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692syx | why electric cars are not regular thing? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/692syx/eli5_why_electric_cars_are_not_regular_thing/ | {
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"Depending on who you are, you might believe there is a conspiracy against electric cars, or you might believe they are just too expensive and impractical. \n\nIn my case I take a little from A and a little from B... with subsidies and investment similar to those the Oil industry gets they would quickly become cheaper and more practical.",
"At the moment, the initial purchase cost (which is often subsidized), range, and availability of charging stations do not make electric cars appealing for a large segment of the population.",
"They *are* a regular thing. The electric car market is real and growing. Living in California, I know several people who now drive electric cars.\n\nThey were not common until recently, because batteries did not store enough power cheaply enough, while storing a lot of power in the form of gasoline requires only a container that holds liquid. But batteries have been improved lately, through the hard work of thousands of engineers and scientists.",
"The biggest reasons are probably that they still cost more than regular cars, they rarely have as much range as a gas or diesel powered car (usually less than half) and it takes a lot longer to recharge a car than it does to fill up your tank, there are also very few good places to do it unless you live in certain metro areas. All of that adds up to extra cost and inconvenience that most people don't want to deal with.\n\nThere are also some people who just don't like electric cars. They enjoy the rumble of an engine or they really relish driving and loving rowing gears in a stick shift. I'm somewhat in that category myself. I recognize all the benefits, but there's something about pistons and gears and shifting a manual transmission that really appeals to me. The nicer electric cars have fantastic performance off the line and great handling, but it's just not quite the same. They don't have that \"machine\" feel to me. \n\nAll that said, they are definitely gaining popularity all the time and they are here to stay I believe. The range issue is getting better (and isn't a problem if you have $90k for a Tesla). \n\nThe recharging is likely to remain an issue for some time to come. If it's a commuter car and you just drive to work each day and plug in at home overnight that's fine. But if you're driving all over the place, there's a scarcity of places to charge, especially with the higher voltages you need to get it done quicker. Even if you do have access to quicker charging, it still takes way longer than filling a gas tank. It's going to be a LONG time before most gas stations have quick charging stations for electric cars. Probably at least a decade or more. \n\nSo it takes a little bit of sacrifice and special enthusiasm for electric vehicles right now. They aren't going to be mainstream like hybrids are until they overcome those issues. ",
"Range anxiety.\n\nThe typical gasoline-powered vehicle has a range of about 300 miles, and can be refueled in mere minutes. The typical electric vehicle that is affordable by most consumers (i.e. below $30,000 per car) has a range on the order of 80-100 miles, and takes a long time to recharge, and often needs electrical access that many areas that handle large amounts of cars (i.e. parking lots) just don't have.\n\nThus, if you commute long distances to work (which many Americans do), and EV doesn't really cut it for you, as there's a reasonable liklihood that it isn't going to be able to make the full trip."
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4qeyh6 | why do saltine crackers satisfy so much when i'm hungry | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4qeyh6/eli5_why_do_saltine_crackers_satisfy_so_much_when/ | {
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"Saltine crackers are made with white flour, which is really quick and easy for the body to digest and start converting from food to energy. And it has salt and a little oil, both of which help amplify other flavours in food (saltless soup is horrible compared to a properly salted bowl) and most people just love salty snacks.\n\nOr there's an alternate explanation: You're a parrot."
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3crcag | what does it mean for a state to ratify a constitutional amendment | What exactly is the point of states ratifying a constitutional amendment? What happens if a state doesn't like for example the 19th amendment wasn't ratified by Mississippi until 1984. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3crcag/eli5_what_does_it_mean_for_a_state_to_ratify_a/ | {
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"You need three-fourths of the states to ratify an amendment before it can be added to the constitution. After it's added, any further votes to ratify are purely symbolic. In Mississippi's case it may not have voted to ratify the amendment but it was still law and they still had to allow women to vote. Formally ratifying it was likely a political move because it was an embarrassment by that point that they had never officially agreed to allow women to vote. "
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tp5sc | why wouldn't marvel be able to negotiate deals with sony and fox that will allow them to put spider-man and x-men films in the avengers universe? | I know that the film rights of the characters are all owned by different companies, but I can't understand why they can't just come to an agreement allowing all these characters to exist in the same fictional universe. Don't they realize this would make them MORE money? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/tp5sc/why_wouldnt_marvel_be_able_to_negotiate_deals/ | {
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"That's the thing, they wouldn't make more money. \nExample\nCompany A makes $100 million off a movie\nCompany B makes $100 million off a movie\nCompany C makes $100 million off a movie\nAverage $100 million per company\nOr...\nCompanies A, B, and C negotiate a contract to make one movie. It will probably make $200-$250 million. \nAverage $67-84 million per company. \nYou'll probably go see X men and Spider Man, so they get 3X sales of just you. Sure, more people might see it, but it would overall be less profitable. "
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2k4xjc | why is it that i can sometimes see my breath around 45-50 degrees f and also why does this happen more often when standing around a campfire? | I noticed this morning, as I was walking to class, that I could see my breathe but it was nearly 50 degrees out. Also this past weekend it was a bit colder, and I couldn't see my breath until standing near an open campfire. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2k4xjc/eli5_why_is_it_that_i_can_sometimes_see_my_breath/ | {
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"the angle of the light hitting your breath determines how visible it is to your eye. Also a darker background (like a campfire) will make it more visible too"
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6immpb | why are dvd stores and game stores going out of businesses because of websites like netflix and amerzon, but book stores aren't? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6immpb/eli5_why_are_dvd_stores_and_game_stores_going_out/ | {
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"The bookstores went first. Borders and Barnes & Noble were much bigger before Amazon and college bookstores are pretty much just boxes where people pick up online orders.",
"Who says they aren't? Borders used to be a major book store chain, but they went under a few years ago, now Barnes & Noble is the only national book store chain in the US."
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97sh45 | why is it so hard to make bionic eye that works? | Do we know how to attach it to someone? Humans have already made bionic arms that can be controlled with one's mind. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/97sh45/eli5_why_is_it_so_hard_to_make_bionic_eye_that/ | {
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"We don't know how to build a good-quality connection to the optic nerve, which is where the eye connects to the brain.",
"The eye is pretty tricky. It has three main functional parts - the lens, which changes shape for different viewing conditions, the iris, which controls the amount of light that enters the eye, and the retina, which is the light sensitive part at the back of the eye. All of these need to send information via the optic nerve (as u/Concise_Pirate pointed out) to the brain, in a way that's somewhat specific to each person. \n\nThe major problem is with the retina. This is basically a lattice of millions upon millions of receptors, which come in a number of different types. They have to connect to the brain in a very specific way or the signal will be unintelligible. With our current technology I think it's simply too complex a task to account for all of the possible variations.\n\nNote though that we've had some success with really crude direct stimulation of the visual parts of the brain via electrodes - people have been able to see crude outlines, though with no colour or detail. That's really the very limit of our tech right now, because while we understand the very first step in visual processing (i.e. how we perceive motion, lines, colour differences, etc), we have very little idea of how that's all pieced together.",
"No expert, but if I remember correctly, the problem is mainly that most of the image you see is build by the brain itself. For example, we deal with a blind spot and in reality only a tiny part of what we see we actually see in full colour (most of our vision is greyscale) but our brains just make all that up. So as long as we don't know enough about image processing, we just can't find out what signals we should send to the brain to be interpreted as vision.",
"3 things we need for a functional bionic eye\n\n1. Visual sensor (aka camera). This needs to be small enough to fit into the eye-socket, have enough power to run indefinitely and have resolution & colour detection equal to the human eye. This is technologically beyond us right now.\n\n2. Connection to ocular nerves. This is a major problem, you can’t easily wire each “pixel” of the sensor to a nerve ending. In fact, scar tissue will form that blocks off the retina, making it even more difficult to connect. It would take a team of surgeons something like 1000 man-hours where they have to do extremely delicate work on a microscopic level. Impossible unless we find a way to have it connect naturally.\n\n3. Image processing by the brain. We don’t know how the brain recognises signals. How should we encode the visual input? If we give some weird input into the ocular nerves, will the brain learn to see it as colour? Or just a jumbled confusing mess that gives you a headache.",
"This answer should be read in conjunction with the others that already exist about why making a bionic eye is hard at all; I'm going to explore why it's so much hard*er* than making the arm.\n\n*Reading* nerve impulses, to control a bionic arm, can be done without breaking the skin; you can use a set of electrodes *on* the skin or placed around the head to work out what signals are being sent, and by \"training\" the computer that reads them you can make it respond appropriately. To make a bionic *eye* (or *any* sensory input; making the same bionic arm *feel* is a similarly difficult problem), though, you have to do more than read nerve impulses; you have to *create* them. You have to do input as well as output. That's *much* harder; while you *can* stimulate nerves nonintrusively with microwaves, you have to fix your equipment incredibly precisely relative to the nerves and get your transmit power *exactly* right, or you will achieve nothing at best and do significant damage by slightly cooking the person at worst. There's also \"transcranial *magnetic* induction\" but that, while *incredibly* cool, has similar precision problems, and can also be harmful if it's not exactly right. Direct electrical connection is much more reliable, but then you run into the nerve-scarring problem we discussed in [this](_URL_0_) set of comments.\n\nIn short, to get sensory information *into* the brain is much, *much* harder than it is to get movement-intention out of it."
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5ar1xg | how do baby birds too young to leave the nest get water? | Do they get all the water they need from the food brought back by their parents? Do they have to hope for rain? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5ar1xg/eli5_how_do_baby_birds_too_young_to_leave_the/ | {
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"Their parents barf down their throats. Seriously. \n\nThis gives them all the food and water they need. At least while they are tiny.",
"**ELI5:** Birds overall don't have too many \"water wasting\" processes, and they can do just fine with the water they get from their diet without actually drinking water.\n\n---\n\nThey get it from their diet, most of animals get their water from what they eat, instead of drinking water, since in lots of places and times around the Earth, there isn't any water for consumption.\n\nIn the case of birds, some of them actually drink water but most of them get their water supply from the water contained in the things they eat. In several cases they are adapted to having low consumption of water, for example, birds don't pee, their feces are low in water, they don't sweat, etc. They are \"wasting\" less water.\n\nIf an animal has access to water for most of the year, it will adapt to \"waste\" water, since it isn't a limiting resource. For example, lots of mammals pee several times a day, their feces have a higher content of water, their metabolism extracts lots of water from their diet, they sweat, etc."
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5n0z32 | that sense you get when something feels "off" | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5n0z32/eli5_that_sense_you_get_when_something_feels_off/ | {
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"What you are referring to is a long postulated but, newly emerging field of study of the Enteric Nervous System (ENS) also known as ‘second brain’, based on its size, complexity and similarity — in neurotransmitters and signalling molecules — with the brain.\n\n[Source Study](_URL_0_)\n\n\nThe ELI5 is that there are a multitude of complicated pathways between your gut and your brain. When something \"feels off\", your gut is sending signals to your brain. Those signals influence neurons in your brain and your decision making ",
"I always taken it as intuition. This is from a standpoint of something external to your body. Think of it like some part of your subconscious brain is picking up signals and paying attention to your enviroment outside of what you are focused on. It makes sense for part of your brain to look for danger, predators, while you doing something else mundane like picking berries. \n\nYou get the intial flight or fight response and it brings your focus to what danger your subconscious sees. Why is that man acting weird or sick or in a dangerous way type of thing. It takes awhile to figure out what social cues the guy is violating and why you see him as a threat.",
"This immediately made me think of a time when I was leaving a bar with a few friends and my ex. We got in a wreck on the way home and my ex flew across the car, hitting her head fairly hard against the window and losing consciousness for a few seconds. Fast forward to the next morning, she checks her phone and realizes her mom had called her over and over right after we got in the accident, reason being that she woke up and knew something was wrong in regards to the ex. This is perhaps a little different than what you alluded to but I suppose it falls under a similar category. Science is still looking for the answer. ",
"That gut feeling is an annoying feeling in your stomach associated with a thought process that just can't be satisfied until you address it. We all have varying degrees of introverted and extroverted senses, and that our introverted senses kick in when something does not feel right when we suddenly recognize the unintended consequences of our pragmatic well-intended thinking. Its that moment when everything you valued or thought or worked on is threatened by the realization of doubt.\n"
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1niezd | why does plastic wrap (like saran wrap) stick to glass and to itself, but it won't stick to plastic? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1niezd/eli5_why_does_plastic_wrap_like_saran_wrap_stick/ | {
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"I could be remembering incorrectly, but I believe it is surface area contrasts. Glass is very smooth, and has plenty of surface area to bond the wrap to, whereas a plastic has many dimples and mounds (though small), that allow little air bubbles to get trapped."
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7kw8x8 | what is "buying on margin"? | I'm currently reading a book where the term was used a couple of times and it seems fairly important to what's happening, basically a guy bought some supplies on margin and planned on selling them in another town, however, the price of the supplies has gone down so now he's in a huge debt and faces bankruptcy.
I kind of get it, and I've read about it on _URL_0_, but it's still over my head. I don't understand what the concept means. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7kw8x8/eli5_what_is_buying_on_margin/ | {
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"Margin is basically a loan using the other securities (stocks etc) as collateral.\n\nSay you were in the business of flipping cars. \n\nYou find this car for $3000 that you think you could easily resell for $5000. Problem is you only have $1000 in cash. \n\nSo you go over to a title loan store and you give them the title of your car (collateral) and they give you say $2,000.\n\nYou then go buy the $3,000 car and in the next month go sell it for $5,000. When you return to pay off the title loan (margin debit) you pay back the balance plus the interest accrued. \n\nSay the car was bogus and you lost out on all $3,000. The title company would then sell your car that you pledged to them to cover the loan of $2,000. (Or selling your stocks/bonds)\n\nYou pledge “your” assets in exchange for cash in which you can go buy more assets that you think will appreciate. ",
"Basically, you are borrowing money to make the purchase of a stock/commodity. You usually do this to make a quick profit, assuming the price will increase above the interest payment. If it doesn't, you take a loss. The main addition is that the securities in your \"margin account\" are used as collateral, so it's a secured loan, not an unsecured loan, and the brokerage can seize the securities in the account to pay off the loan you don't. It's not much different from any other loan. ",
"Hopefully this doesn't restate too much what you know from the book...\n\nImagine Tommy sold candy at school. He'd spend his pocket money ($1) buying then from a shop and sell them in school for $2. This worked great but was very slow because he never had enough to buy more \"stock\". So he asked his parents for a loan. And they said fine but it had to be in proportion to the cash Tommy actually had. In fact they'd lend him 10x what he had so long as he left his small cash with then as a guarantee and paid it all back at the end of the week. This was great. Tommy borrowed 10x the cash and left his $1 with his parents. Bought $10 worth of candy. Sold them at school for $20. Paid his parents $10 back at the end of the week and had $11 left to start the next week. Next week he left his $11 with his parents as a guarantee and borrowed 10x the amount $110. He bought candy with it and started selling it in school. But! A new vending machine was installed selling candy at $.50. Suddenly Tommy was undercut and had to sell his candy at $.50 too. At end of the week he owed $110 but had only made $55. His parents took that money back, and the guarantee money he left with them ($11) and refused to lend him any more. Tommy was broke, his profits wiped out and still owing $44 to his parents.\n\nThis is margin trading. The guarentee Tommy left with his parents was his \"margin account\". And in return they lent him a larger sum to trade with. This enables much greater profits, but also losses more than what you put in. In real life if you are starting to be unprofitable, you might decide to stick it out and wait for things to get better. But your lender might demand you put up more cash as a guarentee. This is a \"margin call\". And bring unable to cover the margin call is the point at which people go bust."
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de0veb | why is 2.4ghz wifi not hard-limited to channels 1, 6 and 11? wifi interference from overlapping adjacent channels is worse than same channel interference. channels 1, 6, and 11 are the only ones that don't overlap with each other. shouldn't all modems be only allowed to use 1, 6 or 11? | Edit: Wireless Access Points, not Modems
I read some time ago that overlapping interference is a lot worse so all modems should use either 1, 6, or 11. But I see a lot of modems in my neighbourhood using all the channels from 1-11, causing an overlapping nightmare. Why do modem manufacturers allow overlapping to happen in the first place?
Edit: To clarify my question, some countries allow use of all channels and some don't. This means some countries' optimal channels are 1, 5, 9, 13, while other countries' optimal channels are 1, 6, 11. Whichever the case, in those specific countries, all modems manufactured should be hard limited to use those optimal channels only. But modems can use any channel and cause overlapping interference. I just don't understand why modems manufacturers allow overlapping to happen in the first place. The manufacturers, of all people, should know that overlapping is worse than same channel interference...
