cured. Even when they know it's wrong they can't help themselves. We are overzealous because we don't know who of the people in that giant grey area between a flasher and a rapist is really a rapist in disguise. Of course that also makes the lists mostly useless, because they're full of people who are stupid college kids who went streaking or a 19 year old who fucked a 16 year old or all of the other horror stories of people who are not going to be a threat to some strangers child 20 years from now. Even if the bad ones are on the list you can't easily pick them out.\n\nCourts and the law don't do so well with what you intended to do, they don't even do well with what actually happened, they try, but well, it's not an easy thing to know who is going to be what kind of bad. ",
"Because murderers get longer sentences than Pedophiles. The odds of a Pedo living next door to you is much greater than a murderer. ",
"Buckle up. Looks like we've got some pedoapology on the way.",
"I read about half the comments, and wanted to point out something glaring that I'm not seeing in here: **there's a HUGE difference in the victim pool, both in the raw number and in who comprises that pool.** Murder victims usually are people close to the offender, rival gang members and spouses, for example, while sex offenders target random members of the populace. And while murder can't go unnoticed for the most part, people only rarely report sex crimes. When a photo of a rapist is shown on tv or in the newspaper, suddenly a battalion of other victims come forward and admit that that guy raped them too, they just didn't think anyone would believe them. This doesn't happen with murder. \"That guy on the tv killed my mom, I just didn't think anyone would believe me, so I stayed silent.\" Doesn't happen.\n\nSo, basically, I'm not saying it's the \"fault\" of the murder victims or anything, but if you elect to deal drugs or join a gang, or, god forbid, stay with an abusive boyfriend or something, there are risks that a person knows they're taking in advance. The general public only has the registry as a tool with sex offenders.\n\nAll of this said, I think the registry goes WAY too far. You hear about high schoolers getting on it for getting drunk and peeing against someone's house at a party...their lives are essentially over at that point. ",
"We do it's called prison ",
"There is a registry like that. The [FBI's Most Wanted](_URL_0_) list.",
"Sex offenders are more likely to (a) serve parole in lieu of formal lock up time (b) are released way sooner than a murderer (c) usually have a psychological issue that predisposes them to sexual crimes. \n\nFor someone convicted of murder, their time behind bars is for way longer and their chances of \"rehabilitation\" greater. Most murders are actually crimes of passion and not someone who just gets off killing people -- though there have been those few people over the years. \n\nSOURCE: College edumicated and criminology courses. ",
"Illinois has several different registries, from sex offender to arsonists to murderers. Take a look: _URL_0_. \n\nThe arson registry hasn't ever been funded by the General Assembly, to my knowledge. ",
"I still have yet to see any evidence that a registry decreases any risks to anybody. There seems to be evidence that they actually increase risks because they make it harder for prior criminals to reintegrate into society, which is the goal, but making sure they can't get or keep jobs, can't be accepted into neighbourhoods, etc. This tends to make crime their only option, or a more likely one. I'm certainly open to evidence to the contrary, but in years of asking, nobody has been able to point me to any showing the reduced risk.\n\nSeems to me it's just a modern version of the Scarlet Letter. Take [Virgil McCranie](_URL_0_), whose wife and four kids has suffered and struggled with him has he tried to maintain a job. See, they fell in love when he was 19 and she was 14, and now he's 40 and she's 35. Happily married and raised 4 kids, but the law has been the problem, not the solution. There are the thousands of families in similar situations where the father must be kept separate due to a past sex offense, or who suffer because the husband/father can't find or keep a job or fit into local society. Attacks even on the kids happen as a result of the registry.\n\nOr Josh Gravens, who made a mistake when he was 12 by touching his 8 year-old-sister. Bad enough, but the harm the law has done to the family far exceeds any harm he may have done. In his 20s he still can't get jobs and was even barred from getting a good education by going to school.\n\nWhen you look at [things that can get you on the sex offender registry](_URL_1_) like public urination, flashing your boobs, taking a naked selfie, and in at least one case even just a 13 year old trying to hug a girl, is this really the sort of thing we should be spreading to other areas of crime, or changing to actually reduce changes of future crime instead of increasing it?\n",
"Most murders are \"one shot deals\" ie your not likely to ever do it again and probably regretted doing it the one time (emotions rage etc..)\n\nThose other murderers typically don't get OUT of jail. ever.\n\nSecond recidivism. The recidivism rate for sex offenders I believe is something like 85%\n\nMany experts think it actually approaches 100% but 85% are \"known about\" (reported)\n\nIE Sexual Predators (REAL sexual predators) are simply \"wired differently\"",
"Well, think about it. Most of the time, when a person murders another person, it's because they have something against that particular person, not because they enjoy murder. Whether it be aggravated murder, gang violence, etc., they did it for a purpose.\nRapists rape to... well... rape. So they're more likely to rape again, and not just a particular person.",
"I don't understand in the states why you become a registered sex offender if you get caught peeing in public. ",
"Soooooo much rape, molestation and abuse isn't even reported....wtf",
"Why stop at murder? How about branding everyone for anything they do that society doesn't approve of. Forget about having done your time, let's tattoo you with a scarlet letter and make sure there are no second chances. \n\nHonestly, once you have done your time there should be absolutely no registries, IMHO. The reason there is a sex offender registry is because people associate it with molesters and NEVER want to see them free. It is a lifelong punishment that society is demanding. Most people I know would prefer them to be sent to death. ",
"I am on a Sex Offender Register in Australia. It's such a waste of time that even the officers tasks with enforcing it know how useless the system is.\n\nAs others in the thread have pointed out sexual offender in the majority of cases is perpetrated by someone known to the victim and not a stranger or the new guy in the street, And recidivism rates are very low among sexual offenders.\n\nFurther to this its *already* illegal to molest children and/or be in possession of child pornography etc. Having additional laws to stress the point is redundant. \n\nThe information that the officers require in no way inhibit your ability to offend. Sure a registered person is no longer able to work with children but a standard criminal background check would show that anyway. Knowing my email addresses, what make/model of car i drive, when/where do i work does not stop me from abducting a child on my way to work. \n\nWhat the list does do is increase the likelihood of re-offense. Research has shown that offenders have trouble socializing and forming intimate bonds with people their own age. The registry further Ostracizes them increasing the difficulty in finding work and socializing as well as the post incarceration reintegration into society,\n\n\nOffenders are societal outcasts, Keeping them separate from society is only more likely to make them offend. Which helps no one.",
"If you served your time, you should be cleared of your crime. I'm not a fan of all this Scarlet Letter stuff. If they are a THAT dangerous, they should still be in jail.",
"Probably because murder doesn't have as much of a stigma as sex crimes. Think about it, you've seen protagonists from movies and books kill tons of people for whatever \"righteous\" reasons but I've yet to see a movie where the hero rapes a bunch of people to serve up some sort of hot, sticky, non-consensual justice. ",
"Every time Reddit talks about the sex offender registry, it always becomes a circlejerk of \"...people caught peeing in public!\" or \"sex offenders don't deserve blah blah blah.\"\n\nLet's take a moment to go through some of the best reasons why there is a sex offender registry, most of these obtained through common sense and reasonable deduction:\n\n1) Murders are usually committed in a moment of anger/passion, NOT premeditated. They usually happen in the heat of the moment and the people who commit these murders don't plan on doing it again as they weren't really planning on doing it the first time.\n\n1a) Most murderers are NOT serial killers\n\n1b) Murderers have lengthier prison sentences, and will most likely spend the rest of their living life in a cell. Once they get out at an undoubtedly older age, they probably don't have the time or energy.\n\n2) \"People who pee in public are on the sex offender list!\" - Of the many, many people on the list, there will certainly be stupid situations like this just like with any other court system. But do you really think that number is high enough to warrant the amount of times Reddit ALWAYS brings it up?\n\n2a) How many people on the sex offender list will tell you straight-up they molested a child or raped someone? They made a \"mistake,\" they didn't commit a crime.... that's how they explain it.\n\n3) Murder is OBVIOUSLY bad. Nobody defends murderers (most of the time).\n\n3a) Lots of people defend pedophiles, molesters, rapists... mainly because these situations are hard to prove, hard to convict, and some people just don't comprehend when a situation is considered a form of sexual assault/abuse.\n\n3b) We can physically see when a murder is committed (ie dead body). But we can't see the trauma within a victim if they don't say something. \n\nThe numbers for sexual abuse are massively under reported. When a murder happens, we know it happened. We may not know who did it, but the evidence is there that it happened. For cases of sexual abuse of any form, we usually don't know that it's happening since it's ongoing or not reported. \n\nReddit, don't cheapen the victims by constantly fighting for the offenders who did something wrong. I agree that the court system isn't fair... but remember that it's unfair for both sides (ie wrongly accused, or didn't get justice).\n\nEDIT: I know most people are very snarky about wanting to see sources... Try a combination of Google and brainpower, because statistics don't tell you the whole story.",
"I think the more important question is why do we treat an 18 year old who had sex with his 16 year old girlfriend a \"sex offender\" (and don't get me started on the 16 year old that streaks his high school)?\n\nIn America, our criminal justice system is a joke and needs to be completely rethought. Anyone who's used the words, \"tough on crime\" needs to be thrown out of office, because their \"toughness\" is just making things worse.",
"This is just my thought here, based on nothing but my own insomniac thinking: everyone, at some time, has contemplated killing another human being. For some, it is a fleeting thought. For others, it is a realized event. However, most \"normal\" people don't go fantasizing about raping children.\n\nSince most people can't relate to the motivations of a sexual offender, they fear then more. Fear breeds distrust, and there you go.\n\nIf anyone out there has some formal training in psych, I would appreciate some feedback on this.",
"In my opinion it's based on the worst case scenarios. Assume each repeats their offence. If these two offenders are in a busy public space like a park etc it would be much harder to commit murder unnoticed than kidnapping a small child. After each crime it would be much easier to prove guilt with evidence and especially motive since reasons for murder are external and they almost always know the victim well. The sexual crime would rely on the victim's cooperation and things like shame or understanding might prevent any one from ever knowing a crime happened. I'd prob add the vulnerability of children and our roll as their protectors leading to implemting this policy ",
"Most murderers do so with a specific intent to defend or retaliate against someone who caused them some sort of grievous harm, either physically or psychologically. I worked in a prison for about 6 years and every murderer that I talked with--although he was a murderer--was relatively calm when left to his own thoughts and devices.\n\nSex offenders, on the other hand, have continual issues with their offense. They typically do so in an attempt to act out fantasies caused by deep psychological issues ranging from abuse and neglect to depression and OCD. Their victims are less connected to any \"blame\" than victims of murderers. So although murder is viewed as a more damaging and permanent crime, rape and molestation are crimes that cause for concern because they are more nefarious and the victims are left with a lot of psychological damage. Besides, by the time most murders get out of prison, they're too old to be a threat and too disconnected from the social circles in which they were compelled to kill anyway. So they're a lot less likely to repeat the crime. Sex offenders have a ridiculously high rate of recidivism.",