To add a scenario, in a street of houses closely placed, it would be ideal for modems to use 1, 6, 11. So the first house on the street use channel 1, second house over use channel 6, next house over use channel 11, next house use channel 1, and so on. But somewhere in between house channel 1 and 6, someone uses channel 3. This introduces overlapping interference for all the 3 houses that use channels 1, 3, 6. In this case, the modem manufacturer should hard limit the modems to only use 1, 6, 11 to prevent this overlapping to happen in the first place. But they are manufactured to be able to use any channel and cause the overlap to happen. Why? This is what I am most confused about. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/de0veb/eli5_why_is_24ghz_wifi_not_hardlimited_to/ | {
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"Can someone explain this question like I'm five?",
"Almost touches on the idea of a prisoner's dilemma -like situation. \n\nThe standard allows the choice of any channel in the range to best suit the user's wishes. But let's just say everyone sticks to 1/6/11 and those three bands are heavily congested. Anyone setting up a new radio in a congested area will find a LOT of interference centered around each of those three channels.\n\nSomeone else gets tired and decides that to avoid interference he should select something in the middle of the overlapping bands like channel 3. And suddenly now you have someone who has a relatively clear channel, but now 1 and 6 have some interference from another channel in addition to everyone else already on 1/6.",
"I'll answer with a quick question. Imagine the bandwidth loss and lag if alll of those channels were bottlenecked further to just a single set of streams rather than multiple outlets?\n\nAt least with multiple channels, while there is interference the amount of options available can pick up the slack.",
"Other WiFi devices aren't the only thing that you might need to work around, it could be other 2.4ghz devices as well as environmental factors.",
"because with channels 1, 5, 9, 13 you get 4 non overlapping channels. not all countries allow all channels.",
"Because in much of the world world, you should be using 1, 5, 9 and 13, to get 4 non overlapping options. The 1-6-11 is used because of the U.S. refuses to allow use of channel 13, or, in Japan, to allow channel 14 to be fully non-overlapping.\n\nIn addition, there are uses for half-overlapping channels. When a large area needs to be covered, you have 3 non-overlapping channels nearby, and further away you use half-overlapping channels, where the weak overlapping signals won't cause as great a problem.",
"so if i enable only those channels i will benefit from it because other people use the standard settings ? if so, how do i do that ? thanks",
"You should not assume that Wifi is the only thing using these channels. From garage-door openers to (analog) AV-bridges and even your trusty microwave-oven, all kind of devices use this frequency spectrum.\n\nI have experienced how an AV bridge (to wirelessly transfer a TV picture from one room to another) could block out the whole middle-section of the available Wifi spectrum, only leaving a bit of breathing space at the top and bottom ends for all 20+ Wifi-networks in a multi-apartment building... \n\n(of course, that was totally not *my* device and I absolutely did *not* have to keep it running 24/7 to make sure other devices don't enter this frequencies and cause disturbances for my TV watching pleasure …)\n\nIn any case: the more flexibility there is in how the channels can be assigned, the better for the quality of service. Today's Wifi devices are pretty smart when it comes to choosing the right channel even under very adverse conditions, so nothing to worry here.\n\n(Don't buy analog AV bridges though. Seriously, they only transfer SD resolution and are a pain for everybody. Use a cable instead)",
"Because that isn't how wireless signal works. \n\n_URL_0_\n\nThe farther you are from the center of another network's broadcast, the less noise that network causes. If you have 9 networks in range, you will do better with partial overlaps on 4 of the other networks, than you will with complete overlap with 2 other networks.",
"Two reasons: edge cases where it does make sense to deploy on one of the normally overlapping channels (think single AP deployments in odd RF environments), or other countries where you’re allowed to go up to channel 13.",
"Cause number 1: Freedom. \n\nNumber 2: FCC actually had a rule saying you can only use 1,6, and 11. But no one had to follow it, and it's left open to use whatever channel you want because there is/was anticipation to use wider band channels (40mhz over 20mhz for OFDM). Which you can see in the wild if you have a scanning tool. If you're curious, you can get Alfa Wifi Scanner software and take a look at the different channels are being used in your area and what their bandwidth is. From that, you can also choose a better channel for you personal device.\n\nThis is a really smart question for a five year old.",
"I know it's just semantics but you're referring to wireless access points (WAP). Not all modems perform as routers and access points.",
"All these answers and not a single person has stumbled on the correct one: Hindsight is 20/20.\n\nRemember that when the standard was settled upon, the designers had absolutely no idea how ubiquitous WiFi would become. It would be approximately another ten years before WiFi routers would even start to become household appliances. Zip drives were state-of-the-art, laptop thickness was measured in _inches_, and the concept of a smartphone was about a decade away from public consciousness. People rented VHS cassettes to watch movies at home on their rear-projection TVs, and HD television was for the idle rich. Netflix had just started mailing people DVDs via The Postal Service.\n\nOkay, I'm getting a little carried away describing the world of the late 90s, but it's important to remember the designers of the 802.11 standards had to make choices in a world where households rich enough to even have internet access connected to the internet via dialup. No one even conceptualized a world where routers would be so cheap that every single tenant in an apartment building would have their own radio transmitter sitting in a closet gathering dust out of sight, out of mind. Many of the choices they made for the standard naturally assumed wireless internet access would only really be deployed by professional network admins who would have control of all the other routers in range. Why not let them choose any channel?",
"Also why the hell when I choose auto channel selection the router chooses the WORST channel and basically never chooses 1,6,11?",
"The decision to restrict 802.11 to a 72Hz range was a stupid one to begin with. The overlapping channels thing is a mitigation of that. I can imagine the standard changing to what you described, and it would help for some people but it's just mitigation on top of mitigation of a screw-up that needs to be fixed directly. Also, restricting to those three channels reduces flexibility for people who need to fine-tune things to avoid interference from things other than WiFi.",
"As nice as this might be there are a few caveats and limitations and reasons that having more open channels is actually beneficial. Having firmware region locks is a simple thing to implement but is also extremely easy to VPN around making these devices unsuitable for mass market. Another thing to consider is the sheer number of devices that will step all over the 2.4Ghz bandwidth. Everything from bluetooth to miceowaves. Now the benefit of keeping all these channels open comes from the inverse square law. As you double the distance from a signal, that signal strength is halved. This means the most efficient way to assign channels would be channels that don't overlap in the closest vicinity and then the channels in between further away. So the most optimal form of this in a neighborhood would be first house on channel 1, next house on channel 6, next 11, next 3, next 8, and repeat. This wouldn't work that well in a multistory building however and no matter what is done for that network environment it will always be hostile. This takes so much radio coordination that it isn't really practical so all the channels are left open so that the user can decide what the optimal channel in their environment actually is. Unfortunately this can lead to the only partially informed to make it worse for everyone.",
"Not all stations transmit with the same power. Not all stations are equally sensitive. Some stations are closer to each other than others. There are other technologies using the same band. Signal spectral power density isn't flat, overlapping at the side is not the same as overlapping at the center. Different bitrates use different modulations which differ in signal to noise and interference sensitivity. Hidden nodes may or may not be present. The list goes on and on... It's way more complicated than that.",
"The \"width\" of your wifi signal is tied closely to the throughput. The faster the data stream sitting on top of the carrier signal, the wider the peak of your radio signal. And signal peaks are curvy, not square. If you're using channel 6, then the RF power being transmitted by your antenna is higher at channel 6 than it is at channel 5 which is higher than channel 4.\n\nIf your neighbors are all using channels 1,6,11 then if you pick 4 or 9, then your signals will interfere at the fringes. Your throughput (and your neighbors') will drop to squeeze between the peaks, but you'll still have availability. You might get 11Mbps instead of 54Mbps with a little signal overlap, but your signal will be more reliable.",
"This wouldn't work in an apartment building where there could easily be 50 different routers all in range of each other.",
"The industrial, scientific and medical (ISM) band of radio waves is like a big river. Wi-Fi channels are like boats of a certain widthof they were the only boats on there, you could line them up parallel and have no problems. However other devices use the river too, so maybe one has to move over to avoid the microwave boat, or the baby monitor. The non-primary bands give them some flexibility to get out of the way. If there is a lot on the river though, your Wi-Fi is going to suck.",
"Many routers are set to change channels based off of interference. Like picking a new line at a grocery store in some strange world where 12 of the 14 lanes are actually open.\n\nIn these lines, there are also people being very loud. Most are only loud because everyone else is loud, and it's a shouting match where many people don't know they can turn their signal strength down. This worsens how annoying it is to buy your internet groceries.",
"If you’re having WiFi problems because of too many 2.4Ghz WiFi or other signals get a 5Ghz one.",
"Soooo... should I change the channel of my WiFi to 1, 6 or 11?",
"IMHO, they should have designated a frequency for Wi-Fi use only instead of using the 2.4GHz ISM (**I**ndustrial, **S**cientific, **M**edical) band, which has interference from cordless phones, microwaves, and other things.",
"First I’ll start by stating that the below is a massive simplification of 2.4Ghz. \n\nImagine you have a long lawn that is the available 2.4Ghz channel space. Then imagine that you can put different kinds of watering devices on it to be wireless devices like routers, Bluetooth speakers/headphones, microwaves (yes they count), ..etc. then imagine that there was a straight line painted on the lawn and marks on the line that told you where each type of item could be placed, with each type of item only being able to be placed in certain locations indicating channels. \n\nNow with the above in mind a 2.4Ghz wireless router would be like an oscillating fan sprinkler (like the ones kids jump through in summer). If placed far enough apart they will not overlap. But the reason the channel can be changed to something other than 1,6,11 is that they can start to interfere with each other if a lot are placed in the same place on the line. The RF energy has a similar pattern to the water out of the sprinkler, losing some power at the edges. So because of the energy lossy at the edges (ie the water pattern) sometimes one if the other channel is actually better than 1,6,11 this is the case in dense areas like apartments. \n\n\nMore details below (might be more than ELI5):\n\nTaking this further, things like Bluetooth would be a hose with a spray head attached pointing in a single direction that can be in one of 79 locations on the line (yes, it’s actually like that). A Microwave would be a small rotating sprinkler. \n\nThere are even more items that can be on the line due to it being open by the FCC, it is called the ISM band (Industrial Scientific Medical)",
"Wow, it doesn't look like anyone has the answer!\n\nOk here it is...\n\nWhen the Wifi standard was first developed, it was very common for analogue transmitters to be used in the 2.4ghz range. (Remember cordless phones?) \n\nThose devices didn't operate on a licenced standard, so they could occupy any space within the typical 2.4 GHz range used by wifi. If we had only 3 hard channels, that would become more of a problem. \n\nThey added the extra channel options so that wifi signals could be optimally spaced around these devices, creating more options for avoiding the interference. Having the extra channels allowed us to find that nice 22mhz window in all that noise.",
"Just to clarify, modems don’t use these channels, WiFi access points and WiFi routers do. Modems might have a WiFi router built in, but that is technically different than the modem part.",
"One thing to keep in mind is that your devices also have to SEND data as well, so increasing the power at the Access Point only helps half the conversation. It is better have more lower powered mesh APs, as they are closer to the devices and are less likely to penetrate the signal through exterior walls, which in turn causes \"channel confusion\" in the surrounding Access Points. Also, make sure to set your access points to pick a channel automatically in crowded areas, as there is no such thing as owning (by overpowering) a channel. All you are going to do is cause retransmits on your own signal!",
"maybe cause wifi started off as 20mhz wide, later 40mhz, 80mhz etc. \ni live in a nyc apt building seeing dozens of wifi ssid's and while \nsome use channels between 1,6,11 - i doubt it has any real impact, \nso don't lose sleep over it and try to use 5ghz as much as possible.",
"I’ll add here that modems (as they’re used in the Internet access sense) are not WiFi devices (however, WiFi must necessarily have modulation and demodulation as part of the signal path). \n\nThe box your ISP provided that you’re referring to as a modem is actually several devices inside a single box: \n\nthe modem that connects to your ISP’s circuit allows interfacing between the ISP’s circuit and the router, as they have different physical layer connections. \n\nThe router operates at the network layer and its job is to move Internet traffic between your network and your ISP’s network. \n\nThe router then connects to an Ethernet switch, which is the foundation of your local area network, or LAN. In addition to a couple of internal ports for the router and the access point (more on that in a second), it also usually has a handful of external ports to connect various network devices. \n\nThen you have your Wi-Fi Access Point - this acts as a bridge that translates the data link layer between Wi-Fi and Ethernet. In a wireless network, the “physical” layer consists of radio waves (I know, they don’t seem very physical, but physics play a huge part here). \n\nNetworking is generally referred to in “layers” like a burrito. A theoretical model is the ISO model, which is 7 layers. The TCP/IP model is more practical and consists of 4 layers. Each layer fits inside the data payload of the layer below it. \n\nThe Physical Layer (1) consists of bits - 1s and 0s. This can be electrical signals on a wire, electromagnetic radio waves (wireless), or electromagnetic pulses of light (optical). This could even be smoke signals or acoustic waves if you got crazy enough. This is the tortilla - it holds the burrito together. \n\nThe Data Link Layer (2) adds structure to those 1s and 0s by defining how a link carries data. This can be Ethernet, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, or a variety of other ways of transporting data. \n\nlayers 1/2 in the ISO model correspond to the single Network Access layer in the TCP/IP model. \n\nThe Network layer (3) is where interesting stuff starts to happen - this defines specific ways devices on the network talk to each other. This is where IP lives. TCP/IP calls this the Internet Layer. \n\nlayers 4-7 deal with the actual user data being sent over the network. This is stuff like HTTP and all the other stuff you do on the internet. TCP/IP model calls this the Application Layer. \n\nSo your internet traffic operates at layer 3, and between you and the server, it goes over a whole variety of layer 1 and layer 2 connections to get there.",
"if everyone only used 1,6 and 11, then the whole spectrum of 1,6,11 will be occupied by all access points.\n\nnow lets say the APs are spread out between all channels 1-11, then you have a higher chance of having some non busy spectrum for example in channel 1.\n\nremember, APs take turn talking, so lets say you have an unoccupied piece of channel one, you have full use of this piece of bandwidth since you don't have to share it. this can lead to an overall greater speed and bandwidth.",
"When 2.4Ghz came out there was hardly any interference from other wifi. Most was from phones or other devices like baby monitors. Having the option to change all the channels seemed to make sense.\n\nA very powerful signal will cause interference across channels. You might think the issue is cross channel interference when it’s just the new baby monitor the couple installed 3 doors down, or someone like me who buys a router that can boost the wifi power to much higher than it should go.\n\nI get wifi down the block, my neighbours undoubtedly do not 😬.",
"Good to see my poorly answered question is still relevant:\n\n_URL_0_",
"Along with other technical answers you have to remember the overlap interference only really matters when you have many APs close together. Channel separation only really comes into play in an AP dense area as they're all essentially trying to jam each other. There is nothing 'wrong' with using the other channels, especially if your AP is the 'loudest' in the area. If youre the only AP in the transmitting area, pick whatever channel you want. You might find a particular frequency works better than another for your environment. Also having more separation doesnt meant youll have more bandwidth than normal. It just means Alices youtube stream isnt trying to yell over Bobs torrent stream to get the next packet from the AP.",
"because bandwith. higher bandwidth router signals take up more channels but dont have as much range, and vice versa.",
"I believe it has to do with WiFi using a spectrum band that is known as ISM, or \"Industrial, Scientific, and Medicine\". It is unlicensed so it costs no money to use it (unlike frequencies for Cellular use for band example). The caveat is that it limits significantly the power you can transmit, an if you chose to use it then you must be ok to the presence of other users there (since it's unlicensed). Basically the FCC left these bands for users to behave nice - you can use it for certain applications that don't need to send data very far, or for research, but act nicely; don't try to overpower anyone else nearby and don't whine if someone interferes with your signal within reason. \n\nThese rules were written before WiFi ever existed, and wifi operators started using these frequencies too; they're so prevalent now that the band is occupied heavily and you experience interference.",
"The real answer is that the ISM band where wifi operates existed long before wifi existed. The band was split into narrow channels suitable for the various equipment used in it at the time. Wifi needed wider channels. \n\nWifi channel 6 is centered on ISM channel 6, but occupies ISM channels 4 through 8. The three wifi channels fully occupy the US ISM band.\n\nDifferent countries have different ISM bands. The channels line up across countries, but the top and bottom channels are not the same. The wifi scheme in these other countries centers on different channels, with the intention of fully using the available band. \n\nThe final piece of the puzzle is that manufacturers want to produce one device to serve multiple markets. Which means they have to be able to operate on that market's scheme.",
"\nA modem is a device that converts analog signals to digital, and vice versa. APs are not modems. Switches are not modems. Routers are not modems. Hubs are not modems. Not all Router APs that have coax are modems. Sorry if I come of a dick but stop saying that.\n\nOp your analysis is essentially correct, the extra channels exist for 2 cases. One, you live isolated and can use wider bandwidth (20MHz/40MHz/80MHz/160MHz). The other case is for countries where some of the spectrum is already used. The channels available in other countries vary. For legal reasons, APs have different firmwares in other countries to avoid causing interference on gov spectrum. Japan is the only country with Channel 12 and only for 802.12b. You can use custom firmware to use illegal channels if you are isolated enough to not cause issues. In the US you can broadcast 200ft on gov bands if you want.",
"Because if you don't live next to people you might actually want to use a different channel. Contrary to popular belief 1, 6 , and 11 aren't always best depending on the firmware. Also you can not saying you should but if you really have network congestion problems flashing custom firmware and using channel 13 will help. Also you can overdrive your antenna output if your really trying to overpower other WiFi APs. Your best bet is to use 5ghz. The best piece of technology for WiFi networks is a system that automatically detects load on channels and changes on the fly but it's usually only in high end business grade stuff.",
"From my flat in a European city, I can see about 70 WiFi networks. During business hours, WiFi on my ISP-issued router (on channel 6) slows to a crawl or stops working entirely at any sort of distance from my Router/AP. The vast majority of those WiFi networks are operating on channels 1, 6, and 11. I wonder if the interference from use of adjacent channels would be a bigger problem than is the number of APs trying to use the same three channels. \n\nBTW, my problem was solved by getting a high-end router/AP that I configured in AP mode to use channel 13 for 2.4, and a DFS channels on 5ghz. Netgear Nighthawk 7800.",
"TL:DR My assumption is, it's because of different countries and companies have business or government regulations on frequencies that can be used. \n\nI'm going to take a crack at giving you an explanation based on my own experience with electronics and talking with a friend (Recently Deceased) who used to work at a place studying broken WIFI routers due to a claim they were interfering with other signals they shouldn't have and causing trouble with other signals. I cannot say how accurate my statements are, as I have no sources, TL:DR is my best simple answer.\n\nIf my understanding is correct, typically the only reason different WIFI channels are blocked is not because of the usage of the device, but the countries restrictions on what channels can be used. Certain frequencies are purchased for the sake of airline travel, military, etc. I used to work on some large equipment that the story from my teacher is that we had to install different metal plating AFTER the machines were put into service as new regulations had been put in place to ensure the frequencies the machine used, or in our case were simply generated by humming of motors inside (Thus the metal plates to block the hum). This is so our machine did not generate frequencies the human ear cannot hear, but may travel a long distance and interfere with frequencies being used by aircraft or the military. Even though these machines were not related to military or flight at all.\n\nSorry, I didn't see a marked answer, so this is my best explanation I would give.",
"So there are a few reasons that they don't. \n\nthe manufactures produce the equipment for all over the world. the FCC dictates that equipment in the US can only use channels 1-11, but some are different and may use more or less channels ( i know there a few places that use channels 1-13). technical channels 1-5-9 are also non-overlapping but there isn't really a reason to go that route since you then have 2 channels that are not accounted for in the end anyway. It's also easier to hard code what channels are not allowed and leave the rest in (although this isn't really a good excuse) \n\na much better reason, is that the 2.4Ghz is known as the ISM band, and it's open for any device to use (not just Wi-Fi radios). it's possible that there is something that is causing interference and you have to adjust the bands. Like I said above, channels only need to have 2 channels on either side open to be non-overlapping, and in some builds I've had to use a different layout. it's rare, but in a hospital or lab with equipment causing interference on a single channel, it's nice to have some play. \n\nBut I have seen a lot of equipment limit it to only 1-6-11, they are out there.\n\nSource: Wireless Network Engineer",
"Does anybody here know how I can put my PC on a channel with little traffic in my house? I don’t want my family’s stuff interfering with my PC\n\nEdit: I guess the better question is how can I check what the traffic for each channel looks like?",
"Typically co-channel interference is preferable to adjacent Channel interference. With a big exception.\n\nImagine you're at a big family reunion. I'm talking massive. Like Great Grandpa got back from the war and had 20 kids between 3 wives. And each of those kids and theirs kept up the tradition. Now what if they lived in a country with an awesome medical system that guaranteed a long life span and everyone showed up to the family reunion.\n\nNow the event planner(cause 804 people goddamn) came up with 3 incredibly long tables. And to keep things organized each table had 1 golden token. Whoever held the golden token could talk 1 thing and could take as long as they needed.\n\n-This is how WiFi routers handle co-channel interference. Any router within range(above -80db signal strength) and on the same channel would recognize each other and pass a token to decide who is talking.\n\nFor most it was fine they would get the token and would say rather mundane things like,\"pass the salt\". But Great Grandpa that glorious mothertrucker would share his war stories and everyone else would be stuck until he was done or forget what he was talking about.\n\n- So not only do you have a whole lot of people waiting to talk but Grandpa takes extra time when it's his turn. When you have an apartment complex with everyone on those same channels, everyone ends up waiting. Since 2.4ghz is the oldest standard, you could have computers upto 20 years old trying to use the same channels and they take a long time when it's their turn.\n\nNow some people get a little impatient and get up and stand between the tables to hold their own conversations. It makes it a little noisier but it speeds up conversation at the main tables and people can catch up.\n\n-This is were adjacent channels are useful. It makes it a little noisier as they're talking over the other channels but it allows the different routers put more tokens in play. It makes the error correction have to work a little harder but data is passed faster.\n\nNow if too many people get up it descends into chaos and nobody can hear anyone. So your busy body aunty starts going to these little groups and tells them to sit down. Now you figure instead of sitting at the same table as Grandpa you'll swap tables.\n\n-You're experiencing bad WiFi because everyone has set custom channels so you call your ISP. The ISP sends out a Tech and they factory reset your router and it defaults back to 1,6, or 11. They tell you next time it gets slow to reboot it again. This forces your router to jump to the least congested of 1,6, or 11.\n\nIt's getting a little late and the bar opens up so all the 20-30 somethings jump over there. There's a whole lot of small tables and conversations are going smooth.\n\n-5ghz has now come into play. Whole lot more channels and the devices aren't nearly as old. Less congestion and better bandwidth.\n\nNow an alternative to jumping channels would be what I call the \"good neighbor policy\". Every router in an apartment complex cuts their transmission strength to 65%. This way the routers don't see as many networks and reduces the number that share the token. The problem with this is twofold. 1. Everyone has to be in on this, so all the ISPs and customers on site have to agree to reduce their signal strength. 2. Large apartment buildings have a lot of concrete. Concrete kills WiFi, and if you're reducing your transmission strength, you're increasing the likelihood of dead spots in your WiFi.\n\nWhen it comes to WiFi there's no winning."
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4hhzri | why do huge corporate chains have different policies depending on the location of their stores? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4hhzri/eli5_why_do_huge_corporate_chains_have_different/ | {
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"Ex-retail worker here.\n\nIt depends on where the location is. If there's a particularly high amount of theft, they might not allow you to return stuff without a reciept. On the employees side, they might not allow men to have beards if they're in an area where that might be seen poorly by customers.\n\nFor fast food places, most of them aren't owned by corporate, so they'll have different policies because they have different owners. When something isn't corporate, the only things that have to be the same are names, logos, and (sometimes) the menu, but even that isn't set in stone. McDonald's in India don't serve beef, for example, since beef won't sell very well in India.\n\nOn top of all of that, local laws may be different depending on the location. There are tons of different factors that lead to different store policies.",
"There's a lot of different reasons. \n\nSome stores in large chains are in areas where there's a much greater chance of fraud or theft, for example. So if those stores are stung more often by schemes where people have tried to exchange counterfeit cash for change at a specific location, they'll disallow cash changing at that one store.\n\nThere are other contributors for other business elements like store hours or wages. These could be caused by different reasons like different local tax laws that make it less profitable to have certain policies than others, municipal or state bylaws around labour and hours that prevent opening on Sunday, and other exceptions. ",
"Sometimes store policies have to reflect the reality of their location, rather than a consistent corporate policy. That location probably had some issues with non-sales cash movement and had to enact a store policy."
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dsq4ct | what is 16s rrna sequencing and how does it work? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dsq4ct/eli5_what_is_16s_rrna_sequencing_and_how_does_it/ | {
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"You're missing a word. You don't sequence 16S rRNA, you sequence the gene coding for the 16S rRNA. \n\nTypically it refers to a type of fingerprinting of bacteria. You target two regions of the 16S rRNA gene that are highly conserved (i.e., the same between all bacteria) and amplify the region between them. The size of that region is characteristic of certain species of bacteria."
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7za3u5 | what are we really seeing when we look at an image of an atom? aren't the electrons, relatively speaking, really distant from the nucleus? how can they both show up in the same picture? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7za3u5/eli5_what_are_we_really_seeing_when_we_look_at_an/ | {
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"We can never, ever see a \"picture\" in the common sense of a picture with light of an atom, since the wavelength of light is (for non-super-high energy light that would completly fck with everything we would want to observe) limited to around ~200nm, whereas an Atom is in the range of 0.01nm - 0.1nm. So light is **waay** too big to observe anything like that. \n\nEverything we see from individual atoms are nice visual *representations* of what we observe through different means (theoretical or experimental) of properties of atoms.\n\nTl;dr: light's resolution is too bad to show atoms."
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14ehfb | why is the music played when i am on hold/in an elevator so....unique? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/14ehfb/eli5_why_is_the_music_played_when_i_am_on_holdin/ | {
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"The music in both instances is designed to calm you. ",
"The music is designed to distract you.\n\nTheir 'uniqueness' stems from several conditions hold music needs to fulfill: namely, that it **must be easily looped, easily forgettable, and unobtrusive.**\n\nHold music must be easily looped, because certain call centers run at shameful efficiencies and work with call backlogs of possibly hours. You want a song that has neither a clear beginning nor a clear end, so that you can play the same bit over and over again. The music needs to be clear of any noticeable parts, such as solos or beat breakdowns, so that you won't notice you're listening to the same tune over and over again. This is why most hold music is jazz. The 12-bar blues, or indeed any kind of blues, is an infinitely repeatable chord progression that is innately recognized and leaves room for sizable musical expansions. It is also long enough that, if you're not listening intently, you can easily lose where in the music you are. As a result, smooth jazz is most often the kind of music you find on hold or in an elevator.\n\nSecondly, the music must be easily forgettable and uninteresting. This returns to the easily looped condition. If there is a blazing sax solo in the middle of the music, you won't easily forget it and you'll be sure to hear it in the music's next iteration. Within several repetitions you'll find yourself immensely irritated by the sax solo, and you will hang up the phone—*the exact opposite of what hold music should make you do*. If you ever hear a sax solo while you're waiting on hold, you have my permission to find the composer of that music and punch him right in his goddamn mouth.\n\nLastly, the music has to be unobtrusive. This is the condition that, by and large, excludes rock. Companies know that you're likely to put the phone on speaker and set it down someplace while you wait, and out of common courtesy, generally will avoid giving you music that you have to actively ignore. The same applies to music choice in a fancy restaurant. If you have to talk over the music, they're doing it wrong. \n\nBy some terrible, terrible cosmic coincidence, humanity has by and large found that smooth jazz fits these criteria best, and thus it is what you generally will hear while a company wants you to wait for them.\n\nI hope this helped.",
"Partially because of one of its requirements that falafax didn't mention: It must be cheap. Playing back recorded, copyrighted music in public requires payment of a small amount of money back to the copyright holder. For elevator music, this could get expensive and be painful to manage. In the past, there was a company called [Muzak](_URL_0_) who provided their own music to companies to use, and they provided fairly low rates. \n \nTheir music had other attributes as well, which you can read about in falafax's response or in the Wikipedia article. Much of the hold/elevator music today still has those same attributes, although I don't think much comes from Muzak any more. They are almost defunct. "
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6bb9bt | why do snails/slugs melt when you put salt on them? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6bb9bt/eli5_why_do_snailsslugs_melt_when_you_put_salt_on/ | {
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"They are in a hypertonic solution and then osmosis is occurring to balance the salt concentration inside and outside the slug. The cells basically deflate to nothing and die because of the concentration imbalance can never be corrected before the slug dies.",
"Salt sucks water out of things. Snails / slugs are like bags of water with all there insides floating around. When you put salt, it sucks out the water and all the insides get mushed together",
"ELI15: This process is osmosis. Basically the cells of the slug contain a salt water solution, and pouring salt on the snail will raise the concentration of the salt water outside of the cells. Cell membranes are a semi-permiable membrane, which means only water can cross it. The concentrations of the inside and outside solutions want to be the same, so water will passively leave the cell, diluting the outside solution, while the inside of the cell loses water and shrinks. ",
"Can I ask a follow up question? Do snails/slugs know not to move over salt? for example if I was to create a circle out of salt and put a snail in the middle, would it act like a prison?"
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2noy1u | why can't youtube show me the next video in a series? | Whenever I'm watching something on YouTube that has multiple parts, it seems to suggest on the side every related episode except the next one. Is there any reason to this and if so, could it be fixed? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2noy1u/eli5why_cant_youtube_show_me_the_next_video_in_a/ | {
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"Because YouTube does not put movies into a Playlist by default. So the suggested titles are random. YouTube has a Playlist option but the uploader has to use it and you would have to go to the channels page to find it "
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68990w | why do governments put in some effort to limit the use of the internet? | It's just...
Idk if it's for "keeping the people in check" shouldn't they just be trying to be better at their propaganda? With all these blocks/censorship aren't they just being assholes? Has anyone ever explained a convincing benefit? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/68990w/eli5_why_do_governments_put_in_some_effort_to/ | {
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"When I discovered that you could communicate with someone so far away, with such different culture and knowledge, I knew that would be a powerful learning tool. So does the government.\n\n\nIf you keep your people inside your country, in all the ways, you'll block their knowledge gain and their possible rebellious behavior.\n\n\nKeeping the internet tight also the government to refine what their people can find, so there is further manipulation, maybe in a more subtler way. ",
"If you control the information that gets out, you can, to a limited extent, control popular opinion. If all people hear is about all this bad stuff the opposition is doing, then public opinion will be steered towards disliking them. Obviously it doesn't work 100% of the time, but it can to some extent.\n\nAlso, you can limit communication between those who oppose you, and impede them from gaining more followers. If your opponent doesn't have a good way to spread their information, fewer people will support them.",
"There's also a financial angle. ISPs want to control what you have access to so they can force you to pay money for stuff you want. They do this by lobbying bills in the government to change what they're allowed to control.\n\nGoogle Ajit Pai, and Ma Bell Anti Trust for some good reading. "
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6gscuq | why do spoons make lightning when microwaved? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6gscuq/eli5_why_do_spoons_make_lightning_when_microwaved/ | {
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"Microwaves are a high energy form of radiation. \n\n\n\nFoods are good insulators, so they absorb the energy and it's converted to heat. Metals are conductors. While metals are in the microwave they essentially reflect the energy which causes a build up of electrons over time, which then gets released as a arc.",
"ELI5:\nSo you put food in the microwave. It gets warm and sometimes melts. That's because inside those foods they have little jiggly bonds which wiggle more when microwaved. This heats the food up.\n\nWhen metals are put in the microwave, they don't have those little jiggly bonds. When it is warmed up, there is nothing to wiggle so it sends all the energy elsewhere as electricity.\n\nAnother example would be that in the food, they have those bonds. Those bonds are like two friends playing catch throwing the ball back and forth. When you put energy in you can throw the ball harder, but there is someone to catch it still. This warms the food up.\n\nWhen you have a metal, it's like a dozen people all throwing a ball in the air and catching it themselves. The more energy you put in, eventually someone throws the ball and doesn't catch it and the ball goes elsewhere. \n\nKeep in mind these are both oversimplifications. "
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wzaai | why is some content available in the us only? | I know the providers have a licensing agreement that they can only distribute the content in a specific region. But why? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/wzaai/eli5_why_is_some_content_available_in_the_us_only/ | {
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"It's a holdover from Pre-Internet days, basically. Studio2 makes a movie but can't afford to distribute it in Europe (or just doesn't want to pay for the various localizations). Studio3 and Studio4 both operate in Europe and have no problem doing the legwork. Studio2 and Studio3 sign an exclusive contract (where Studio3 gets a percentage of the profits) so that if, two years later, Studio4 says they can do it for half of what Studio3 does it, Studio2 doesn't jump ship.\n\nHowever, when Studio2 puts it on the Internet for everyone to enjoy, Studio3 feels that their profit share is threatened and mentions their contract and how Studio3 has exclusive rights of distribution in Europe. So.. Europe can't watch it on Studio2's various websites.\n\nThese contracts are usually on a per-movie deal, not a per-production-year deal. Meaning Studio3 may have the rights to ActionMovie and DramaMovie, but Studio4 has the rights to ComedyMovie and RomanticMovie."
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3xlfvb | why are mother's ok with when their son gets a girlfriend but father's are not ok with when their daughter gets a boyfriend? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3xlfvb/eli5why_are_mothers_ok_with_when_their_son_gets_a/ | {
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"Thousands of years worth of male-dominated social norms have made it \"ok\" for a boy to begin exploring his sexuality, but \"not ok\" for a girl to begin doing the same. For millennia a girl's only worth was as a wife, and it was important to protect her virginity because our stupid goat-herder ancestors thought of the hymen as some sort of magical freshness seal. In the modern era that old belief has translated into an irrational need by some men to \"protect\" their daughters from the depredations of her suitors.",
"Fathers remember what it was like to be teenage boys. They remember being selfish, conniving, horny, totally stupid and almost dying and/or killing other people through their own idiocy several times, memories they can barely tolerate without cringing in shame and remorse.\n\nMothers don't remember being teenage boys.",
"\n\nThe family of the girl will have to take care of her while she's having it and raise the kid should the boy bail out. \n\nThere are cases of moms denying their baby too but usually, the pressure is on her parent's choice to keep it before the boy's parents.\n\n"
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1oh6tz | what constitutes as a "preexisting" condition under obamacare? | I have never had an healthy issues before but have found I developed an elbow problem. The pain is starting to make me seriously consider seeing a doctor. But if it is going to mess with my insurance that I have to get with Obamacare then should I just wait it out until Obamacare kicks in (I think January)? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1oh6tz/eli5_what_constitutes_as_a_preexisting_condition/ | {
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"If you buy an insurance policy on one of the state exchanges or get one through expanded medicaid, then that coverage will start on January 1.\n\nOtherwise, the provisions of \"Obamacare\" that deal with pre-existing conditions are already in effect. So you won't be made ineligible for insurance because you seek treatment now, which you absolutely should.\n\nEdit: Because you asked, pre-existing conditions **were** really at the discretion of the health insurance company, and was virtually anything from having terminal cancer to just being a woman. And their penalty could be anything arbitrarily increased premiums to denial of coverage. (Emphasis on \"were\" because the Affordable Care Act has eliminated these practices)."
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1wwcpe | how come i hear so many people complaining about youtube's video player, but i haven't had an issue streaming videos? | Maybe as a bit of background, I live in the U.S., so I don't know that if that has anything to do with it or not, but I know that a ton of people have issues with YouTube videos buffering, but I haven't had a problem, both on my laptop or on my iPad and iPhone. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1wwcpe/eli5_how_come_i_hear_so_many_people_complaining/ | {
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"Because you are (like the majority of users) not experiencing any problems.\n\nThis is a case of the people who are having issues screaming at the top of their lungs, and the rest not bothering to say anything because they are too busy watching videos.",
"Also people sometimes don't get the difference between video player issues and internet connection issues."
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bse1a3 | what would happen if the government couldn't identify a person? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bse1a3/eli5_what_would_happen_if_the_government_couldnt/ | {
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"\nTLDR - everyone would probably just treat him like he was homeless. \n\n\nWell, unless it was an emergency the hospital wouldn't treat him because he doesn't have medical insurance. They'd probably assume he was a homeless person, and leave him to wander their waiting room until he got too disruptive. \n\nIf he got disruptive, the police would get a call, and when he told them his \"from another world\" story they'd probably think the same thing and escort him out of the hospital and leave him to fend for himself.",
"This is actually not that big of a deal. The problem is not that he can't be identified, but rather that he doesn't have any identification documents. There are lots of homeless people, or people in poor rural areas, who do not have documents. \n\nHospitals frequently have to deal with homeless people or unconscious patients. In an ER, they get treated just like everyone else. Outside of an emergency situation, however, a hospital will often refuse to treat someone who can't provide identification. The big problem is that they don't trust that they will get paid. Many doctors will refuse to see an unidentified non-emergency patient, out of concern for insurance fraud or people looking for drugs.\n\nAs for the police and the rest of the government, it's not that unusual. If you tell a cop your name is John Smith, they will record your name as John Smith until they find some evidence to the contrary. There is no single government database that contains everyone's personal information. Depending on the circumstances they might suspect human trafficking or illegal immigration, but let's face it... If you are white and you speak American English, the cops aren't going to suspect you of being an immigrant. Having no identification is suspicious, but it is not actually a crime. The police frequently come in contact with people who have no identification (the homeless, the dead, intoxicated people, etc)"
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7xtu5g | how does regenerative breaking work? wouldn't you have to expend energy to stop a vehicle? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7xtu5g/eli5_how_does_regenerative_breaking_work_wouldnt/ | {
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" > How does regenerative breaking work? Wouldn't you have to expend energy to stop a vehicle?\n\nNo, you are reclaiming the energy used to accelerate the vehicle. Or, from a different reference frame, you are taking energy from the vehicle to accelerate the Earth slightly.",
"Normally brakes convert the energy of the forward motion of the car into heat. (Friction between the wheels and the brake pads).\n\nRegenerative braking converts it back into electricity instead by engaging a generator that adds load to the wheels. This slows the car down while producing electricity. ",
"The key to this answer is following where the energy is going in a car.\n\nWhen your car is moving, the engine is providing energy to spin an axle. That axle is attached to the wheels, which push on the ground and move the car. Without regenerative breaking, when you press the brake it pushes a stationary block against part of the spinning wheel and the friction between the two steals the rotational energy of the wheel. Energy has to go somewhere, and in this case it's just wasted and transformed into heat. (Unrelated: [Friction Welding](_URL_0_) works on a very similar principle, but cars are designed not to get hot enough for it to happen.) \n\nIf you have regenerative braking in your car, the car still pushes a block onto part of the wheel to slow it down with friction, but it also steals energy in another way. A little background, when a magnet is spinning in a coil of metal it generates an electric current in the metal. When you brake with regenerative braking, the axle's rotation gets connected to another axle with some magnets in a coil. As the car slows down from the friction loss of energy, it generates an electric current in the coil. In this case the rotational energy of the wheel gets turned into both heat energy (from the conventional brake) and electric energy (from the magnet/coil). It's called \"regenerative\" because this electrical energy usually gets channeled to recharge the car's battery (and it's usually put into hybrid vehicles that already have electric motors to harness for this purpose)\n\n > Wouldn't you have to expend energy to stop a vehicle?\n\nWell, that sorta depends on what you mean by \"expend\" and how picky you want to be about the energy balance.\n\nOn the one hand, I'll say **yes** because from a very technicality-minded perspective you can't move the brake pad without putting a certain amount of energy into it. The thing is that that energy comes pretty much exclusively from you putting your foot down on the brake pedal. \n\nOn the other hand, I think **no** is the answer to the question I think you meant. The car already has kinetic energy by the time you start braking, your engine/motor put it there. To brake the car you only need to turn that energy into a different form of energy. You're almost definitely going to *waste* (which could be a synonym for \"expend\") that energy, but it doesn't take any more energy added to turn rotational energy into heat through friction.\n\nI think that maybe this last part indicates you think that braking tries to reverse the axle's rotation, which definitely would require energy input. But that's not how brakes work."
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368q50 | how is the federal reserve conspiracy debunked? | So my understanding of the federal reserve conspiracy is that the federal reserve buys government securities and charges the government interest on these securities. Then at the end of the year the treasury takes back this interest with 6% of it remaining for the profits of the shareholders, therefore these shareholders are able to profit from national debt. How is this not true? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/368q50/eli5_how_is_the_federal_reserve_conspiracy/ | {
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"The Federal Reserve doesn't have shareholders. All of it's money is from the government and all of it's money belongs to the government.\n\nMyth: Busted.\n\nAlso, that is not even close to the function of the Federal Reserve. One of it's jobs it is to buy US bonds back from regular US bondholders - that's how the government 'pays back' debt, however."
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3noe8u | american politics, for english people | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3noe8u/eli5_american_politics_for_english_people/ | {
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"Left is Liberal or Democratic.\nRight is Conservative or Republican.\n\nTo give you the shortest most stereotypical view ...\n\nLeft wing politics favors the group. Hippies. Big, bleeding hearts. They want less money for the rich to give it to the poor. They like taxes, and they like to invest this tax money into education and programs that help the needy. They want hand-outs .. apparently. (just fyi, more educated people have a tendency to be liberal / left)\n\nRight wing politics favors the individual. No taxes -- you worked for it, you keep it. Money goes to strong military. Rich, white men and big corporation control. If you're poor, it's your fault. Get a job. They want less government regulation, less control.\n\nThe voting system? If you're 18 and you have your voters card, you can vote via mail or booth. Everyone that is a legal American citizen that does not have a criminal record is allowed to vote.",
"What's the difference between the House of Representatives and Congress? How much input does Her Majesty have?",
"With respect to the education system, that is largely left up to the individual state governments to decide what educational standards / curriculum they want to set. Some states have signed on to a 'Common Core' program which aims to unify educational standards and curricula for students across many states (but not all states). \n\nThe quick break down on how schooling works is that you attend an elementary school from around ages 5 to 11, then you may attend a middle school for a couple of years from around ages 12-13, and then you attend high school for usually 4 years around the ages 14-18. College/university is optional after that and normally requires 2 years of study for an associate's degree or 4 years for a bachelor's degree. Masters degrees take another 1-2 years and PhDs or other professional degrees may take longer.\n\nThe US has a so-called 'two-party system' meaning that, for all intents and purposes, there are only two political parties that are worth discussing (i.e. which have the possibility of gaining political power): the Republican party (aka the 'GOP') and the Democratic party.\n\nThe Republican party is generally considered to be a right-wing conservative party. Whether the Republican party meets the technical definition of a 'conservative' party is up for debate since some of the party platforms put forward by Republican candidates don't necessarily always follow traditional conservative principles. In general though, the Republican party tends to have a voter base that is older, wealthier and more fundamentally religious. Republicans campaign for lower taxes, less government spending and 'smaller' government (less government services) as well as increased military spending and more privatization.\n\nThe Democratic party is often considered a liberal or progressive party. Compared to the US Republican party, it is definitely more left-leaning, however compared to parties in other democratic countries like Canada, the Democratic party would likely be considered center-right leaning. In case you don't know, President Obama represents the Democratic party. Democrats generally campaign for improvements to government services and health care / insurance programs, improvements to educational standards, improvements to infrastructure, reductions in military spending, as well as lowering taxes for the poor while raising taxes for the rich and large corporations. Compared to Republican voters, Democratic voters are usually younger, less wealthy, more educated, and more progressive in attitudes toward things like acceptance of gay marriage.\n\n",
"On the Federal level, Americans vote for representatives in the Senate, and the Congress. Americans also publicly vote for the President of the USA, but final votes are controlled by the College Of Electorates. The Congress (House of Representatives) and the Senate work together to draft and pass Federal legislation. It is the President's job to carry out the logistics needed to adequately enforce the legislation passed by the Senate and the Congress. \n\nThe President is also the chief commander of the federal military. Considering America's nuclear arsenal, this makes him arguably the most powerful individual on the planet. The president is also automatically promoted to the head of his respective political party. \n\nThe Supreme Court of the final go-to in regards to court rulings. They are elected into office by the Congress and Senate, sponsored by the President. They are appointed for life, or retirement. They have the power to rule legislation as unconstitutional. This is often done on a situation-by-situation basis. \n\nIn regards to Voting, Americans hopefully vote on a state level for the Senate and Congress members who will advocate their ideals. Many Americans do not or cannot vote. Likewise, politicians are free to do as they wish while in office. The potential for abuse is obvious. \n\nThe left wing in America is commonly controlled by the Democratic Party. They advocate social progression, and are usually liberal in regards to government powers. Higher taxes, especially for the wealthy, are part of their public agenda. They also advocates gun ownership control, gay marriage, and thankfully, clean energy agendas. \n\nThe right wing in America is the conservative public party. Despite being portrayed as socially liberal (IE: Willing to liberally use the government to enforce societal standards), they tend to be economically conservative. They often oppose Gay Marriage legislation, Tax increases, and Gun Ownership Control. \n\n***If the preceding wasn't subjective, this part is.***\n\nNeither party is objectively better than the other. Both are full of morally bankrupt crooks that need to be hanged for treason. Corruption is just as commonplace in American politics as it is anywhere else in the world. Likewise, both parties often suit the interests of various corporations instead of the American public. "
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exewb8 | how do pain relief sprays or ointments that are used externally relieve pain inside the body? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/exewb8/eli5_how_do_pain_relief_sprays_or_ointments_that/ | {
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"Source: local anaesthetic works by moving to the inside of the cell then binding to the 'sodium channel' and so blocking the influx of sodium ions. This block stops nerve conductance and prevents further signals reaching the brain (C).\n_URL_0_"
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1rpagq | when explaining the big bang theory (scientific theory not the show) how come scientists fail to explain how the ball of gas and matter got there in the first place to produce the big bang? | So, and correct me if I'm wrong, basically the big bang theory states that there was nothing but a ball of gas that exploded and created space and life as we know it. But it doesn't account for the creation of the ball of gas. Why are scientists so comfortable with this explanation when it clearly leaves out a big issue!