"I have a friend who got busted chatting with a 14 yr old online. BUt it was actually an undercover cop. He told me that he never had any intention of traveling to meet up. The first trial ended with a hung jury. He said he heard jurors deliberating in the tiny court house. One guy refused to ruin his life for something stupid. Complete strangers fighting for his life. It was 6-6. He was then in a car accident and lost his leg. Soon after he was retried and convicted. No jail time. But he lost his job, insurance, his good name, the ability to get any job. I know what he did was stupid and wrong. But no one was harmed. And the DA boasts a 100% success rate. If it were really that bad- 6 people wouldn't have fought for him to be not guilty. Downside of the Bible Belt\n\nBut.i am heartbroken for him. There's nothing I can do to help.. He actually texted me saying \"I'm ruined\". It is. It shouldn't be this way. \n\nEdited for grammar",
"Of the first four top-level comments I just saw, two said sex offenders are more likely than other offenders to re-offend, two said they are not more likely to re-offend. I know less than I did before.",
"No, people with multi murders usually go away for life. People with one murder wanted that one person dead. Just because somone murders a person doesnt make them an instant threat to society. The state of mind is different between molesters and murderers.",
"I'm just hypothesizing here; but I think it could be that human sexuality is hardwired to peoples brains. There are people that are straight (the majority), people that are gay (the minority) and people that get off on children/forceful sex etc. (anomalies). \n\nMost murders are crimes of passion and as such it's possible to rehabilitate the perpetrator. \n\n",
"There's a pretty good video that explains it:\n\n_URL_0_",
"You are most likely to be killed by someone you know than someone you don't. For women its a husband/boyfriend for men its an associate. Its the same as well with sex crimes its the people you know that are most likely to do it.",
"ELI5 answer: Because your mommy and daddy are afraid that if a grown up has sex in a bad way, that means they secretly *like* like you, and they will want to have sex with you; that's a very very bad thing.\n\n\nNormal Answer: Literally that. We have a sex offender's register because as a society we seriously believe that\n\na) rape is worse than death (seriously, I haven't even looked down and I can guarantee there will be someone trying to justify how rape is objectively worse than being killed)\n\nb) all sex offenders are pedophiles\n\nAnd because we're living in an age of 'protect the children', coupled with an increasing attitude of 'not my fault' that means any problems regarding children are other people/schools/police/the state's fault and not the parents, it's a logical step to ruin other people's lives rather than simply watching your own child and teaching them to be careful.\n\n\nI actually answered this several months ago, more specifically on how [completely unfair and unjust the registration system is](_URL_1_), but it's pretty relevant here, particularly given OP's\n\n > I'm 100% behind the registration of convicted sex offenders because people need to know who poses a threat to their safety. But why aren't people notified if someone who has committed a murder moves in next door?\n\nBecause while many people might be aware that not all sex offenders are pedophiles, that's still the attitude. Sex offender = 18th century homosexual (Aka: [sneakin in yo' windows and snatchin' people up](_URL_0_)). In reality? two minors having sex. The boy is a sex offender, urinate in public? sex offender, public nudity? sex offender. And even if you're *cautioned* (which means, not actually arrested or convicted) you get stuck on the register for 6months.\n\n\n > I imagine part of it is because sentencing for murder is much more severe, but plenty of murderers are not given life sentences and they are much more likely than the general population to commit murder again. \n\nAlso, nope. 'punishment' for rape is significantly worse, and the sentencing is objectively so. Rape and Murder carry the same prison sentences, but rape comes with a lifetime on the SO register, as well as the culturally accepted prison rape, and the stigma, hatred and public violence that comes with being on the register.",
"Also sex offending is very different then murder. Murder has many different reasons and is not as heinous as a sex crime. I would liken rape to maybe a serial killer's crime because they are purely for one's own gratification and very damaging and traumatic. Whereas murder is usually a vengeful act or in the moment. Also generally there's a hate culture around sex offenders. I guess there is an understanding between people as to why someone would murder which makes it easier to sympathize with the criminal but with rapists it is much harder to understand and the thought immediately disgusts most people. So these people are marginalized because most people are for it and have a very strong fear of sex offenders.",
"Because you can accidentally kill someone whilst not accidentally rape someone",
"Please explain why you think a murderer poses a greater threat than a rapist, assuming the rapist is not also a murderer.\n\nPresumably because a rape victim gets to live? What about trauma and suffering? Depression and suicide? Would death not be a more merciful fate?\n\nI think it's folly to compare threat level, but do think your point of the usefulness of a \"murder offender registry\" to be valid. In fact why stop there? Just have a huge public worldwide public registry where everyone can see exactly what crimes everyone else has ~~committed~~ been convicted of.",
"If I've learned anything from here its that I should definitely not take a piss in public.",
"ELI5: \"Sane\" murders are usually premeditated to a certain extent, so the released prisoners most likely won't do it again. Sex offenders on the other hand are often based on impulse and are just the nature of the offenders, so they're much more likely to do it again. ",
"Why don't we just get a system that could identify everyone with full details that live everywhere in the world, just to feel a bit safer. *IRONY*",
"Don't know about all states but my states \"Offender Registry\" includes violent offenders and drug offenders. The drug offenders are typically not low level crimes but only manufacture and distribution.",