And incidentally if anyone can explain the existence of the big ball of gas I'd love to know! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1rpagq/eli5_when_explaining_the_big_bang_theory/ | {
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"Because it's a theory on the initial expansion and afterwards. It's not a theory on what happened, if there was, beforehand. \n\nThe same how the Theory of Evolution is about how life changes and not how life was created in the first place.\n\nPlus there wouldn't have been a big ball of gas before the Big Bang anyway. There would have been a point, a singularity. ",
"_URL_0_\nI'm pretty sure that link is correct.(I'm on my phone) but the quick answer comes down to this. We don't know. Science is really only there to explain things. We can't know right now what came before the universe because we can't see anything but our universe. We have a working hypothesis of the start of the universe which was less a big ball of gas and more like a condensed point of space and time and stuff making material. This expanded into the universe we know today which contains spacetime and stuff. YouTube has a lot of great videos where people smarter than me explain it and if you are really interested pm me and I'll get you some links when I'm not on my mobile",
" > Why are scientists so comfortable with this explanation when it clearly leaves out a big issue!\n\nLet's say you come home and there's a huge birthday cake on the desk. Obviously you'd like to know where it came from, but you can still conclude there's a birthday cake there without ever knowing where it came from. ",
"I'm no physicist so bear with me. You need to remove the idea of a ball of gas exploding to fill the universe. It is the universe itself inflating, it isn't exploding into anything. It wasn't an explosion like you and I relate to. It's more like the rapid and massive expansion of pure energy, but there was no matter, no gas at all. It had to expand and cool a fair bit until the universe had cooled enough to allow for matter to come into existence from the converted energy. The first particles came about a few minutes after the initiation. Neutral stable atoms around 300,000 thousand of years later. \n\nNo one really knows what came before and it is an area of intense research with a number of theories. Nothing in the existing universe can precede the Big Bang so the conditions that set it off are outside our experience, outside time and space. \n\nSome think that the universe began as a quantum fluctuation that was able to last long enough for the process of inflation start. Once that process began there was no way for the fluctuation to annihilate itself and you end up with this runaway inflation of the universe. This comes from the understanding that spacetime is in constant state of fluctuation. There are virtual particle appearing and disappearing all around us. Although it is specuated that the [Higgs Field](_URL_0_) prevents this from reoccuring within our universe again. \n\nAnother is where a pair of 5 dimensional [branes](_URL_1_) collide with each other and produce a massive amount of energy which creates the trigger of the Big Bang.\n\nBear in mind I'm just typing down what I understand and I'm in no way a scientist. But I highly recommend you watch Nova: The Elegant Universe. It's made for people like me who are a bit stupid, but want to try and understand a little bit about why the universe is like it is and where it came from.\n\nEDIT: Corrected a mistake thankyou panzerkampfwagen\n\n ",
"Hang with me, because things get pretty weird. The early universe was so radically different from the universe as we know it today, it is hard to wrap our brains around it.\n\nThe Bang Bang is when,among other things, time began. Asking what was \"before\" literally makes no sense in the context of the theory. It is like asking what is north of the North Pole.\n\nIt is also when matter came into being. So there was no ball of gas... there was no nothing. Even in the early universe there was no gas. Everything had so much energy even atoms couldn't form. The subatomic particles were whizzing about too fast to form larger particles.\n\nAnd asking about a \"cause\" for the Big Bang is hard as well. As far as we know the universe is it. Maybe there is something more, but we can't sense or interact with it... because it would exist outside of the universe. We can make guesses about what it might be.\n\nScientists are not comfortable with this. They would love to know. But how do you examine \"before\" when there literally isn't a before. And how do you measure what is outside something that has no edge to be outside of. Thousands of people are working on exactly this. And whoever gets an answer to either, is guarantied a Noble prize."
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b71nr1 | what is a vertically integrated company? | And what is that opposed to... horizontally integrated? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b71nr1/eli5what_is_a_vertically_integrated_company/ | {
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"So, vertical integration is when one company controls multiple aspects involved in getting a product to market. On a small scale, consider this: a family owns a farm and grows their own wheat. They also have cows and chickens for butter, milk, and eggs. They take these products and bake them into bread themselves. They then drive the bread to their storefront and sell it directly to the customer. That family (business) is vertically integrated because they control the entire process.\n\nAn alternative would be a farmer growing/harvesting the ingredients and selling it to the baker who bakes the bread and sells it to a store who in turn sells to the consumer.",
"Vertical integration is where a company making a top level product also owns the operations that make all necessary components, supplies. Usually its to ensure favourable pricing/costs, ensure supply, better inventory management... there's lots of reasons. \n\nLets use a car company as an example. To make a car, you need engines, tires, stamped metal and plastic parts, glass, fluids. So you'd partner or enter into supply contracts with vendors that make those things. And in turn, those vendors would partner/contract with their suppliers for things like processed metal, rubber. And those vendors would contract with the raw ore, raw rubber/petrochemical suppliers who dig them out of the ground. \n\nA vertically integrated car manufacturer would not only own - as subsidiaries - the vendors that made the engines, tires, glass windows etc., but they'd also own the suppliers of the processed materials used to make them.. and possibly even as far as the companies that supply the raw materials. \n\nA case in point: [Ford's massive Dearborn plant in Detroit.](_URL_0_). Sometimes called the Rouge River Complex. This is where they make the F-150 pickup truck. But, see all those steel plants? See the Zug Island terminal (and more steel plants)? Those were all owned by Ford at one point. The steel plants here would feed all of the Ford automotive plants in Detroit and surrounding towns. Also, I think Ford even owned two great lake freighters which would do nothing but carry iron ore from Wisconsin to here. So Ford would never be bothered by a vendor's steelworkers strike, or a bad delivery of iron ore because they controlled all aspects of making the car from iron ore to finished product. A true vertically integrated car manufacturer would also own interests in rail companies (for shipping cars and raw materials), trucking and things like financing (helping to enable people to _afford_ their products). ",
"McDonalds for example. They produce nearly everything sold, ostensibly to ensure a consistent product. The exception is the Coca Cola products. Everything else from straws to potatoes are made by McDonalds. ",
"If you’ve ever seen Breaking Bad, the parallel businesses that Gus Fring operates explain vertical integration very well. Controlling production, processing, distribution, and sales all under the same umbrella. Basically you control as many elements of your supply chain as you can in order to reduce the costs. "
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33we6n | how are film makers able to shut off part of a busy city to film? | Such as the final scene in the first Captain America, etc. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/33we6n/eli5_how_are_film_makers_able_to_shut_off_part_of/ | {
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"http://www.filmsf.org/index.aspx?page=16"
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2j19ed | what are the differences between the branches of communism; leninism, marxism, trotskyism, etc? | Also, stuff like Stalinist and Maoist. Could someone summarize all these? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2j19ed/eli5what_are_the_differences_between_the_branches/ | {
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"This is a huge question, and not one that anyone is really capable of fully understanding. I'll try and give you a very basic understanding though...\n\n- Communism = ideological end goal of all revolutionary/leftist/\"communist\" movements. Classless, moneyless society where production is centralized and in the hands of the working class. Originally conceptualized as a vague idea by Marx and Engels and others in the First International. Some people confuse pre-capitalism with communism - this is not the same and is the failure of primitivists. Communism is a redistribution of wealth, capital and all the means of production away from the capitalists and to the workers.\n\n- Marxism = a critique and analysis of capitalism. It is entirely possible to be Marxist and non-revolutionary, although a lot of revolutionary Marxists will call you out on that. Basically the Marxist framework differs from other economists of his time in its analysis of history through the lens of class struggle, and application of Hegelian dialectics to labor and economics, known as dialectical materialism. Dialectical materialism is essentially a study of history through the reactions of social classes to large events... sort of. It's complex, I'd suggest a read-through of its wikipedia entry.\n\n- Leninism = Lenin had a lot of revolutionary ideas, but he is heralded most for his contribution to the revolutionary-consciousness building end of the movement. His vanguard party organization was hugely successful in Russia, attracting massive numbers to one Party. Opponents of his argue that some of this membership was forced/coerced and that the vanguard model fails because it places too much in the hands of an educated elite. He also applied Marx's term \"dictatorship of the proletariat\" which a lot of leftists like to toss around. Essentially its meaning is that the proletariat (working class) ought to have control of the political system before full communism can be established. Hence the soviet model of workers' councils and representation. He also contributed a lot to the criticism of the state and its role in enforcing the status quo and appealing to the desires of the capitalists. Read State and Revolution for more on that. \n\n- Stalinism = the typical scary autocratic \"communist state.\" Stalin implemented a governance strategy known as state socialism or wartime socialism using repression of opposition and free speech, state centralization, collectivization of industry and frequent purges of dissidents. This was all done in the name of eventually allowing the state to wither away, it's worth noting. It's also worth noting that a lot of the militarization of the state and repression of dissidence was fueled by massive Western/capitalist/imperialist attacks (ideological and physical) on the USSR at the time. Additionally, a lot of the numbers of deaths and disappearances attributed to Stalin originated in America in the 30s and 40s and have since been ruled inaccurate. At the same time, Stalinism was irrefutably to blame for a whole lot of repression and state-murder, but the most important political methodology of Stalin's was his organization of the state and his extension of Lenin's vanguard model. \n\n- Trotskyism = Put simply, counter-Stalinism. Trotsky was exiled from the Soviet Union and eventually assassinated as well. His major contribution to the communist theoretical body was the theory of permanent revolution, essentially the antithesis to Stalin's \"socialism in one country\" model. Permanent revolution holds that the only way to achieve world communism is to allow the revolution to spread unimpeded from nation to nation, the theory that a revolution in one nation would ignite revolutionary fervor worldwide, and that full scale working class revolution must be allowed to germinate. Trotsky established the Fourth International in 1938 in opposition to the Stalin-dominated Comintern. The Fourth International was designed to reestablish the working class as the focus of communist progression, and navigate the direction of the communist world away from USSR-style bureaucracy. His ideas failed, of course, and his legacy can now be found in small Trotskyist sects across the world as well as in a number of books. His history of the Russian Revolution is particularly good...\n\n- Maoism = I know the least about Mao, so someone else can please feel free to correct me on any errors I make. Maoism developed as a critique to Stalinism, but not one as damning as Trotskyism. Mao criticized Stalin's death toll and authoritarian rule of the USSR, as well as his bureaucratic rule of the party which Mao held disenfranchised the working class. He also outwardly criticized the USSR's turn towards imperialism, which is an especially ironic notion considering the state of China today... BUT Mao's largest contribution to China could be found in his concept of stages of development, essentially that you cannot move from rural/backwards to industrially centralized. There needs stages in between to facilitate the transition to eventual communism. He also advocated the people's militia, believing that a revolution required full participation of the masses. This last point lent itself very well to so-called third world revolutionaries, who embraced Maoism across Asia. \n\nSome other important terms:\n\n- M-L-M (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist) = Important notion as this dominates a lot of the current communist trend. A combination on the theories of Marx, Lenin, Mao, (some consider Stalin and others in this too) I don't know how to sum it up well, but there's lots of info available.\n\n- Revisionism = A very harsh accusation among communists. Essentially the idea of taking key elements out of theories and replacing them with others, altering a theory!\n\n- Reformism (not to be confused with revisionism) = the theory of achieving socialism/communism/something like it through small democratic changes. Anti-revolutionary. The governing theory of reform-seeking groups like the CPUSA, DemSocialists, etc. Also trade unions are to a degree reformist.\n\n- Reactionary (last of the 'three R's') = Essentially whoever's on the opposite end of revolution. Those who protect the status quo and are critical of revolutionary change or thought. \n\nHope that's helpful. Any other questions?",
"ELI13: Leninism, Trotskyism, Stalinism and Maosim are all variants of Marxism. Marxism is just one of several branches of communism. Communism grew out of early socialist thought. Libertarianism and anarchism, along with half a dozen other prominent ideologies, also grew out of the same movement.\n\nEssentially very early in the 19th century as the Industrial Revolution kicked off in Britain and later across Europe and the United States a lot of people struggled with the obvious and inherent inadequacies within the new capitalists system but no one could quite agree on what the exact problems where, or how to handle them, or even if they should be addressed at all.\n\nMarx's communist vision became the most prominent and arguably the most influential ideology of the past 200 hundred years, but that didn't mean it was some monolithic bloc of followers all adhering to the same dogma. As well one must consider that when the ideology was finally put into practice certain realities had to be faced and ideology was put to the wayside in favor or practicality.\n\nThis leads into the fact that the first Marxist communists states were formed over a hundred years after Marx co-wrote the *Communist Manifesto*, and in very unique places and times; post-WW1 Germany during the November Revolution led by Luxemburgists was a very different situation from post-WW1 Russia during the Civil War under Lenin which wasn't the same situation as 1940s China during the Warlords Era & Japanese Invasion under Mao which wasn't at all like 1950s Yugoslavia in the first phase of the Cold War under Tito which was also very different from the various strands of eurocommunism that formed in Western (capitalist) Europe during the 1970s & 80s at the height of the Cold War.",
"Copied this from /u/shiningtesticles top comment from this sub\n\n* Communism is best defined by what Marx wanted, but most forms of State socialism have been states trying to implement a \"Dictatorship of the Proletariat\" where the state would wither away. So they are mostly variations on how to govern Socialist States.\n\n* Marxism is the basic thought behind Socialism and communism, coming up with major criticisms about why Capitalism doesn't work/is unethical and sets out a Communist society which is hard to define, but its principles is most important (ownership by the masses, for the masses)\n\n* Leninism is revolutionary Socialism. Marx believed that Capitalism would ultimately fail and Lenin believed that there must be revolution to replace it. There are other things like the Soviet System which I think is in there. (I specialise more in Chinese stuff) There's a lot of stuff Mao and Stalin took from his thought, like Democratic Centralism (we all decide what is right, then there is no arguing)\n\n* Stalinism is a form of socialism which is normally typified by a cult of personality. Stalin was a supreme leader of Russia and people praised him. That's why Kim Jong-Il is seen as Stalinist. There are other aspects of it, but that's what most people jump to. (Edit: Socialism in one country is important to it, other people elaborated more)\n\n* Maoism is also one with a cult of personality but the Chinese talk about it being the true communism. You can look at the [Great Leap Forward](_URL_0_) to show how they tried to implement things like collectivisation for agriculture. Mao and Stalin were originally friends, and lots of Chinese politics was derived from the Soviet model, but they later fell out and went different ways. (Chinese Communism was pretty patriotic for historical and cultural reasons, so it's the same as Socialism in one country)\n\n* I'm not so clued up on Trotskyism, but the people I know who like it see it as more of a democratic Communism with lots of people's councils and workers running factories through democratic means.\n\n* The important thing is that all these are derived from the thought of how Socialism should exist and be administrated. Marx laid out the principle in which Mao, Stalin, Lenin, Hoxhai and others elaborated.",
"If the law didn't make your small business pay a certain wage, and the supply of labor wasn't an issue, would you pay a lower wage? Would you pay that low wage even if it wasn't enough to live on? The answer, regardless of how many say no, is yes. Writ large, this is how corporations basically decide wages. \n\nGoing down this line of thinking, we come to a realization: capitalism is focused on profit, not well-being. Again, even if your wage as a worker would mean that you couldn't properly nourish yourself, companies will pay you that wage if they could. Capitalism is focused on profit and not well-being. \n\nNow, people probably won't starve. They have families. Friends. Networks of dependence. Credit cards. They'll use those things to get by. But at some point, those wells will dry up. In capitalism, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. And the richer are better able to exploit the poorer. Eventually, the cycle reaches a breaking point. You realize Capitalism will eventually self destruct. You realize that we are all caught in a class war of capital owners and the exploited. You are in this even if you don't realize it. This is Marxism. \n\nNow we realize it, we can write a book and spread the word. And everyone will be up in arms and revolt, right? Wrong. As with everything, there are the early adopters, the trendsetters, the middle of the class, and the late adopters. People have jobs. People need convincing. They are busy in this class struggle, so busy that they have no time to devote towards winning it or changing it. You need a group, a small group of the devoted. They'll dedicate themselves to figuring out the problem and fighting it. This small group, this vanguard, will help guide the masses. This is Leninism. \n\nOk. The vanguard had seized control of the country. They have executed the tsar, they have led their armies to glorious victory. The\nExpectation now is that the world will revolt, nation by nation will fall like dominoes to the communist ideal. But this wasn't happening. You had people inside the country not working and people in other countries staying wary. What to do? \n\nHere we have two choices. As it turns out, people are lazy. So you have to change the equation. Before Communism, people worked because if they didn't, they wouldn't get paid and they would starve. Can't go back to that. So we have to use the threat of violence. Forget worldwide revolution. Let's upgrade the vanguard, beef it up into a powerful government to compel people into what is best for them. This could get ugly (gulags, five year plans) but it will be necessary. Then, once we have finished the glorious revolution in one country, we can be like a vanguard country that guides other countries to revolution. This is Stalinism. \n\nThe other choice is to hold back. Don't beef up the vanguard. If you keep the same people in the vanguard, you'll create a ruling class. That will create another class system, which is what we have been fighting anyway, right? So, replace the vanguard, constantly. And spread out so that the workers of the world unite, not just one country. This is Trotskyism. Since it advocates taking away the guns from the people with the guns, Trotsky ended up dead. \n\nAll of this was based on a look at the industrial revolution. People saw that it spread, almost as if it was a natural progression of society. And they saw that it was exploitative at its core and could not last. And so communism would spread too, from the working class of industrialized countries. But what about non-industrialized countries. What about China, which had an agrarian society? Instead of the workers, which meant factory workers (very few in China), perhaps we could have the communist revolution first and the industrial one after. This is Maoism, and it glorifies the simple farmer over the city worker and over urban intellectuals. ",
"Incidentally, communism as a general philosophy or movement doesn't need a capital C (like capitalism) but you can use a capital C for Communism as in the Communist Party or a specific regime. ",
"Socialism =\\= Marxism \n(Labour party's worldwide prove this as they normally subscribe to Fabian socialism which aims for improvements in the lives of the working classes and the least privileged, through elections or slowly changing the government using legal means)\n\nIf you want to fully understand all the 'isms, then. I would suggest starting by reading about Karl Marx himself. - his life. \n\nHe was probably the first 'champagne socialist, born into wealth and married an aristocrat, never a member of the working class but he still struggled though life. \n\nNext I would read about the French revolutions, most importantly the French Commune. Read histories on Bakunin, the founder of Anarchism who said I think 'Property is theft!' \n\nThen finally in detail and from reputable sources read about the Russian And Chinese Revolutions. After that read about the Spanish a civil war. Their was actually a civil war INSIDE the civil war. The anarchic-syndicalitd who weren't communists, were purged from the republican army. This will give you more of an idea of how Stalinism and Leninsim works in practice. \n\nAnd of course, read the political history of ww2 focusing on Russia's internal politics. The officer purges etc. \n\nThen read about the history of the PRC, perhaps from the Long march or earlier, some terrible events, large loss of life that are mostly airbrushed from history. \n\nClass struggle and the 'centralisation of the means of production' are the rationale for collectivisation and for the mass appropriation of private property. \n\nThe state legally owns everything, private property is merely an item you have leased from the government until you die. \n\nThe fear of counter-revolutions led to most of the worst violence, the red guards, the massacre of the Romanov royal family, in China , due to the cultural revolution teenagers were mobilised to inform on their friends and family to ensure they were not falling back on traditional ways. ",
"One important word that is being left out in this thread so far:\n\nSoviet: A word that sort of means \"council.\" In very ELI5/simplistic terms, a Soviet was initially an emergency labor union, but it gradually morphed to become a kind of one party parliament. Soviets emerged in 1905, during a very significant Russian Revolution that I never learned about in school, and then re-emerged during the more successful 1917 revolution.\n\nThese labor unions/Soviets initially represented factory workers and their interests. Being an average person in Tsarist Russia sucked, but an average person in Tsarist Russia had no economic power or influence...except the factory worker. The average factory worker, and especially the skilled and educated middle management types, learned that the Tsar needed their production more than the Tsar needed their absolute obedience.\n\nInitially these Soviets only existed in large, industrial cities, and largely operated independent of other Soviets. So, the \"Petrograd Soviet\" took care of the interests of factory workers in St. Petersburg. Well, when the wheels started coming off of the government in 1917, the only organizations in society that worked were these Soviets. There were social-democrat types, people called Mensheviks and Bolsheviks, people who wanted the state run by the army, and all kinds of other major groups...and they all wanted influence (or control) over these Soviets to further their own ends.\n\nLong story short, Lenin and his Bolsheviks had won the power struggle. Lenin told everyone that these Soviets would be expanded to represent all areas of society, not just factory workers, and that these Soviets would lead (well, *govern*) society, and, oh, there was now going to be a central Soviet, only the best and brightest would run this central Soviet, and all the other Soviets would follow the central one, or they were counter-revolutionary...and counter-revolutionaries were no longer permitted.\n\nTL;DR Russian communism was an authoritarian oligarchy from the start, borne of a sometimes very ugly power struggle, and all of the different iterations of Russian communism that followed should be understood through that lens.",
"Marxism: the people are the boss. Leninism: Lenin is the boss. Stalinism: Stalin is the boss. Trotskyism: Stalin is an asshole.",
"Communism is a socialist social system in which the means of production are commonly owned, and which has no state, money, or social classes. It is also a political way of thinking and an idea of how to get to such a society. Communism says that the people of any and every place in the world should all own the factories and farms that are used to make goods and food. This social process is known as common ownership. The main differences between socialism and communism are that, in a Communist society, the state and money do not exist. Work is not something a person must do to stay alive but is rather something people can choose whether or not to do.\n\n_URL_3_\n\nVladimir Lenin was a Russian Marxist. He had a set of political ideas based on Marxism. Lenin's development of Marxism has become known as Leninism.\n\nThese ideas include:\n\nDemocratic Centralism, also known as the idea of the vanguard party. Like other Communists, Lenin wanted to see a Socialist revolution led by the working class. But he thought the workers needed strong leadership in the form of a Revolutionary Party organised along Democratic Centralist lines. Lenin wanted Communist political parties in every country to lead the revolution. He thought the vanguard party would need have strong discipline, or it would fail.\nThe idea that capitalism is the cause of imperialism (empire-building). He thought that imperialism was the \"highest point\" of capitalism.\n\n_URL_2_\n\nMarxism is the name for a set of political and economic ideas. The base of these ideas comes from the works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. They have had a lot of influence in many countries. Very often, both authors are named, as it is difficult to say which of the two wrote what piece of the theory.\n\nMarxism influenced other political views, such as Social Democracy and Reformist Socialism (both believe that the ideas that Marx and Engels portrayed can be achieved through what Marx called 'Bourgeois Democracy.')\n\nMany Marxists say that modern \"Communism\" is not Communism at all. That nations such as USSR, The People's Republic of China, Cuba, and Vietnam are different forms of Capitalism, often with heavily \"nationalized\" industries. One of the biggest proponents of these ideas in Marxist thought was Tony Cliff, who wrote that states like the U.S.S.R and Communist China (before 1980) were \"State-Capitalist.\" Not all Communists, Socialists or Marxists agree on this question, but many hardened Marxists generally agree that Socialism is workers' democratic control over economic decisions and social justice, while production is based on what people need, and that Socialism will wither away into Communism when Capitalism is defeated. With that idea in mind, Marxists have a tendency to discredit most of the listed regimes.\n\nModern Communism claims to be based on Marxist ideas, but many Marxists disagree about whether Communist countries have understood Marxism correctly.\n\n_URL_1_\n\nTrotskyism is the form of Communism that is based on the ideas of Leon Trotsky. Trotsky described himself as an \"orthodox Marxist\". This is a different way of seeing the ideas of Karl Marx than the way other communists like Mao Zedong and Josif Stalin saw them. The biggest difference is in Trotsky's idea that there needs to be an international \"permanent revolution\". A permanent revolution is the idea that proletarian revolution needed to spread in countries worldwide, even where capitalism was not as advanced as only the proletarian revolution could carry out the tasks of the unfinished bourgeois revolutions in these countries. This is different to the Stalinist idea of trying to preserve a single nation's revolution from within.\n\nThe largest Trotskyist organization today is the Reunified Fourth International.\n\n_URL_4_\n\nStalinism refers to the political system under Joseph Stalin, including ideology and state administration. The secret history of those days is contained in the Mitrokin Archives.[1]\n\nLazar Kaganovich, a Soviet politician, coined the term.\n\n_URL_5_\n\nMaoism is the communist (a plan about how countries should work) idea created by the Chinese man Mao Zedong. Mao believed that peasants, not factory workers, should lead the communist revolution (change in government). China followed Maoism when he became leader, in 1949. This created differences with communism in the USSR and Cuba. Maoism is still practiced in China today, but it has become different since Mao died in 1976. Today the Chinese economy is considered capitalist. (a plan about free markets). but some still call China communist.\n\n_URL_0_",
"Here's a quick rundown which explains everything you need to know about the history of communism and communist tendencies.\n\nCommunism means three things: a) the ideology of the communist movement, b) this movement, and c) a classless society structured upon the common ownership of the means of production, characterized by the absence of the state (government as we know it), money, and others.\n\nCommunism has mostly been guided by Marxism. Marxism, which considers itself to represent 'scientific socialism', makes no attempt to design an 'ideal society' - there is no blueprinting. In other words, there is no idealism. Rather, it is an analysis of real life conditions which concludes that communism is the natural conclusion of capitalism (and all its conditions are derived from real life) which will unfold as certain events happen. There is nothing authoritarian or undemocratic in Marxism; in fact, Marxism claims that communism can only be established when a specific form democratic form of government exists (the workers' state, which is about to be described). Marxism's goal is *socialization* of property (of the means of production, such as factories, *not* your TV or books): its ownership by society. It contrasts this with *nationalization*, which is property owned by the state, and is considered a capitalist form of property by Marxism.\n\nIn Russia, there were hundreds of soviets all over the country, democratic assemblies of workers which were prepared to act as a local government. After the Tsarist monarchy fell in the February Revolution, a provisional government was established. The Bolsheviks, Lenin's Marxist party, called for the Soviets themselves to become the government. In an event known as the July Days, half a million people peacefully demonstrated for the transfer of power to the soviets, but the dictatorial and hated provisional government murdered hundreds of the peaceful demonstrators.\n\nThe advantages of the Soviets in contrast to a regular government was that any representative could be elected and revoked at any time, without waiting for elections (and therefore heavily speeding up any progress), and that they were organs of class rule (workers' rule). The majority of the Soviets favoured the Bolsheviks. In the October Revolution, the provisional government was overthrown and the Soviets became the new government. The nation-wide [Congress of Soviets](_URL_6_) convened, with hundreds of delegates elected by the local Soviets, representing many political parties (click the link for election results). A majority of these delegates were Bolsheviks. The delegates voted in a cabinet, electing Lenin as the head of government, and a government composed of a coalition of Left SRs, Mensheviks and Bolsheviks. The new government legalized abortion (for the first time in world history), homosexuality, and divorce, made women and men legally equal, and established universal free education and healthcare.\n\nSo far, so good. Everything was more or less democratic. However, the White Army formed from the ashes of the Tsarist army, started a war against the Soviet government (\"Russian Civil War\"), and more than 10 armies from USA, France, China, Germany, and the United Kingdom invaded Russia, vowing to remove the Soviet government. For a few months everything was still democratic with the Soviet government, but because of a mix of factors everything became more authoritarian and democracy progressively degenerated. Basically, the final outcome was the failure (complete degeneration) of the revolution, for many reasons such as it being isolated and happening in one country only. But the Bolsheviks kept power to be able to keep something from it.\n\nEnter Stalin. With Lenin's health falling apart, Stalin began to have more and more influence within the Bolsheviks. In his last days, Lenin called for Stalin to be removed. However, Stalin held on power and put the final nail in the coffin, making the government a complete dictatorship. Trotsky, Lenin's colleague who played a major part in the Russian Revolution, wanted to restore democracy and organized the anti-Stalin opposition. Stalin won out the power struggle by murdering more than 50% of members of Lenin's cabinet, repressing any opposition, exiling Trotsky then murdering him, and basically murdering anyone who disagreed with him. Stalin re-criminalized abortion and homosexuality.\n\nWhen the soviets still had power, a workers' state (the only way to remove capitalism, according to Marxism) had been established but capitalism still remained. Now, with the soviets having no power, Russia was back to what Marxism calls a bourgeois state, with no chance to exit capitalism. However, Stalin claimed that 'socialism' had been achieved, and basically kept on ruling an authoritarian dictatorship while pretending to be a communist. Now, remember how Marxists want to *socialize* property and not *nationalize* it. Marxists usually label states such as the Soviet Union as *state capitalist*, because they consider it a capitalist state in which everything simply is under state ownership, and everything else is the exact same. The workers own nothing, a ruling class still owns everything. (so for Marxists it is just like Norway, where there is some state ownership, but with everything being owned by the state in this case: a *quantitative*, not *qualitative* difference)\n\nTL;DR: Marxism, ideology of communism. Leninism, revolutionary strategy of Lenin. Stalinism and Maoism, authoritarian ideologies based on the degeneration of the Russian Revolution. Trotskyism, an attempt to save communism taking the experience of the Russian Revolution in mind.\n\nSee [this video of the Russian Revolution in color](_URL_0_). Check out [RevLeft](_URL_3_). It's a communist discussion board where most people stick to genuine communism and are heavily critical of the USSR, North Korea, etc. (in fact believing them to be enemies of communism).\n\nYou can read Marxist texts on [_URL_2_](_URL_4_). Engels (Marx's friend) made a short FAQ about communism named [Principles of Communism](_URL_1_) which you can read quickly, and you can read the longer [Communist Manifesto](_URL_5_) if you want.",
"Leninism is centered around applying Marxist theory to the revolution--ie, Vanguard Party theory.\n\nMaoism is built on understanding that simply giving land to Peasants doesn't necessary make Socialism, as these peasant can become the budding bourgeois, as was seen in the founding of America and Joseph II's reforms in Austria. He expanded Vanguard Party theory on the concept of it being Democratic, attempting to broaden the push to collectivism the peasants had to undergo to make them useful for industrialization and part of a socialist economy. It also espouses this with nationalist understandings of the relationships between countries.\n\nStalinism is really a current of Leninism based in developing and expanding the proletariat out of the peasantry through massive socialist build up. It isn't really much of its own ideology, it's really just a stressed form of Leninism applied to the needs of the early CCCP\n\nTrotskyism is either two things, depending on the person: an internationalist focus of Leninism; a bunch of whiny Dem Socs.",
"Under Leninism, you have two cows. The state takes them both and gives you milk.\nUnder Trotskyism, you have two cows. You ride them into battle to take over your neighbor's farm and get killed.\nUnder Stalinism, you have two cows. The state takes them both and sentences you to 20 years in Siberia.\nUnder Maoism, you have no cows because you live in a city. The state sends you to countryside where you are required to moo and give milk.\nUnd Pol Potism, you have two cows. The state kills them both, then kills you and all your neighbors, and then itself.",
"The following is oversimplified, but this is is ELI5, so you I hope no one expects anything too in depth.\n\n**Let's start with Marx** since he was really the first person to push the term \"communism.\" For Marx, communism simply meant people being in control of the things they use at work. For example, if you had a car manufacturer, the assembly plant workers would own the assembly plant and would own the cars they are producing out of it. Since every factory would be this way, the need for different wages disappeared and even for private property. How's that? According to Marx, if we are all working 40 hours a week at our respective factories and our work is all of equal value to our society, then we should all be making the same amount of money. And if we are all making the same amount of money, then why do we even need money since we could just take what we need. And if we all have what we need, then why do we need private property?\n\nIn order to get to this point, Marx believed there would be an uprising of the workers to overthrow the \"bourgeoise\", or in non-jargon terms, the people who owned the factories but didn't work at them. Some people include this revolution in their definition of Marxist communism.\n\n**Moving on, there's Leninist Communism.** Lenin thought that there was no way to get the workers to stand up for themselves and they would therefore need a political party—\"the Vanguard Party\"—not only to educate them, but to lead them in the revolution and in running the government. In this way, government would not be comprised of self-governing communities of workers, as the original term \"communism\" implies, but by a central planning institution run by the Vanguard Party.\n\nAlso, Lenin gave up on the notion of a moneyless society because, he found, money was required to control transactions and, more importantly, to figure out how valuable our work actually is to society. It quickly became apparent that idea that people would only take what they need and share, particularly in times of scarcity like at the end of WWI, was just wishful thinking. Greed was a problem. And not only that, without a way to keep track of who was getting what and how much of it they were getting, it was too difficult for the central planning institution to determine what to produce, what training to give to the working class, what production facilities to build, what resources to acquire, etc.. And with this he gave up on the notion of society without private property, gradually allowing more and more private property that was not and could not become income producing or vital to state interests. (I'm referring to being able to own everything from clothing to dinnerware, but not real estate, shops, factories, or farms.)\n\n**As for Trotskyist Communism,** Trotsky's focus was more on revolution. He believed that there should be a permanent revolution. In short, according to Marx, in order for a society to undergo a (Marxist) communist revolution, the society would first have to industrialize from a more feudal aristocratic state. The feudal aristocracy carry its politico-socio-economic advantage into the industrial era by being able to buy or pay laborers to build factories, mills, etc., and then pay workers to work in them. Only once the separation of labor and ownership of the means of production (e.g. factories) became severe would the workers revolt. As such, Marx required two steps: polarized industrialization and revolution. Trotsky, however, thought that the communist world could force or create conditions to empower the working class in the not yet polarized and/or industrialized world, thereby spreading the revolution beyond its traditional borders. This would put the workers of the communist countries into an almost permanent revolution as even once they won their revolution at home, they would need to carry it on to other countries.\n\n**And that brings us to Stalinist Communism.** Stalinist Communism stands out from the others in a few ways, and the main reason for this is that it was brought about in response to actually trying to implement Marxist-Leninist Communism and Permanent Revolution. There was a Vanguard Party, which centrally planned everything. There was Permanent Revolution. However, both of these were different. The Vanguard Party was comprised of supporters of Stalinist ideology only. Anyone else was eliminated. And while there was permanent revolution, Stalin still believed a country would need to go through the stages of developing nationalism in order to industrialize, then developing proletarianism (worker-ism) once industrialized. As such, he tried to spread both stages, rapidly spreading nationalism by classifying people into new nations and then rapidly industrializing those nations. (Unfortunately, this was easy to for him to do given that anyone who refused to support the part of fit into a newly invented nation were forced to work in labor camps to build industrial facilities and equipment.)\n\nAll that said, I'll only go into very little detail regarding **the merits and failings of these ideologies.**\n\nMost of the merits come from Marx's treatment of capitalism, not his communist theories, but there are a couple major ones directly seen in Marxist communism. The first is that the people who manufacture things are of more value than the thing they manufacture. It ought to be obvious to all of us, I hope, that people are more important than things, but a lot of times when you deal with economic theory, dehumanizing vocabulary is used to eliminate the idea that some theories affect some people or even a lot of people adversely. For example \"the market\" really means people who sell things and people who buy things, \"labor\" really means people who work for an employer. On the other hand, Marx kind of forgot to mention that \"bourgeoisie\" may, particularly at that time, have meant \"people born into privilege\", but also also sometimes included people who invested their life's work into taking a risk to start their own business. \n\nAnother merit that the Marxist Communist organization of things put forth is the (correct) idea that there are some goods and services which are universally needed and that a universally participatory self-government that includes every citizen in its decision making would ensure that these goods and services are provided for as part of its function because that is what all the citizens want and is willing to pitch in to ensure the provision of. And in this light, the fact that everyone is participating in meeting a demand everyone shares would make universalization the most efficient way of providing the goods and services. (Unfortunately, his ideal for building consensus on what ought to be universal included killing people who aren't in the consensus.) In this way, a participatory government would ensure everyone had access to shelter, food, healthcare, transport, etc.\n\nHowever, the failings are just as important. Marx was an idealist and his world was black and white. All workers in his mind were innocent—or, at least, innocent enough, that corruption and greed in the working class wouldn't be a problem. The people who owned the means of production all deserved death. Also, scarcity of resources wasn't taken into consideration. Lenin's ideology was self-serving and condescending, believing that people were too stupid to govern themselves and that he and people who agreed with him should therefore be in charge. Trotsky's quite simply was the \"ends justify the means\", even though the strategy he implemented in the civil war between the Reds and Whites and suggested reimplementing in other countries intentionally killed countless innocent people as well as countless conscientious dissenters. Stalin had all the failings of the above ideologies and added to them the institutionalization of \"if you're not with me, you're against me (and you are, therefore, going to die in a labor camp).\" This meant the demonization as \"enemies of the worker\" for innocent people like the Kazakh nomads who just wanted to keep shepherding nomadically since that was what was best for the land and that was the life and culture they always had. Stalin, furthermore, created intense inter-ethnic and internation (not to be confused with \"international\") strife by deliberately creating nationalistic ideologies to push nationalistic identities on people and then pitting those identities in conflicts against each other.\n\n**All that said, it is important to remember that these are ideologies.** They are not just theoretical conjectures about how people would act in a certain scenario, but dogmatic opinions that people believe in and violently tried to implement and impose on others on the ground. Proper policy making requires studying what's going on, developing policy ideas to make things more favorable (for everyone), hypothesizing about the effects of these policies based on the effects of similar policies in similar circumstances, finding a smaller self-governing body of people that wants to adopt these policies in order to test them, and then empirically validating or invalidating the hypothesis you had earlier to determine if it is correct. It is a both a science and a matter of human dignity, which implies consensual action. \"Forcing what you believe in\" instead of gaining support for what has been tested to be true is never a good idea and almost always leaves behind victims.",
"I believe it's also worth noting, that Lenin, and most Bolsheviks (which transitioned into the NEP) knew that true Communism would take time, IE not be established over night, it would take years of results to get the effect to continue in an ongoing harmonious cycle. \n\nIt's also worth mentioning, that Stalin was a fucking psychopath. You should consider reading Stalin: A Biography, by Robert Service or Stalin and Stalinism by Robert McCauley, they give really fantastic historical looks into this topic. The Robert Service book is pretty large, so don't pick that one up unless your feeling ambitious and dedicated. ",
"Communism: everyone should have apples.\n\nMarxism: Why can't we afford buying the apples we make? Apple makers of the world, unite!\n\nLeninism: We are going to get our apples back, in 10 points.\n\nStalinism: I get all the apples, and I say how many of them you need. \n\nTrotskyism: Stalin's apples are rotten!",
"It had always been my understanding that Communism, if implemented properly, is a Utopian system especially for Leftists. And that Communist Russia had too much corruption and greed for their system to ever of been a proper Communism structure. \n\nIn short people treated Communism as being evil but it was really Russia's implementation that was broken. \n\nWhat are your thoughts on this? "
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byld3j | what's the difference between sleep and being inert? | If one were to lie in their bed for an hour, they wouldn't feel much more refreshed upon getting up. However, if the same person were to take a one hour nap, it would reinvigorate them. What's the difference between sleeping and just lying down? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/byld3j/eli5_whats_the_difference_between_sleep_and_being/ | {
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"The really short version is that when we actually sleep, our brain and the rest of the body is allowed to focus on certain tasks like repairing and restoring your muscles, organs, etc. To put it in (very) basic terms, your body switches from conscious/thinking mode to \"repair mode.\""
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2menlf | why is it that when i do something clumsy i always immediately follow it up with two to three more clumsy things? | For example, if I drop something, I will usually drop something else right after, and then bump my elbow on a table and knock over more things. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2menlf/eli5why_is_it_that_when_i_do_something_clumsy_i/ | {
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"Because all of your attention is focused on the previous instance of clumsiness, so you can't pay attention to your surroundings as much. You also may overbalanced yourself in an attempt to prevent the first thing from happening."