"Sex offenders DO have a higher re-offense rate than murders. \n\nThere is really no such thing as a non-serial sex offender, just offenders that have only been caught once or twice. \n\nSexual behavior is set by the end of puberty, and only changes so much. \n\nMurder can sometimes happen in a panic, or a momentary fit of rage. Sex offenses are far more complex than that. ",
"The recidivism rate for sex criminals is WAY higher than for murders. Most murders arent driven by compulsions, while most sex crimes are",
"The Fifth Amendment also comes into play, or double jeopardy. _URL_0_\n\nOnce a person has \"paid their debt to society,\" wouldn't putting their name on a registry deny them their constitutional right against multiple punishment?\n\nAnd on that vein, isn't a sex offender registry unconstitutional too?\n\nAnyone know the case law?",
"Having a sexoffender registry and making it public are two different things. I have nothing to hide as long that the government protects my privacy i will be fine with it (needs some work but still). Making it public is a really bad idea. Because when do you stop making things public and if you make it public who is responsible for crowdcontrol? 1. Our society is build on the fact that you can keep certain authentic hobbies/history private, everybody does it, so where does this privelige stop? 2. Can you ever be unregistered and if so, will society see me as unregistered normal cilivian, i dont think so 3. When you had your punishment/treatment for a crime you should be able to live life the way you want too, else just raise the punishments and stuff like that. Dont forget that if you make someones history public, you punish them for the rest of there lifes, they will feel naked no matter where they are. Certainly since we have internet these pitchfork mobs will never let you intergrate. You can ask yourself if its morally correct to make someones private life public?",
"I think it's because rapists and child rapists are known to do what they do by being generally likable and seeming innocuous or even pitiable, while secretly doing specific things to their victim that make it less likely that they'll be believed. The sex offender registry makes it so that they're less likely to be able to do that again after release from prison- people won't give them the benefit of the doubt if a suspicious situation comes about. The murdering equivalent would be a serial killer- because such people may seem ordinary to almost everyone while secretly killing others. If a serial killer gets caught they are almost always between life and death row.",
"shouldnt there be a registry and notification system for lobbyists and politicians who pose the greatest threat to society? ",
"Facts don't play into such legislation as much as narrative, and the narrative is that sex offenders are driven to such behaviour due to wiring in their heads - compulsion and a lack of inhibition = rapists and pedophiles, and that isn't something that can be unwired, and so a registry makes sense (from this narrative) as a preventative measure). \n\nMurders, on the other hand, are committed for a more complex variety of reasons, some of which can be addressed (poverty, passion, greed, drugs, etc) so a registry makes less sense as a preventative measure.\n\nBut that's narrative, not facts: stats show a different and more complex tapestry of behaviours causes and triggers for both sex crimes and violent crimes.",
"I thought it was because sexual offenders are re-released into society on a more regular basis while individuals convicted of murder serve longer sentences, life etc., so you have a lower chance of having a murderer move into your neighborhood than a sex offender. ",
"Murderers are less likely to be released too, keep that in mind. You don't need a registry for people who will not be released. However, felony records exist that remain on someone's record forever. That might be good enough. When cops investigate homicides, they do so by pulling all felons files in the area and go from there. ",
"My guess is that committing a murder is viewed as a much more rehabilitable crime - it may not always be down to uncontrollable psychological issues - (people can be murdered accidentally, though technically manslaughter)\n\nWhereas sex offences, paedophillia especially, may be considered much more likely driven by deep seated psychological issues, and as such are less likely to be corrected with a rehabilitation approach, so when they have served their time are more likely to re-offend and as such, society would like to be aware of them.\n\nedit: Hmm.. though reading Gibertcs's reply I am probably talking rubbish!",
"Do you live in the U.S.? Turn on your TV at some point in the evening dude, flip around a bunch of random channels, and tell me what you see more of.\n\nDo you see any nudity? Any sex? Or do you see any violence?\n\nSex, nipples, nudity, and anything related gets the shaft. It gets censored. Things are sexualized, but there are clear rules and regulations about what you can see, and they don't include much. \n\nViolence? You can see a man getting decapitated or have his arm blown off. Blood is alright. Anything goes!\n\nThis law has its roots in American society and perceptions about what is moral and what isn't.",
"Rapists and pedos reoffend, like they're addicted to it. What you really want is a registry for serial killers. But really, it's safer to lock them up or execute them. We are nice in letting sex offenders live outside of prison.",
"Interesting and relevant bit from Marcus Aurelius I read this weekend:\n\nTheophrastus believed that offences committed through desire are more blameable than those committed through anger. The offence which is committed with pleasure is more blameable then that committed with pain.\n\nHis thought was that an offense of anger was usually started by a wrongdoing done to that person. An offense of pleasure or passion (like a sex crime) however, was due to the flight, fancy, and lust of an unchecked mind.",
"i've read a lot of interesting stuff here, but it seems nobody explained WHY is pissing anywhere, when nobody but a cop can see you (say between 1-5am), a SEXUAL crime ?!?! Are americans so afraid of Mr. Penis ? Just how exactly is that a sex crime, when there is no one there to see the culprit except the police ? ",
"Because we live in a society where we all grew up from 12-whenever wanting to fuck everything around us, teachers, classmates, ect. \n\nWhen we were 16 and we fucked another 16 year old because they were hot, and they wanted it. That's fine. \n\nBut AS SOON AS WE TURN 18 we're supposed to see a fully mature 16 year old body and pretend \"Ugh gross WHO WOULD EVER WANT TO HAVE SEX WITH A 16 YEAR OLD, children are such innocent flowers who never EVER want to have sex!\"\n\nThe delusions people convince themselves of, and the, frankly, frighteningly criminal way sex offenders are treated, is just sad. \n\n(not excusing child rapists and the like here, just the poor sex offenders who got put on a list for pissing in public, or sleeping with a 16 year old when they were 19)",
"Because \"think of the children!\" and other exaggerated scare tactics used by parents who are too stupid to watch their kids and wants society to do it for them.",
"ITT: We need a registry. It shouldn't be so easy to get on it.",
"\"Oh hey, this guy likes to touch boobs and have sex, let's notify everyone is the surrounding area\"\n\nOh hey, this other guy likes to stab and murder people, let's let everyone find out for themselves\".\n\nThey should notify everyone of all criminals.",
"Because we've convinced ourselves they're worse. ",
"The difference between murder and rape is that you can get payed by the government to murder.",
"It is possible to murder someone in self defense.\n\nIt is not possible to rape someone in self defense. If I can be corrected, I won't even ask why you would know such things.",
" > I'm 100% behind the registration of convicted sex offenders because people need to know who poses a threat to their safety.\n\nFor arguments sake, do you feel any safer knowing that the list only contains approximately 5% of offenders?\n\nImagine if we lived in a war-torn area full of detonated mines.. and as a public service to indicate areas to avoid, our government spent millions publishing the of locations of those mines.... but only managed to list 1 in 20. Wouldn't that be a complete and total waste of money?",
"No, because I'm not allowed to play finger little Stacy on my xbox, but I'm encouraged by Mountain Dew and Doritos to play shoot the thing with the thing to kill the thing. And that's American culture.",
"I know a guy who is on the \"list\". He was 18 and had a 17 year old girlfriend. You know the rest of the story. He is hardly a \"sex offender\". When I hear that someone is a \"sex offender\", my immediate thought is that they probably accepted a bullshit plea in order to not get completely fucked by our so-called \"justice system\".\n\nThe same with \"convicted felons\". When I hear that someone is a convicted felon, my first thought is \"got caught with a little bit of weed, eh?\"\n\nThe \"justice system\" has so overused those terms and convicted people who never should have been in court, let alone facing criminal prosecution, that I have become desensitized and just assume that the person is getting screwed by a system that puts prison profits over human lives."
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3hcekg | how does a regular water faucet work? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3hcekg/eli5_how_does_a_regular_water_faucet_work/ | {
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"Somewhere, far from your house, there's a big water treatment plant. They put water through various processes to get it safe to drink. From there they take big pumps and push it into pipes.\n\nThe water gets shoved through these pipes until it gets to another pump, at the base of a water tower. This pump shoves the water up into the tower, then gravity pulls it back down and into pipes that go to your house.\n\nWhen the pipe gets to your house one line branches off and goes to your hot water tank. The water is getting pushed into the tank, which causes it to get pushed out the other side if there's anywhere to go. While in the tank it gets heated, so hot water comes out of the exit to the hot water tank.\n\nFrom there the water goes through various branching pipes that take it to each faucet, toilet, shower, and water-using appliance in your house. Things that take hot water get a pipe from the hot water tank and the cold water; other appliances just get cold water.\n\nThe faucet just has a valve in it, perhaps looking like [this](_URL_0_) (although this is just one kind of valve and probably isn't the kind your faucet uses; it's simple to understand, though). Water is largely incompressible (you need incredible pressures to get even 1% smaller volume) so when the valve is closed it really doesn't matter how hard the water is being pushed through the lines. Open the valve, though, and it can flow freely.\n\nIn a sink faucet you get two valves, one for hot and one for cold. These two lines come together and are allowed to mix. When you mix hot and cold water you get water that's at an intermediate temperature.",
"The pressure is supplied by the local water company. It can be via gravity (water towers) or pumps. The primary end result being, if you have an outlet, water is pushed out.\n\nWith hot water, most homes and businesses have a local water heater. There are separate lines within the structure to carry the cold water from the water main and the hot water from the heater. If you disassemble a faucet, all it really does is open up the apertures to allow the pressurized water to flow out. Mixed faucets simply have two apertures, one for each line. The kitchen faucets with the swivel handle simply have the apertures within a metal ball."
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"http://www.globalspec.com/ImageRepository/LearnMore/20121/BallValvea9dd956faf7045eda3a8a92a5ba3352e.gif"
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8fv9px | does the thickness of a wire effect how much electricity can go through it like the thickness of a pipe does with water? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8fv9px/eli5_does_the_thickness_of_a_wire_effect_how_much/ | {
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"text": [
"Yes. The thickness of a wire, referred to as the gauge, determines how much current that wire can carry. If you try to force too current down too thin a wire, the wire will overheat and can melt, potentially starting a fire."
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c5hraa | how bad were british workhouses? | I'm watching a show set in the 50s and they talk about the people who were traumatized by living in workhouses. So I'll say I'm an American. Many things that British had to deal with sadly wasn't discussed over here. So I really want to learn. I hope someone will explain. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c5hraa/eli5_how_bad_were_british_workhouses/ | {
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"text": [
"Before the welfare state this was how poor people survived when they had no assets and were out of work. The food was pretty poor and families were split up, however it was better than being out on the streets."