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ff9t93 | how do companies that consistently post losses have their stocks valued at such high prices ? example uber, amazon | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ff9t93/eli5_how_do_companies_that_consistently_post/ | {
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"Because investors see a lot of potential in those companies and are of the opinion that soon they'll be making profits and play a major market role.",
"losses include expansion costs, meaning that business grows and revenues grow \n\nthere are multiple ways to run your business but usually you have active growth phase, where your top priority is expansion and staying profitable is less of an issue, and after some time of growth you'd change your focus to making your business profitable by cutting costs, working on prices and loses\n\nin really large business both process (expansion and growth of profitability) can run simultaneously, but that's not always the case, for example YouTube wasn't profitable for a very very very long time while they were working on winning market share, and this strategy proved to be viable as YouTube is definitely the hegemon of video hosting market \n\nsome times you have to sacrifice profits to win the market, and after that you'll start making money",
"Amazon in the USA claims to make losses, Amazon as a whole makes a lot of money.\n\nCompanies shift money between countries to avoid taxes. \n\nOne of the ways they do this is by using pricing within the company. Lets say Ireland has a very low tax rate and so amazon wanted to claim they made all their profit in Ireland. Amazon USA buys cardboard boxes from Amazon Ireland, but instead of buying them at the cost to make them, they buy them for 50x the price. Buying all of these cardboard boxes costs Amazon USA all of its profits so they don’t actually make any money that year, but Amazon Ireland now has a lot of money in its bank account.\n\nThere will be other methods though - they basically have lots of clever accountants working for them to find every trick and loophole to avoid paying tax.",
"Amazon and Uber have different kinds of losses. \n\nWhen Amazon sells you a DVD they make fifty cents. But when they build a huge distribution hub they might spend 100 million on it and those costs bring them into the red on paper - but they now have a huge distribution hub that will help them sell even more DVD's. Investors look at Amazon and say to themselves \"once this company is done expanding it is going to make INSANE profits every single year for decades\".\n\nWhen you take an Uber the company loses fifty cents. They are doing this because they hope to get people regularly taking Ubers and figure that in a few years they will be able to roll out self-driving taxis that will lower their costs and make them profitable. Investors look at Uber and say to themselves \"I'm sure this company, that's only real talent was developing a smart phone app and figuring out how to thumb its nose at regulators, will be able to develop the most complicated software even imagined by humanity.\" \n\nI think its pretty clear where my biases are here, but there you have it."
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6oa5bk | why does milk, even if heated up, go bad if left out, but baking with milk such as to make cookies or cake not go bad quickly? | What happens to the milk that causes it to react so differently in these two scenarios even though both involve heating up milk? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6oa5bk/eli5_why_does_milk_even_if_heated_up_go_bad_if/ | {
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"Low temperature slows down bacteria growth which is why we refrigerate foods to begin with. Milk has an extremely short shelf life otherwise, so if you leave it out the bacteria in the milk very quickly multiplies until eventually there's enough of it to make you sick.\n\nWhen you're cooking food that contains milk, you're both rapidly heating it (which doesn't really give the bacteria time to go crazy) and generally heating it to the point that you're killing bacteria.",
"When it's left out, the bacteria in the milk is allowed to eat and start releasing waste products (that awful smell). Staying cold keeps them from being as active as they would be.\n\nWhen you bake it, the bacteria dies during the process.",
"In the case of cookies and cake, they are loaded up with sugar, which is a preservative. Sugar (and salt) acts as a preservative by making the water in the food unavailable to bacteria.",
"When you cook with milk, your are chemically change it, to the point is it is no longer really milk. In particular, you are removing the moisture from it, and that is what makes it really easy for the microbes to get around and chow down.",
"I'm a dairy technical manager and all of these answers have it covered - we actually clean our machines with effectively salt and soap! Lol ",
"No we test the milk at intake with resazurin dye. This gets consumed by bacteria so we watch for colour change as an indicator of raw quality. In process the the pasteuriser works on a 3d (decimal) reduction - first pass bacteria drop from say 10,000 to 1,000 - second pass to 100, third to 10. So finished milk should be very high standard. But as others have said there is always one bacteria or sometimes thermoresiliant bacteria that survive the pasteuriser and they multiply fast if not kept chilled (sub 3deg Centigrade) normally temperature abuse by retailer or end customer cause the problem."
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459jom | why do some barbell bend, but others don't? | The question is a bit more nuanced than the title. Allow me to explain.
Some barbells, when you place a really heavy load on them, will bend and remain permanently disfigured.
Others, however, will accept the load, bend and then whip back into being straight. Here's [an example](_URL_0_)
Why does this happen? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/459jom/eli5why_do_some_barbell_bend_but_others_dont/ | {
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"Different compositions of metal react differently to loads. They will all bend, and stay bent forever, under the right type of traumatic force.\n\nIn your video, George is using a deadlift bar. It is typically narrower, and designed to bend to an extent under load. This makes it fundamentally easier to lift than a thicker bar that is not produced with a bendability in mind.\n\nUsing a deadlift bar to do rack pulls however, places an extremely severe focused trauma on the bar and it will bend forever at the places where it makes contact with the rack. It's why you don't see folks doing rack pulls with a deadlift bar, and instead will use blocks to change the elevation.",
"What you're seeing is something called [yield](_URL_2_). It's one of the key concepts of engineering with solid materials.\n\nIn physics 101, we pretend that all solids are rigid and undeformable. But this isn't true. All solids are deformable. If you pull on an object, it will stretch; if you push on an object, it will compress. If you bend an object, it will bend. Certain materials will stretch/compress/bend more easily than others, and this is known as the material's *stiffness*.\n\nUp to a certain amount of stress, if you let go, the material will snap back to its original size and shape. It will be as if the deformation never happened. This is known as [elastic deformation](_URL_1_).\n\nWith many materials, if you put too much load on them, if you deform them too far, they will suddenly snap. These are *brittle* materials, like glass or porcelain.\n\nBut other materials don't snap immediately. These are *ductile* materials. In ductile materials, an interesting thing happens: yield. At the yield point, the elastic deformation gives way to [plastic deformation](_URL_0_). In plastic deformation, the material becomes much less stiff, and begins to deform permanently. Even when you let go and stop stressing it, it will never return back to its original shape.\n\nThe usual examples for discussing elastic vs. plastic deformation are slinkies or paperclips: stretch/bend them a little bit and they're fine, but stretch/bend them too far and you can't get them back into their proper shape. But your barbells are a good example, too. If you put too much weight on them, they remain permanently bent. Thus, barbells designed for super-heavy weights have to either have a wider diameter (to reduce the stress when they're loaded) or be made of a steel with a higher yield strength than regular barbells. That way their deformation stays elastic only.\n\nAs I said above, this is key to engineering. You never want whatever you're designing to go into plastic deformation, because then your building or truck or crane or whatever has been permanently deformed and probably doesn't work correctly anymore. So we analyze the stress levels in our design, and we make sure the stresses will never go past the yield point."
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222y33 | why do lubricating eye drops when ingested, cause someone to feel nauseated and sickly? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/222y33/eli5_why_do_lubricating_eye_drops_when_ingested/ | {
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"TIL eye drops can make people nauseous ",
"The active ingredient, Tetrahydrozoline HCl, is quite poisonous when too much is ingested. You should never do this to someone as they can easily end up in the hospital for days or dead.\n\nEffects:\nLowering body temperature to dangerous levels\nMaking breathing difficult, or even halting it entirely\nBlurring vision\nCausing nausea and vomiting\nElevating and then dropping blood pressure\nCausing seizures or tremors\nSending the ingester into a coma\n\n\nAs for why it does this: it inhibits your central nervous system, much like alcohol or Valium. That's why the symptoms are pretty much what you'd get from drinking way too much booze or overdosing on benzos. A little bit too much whiskey or Visine and you're puking. Way too much and you stop breathing. The difference is that the amount of Visine you'd need to potentially kill someone is contained in one small bottle and a non lethal dose isn't easily measured. People doing this as a prank tend to just dump in a quarter bottle or so and are then horribly surprised when their target ends up in the hospital getting their heart restarted.\n\nEdit: it's possible for children to OD on Visine just from using it too much, best to keep it out of reach if your kid likes eyedrops for some reason. I hated them! Stick to the usage guidelines.\n\nEdit2: I looked into this some more and found that there are about 6 different varieties of Visine now, and not all of them contain this chemical. So the lethality of your particular bottle of Visine might be different but I still wouldn't advise drinking these chemicals.",
"Would one drop be the equivalent of a valium then? I'm getting bad ideas"
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5lliwu | what determines when an issue will be voted on by citizens or decided by government? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5lliwu/eli5_what_determines_when_an_issue_will_be_voted/ | {
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"It depends on that particular government's constitution. It will say which issues should be put to a referendum.",
"It depends on the country or state.\n\nSome places have constitutions which state that certain things can only be changed via a referendum. Often this includes amendments to the constitution itself.\n\nI think some places allow citizens to submit petitions, and if they get enough support the issue can be put to voters.\n\nOther places don't have strict rules and the government can call a referendum on something if they choose to."
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2b46s2 | edward snowden and his leaks. | Who is Edward Snowden, what are the "leaks" he's been releasing, and where does he get the information? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2b46s2/eli5_edward_snowden_and_his_leaks/ | {
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"He was a contract employee with NSA and had access to secret files which detailed how pervasive is the spying programme of U.S government.\n\nHe decides to make it public to raise awareness. So he flees to Hong kong and Russia and all hell breaks loose.\n\nThe information he collected has been handed over to journalists, who keep releasing it.\n\nHe is protectd by Russia, so U S can only hope he returns voluntarily.\n",
"Ed Snowden worked as a contractor for the NSA and CIA. While there he was exposed to a lot of what they have been doing lately which is spying on and monitoring pretty much everyone. \n\nHe leaked this information after carefully sifting out leaks that would put lives in danger. This is basically where we are at today."
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4rcrtf | why is child labor considered such a bad thing? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4rcrtf/eli5_why_is_child_labor_considered_such_a_bad/ | {
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"As a society we've judged it more appropriate to have children be educated until a certain age. Child labor simply teaches them a single skill; one that is likely to become obsolete by the time they are an adult. So all you're doing with child labor is creating a next generation of unskilled, uneducated, unemployed population.\n\nAlso, child labor is generally associated with poor working conditions overall as the time and locations where child labor is prominent is also correlated with lack of care and safety of such workers.",
"Because...\n\n* Children have no negotiating leverage, and thus exploited to the utmost extreme if they're in the workforce. \n\n* They are unlikely to know their rights. \n\n* Even if they did know their rights, they are much easier to intimidate than adults. \n\n* They should be in school to become *citizens* and informed human beings, not just workers."
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2v3w92 | why don't dogs get hoarse? | Yes the next door neighbor's dog is currently barking and has been doing so for the last 2 hours straight. He will continue to do this for the rest of the day....how do I know you ask? Because he does this every flipping weekend.
How is it that dogs are able to vocalize so loudly for such a long period of time and I go to one sporting event and can't talk right for a few days.
Thanks Obama! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2v3w92/eli5_why_dont_dogs_get_hoarse/ | {
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"Because they're dogs, not horses.\n\nSerious answer: because they've got practice. If you went to a sports game and yelled all day every day, you'd build endurance to the point where you wouldn't get hoarse.",
"They do get hoarse, it just takes them longer. \n\nI worked at a kennel that had a daycare. We had a few dogs that came to daycare and barked all damn day and would be fine. (Seriously watched one dog bark at a tree for two hours. She was totally happy doing it, wagging her tail, happy as a clam. Wasn't right in the head.) \n\nBut some of those dogs that were fine barking all day would spend the weekend and would bark for two or more days and they'd start to get hoarse. One dog stayed a week and could barely squeeze out a woof by the end of his stay. "
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39my35 | why are the bulk of showings in movie theaters dedicated to 3d? | My friends and are going to see Jurassic World tonight. After looking at all the local theaters, I noticed that the overwhelming majority of showings for the film are being shown in 3D. I guess theaters can charge more for a 3D ticket, but is the demand for 3D movies really that great? Or is this entirely done for financial gain? For instance, one of our local theaters was offering 15 3D showings of the movie, but only 6 non-3D showings. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/39my35/eli5why_are_the_bulk_of_showings_in_movie/ | {
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"Theater owners love 3-D because they can charge more for it, and that extra is kept by the movie theater. That's pretty important when you realize that for new releases, 90% or more of the box office take goes directly to the studio.\n\nSo, if a 2-D movie costs you $10, that's probably $9 for the studio and $1 for the movie theater. But the 3-D showing for $12? That's $9 for the studio and $3 for the theater. They have tripled their take before you even get to the concession stand.\n\nRemember that for the studios, you aren't their customer. The movie theaters are their customers, and this is something the theater owners really love.",
"The theatre charges more, and makes more, for 3D showings.\n\nThey have experimentally determined that for some kinds of movies the market is inelastic. If they charge more for a 3D show, people will pay it. They may have a couple of 2D shows, at less desirable times or in rooms without the 3D equipment, because less money is better than no money.\n\nOnly when the bulk moviegoer (16-25) stops paying more will the reasonable business-person stop selling 3D.",
"I manage a cinema.. Majority of people prefer 2D films, they sell out much faster. However, we pay rent on each projector that is 3D capable. If that projector shows a 2D film we still need to pay the company that allows us to play 3D ie Real D & Sony\nPlus we make a fortune from 3D Glasses. So from a business point of view it makes sense to promote 3D as much as possible. This is in the UK. I assume it's similar in the US. "
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nsz8p | people's beef with ocean marketing. | I don't know what they do, and why people don't like them. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/nsz8p/eli5_peoples_beef_with_ocean_marketing/ | {
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"I need this as well.\n\nI wake up to a nice sunny morning in Australia and there are pitch forks and torches on reddit front page.",
"As the link doesn't seem to be clearing it up entirely:\n\nYesterday, a gentleman named Dave emailed a marketing representative named Paul, who worked for a firm called Ocean Marketing. Ocean Marketing was representing a video game controller that had magnificent reviews, and was supposed to be particularly useful to physically disabled gamers. Dave was inquiring about two units that he had ordered and were being continually delayed, so he was understandably upset.\nPaul, the representative, was being singularly unhelpful and roundabout. Think of all those Origin Chat Support screencaps you've seen from r/gaming--it was exactly like that. After a message or two, Dave lost his temper and replied with a long-winded and logical rant against Paul, concluding by asking only for the delivery of his controllers. Paul responded with a cruel and presumptuous email, demeaning Dave and using offensive language. He also cited a number of affluent names in the gaming community, claiming that he had their support behind him, as well as a 150-person marketing team with which he could destroy Dave if provoked. It should be noted that he did all of this in hilarious 13-year-old internet lingo.\nOne of these affluent names was PAX East, the Penny Arcade convention. It was around this time that Mike Krahulik, the artist of the Penny Arcade webcomic was tabbed into the email conversation by Dave. Upon reading Paul's words, he immediately banned Ocean Marketing from any future booths at PAX, and then told Paul that he would \"be on Penny Arcade tomorrow.\" [And he was.](_URL_0_)\n\nAs you can see, near the end of the conversation, when Paul began to actually suspect that he was speaking to the head of PAX East, he tentatively began to plead for mercy, but the damage was done. Reddit caught Paul Christoforo's scent in seconds, and when you woke up this morning, there were no less than three 1000+ upvoted submissions from Penny Arcade's \"Just Wow!\" blog post. \n\nNow, Ocean Marketing is being strung up for the actions of their employee. The bloodhounds of Reddit have torn apart Paul Christoforo's Facebook, MySpace and Twitter accounts, which had plenty of douchy pictures and comments on them. Many of these have been deleted now.\n\nYou've probably seen posts about the Avenger suffering scathing reviews on Amazon. Ocean Marketing and the Avenger are bearing the wrath of the internet's misguided hate on account of Paul's actions. He has probably been fired now, and many backers are pulling out and dissociating themselves with Ocean Marketing.",
"I need this as well.\n\nI wake up to a nice sunny morning in Australia and there are pitch forks and torches on reddit front page.",
"As the link doesn't seem to be clearing it up entirely:\n\nYesterday, a gentleman named Dave emailed a marketing representative named Paul, who worked for a firm called Ocean Marketing. Ocean Marketing was representing a video game controller that had magnificent reviews, and was supposed to be particularly useful to physically disabled gamers. Dave was inquiring about two units that he had ordered and were being continually delayed, so he was understandably upset.\nPaul, the representative, was being singularly unhelpful and roundabout. Think of all those Origin Chat Support screencaps you've seen from r/gaming--it was exactly like that. After a message or two, Dave lost his temper and replied with a long-winded and logical rant against Paul, concluding by asking only for the delivery of his controllers. Paul responded with a cruel and presumptuous email, demeaning Dave and using offensive language. He also cited a number of affluent names in the gaming community, claiming that he had their support behind him, as well as a 150-person marketing team with which he could destroy Dave if provoked. It should be noted that he did all of this in hilarious 13-year-old internet lingo.\nOne of these affluent names was PAX East, the Penny Arcade convention. It was around this time that Mike Krahulik, the artist of the Penny Arcade webcomic was tabbed into the email conversation by Dave. Upon reading Paul's words, he immediately banned Ocean Marketing from any future booths at PAX, and then told Paul that he would \"be on Penny Arcade tomorrow.\" [And he was.](_URL_0_)\n\nAs you can see, near the end of the conversation, when Paul began to actually suspect that he was speaking to the head of PAX East, he tentatively began to plead for mercy, but the damage was done. Reddit caught Paul Christoforo's scent in seconds, and when you woke up this morning, there were no less than three 1000+ upvoted submissions from Penny Arcade's \"Just Wow!\" blog post. \n\nNow, Ocean Marketing is being strung up for the actions of their employee. The bloodhounds of Reddit have torn apart Paul Christoforo's Facebook, MySpace and Twitter accounts, which had plenty of douchy pictures and comments on them. Many of these have been deleted now.\n\nYou've probably seen posts about the Avenger suffering scathing reviews on Amazon. Ocean Marketing and the Avenger are bearing the wrath of the internet's misguided hate on account of Paul's actions. He has probably been fired now, and many backers are pulling out and dissociating themselves with Ocean Marketing."
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4xjug5 | how is water 'purified' naturally (where it is safe to drink)? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4xjug5/eli5_how_is_water_purified_naturally_where_it_is/ | {
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"Well, mainly the water cycle. Evaporating water then it falling back to the ground esentilally gets rid of any impurities. The rivers through which the water flows generally have been washed out by previous water, which pretty much cleans the actual riverbed of most impurities that may be loose, therefore it becomes mostly clean. Of course it is not completely clean, some impurities are still there, but they are few and far, assuming no one has dumped any shit upstream. And as the saying goes, still water is bad water, but moving water is generally safe. Really, humans are the main reason many streams these days are no longer drinkable.",
"For perspective a sink water filter utilizes something like charcoal and sand (why you need to flush it for a few minutes before using and the initial water may come out foggy)\n\nThe same concept occurs in nature. Bear Grylls (or Survivorman) found a water source and dug a small hole along the bank. The water that then started filling that hole was 'filtered' passing between some sand to essentially filter it. \n\n",
"In denmark a lot of the filtration happens by the 40+ year cycle that the water takes through the earth to the water table way below surface. As the water descends through dirt and topsoil all the impurities bind to the dirt and after many years it is mostly clean. \nNow in southeast Jutland most of the layers below ground are sand, so the water goes through quicker and gets less clean as a result which then needs some additional cleaning compared to the rest of denmark. \nCopenhagen doesn't have enough areas with open ground for the water to descend. So there is not enough water below so instead water is bought from Sweden. \nSorry about the shitty sentences. I'm not very good at explaining.",
"The different substances that make up the layers of the ground have different shapes, and are differently malleable, so they pack together in different ways. One possible arrangement is described below:\n\n\nHumus- Very loose compaction, made of leaves and other organic material. water flows through quickly, removing only the largest of impurities.\n\nTopsoil- Still fairly loose, broken up by fewer deep reaching roots, etc. water does not flow quite as quickly through, and slightly larger impurities are left behind.\n\nEluviation Layer- Mostly sand and silt. This layer packs together better, causing water to flow through more slowly and catching smaller impurities as it passes through smaller gaps.\n\nSubsoil- Clay and minerals here which pack together very tightly. Water flows through the tiny cracks very slowly, catching insanely small impurities. This is where your water also picks up most of the minerals that are found in water (iron, calcium, etc.)\n\nRegolith- Sits directly above the bedrock and is mostly pieces of broken bedrock mixed with whatever is composing the layer above. At this point, the water has mostly reached its maximum filtering. Most wells draw from water in this layer.\n\nBedrock- solid rock which is (mostly) impermeable to water (excepting cracks, fissures, etc.), allowing pockets of water to sit and wait to be tapped for wells.\n\n\nThis is ONE simple example as there are tons of possibilities for how the strata are arranged, of what they are composed, etc. however, you should be able to see how the water percolates down through different layers, just like in a water filter, to remove different size/types of impurities in the different layers.\n\n",
"Everybody here so far is right to an extent. I'd just like to add some soil interface and groundwater interactions for completeness and wonder sake. \n\nFirst, of course is soil interface. Here water is drank by plants, animals, and bacteria, used to perform chemical reactions and wash waste materials from their bodies, and returned to the soil, and often taken back up with the waste matter as a resource in the body of another living thing. What washes through the entire soil profile often ends up acidic with all the carbonic acid it has picked up from the soil profile. \n\nThis acidity greatly assists water's capability to remove heavy metals from the soil profile where they a most detrimental to living systems. Once water pools on top of a clay lense, a water table, or other obstruction it no longer has access to oxygen and the concentration of the oxidant necessary to keep hydrogen (acidity) and thus the heavy metals in solution decreases. Deep in the water table these metals can be deposited in areas that create basic conditions. \n\nThus by the time water comes out of a deep, cold spring it has not only filtered through various forms of living creatures, been made unlivable and mineral rich by acidification and removed metals and other solutes through buffering the groundwater table in general, it has also squeezed through miles of oxygen free sand, silt, clay, limestone and other mazes before arriving enriched with the good minerals that a healthy mammal needs to survive.",
"It's been filtered as above explained, and is then sitting in an area that is free of natural contaminants, unless they are otherwise introduced in a manner that bypasses the natural filtration. \nIt also helps that the water in deep wells is significantly colder than surface water in the same region."