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31ptlt | why does the human body sometimes stop having regular bowel movements when away from home? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/31ptlt/eli5_why_does_the_human_body_sometimes_stop/ | {
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"text": [
"Because the body is not as comfortable in the new environment compared to home. Stress makes you constipated. Also your diet may be different.",
"Dehydration is common if flew to the new destination. Local water varies in mineral content which can lead to constipation or loose stools. Eating patterns can vary from home as to time of day and the make up of the meals. Perhaps less fiber is consumed. Increased alcohol consumption can lead to dehydration. Sleeping patterns can change even id do not change time zones.",
"The fauna of your intestines have to adapt to new food, your sleep rhythm is most likely disturbed, your immune system is being assaulted by attacks slightly different from home. You might be under stress and you might be drinking to much. \n\n"
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1111of | how was the international space station put into space? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1111of/eli5_how_was_the_international_space_station_put/ | {
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"text": [
"It was launched in pieces as shuttle payloads and assembled in space over several years.",
"As ZebZ said, the station was put together in sections over many years.\n\nWikipedia has an awesome illustration showing what's up there and what each piece is called. \n\n_URL_0_",
"You're familiar with Legos correct? Of course you are, you're five. Well think of it this way, you've got all the Legos strews out on the carpet in the living room but you need to build a sweet-ass (don't use that word) Lego car in your bedroom. You can only carry a few at a time, so you run back and forth, up and down the stairs carrying 3 or 4 blocks at a time upstairs, where you assemble it."
]
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[],
[
"http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6f/ISS_configuration_2011-05_en.svg"
],
[]
] | ||
2h3ake | if all of my cells have the same dna, how do cells become specialized? | My brain cells and blood cells are very different, but they contain the same instructions (DNA). How do they know what their job is? How do they become specialized? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2h3ake/eli5if_all_of_my_cells_have_the_same_dna_how_do/ | {
"a_id": [
"ckozz20"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"The process of stem cells turning into particular cells is called differentiation. This causes different genes to be expressed in the cell which changes it from a stem cell, to, say, a skin cell. \nIt's possible to activate certain proteins, and researchers have done this, to then turn a skin cell into a brain cell. [Pretty awesome!](_URL_0_) \n \nI don't know the mechanism by which those cells are differentiated in exactly the right order in the right places in the body though. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-16788809"
]
] | |
zifan | how do directors create pitch trailers? | I want to know how directors create pitch trailers without anything? Do they cut up other films to create a story board? Do they build up small funds and go to a studio to make the trailer?
My question comes after seeing this trailer for a pitch for Hunger Games. [Shadow_Jack R/Scifi](_URL_0_) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/zifan/eli5_how_do_directors_create_pitch_trailers/ | {
"a_id": [
"c64uqi5"
],
"score": [
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"text": [
"That's a fan-made trailer, put together from clips of other films (note X-Men, 300, Batman Begins, Gladiator, etc.).\n\nUsually pitch trailers are cheaply put-together on a shoestring budget. The creators (usually director, producer, sometimes writer, etc.) will find an interesting scene or scenes in a film to show off what they're trying to do with it, and then film a short piece using stand-in actors.\n\nAs an example, the pitch trailer for the Coen Brothers' first film *Blood Simple* was a simple short piece of Marty crawling during the car sequence. It was simple, nailed the tone of the film (mostly), and was easy to shoot. The idea of a pitch trailer is to help discover financing, so it's not extravagant and is designed to be (relatively) inexpensive."
]
} | [] | [
"http://www.giantfreakinrobot.com/scifi/hunger-games-looked.html"
] | [
[]
] | |
1l66fy | why do most large retailers not allow their employees to stop shoplifters? | I have several friends who work in retail. According to them, someone can walk into a store, grab a bunch of clothes off a rack, and walk out the door. All without being stopped by an employee who just witnessed the entire thing. In one example, a manager called the police on two girls who were openly shoplifting in this way, and the manager got in trouble with her company for not following protocol and letting them go.
So... why is this? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1l66fy/eli5_why_do_most_large_retailers_not_allow_their/ | {
"a_id": [
"cbw4jwa",
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"score": [
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"text": [
"Someone shoplifts a 200 dollar purse. The manager confronts her. The shoplifter slips and falls while trying to run away. She then sues the company for a million dollars. \n\nEven if the shoplifter has no case, the legal cost to the company would be way higher than the relatively cheap merchandise that the person stole.",
"I work at Abercrombie & Fitch and we're taught how to prevent shop lifting before it happens by providing \"excellent customer service\" which basically entails closely watching customers and talking to them. If we spot a person attempting to steal we approach them with \"recovery statements\" which is basically statements that imply that we saw them stole without actually accusing them of stealing. If they don't comply with returning the item we're instructed to tell a manager who then approaches the customer, but ultimately we can't physically touch them or force them to give back the item without possible repercussions. \n\n\nTL;DR Because lawsuits."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] | |
4m17zf | room temperature superconductors | I was reading Michio Kaku's physics of the future book, where he mentions room temperature super conductors... I'm confused on how this would work because I thought superconductors only happen at around 0k. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4m17zf/eli5_room_temperature_superconductors/ | {
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"text": [
"A room temperature superconductor is sort of a holy grail of physics/engineering/science/etc.\n\nIf one were to be discovered, it would be a huge deal, because it would allow us to work with electricity much more efficiently and easily in many situations. \n\nSo far, nobody's found one, but the search is on-going. It would be a huge deal if one was discovered. Scientists have found superconductors that work at temperatures significantly higher than absolute zero, but still much colder than room temperature. ",