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663tiz | where does the cliche of traps and treasure in temples and tombs come from | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/663tiz/eli5_where_does_the_cliche_of_traps_and_treasure/ | {
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"It comes from tombs which were actually trapped and contained treasure. Because they contained treasure there was an inventive to loot them, and the traps deterred that. They contained treasure as various religious offerings or superstitions demanded.",
"Kings, pharoahs, etc would be buried with their wealth. Thus, treasure. Grave robbers would want to rob those tombs, so they would have traps to discourage or kill the robbers. This is also where the idea of \"mummies curse\" comes from, i.e. whoever disturbs this tomb or takes anything from it will inherit some terrible curse. "
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336pp5 | human chimpanzee hybrids and the liger. | I recently have heard about the possibility of a Human/Chimpanzee hybrid, and that at one point someone almost tried it but was stopped. I have also seen pictures and videos of the [Liger](_URL_1_), A cross between lions and tigers. I have also heard of the [coywolf](_URL_0_), a grey wolf and a coyote. Everyone probably knows about mules.
My Question to you reddit, is about the Chimpanzee human hybrid. We know hybrids can (and have) occured in nature as well as in captivity. My question is more about the product that would come out of a human/chimpanzee. Why was Professor [Ilya Ivanovich Ivanov](_URL_2_) (the person that tried this) stopped? What legal repercussions are there to such a being?
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/336pp5/eli5_human_chimpanzee_hybrids_and_the_liger/ | {
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"They just didn't want him to fuck a chimpanzee, I'm guessing. ",
"No it's not possible in nature. Maybe in a lab they can do something with some serious genetic engineering. That's a big maybe.\n\nChimps and similar apes have 48 chromosomes. Humans have 46. In order for insemination to occur they have to be equal (along with a few other things). \n\nThe other examples you give all have matching number of chromosomes and are very closely related. Humans and Chimps are closely related, but we're too different to create a successful hybrid without seriously monkeying around with genetic engineering.",
"People can and have fucked goats, donkeys, llamas, camels, cows, horses, dogs, cats, orangutans, chimps, and many other creatures. This includes ejaculation without protection. Why are there not humanzees running around?\n\n > In 1977, researcher J. Michael Bedford[7] discovered that human sperm could penetrate the protective outer membranes of a gibbon egg. Bedford's paper also stated that human spermatozoa would not even attach to the zona surface of non-hominoid primates (baboon, rhesus monkey, and squirrel monkey), concluding that although the specificity of human spermatozoa is not confined to man alone, it is probably restricted to the Hominoidea.\n\n > In 2006, research suggested that after the last common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees diverged into two distinct lineages, inter-lineage sex was still sufficiently common that it produced fertile hybrids for around 1.2 million years after the initial split.[8]\n\nThe two are probably incompatible to produce offspring. "
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3ctjxn | why does google's deepdream algorithm insert dogs, eyeballs, and antennae all over the place? | *Note: I did search first and saw 4 questions about DeepDream in the past few days, but none seemed on point when I looked through them. If it's already been explained, please excuse me.*
DeepDream seems to find dog heads, eyeballs, and some kind of eye stalks or antennae in just about everything. Why is that? I vaguely understand through the other ELI5 threads how the program works, but I'm not clear as to why it so frequently finds the same types of images to merge. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ctjxn/eli5_why_does_googles_deepdream_algorithm_insert/ | {
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"The neural network was trained with those particular imagesets. The network they used was not the one being used in Google Photos, that one has been trained on many more categories. They used a smaller network because it takes fewer resources to train and to run.\n\nThe images it was trained with the most will show up more often than images it was trained with less, like how you'll remember something better if you think about it more. So if it was trained with one million pictures of dogs, but only 10,000 pictures of shrimp, it's going to see dogs way more often than shrimp. Eyes always show up because almost every living thing has eyes, so even if you don't intend to do so you'll always have eyes in almost every picture.\n\n"
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2933u7 | infinite chocolate | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2933u7/eli5_infinite_chocolate/ | {
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"Look closely at the two middle pieces. Especially the left-most middle piece. When it slides to the right, the bottom *grows* to make it larger. The same happens to the right-most middle piece, but it's harder to see. The amount that those two pieces grow is exactly the area of one square of chocolate."
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3l5ty9 | why are the neck and wrists the most common spots to spray cologne? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3l5ty9/eli5_why_are_the_neck_and_wrists_the_most_common/ | {
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"The neck is \"strategic\" when getting up close (eg: for a cheek kiss, or dancing); the wrists are \"strategic\" to spread the scent as far as possible in average human interaction (eg: shaking hands).\n\nSo... place the (presumably good) scent to impress right away (via wrists), and then to reinforce the good impression when up close (neck). I'm just rationalizing it.\n\nOh, also, they are both areas not covered by clothes so they can \"breathe\" and spread the scent.",
"Isn't it because the wrists, neck and the backside of your ears (as well) are close to your blood stream? Walking around and doing physical activity get your blood pumping and therefore, spread the scent.",
"1. Your arms move around when you communicate thus spreading the smell, it's also easy to smell your own wrist to check on the smell. \n\n2. Your neck as it's around head height therefore close to other noses. You wouldn't go higher and spray on your face or hair because oil in your hair/face wouldn't feel nice.",
"The neck and wrist are major pulse points and are locations of major blood vessels. These pulse points warm the cologne so that the fragrance can be released continuously."
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4zcobv | why do fermented products increase in quality as they age? | For example, aging wine, cheese, beer, etc., | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4zcobv/eli5_why_do_fermented_products_increase_in/ | {
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"Not all of them do, and not all of the desirability comes from aging. For all of them, there is a point when aging becomes bad for the product. \n\nTake wine. Once it goes into the bottle, aging mostly stops. Open the bottle and give it oxygen and the aging starts back up again, but it will quickly turn into nasty vinegar instead of good wine. When people talk about the age of a wine, they are often referring to the year it was made, which can tell experts who know such things about the type of grape that was used and how good that year's harvest was and even significant historical events, which don't affect the flavor but can affect the rarity.\n\nWhiskey is aged in oak barrels. The whiskey absorbs tannins from the wood, which give it the brown color and biting flavor. The longer it's aged, the more tannins it picks up.\n\nCheese gets harder and usually sharper the longer it's aged. But it depends greatly on the type of cheese. Not all cheeses are supposed to be aged for very long - soft cheeses, for example. You can only age brie before it stops being brie. *Disclaimer: I am not a cheese expert.*\n\nThe point is, aging has to be done carefully, and it takes a long time, during which the product can't be sold. In many cases, aging makes it better, but not always. Mostly it's better because it indicates that someone took the time and effort to age it properly. Those products that should be aged for more flavor are desirable because aging makes them rare and expensive."
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62qwd1 | why do some european countries like germany use a comma instead of a decimal point and vice versa? | I have observed that some European countries use a comma instead of a decimal point and vice versa. If they want to write One Million in numerals, it would be 1.000.000 instead of the regular 1,000,000.
Also, the comma is used in place of a decimal point. Isn't it confusing? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/62qwd1/eli5why_do_some_european_countries_like_germany/ | {
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"It's really confusing that some countries write 1,000,000, yes. And also the fact that they say a thousand millions is a billion, instead of a million millions. \n\nIt's just a convention. That i know of, Spain, Germany and France we use the . for thousands and the , for decimals. \n\nI work in science and engineering and in order to avoid misunderstandings, thousands get a blank (or nothing) and decimals get either: \n\n1 000.646\n\n42574.863\n\n0,435"
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32jw2f | how is it that politicians (take your pick) make millions of dollars as a politician yet their salaries are largely under 400k annually? am i missing something? | I came across a link where Chelsea Clinton (daughter of former president Bill Clinton) is buying a 10+ million dollar apartment in Manhattan. How does she have this kind of money?
Mitt Romney makes sense as he was a successful business man prior to being in politics, but it seems like they reap a lot of other financial benefits no one bats an eye to.
..and no one is concerned that Hilary is spending 2.5 billion on her campaign? (Not her money but still...excessive?)
EDIT: people keep mentioning book deals, but they aren't writing Harry Potter novels here. I understand the books make money, but I wouldn't imagine they make them 10s of millions of dollars. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/32jw2f/eli5_how_is_it_that_politicians_take_your_pick/ | {
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"For many years, congressmen traded on inside legislative information. Being on a subcommittee, a congressman had some idea of when legislation was set to pass and what impact it would have on an industry/company/stock, so he could arrange his portfolio accordingly. This practice has recently been banned: _URL_0_\n\nRegarding the Clintons, they have received 8-9 figures of post-presidential income from speaking/appearance/book fees.",
"Most politicians have sources of income other than their salary. For example, speaking fees and book deals result in *massive* payouts. Every time a former President goes somewhere to speak, you can be damn sure they're getting tens of thousands of dollars to do so. \n\nOnce you get to politics at the national level, there's pretty much no one who isn't already individually wealthy. Everyone has either run a businesses or worked as analysts or lawyers in high paying positions.",
"Clinton's husband is a money manager; for what it's worth, both his parents are former members of Congress.\n\nMost politicians don't make huge sums of money while in office; they make it afterwards. But it's certainly the case that success earlier in life connects you to networks of people who will fund your political campaigns.",
"In Illinois, our House Speaker gets laws passed that ultimately allow/cause cities to raise property taxes a lot each year. Then the county assessors over-value all the properties in their jurisdiction, so the property taxes go up doubly fast. The only way to win a property tax assessment appeal is to pay a connected lawyer to tell the assessor that that property owner has played the game, paid the ransom, and should have his assessment lowered. The IL House Speaker is a lawyer representing commercial property owners, mostly in downtown Chicago. He collects the ransoms to get their assessments lowered, and it is quite lucrative. He is a multi-millionaire, and his daughter is the attorney general, so there is never anything found worthy of being unlawful in his conduct. ",
"A six figure salary, plus additional sources of income (speaking fees, book deals), a tendency to marry other high earning individuals, a lot of benefits with the job, and serious networking. Notice that Hillary writes a book before each national campaign. That pads her personal income in a way direct donations could not.",
"They are legally allowed to do insider trading. If you or I tried this we would be charged with fraud. One set of laws for them, another for the serfs.\n\nEdit: As posted by /u/winflate, _URL_0_",
"Politicians make lots of money after leaving office from books/memoirs (millions per book), speaking fees (five and six figures per speech), sitting on corporate boards (five and six figures a year), etc.\n\nThe Clintons have [earned an estimated $160 million](_URL_0_) since Bill left office. Hillary got an $8 million advance for her book, Hard Choices. Bill has been pulling in about [$10 million a year in speaking fees](_URL_1_).\n\nFor positions below president like congressmen, they may take high paying jobs as lobbyists or executives with firms they were friendly with. So, for example, a GOP congressman who was friendly with military contractors might become VP of government relations at XYZ Death Machines Inc. and make $1 million/year to try and sell the company's weapons to the Pentagon.",
"Hillary reportedly got a $14m advance to write her most recent book. Sales have been slow, so the publisher is probably still several million in the hole, but she may still be getting royalties on top of the advance, too. ",
" > EDIT: people keep mentioning book deals, but they aren't writing Harry Potter novels here. I understand the books make money, but I wouldn't imagine they make them 10s of millions of dollars.\n\nSpecifically responding to OP's edit. Yes, they do. Bill Clinton got a 15 million dollar advance for his autobiography, and given the number of copies it sold (over 2 million) and its initial high price (over $40, IIRC), probably received some royalties on top of that.\n\nEDIT: Just checked wikipedia--according to it, Bill got $30M in total from his 2 books."
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1i2n5z | why are auto loans so complicated to refinance? | I have two vehicles that I tried to refinance. One financier (Honda Financial Services) said they can't refinance my motorcycle because they only hold the loan and take payments. If I want to refinance, I have to go to a bank/credit union. My credit union, which holds the loan on my van, has told me they cannot refinance the van because the value of the van is upside down. I understand that this means I'm now paying more than the vehicle is worth. But, as I understand it, that happens the moment we drive the vehicle off the lot and it only decreases drastically over time. Basically, that means any auto loan you sign for immediately becomes upside-down from the moment you drive off the lot. Am I wrong?
If I'm correct, then that brings me to my next question: What's really confusing to me (and pissing me off) is we already have an agreement to pay X amount of dollars, whether or not the financing is upside down. The bank has already given us the loan. So, why does the value of the vehicle matter if I've already agreed to pay that amount? If I'm willing to accept stretch out my payments over a longer period of time (and thus pay more in interest to the bank) in order to lower my monthly payments, the bank wins either way.
EDIT: Thanks guys! Your responses were great and did help me quite a bit! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1i2n5z/eli5_why_are_auto_loans_so_complicated_to/ | {
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"A financial institution likely will not refi it's own loan due to the fact you could get a better interest rate. After paying for two years your credit score would be better and you could get a better rate.\n\nIf Honda Financial Services were to refi a good paying customer's loan they could lose money on interest they could charge. Companies normally don't sign up for this sort of thing. \n\nAs for your request to refinance a loan that is upside down, it is likely policy that to refi the debt they are buying from the other bank/credit union/FS group it needs to \"good debt.\" Good debt is low risk and if you were to have an accident and total the vehicle your bank doesn't want the risk of not getting their money back. Your bank would try to recover some of the debt through your insurance company and likely (since it is bad debt) have try and get the remainder from you. ",
"Let me try to explain this to you like a five year old. \n\nBilly, you bought a bike at the store for $10. Your mom gave you money to buy the bike but you had to pay her back $2 a month out of your allowance per month for 6 months. One month later, you realize that your Dad might only charge you $1.75 per month and you want to see if you can get him to pay off the deal you made with your mom. Your dad says no because if he had to sell the bike to your friend Tommy, he could only get $6 for it. So if you stopped paying him, he would lose money.\n\n\nThe non ELI5 version: Cars are known in the financial industry as a rapidly depreciating asset as soon as you purchase them. This means they are worth significantly less each year in the beginning when you purchase them and the banks would likely not be able to recoup the loan after you default with them. In order for a new bank to take over the old bank's loan, you need to get them to pay off the balance on the old loan. Since the loan would more than likely be worth more than the resell value of the car, this is highly unlikely. You could possibly get around this by making up the difference between the two values so that the bank would be more willing to give you the loan, but I dont think that is the solution you are looking for. \n\nAs to why your own financial institution wont refinance with you, AUX_work's explanation is pretty spot on. There is no profitable reason why the bank would offer you a lower interest rate when you are already paying a higher interest rate. \n\nTo answer your last question, think of it this way. You give your buddy $1000 to buy gold and you give him 1 year to pay you back with the condition that you hold the gold until he pays you back $1500. All of a sudden, the price of gold drops to where that gold is only worth $800. Then your buddy comes to you and asks to pay you back $1250 total instead because he has paid you on time for 6 months. You would flat out say no because not only is the gold worth less if you had to sell it, you would not be making as much in the end for your risk. That is the perspective of the bank.\n",
" > Basically, that means any auto loan you sign for immediately becomes upside-down from the moment you drive off the lot. Am I wrong?\n\nNot necessarily. If you put a larger down payment on it you could owe less than the car is worth. It's what I did with my last car purchase, I put about half down so that I wouldn't have to worry about being underwater or buying gap insurance.",
"Ok, coming from a person from the industry, who did refinances day in and day out (mostly at a credit union), here goes.\n\nHonda Financial Services, as well as other manufacturer related lending options, do not process refinances, they only process new purchases. There is further regulation pertaining to refinances, and as stated previously, it often just is not financially worth it to them to do so (not enough profit in it for them vs the risk and cost of doing the refi).\n\nYour credit union (as with most others and banks) have what's called a Loan to Value ratio (LTV). The credit union i worked at, would lend up to 120% of the value of the collateral (if your van is worth $10k, they could lend up to $12k with qualifying credit). Whenever you do a refi, the loan and risk is new, and evaluated as such. They really do not take into account anything about the existing loan, and any profits they would get from that, as this a violation of Regulation B, or the Fair Lending Reg. \n\nRegarding the depreciation of your auto, and losing value when \"driving it off the lot,\" this is primarily only applicable to purchasing a new car from a dealership. Given the fees, how the dealer sells the car for max price, and how vehicles are by nature, a depreciating asset, this is where the preconception of the value decreasing when driving off the lot comes from (even more so with a new car, versus used). If you purchase a car from Craigslist, or private party, and finance that, you will find you have a much better chance at keeping the loan in line with the value. However, if you choose to finance a $20k car, over 7 years, making minimum payments, your car will lose value faster than you pay off the loan, given the amortization schedule, and how you pay primarily interest in the first few years, rather than the actual loan itself, or principle. \n\nBottomline, a refi is always a new loan request, and evaluated as such, especially when there is collateral, or a vehicle involved. The previous obligation you have signed, has very little bearing on the new request and whether the new loan will be approved or not. Also, lending institutions want their money back, especially on these loans. They would much prefer a 3 year term, versus a 5 year term. When i worked in the industry, the CU i worked for would actually increase the interest rate .25% for each year over 5 you wanted the term to be. Interest is really risk in a monetary form, so it shows they believe longer term loans to be riskier than shorter. Tons and tons of variables when it comes to this stuff, but please feel free to ask any further questions you might have.\n\nNot too much ELI5ish, but i hope it helps you understand what you are going up against. \n\nEdit: Don't do business with a bank, do all your \"banking\" with a credit union! Banks a for profit, credit unions aren't and are owned by the members! Any profits a credit union makes, is given back to the members in the form of low rates on loans, or higher rates on deposit accounts. Also, credit unions need a balance of loans to deposits, so if a CU has more deposits, they will lower their rates on loans, to attract that business. Essentially, these are \"loan sales\" to be taken advantage of!",
"So other people covered the why of this better than I could have, but if you're still struggling to try and do this, trying going through AAA? I refinanced my car with a few phone calls to set up the appointment and an hour or two at the AAA office working with an agent. I gave them all the information, they found a credit union that would give me a better interest rate, they contacted them and contacted my current loan holder, we all signed some papers and that was that."
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3o8rgl | why do snack companies leave so much empty space in their bags? wouldn't that just use more packaging and decrease storage efficiency? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3o8rgl/eli5_why_do_snack_companies_leave_so_much_empty/ | {
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"The bags are filled with nitrogen gas to act as a cushion to help prevent the chips or whatever it may be from being crushed in transport.",
"That empty space is filled with inert nitrogen, which keeps the food fresh and prevents it from being smashed. Nobody likes their snacks reduced to crumbs.",
"In chips, that air in the bag is actually nitrogen, which helps keep the chips fresh. It also creates a cushion, so your chips don't arrive to your completely crushed to bits.\n\nIn the case of other snacks, like M & Ms for example, the added bit of room in the bag means it stands up to shipping and handling a lot better. If the bag was fit to just barely hold the M & Ms inside, once it starts getting pushed around or gets caught between two things, you are putting more pressure on the plastic which means it is more likely to break. Like... a balloon that is filled to near breaking won't stand up to the same amount of abuse that a half empty balloon does. The extra packaging means the contents can shift more without exploding out of the bag."