"And that's a damn good question: how would it work? We unfortunately don't actually know of any working room-temperature superconductors that I could point out to you as an explanatory model.\n\nSome people believe it'll never actually come to fruition - but the potential benefits if we did discover one are so temptingly enormous, and we have repeatedly discovered superconductivity in environments beyond thresholds previously unknown, so scientists are inclined to continue the search...",
"To add to the others, there are certainly superconductors that work above 0 K. For my general chemistry lab in college we made one that works in liquid nitrogen, or 77 K. Scientists have even made some that work as high as 130 K. A lot of scientific instruments rely on superconductors, and are generally cooled by liquid helium, around 4 K. ",
"A Superconductor is a material that allows electrons to flow through with negligible resistance, and we're not certain that there *is* resistance at all in a few cases. As a result, very little power is lost to the electromagnetic equivalent of friction.\n\nMost Superconductive Materials only *function* as Superconductors at near Absolute-Zero temperatures. However, there are several Superconductors that work at *achievable* temperatures. It's still *very* expensive to cool any known material to the point where they become superconducting, but it's affordable enough to see use in laboratory environments.\n\nA Room Temperature Superconductor would be a world-reshaping discovery, even if it were only used for power lines. Electricity could be generated *anywhere* and transmitted to *anywhere* without a significant loss of energy to Resistance as heat. Power generated by a Solar Plant in Arizona could be sent to New York City, with less loss of energy to resistance. than New York's current power plants experience.\n\nHowever, we've never *found* a Room Temperature Superconductor. It's a Holy Grail of Science.",
"In addition to the other responses I think it's important to note that Michio Kaku has a lot of shows/books of pure science fiction/fantasy. Making a claim that \"x is possible because Y\" when Y doesn't have any evidence that it even exists is something he does a lot, and it's difficult to believe the things he says because of if."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] | |
70i5t9 | how hela is contaminated and considering progressive cancers, shouldn't any progressive cancer cell be "immortal"? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/70i5t9/eli5_how_hela_is_contaminated_and_considering/ | {
"a_id": [
"dn3b0bq"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"The standard way today to check for a cell line is to check for it's genetic signature (genome or transcriptome). \n\nIf this matches the original cells from which a cell line was derived, you have a faithful culture of these cells.\n\nBut genetic fingerprinting only became available and affordable of late. Hela cells were isolated an cultured over 70 years ago, when such testing was not possible. At the same time, they were widely adopted all over the world in labs.\n\nEssentially, you have trillions of Hela cells replicating every 12 hours in millions of petri dishes all over the world, accumulating different mutations independently, adapting to different culture conditions, exposed to different pathogens.\n\n Millions of independently evolving Hela cell cultures for 70 years means that the cells as of today have little in common with each other, bringing into question whether they even have anything in common anymore with human cells in our bodies.\n\nThere is every reason to think that these cells have grown in petri dishes so long that they no longer display the behaviour of 'normal' human cells. But they are popular in labs because we know how to handle them well. They just stopped being a good model for normal human cells.\nThis is the contamination of the HeLa cell culture. You always have a mixed population of cells...some like the original human cells..but most doing something very different.\n\n\nI hope this was your question. They other trivial type of contamination of a culture is when bacteria or yeast fall into your cell culture because of poor technique while handling them. When this happens, we usually discard that dish.\n\nAs for cancerous cells being 'immortal', yes, they all are given the right conditions to grow."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
32i28s | why is it that textbooks are written in such an unnatural way that you have to read a sentence 2 or 3 times to grasp it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/32i28s/eli5_why_is_it_that_textbooks_are_written_in_such/ | {
"a_id": [
"cqbe7aq"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Can you make that question a little easier to read? "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
2i299z | what is the use of the un if they are unable to prevent invasion of sovereign countries, ethnic cleansing and war crimes including use of chemical weapons? | Ukraine, Syria, Kurdistan, et al | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2i299z/eli5_what_is_the_use_of_the_un_if_they_are_unable/ | {
"a_id": [
"cky5cx5",
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"cky9dza"
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"score": [
7,
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"text": [
"A platform for countries to communicate openly in an attempt to avoid the situations that caused ww1",
"Hey...they gave us a free Emma Watson speech. ",
" The original idea of the United Nations was a war resolution center.\n\nIt's purpose has more or less migrated to a meeting place for nations. A lot of people negotiate large scale treaties here as well as a lot of medical, business, and residential programs.",
"Actually - I've read a book on the subject called \"UN - The broken dreams\" and it's sadly only available in Swedish. \n\nA small excerpt from the books introduction:\n\n > How would the worst possible roles for an international organization look like? Genocide (Rwanda) would be responsible for the safety, Communist one-party states (China) would promote human rights, badly governed African countries (Zimbabwe) would take care of the economic development and fundamentalist Muslims (Saudi Arabia) to promote women's rights. And so an expensive, corrupt and inefficient administration on top of it all."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[]
] | |
3bjazi | how do they decide how many episodes of a show are gonna be in each season? | I've seen as many as 24 and as few as 3 in each season of a show. How to they decide on how many they'll make that season? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3bjazi/eli5_how_do_they_decide_how_many_episodes_of_a/ | {
"a_id": [
"csmmiot"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"The producers of a show make a proposal based on what they think would be best, how much of a budget they are expecting, and what the network would like. The network approves it, depending on what their needs are. \n\nIn general though, it's mainly based on budget. If they give you $1 million total, how many episodes can you make with that money and be the most profitable?"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | |
2qwkjl | what happens to that little bit of money that always remains on gift cards? i know it expires but where does it go? | Edit: So I am like really tired and I apparently didn't think this through very well. Have a nice day every one. Go answer someone's question that makes sense. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2qwkjl/eli5_what_happens_to_that_little_bit_of_money/ | {
"a_id": [
"cna6pok",
"cna6s1m",
"cnaaaag"
],
"score": [
10,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"It stays with the company. A gift card is just proof that you already gave them a certain amount of money. If you never ask for it all back, they keep it. ",
"Psst, why do you think a company sells a $20 gift card for $20 with no profit?",
"A completed sales transactions is a customer making payment and receiving a product or service from the vendor. In the case of gift cards, only half of the sales transaction has been completed, so it's not technically profit of the company, it is a liability of the company. Profit is not the same as cash. \n\nDepending upon where you are, there are different rules and laws regarding when a company may recognize these deposits as revenue, and thus pay taxes on them. The jurisdiction I reside in, Ontario Canada, has a piece of legislation called the Consumer Protection Act that actually bans most retail business gift cards from having an expiry date. Therefore it never technically expires. Most retailers would probably honour the gift card anyway, even if only for PR purposes. (ie. Customer is always right, etc)"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] | |
288b2u | why do humans get impulses to do things they know are incredibly stupid? (i.e. standing on a cliff and having the impulse to jump off) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/288b2u/eli5_why_do_humans_get_impulses_to_do_things_they/ | {
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"ci8dskc",
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"score": [
4,
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"text": [
"Because we know that it's something we CANT do.\n Of course we could but we'd die. I think psychologically we just want things we can't have/ can't do. \nWe know we can't do these things and naturally people are rebellious. ",
"_URL_0_\n\nSearch function. This question got asked yesterday :)",
"It's a mental phenomenon called \"Call of the Void\". \n\nHave you ever stood near an edge and considered jumping off?\n\nDriving a car and imagining yourself crashing head first into a tree?\n\nIt's kind of your mind's way of doing things before you actually do them. It's a survival instinct we developed back then (imagining ourselves dying when we walk into a dark cave helps a bit).",
"I can't quite remember the name of the response, but basically it is your body's response to danger. You are close to a cliff and imagine jumping off which causes you to take a step back. You are holding a baby and imagine dropping it, which causes you to hold it tighter."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2859ff/eli5_why_do_i_sometimes_feel_the_urge_to_jump_off/"
],
[],
[]
] | ||
3mggtb | why do animated villains, mainly in anime, are drawn with tiny eyes? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3mggtb/eli5_why_do_animated_villains_mainly_in_anime_are/ | {
"a_id": [
"cveq4yl",
"cveroqd"
],
"score": [
3,
3
],
"text": [
"Because you can't look very evil with big eyes?",
"Big eyes are expressive, emotive, and often cute. Makes it easier to connect with the character.\n\nSmall eyes make it harder to connect with a character."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] | ||
dp11rg | why is driving a jeep wrangler in 4wd bad for it when done on flat dry ground? specifically at low speeds and tight turns. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dp11rg/eli5_why_is_driving_a_jeep_wrangler_in_4wd_bad/ | {
"a_id": [
"f5rxduz",
"f5rxith"
],
"score": [
3,
6
],
"text": [
"Will from my Jeep which was in the 90s the front moves slightly faster then the back. So in dry conditions that would really cause accelerated wear and tear.",
"Because 4WD vehicles force the front wheels to spin at the same speed as the rear wheels. When you're in a turn the front wheels travel a further path than the rear wheels and the outside wheels drive a further path than the inside wheels. This causes a lot of strain on the drivetrain and tires."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] | ||
34igyn | the difference between paint and primer | Edit: I'm looking for a better explanation than primer goes on before paint. That much I know. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/34igyn/eli5_the_difference_between_paint_and_primer/ | {
"a_id": [
"cquy7eh",
"cquyjtw"
],
"score": [
2,
2
],
"text": [
"primer goes on first and is used to cover up the paint that is already there. new coats look much better when you paint on a white surface, as painting on top of darker colors could distort the new color you're adding",
"if you use acrylic based paints diluted with water, there is no primer. primer has been used before for paints that are based on oil or nitro. either way, before applying the next coat, you should sand the surface for smoother look :) good luck "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] | |
d5bh9n | the collatz conjecture. | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/d5bh9n/eli5_the_collatz_conjecture/ | {
"a_id": [
"f0l0jw6",
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"score": [
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"text": [
"the collatz conjecture concerns a certain iterated function. This is kind of like a normal function but you generate successive outputs by using the immediately previous output (if the function was 2x+1 and i started with 0, I’d get 1, then plug 1 in and get 3, plug 3 in and get 7, etc.).\n\nThis function for the collatz conjecture its this: f(n) = (if n is even, n/2) ; (if n is odd, 3n+1)\n\nThe conjecture states that for every n that you start with, if you keep iterating the function, youll eventually reach an infinite loop (this one, actually: f(1)=4;f(4)=2;f(2)=1;repeat)\n\nTry some starting values for n and work them out! Every number we’ve tried ends up in this loop eventually, but we cant formally prove that it always happens for any n.",
"Imagine a number. any postivive whole number. If it is odd, multiply it with three and add one. If it is even divide it with two. Repeat the process with whatever answer you get.\n\nEventually you will end up at 1.\n\nSo for instance 6 > 3 > 10 > 5 > 16 > 8 > 4 > 2 > 1.\n\n\nThe conjecture is that *all* positive integers you start out with will end up at 1 eventually. We just don't know how to prove it. A lot of smart people have tried, but nobody has found a solid irrefutable proof yet that you always end back at 1."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
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