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29trgi | why wasn't the us patriot act used to stop gang violence? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/29trgi/eli5_why_wasnt_the_us_patriot_act_used_to_stop/ | {
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"Gang violence is predominately a concern for state and local governments, not federal. "
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7eq6hq | what is the simplest difference between a computer and a server | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7eq6hq/eli5_what_is_the_simplest_difference_between_a/ | {
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"A server is just a computer that is intended to send data to other computers. It might be used to store data that other computers can access, or to run programs and send results to the other computers. The other computers that rely on the server are called its clients.\n\nPretty much any computer with a network connection can be used as a server, but a computer specifically intended to be a server might be configured differently from a typical desktop computer depending on the services it provides. If its job is just to store data for other computers, then it might have multiple really big hard drives. If its job is to run big programs on behalf of other computers, it might have an especially powerful processor.",
"In modern terms, a computer is something you and I use to do everyday computer stuff. So things like desktops, laptops, tablets, smartphones all kinda come under that category. \n\nA server is a type of computer that isn't used by a human for regular computer activities. Instead, it's a computer that's been assigned to do only a few things. If we're talking web servers, then the job of that server computer is to store and send websites to your browser. If it's an email server, it's where emails from certain addresses go to be forwarded to their recipients. \n\nThink of it this way: a computer is like your house. You live in it, eat sleep watch TV, etc. A server is like an airport. People go there to catch flights or exit them having gotten off a flight. That's the primary purpose. No one lives at the airport but it's used for a specific reason. "
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3ss4hz | why do some women gain so much weight during pregnancy and others stay more or less the same? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ss4hz/eli5_why_do_some_women_gain_so_much_weight_during/ | {
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"For the same reasons anyone is a different shape than anyone else. Could be diet, metabolism, differences in the way the body resonds to the pregnancy, or other health issues. "
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2trmqz | how do wet wipes keep from getting dry in containers and packages? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2trmqz/eli5_how_do_wet_wipes_keep_from_getting_dry_in/ | {
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"The containers are air-tight thus preventing evaporation. The wipes themselves are also soaked pretty heavily so they stay moist after a little evaporation. But you'll notice that if you don't close the lid tight the wipes *will* dry out. Try it at home, it doesn't take long. (Just hope no one gets too mad at you for drying out a box of wet wipes.)"
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80txa1 | what happens to water when it is dumped on a fire on a molecular level? is it the same as boiling it and bringing it up to temperature slowly but happens instantly? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/80txa1/eli5_what_happens_to_water_when_it_is_dumped_on_a/ | {
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"When water touches the fire it evaporates. When it turns into vapour (it turns into steam, EDIT) it separates the oxygen from the fire's fuel due to rapidly expanding and rising upwards - it's an asphyxiant, it pushes the oxygen molecules away. A fire needs oxygen to burn, without it, it extinguishes.\n\nThis assumes we are talking about a \"basic\" fire, like a burning piece of wood. Chemical fires or such with liquid fuels are different.\n\nEDIT: See below for a more in-depth explanation and a correction of a shameful mistake I made"
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4d5oqp | how does braille work for languages with complex writing systems like chinese and japanese? | How would the people reading Braille distinguish between words with the same pronunciation, but different Hanzi/Kanji? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4d5oqp/eli5_how_does_braille_work_for_languages_with/ | {
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"Chinese and Japanese both have a romanized alphabet (Pinyin/Romaji). Also Japanese have a alphabet similar to most Romanized alphabet, where there is a set amount of characters and combinations of them makes words, (Hiragana/Katakana) which Japanese school children use before they learn how to read Kanji. \n\nThe Braille system would be based on the Pinyin (for the Chinese) and Hiragana/Katakana (for the Japanese) similar to how English Braille works. ",
"They spell out words with the dots, rather than drawing the character.(Note it's actually more each character represents a sound rather than an individual letter, this is called a syllabary) \nThey can tell the difference through context, just as if someone had spoken it. This means that while they might not be able to get something deliberately confusing like the poem [Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den](_URL_0_), they will be able to get the overwhelming majority of day to day written communication.",
"Just like in english, words in Japanese can be *written* or they can be *spoken*. \n\nUsually, when we write a word, the letters play fair by always making their sound (\"good\") or saying their name (\"oh!\") \n\nBut sometimes words in English don't play fair when they are written down. \n\nLike, the word \"sign\" *looks* like its sound should be < si-gen > . But instead, the g won't talk and the word says, < s-ah-yn > ! \n\nWhen we write a word's *sound* instead of its doesn't-play-fair spelling, we write it *phonetically*. \n\nNow, as you know, Japanese words are written as pictures, and pictures don't make sounds. So Japanese words never play fair when they are written: they don't have letters that say their names or make their sounds. \n\nBut, when you *say* a Japanese word, it *does* make a sound! Because of that, every Japanese word can be written phonetically. \n\nAnd, since blind people can't read pictures but they often can hear sounds and feel touches, they use special letters that they can touch and all the letters play fair. \n\nSo, when you write a word in that special alphabet, you write it phonetically. Then a blind person can read it by touch and imagine the sound in their head. :)\n\nEdit\n\nThe li5 part may have been a bit over the top, lol. I tutor (dyslexic and spectrum) kids. \n\nTl; dr \n\nThey have an alphabet for writing things phonetically, I believe. \n"
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2t14kh | how is pro basketball played? | The title isn't the clearest but I'm not sure how else to phrase it. Everytime I watch a clip of the NBA or higher level basketball in general it looks like everyone is traveling to me. I just watched a pretty cool clip of some guy rushing up to the basket, juking about 4 guys and dunking it to break a tie in the last second. Now to me whenever people do these plays I always see like 3-4 steps with no dribbling. I thought you had two steps without dribbling limit? Do refs just ignore this for the sake of keeping the sick plays on the field? Does the jump not count as a step? Are you allowed to travel for a shot? Are my eyes not trained enough to follow pro basketball? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2t14kh/eli5_how_is_pro_basketball_played/ | {
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" > NBA or higher level basketball in general\n\nAs an aside, there is no level of basketball higher than the NBA. That is where the best players in the world play.",
"Some of what you're seeing might be a lack of understanding for certain rules, but all that aside pro ballers have a lot more wiggle room when it comes to minor infractions than in other pro sports. The refs, the players, the coaches, and the fans all know this so don't count every step a player makes or anything, especially if it's a big move by a star player or something - if he were to get called for traveling the ref would get more shit than praise for following the rules exactly as written.",
"In the nba, you can take two steps without dribbling but then must stop, shoot, or pass the ball. if you dribble while pushing off of one foot it is not counted toward one of your 2 allowed steps. This puts a slight grey area in the rule and, yes, they kind of overlook it during highlight type plays. It's up to the player to make the call as ambiguous as possible. The best players usually have a fluidity to their movement that helps. Travels are mostly called when a player tries to move with the intent of shooting or passing but doesn't follow through.",
"After players catch the ball from a pass, they're allowed 1-2 \"recovery\" steps. There's a specific term for this I think. Anyway, these 2 steps are allowed because it helps the player catch the ball and put it down to start dribbling without losing momentum as he runs. ",
"A friend of mine who is a red of high school and small college games says that the NBA has a sort of unwritten \"rule\" regarding traveling that he explains thusly: traveling in the NBA is like porn; you can't define it but know it when you see it. ",
"Interesting, reading just the title, I felt that in my attempt to explain professional basketball I knew I needed to note that in the NBA you don't have to dribble.\n\nYou already knew that."
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1ryrey | why do businesses offer senior discounts to the elderly? | Since the elderly seem to have more wealth than younger Americans, why are senior citizens often offered discounts by businesses for services and entertainment events?
Is it out of respect for our elders, do seniors actually have less money, or is there a more compelling reason? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ryrey/eli5_why_do_businesses_offer_senior_discounts_to/ | {
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"Many seniors live on a fixed income, like social security or a pension, so they feel the need to scrimp and save. Offering a senior discount is an easy way to get their business.\n\nSource: Work in a grocery store. Senior discount day is by far our busiest weekday.",
"As explained by some of the comments, the point is to get their business. The practice of offering different prices to different groups of people is called price discrimination. \n\nSo why do businesses want to charge different prices to different groups? Let's go to the example of a car salesman. He needs to sell the same car to 4 different people, but those 4 people are all willing to pay different prices. A recent grad who has other loans to pay off may only be willing to pay 18k for a car, while someone with a more established career may be willing to pay 22k. So how does the salesman make the most money? He should try to charge each person what that person is willing to pay. If he did not \"price discriminate,\" aka if he can only charge the same price to all 4 people, he would need to charge the price that is the lowest among the 4 people's willingness to pay. Rather than having to charge 18k to all 4 people, he can charge 18k to the recent grad, 22k to the older person, and so on. \n\nCar salesmen are able to charge different prices to different people by talking to their customers, getting a feel for their budget, and making an estimate about what that person is willing to pay. This is a lot more difficult to do in, let's say, a movie theater. So instead, they charge different prices based on demographics. High school teens, college kids, and regular adults are probably willing to pay the most because they probably wanna go out on a friday or saturday night and watch the new blockbuster that just came out. You can charge these people more because they are willing to pay more. \n\nChildren, on the other hand, only go to the movies with their parents. And the parents may not be willing to pay a lot to see a new movie with their children (maybe they'll just get the dvd and watch it at home with the whole family). So they need to charge less for children if they want to capture that demographic as well. We argue the same for old people as well. You rarely see a group of senior citizens get hyped up to go out and see that new movie that just came out, and that's because old people would probably only buy the tickets to see it if they weren't that expensive.\n\nPrice discrimination is everywhere. You see it in airline ticket prices (weekend vs weekday prices are different because of business trips vs family vacations), mechanic and auto repair shops charging more for female customers (assumption is that females are less knowledgeable about cars, so mechanics can get away with charging more), happy hour at bars and restaurants, any sort of coupon. Hell, even colleges giving out financial aid and scholarships is a form of price discrimination.\n\nTL;DR - businesses want to make the most money, so they charge different people different prices depending on how much those people are willing to pay. Old people tend to be willing to pay less than adults or young adults.\n\n"
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qdk8w | what's with all the hype with raspberry pi? | I know that they were just released and that they are very well priced, but exactly do people do with them?
_URL_0_
Wow.
> Note: Both websites (that sell Raspberry Pi) are currently experiencing heavy load, and international customers may find that Raspberry Pi is not available yet in their territory. Please be patient, and consider checking back in a few hours' time. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/qdk8w/whats_with_all_the_hype_with_raspberry_pi/ | {
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"it's a charitable organization that makes a barebones computer that is the size of a deck of cards, yet has the power and capabilities or processing and outputting 1080p video all for $35. What's not to like?\n\n",
"In terms of education, tiny and cheap computers that work well would do wonders in schools. Students, especially those in third-world or developing nations, now can have access to both computers and the internet if it's available, and price is not quite as big of a barrier. In the US, though it's a first-world nation, money isn't spent too heavily on schools and education, so the more things we can get for our kids, the better.\n\nOn a more personal note, hobbyists can use these to run small devices, collect data from remote sensors, have a network of them, etc. Basically, imagine if you could take the average desktop, and put it *anywhere*. You could do a lot of things.",
"XBMC will be coming to it for sure, an open source media player frontend. An HTPC you can tape to the back of your TV is what I am excited about.",
"There's also the fact that it's the brainchild of David Braben, who's quite well known as a programmer and spokesperson for public awareness of the utility of programming.\n\nHe's an admirable person, and it's not a strange things that if he's decided to spend ten years on this project, it's likely that whatever comes out of it, is good.",
"I don't understand something about it, is it functioning like a computer, so that a person with basic computer skills can use it, or is it all about scripts and programming it to function?",
"It's meant for schools and lets face it, when i did IT in schools, we learnt how to use the MS office products, learnt how to install a CPU in a PC and the rest was all theory and data manipulation. In high school there is no programming or tinkering with OSs. You have to venture on to university for that. If it started being taught in schools then you would see an earlier interest and essentially more time to learn.\n\nFrankly i think they should teach the basics of Android application building. That's what i was taught at university and if the basics get taught as early as high school then it would be great. These Raspberry things run of Linux which is opensource so its a good start. ",
"It is a lightweight, low power, cheap computer you can do anything to. The hardware is similar to that of a smartphone, but they let you play around with its inner workings, so you can do anything with it. Just a couple of things I want to do with it:\n\n- Build my own smartphone\n- Build a file server that uses 7W max\n- Build a low power media station\n\nFor any Raspberry fans out there: check _URL_0_ if you want some cheap USB gadgets like wifi, 3G dongles, keyboards, USB surround sound cards or USB hubs, so you can really make something cool with it.",
"Costs 35 British Pounds, has HDMI output, works better than an iPhone 4S. \n\nThat's all.\n"
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1t3kts | i heard that recycling does more harm than good because of the emissions during the recycling process. is this statement accurate? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1t3kts/eli5_i_heard_that_recycling_does_more_harm_than/ | {
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"It depends on what you think the alternative is. Yes, recycling can use a lot of energy and will create nasty wastes and people shouldn't think that recycling just makes everything perfect. On the other hand, most things which can be recycled require less energy, waste, and environmental impact than making the same product from raw ingredients such as mined ores and oil. If you are truly concerned, however, reducing your use is going to do the most good.",
"It can depend on what's being recycled. Metals tend to recycle very well, and with less energy than is required to extract new metal from the ground. Aluminum, for example, is generally found bound up in bauxite ore, and requires a lot of energy to extract, not to mention dig up.\n\nRecycling other things, like paper, doesn't always offer the same sort of energy savings. The paper generally needs to be broken down into mush before new paper products can be made out of it, and it doesn't take significantly more energy to break down new wood into pulp than it does to break down recycled paper. "
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4i2zdo | if doctors are over prescribing antibiotics and giving them to patients when they don't need them, then how can someone know if they really do need to take antibiotics? | I always hear about how doctors are giving away antibiotics when they aren't needed, and that people should not take antibiotics for every little sickness because that's hurting us in the long run. My doctor will offer me antibiotics no matter what's wrong with me, and I have to be the one to decide whether I take them or not.
But how do you know if you really do need to take them vs just riding out a sickness? Are there certain signs that antibiotics are needed?
| explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4i2zdo/eli5_if_doctors_are_over_prescribing_antibiotics/ | {
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"Antibiotics are often over prescribed to people with viruses. Antibiotics do nothing to help kill viruses but some idiots think they do and ask for them "
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6w7hfh | why do americans write 0.9 and europeans 0,9? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6w7hfh/eli5_why_do_americans_write_09_and_europeans_09/ | {
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"If you're using a comma as a decimal point, how do you tell the difference between 4,293,178 and 4,293.178?",
"During the 18th century there was a bit of a fight over which decimal separator that should be used, some arguing for the decimal point and others for the decimal comma. During this time period English mathematicians used the symbol \"X\" for multiplication, but in other European countries it was more popular to use a dot \"·\" as a symbol for multiplication. Since the multiplication symbol \"·\" could easily be confused with the decimal point \".\" most European countries adopted the decimal comma \",\", simply to avoid confusion between the decimal point and multiplication symbol. England kept using the decimal point however. Most English speaking countries today use the decimal point, while most European countries use the decimal comma.",
"So looks like the short answer is: 18th Century, English used x for multiplication, kept the decimal point. Europe used a dot for multiplication, adjusted and created the decimal comma.\n\nThat was ages ago now. In today's tolerant era, we can use the multiplication dot and the decimal point with zero confusion.\n\n\nEurope, I understand the reason for your transgression, but we have moved on beyond the initial problem. It is solved. I forgive you, and will welcome you back to the world of the decimal point.\n\nYou can say 9,000 ⋅ 1.5 without fear, or even 9,000*1.5 if you'd rather. It's safe now.",
"You mean 'why does *English* use a decimal point, and pretty much everywhere else use a decimal comma?'\n\nIt isn't an 'American thing'; it came with the language, and existed before the creation of the US.\n\nI think the basic answer is that other European languages used the point to mean a multiplication, and a comma for a decimal separator. \n\nNow everyone uses 'x' for 'times by', but the decimal separators have stuck.",
"Followup: When non-English speakers are writing a large number in words, do y'all still use commas between thousands, millions, billions, etc.?",
"So from what I understand from [Wikipedia](_URL_0_) it's all to do with the invention of the printing press.\n\nSome countries like like France already used a full stop to make reading Roman numerals easier to read, so they went with a comma for the decimal mark, some other countries went with this too.\n\nEnglish speaking countries liked the comma for separating the numbers into groups of three, so they chose the dot for the decimal point. \n\nSo basically printing was invented and people had to pick a side, some chose commas, chose dots. *(Others chose other symbols, but that's too confusing)*"
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a18tti | why haven’t any other animals developed opposable thumbs to the degree that humans have? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a18tti/eli5_why_havent_any_other_animals_developed/ | {
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"There were other apes that did but they've gone extinct. Having opposable thumbs means that our grip strength isn't as good as it would be if we didn't have them. But at some point in humanity's past having opposable thumbs became much more of an advantage than being able to climb trees faster. ",
"They didn't need to or the opportunity never arose. Species wide changes begin when a single individual's genes mutate and/or recombine in a way that makes it more likely that their offspring will survive (\"fitness\"). Something as complex as a thumb would take generations of mutations, possibly millennia, but without that first mutation, no dice. Do you know what superbugs are? They're an extreme example of how mutations increase fitness. One bacteria among millions mutates in such a way that they don't die from antibiotics. Well, it has offspring and they have offspring and sooner than later all of the non-drug resistant bacteria are gone and the only ones left are the ones who got that first mutation. "
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63ivri | abortion process/surgery in a legitimate abortion clinic. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/63ivri/eli5_abortion_processsurgery_in_a_legitimate/ | {
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"Great video explaining this (and also a great channel in general): _URL_0_"
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8kly3x | how do garbage collection services get caught up from taking federal holidays off? same amount of weekly trash, collected in fewer days: they work longer hours? they run more trucks? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8kly3x/eli5_how_do_garbage_collection_services_get/ | {
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"I'm from Australia so maybe things are different but my dad is a Garbo and basically works Monday to Friday.. Whenever he has a day off he works Saturday instead and the bins are picked up a day late leading to Saturday which is ultimately the Friday trash. Then start again Monday back to normal ",
"In our city, they work 4-day weeks generally. (M-T-TH-F) \nFor Monday holidays, they move M-T collections to T-W",
"My normal trash day is on Friday. If they have a holiday, they'll pick the trash up on Saturday. So if they don't work on a weekday, they have to make it up on a weekend. ",
"**Please read this entire message**\n\n---\n\nYour submission has been removed for the following reason(s):\n\nELI5 is not for:\n\nStraightforward answers or facts - ELI5 is for requesting an explanation of a concept, not a simple straightforward answer \n\n\n\n---\nIf you would like this removal reviewed, please read the [detailed rules](_URL_0_) first. If you still feel the removal should be reviewed, please [message the moderators.](_URL_1_?)"
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2yb24t | why do radio operators say "niner" instead of just "nine"? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2yb24t/eli5why_do_radio_operators_say_niner_instead_of/ | {
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"Radio static can make enunciation unclear. It is said to differentiate 5 and 9.",
"Radio reception is often spotty, so radio operators are trained to enunciate clearly and pronounce numbers in a particular way so that they can easily be understood even with interference in the signal. Just like letters are read off as full words, numbers are exaggerated or changed slightly to make their sounds more distinctive. Other numbers are changed as well. Four is changed into a two-syllable word (FOW-er), five is pronounced like fife, three is pronounced tree.",
"The same reason that they don't say letters, they use words that begin with those letters.\n\nIt avoids any possible confusion.\n\nFor instance, \"nine\" can be confused with \"five\" so they add the \"er\" at the end to emphasise the difference.",
"In the NATO phonetic alphabet it is pronounced nine-er to prevent confusion with the German \"nein\", which means \"no\"."
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zrjog | reptiles, mammals, amphibians and the platypus | What are the biological qualifications for an animal to be considered each of these and why is the Platypus so strange? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/zrjog/reptiles_mammals_amphibians_and_the_platypus/ | {
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"Reptiles are cold blooded (they do not generate sufficient body heat to maintain a constant body temperature above that of the ambient air without an external heat source) and have scales or scale like structures on their skin. They generally lay eggs, although some species give birth to live young.\n--Interesting note, although Birds are warm blooded, they also have scale-like structures on their feet and feathers are considered modified scales. There is a movement to fold the study of birds into the study of reptiles, birds being the surviving branch of the dinosaurs. Crocodiles are more closely related to birds than to lizards. \n\nMammals are warm blooded, give birth to live young, nurse them with milk from their nipples, and grow hair on their bodies.\n\nAmphibians typically have a larval stage that lives in the water and breath through gills before metamorphosing into an adult form that breaths though lungs. Their skin is often such that they lose moisture when exposed to dry air and thus must live in areas of high humidity or periodically re-immerse themselves in water. They are some of the first land animals to evolve, splitting off from the boney lungfish.\n\nThe platypus is a monotreme, a subset of mammals that exhibits many of the characteristics of the common ancestor of modern reptiles and mammals. The platypus and the several variety of echidna are the only extant representatives of the monotremes. These odd creatures lay leathery eggs from which hatch into young who are fed milk that drips from the mammery glands to the skin without defined nipples. They also have cloacha (a unified opening for the urinary, digestive and reproductive tracts) like reptiles. The platypus is also odd in that the males alone have a spur on their hind legs that emits venom. [They are the only venomous mammal.]-retracted",
"All fascinating. Thanks for the info! Appreciate your help!",
"Animals are all classified into groups based on appearance, behaviors, genetics, evolutionary relationships, etc (which you can look more into through phylogenetics, cladograms, etc)\n\nWith regards to cladograms, this can be boiled down to synapomorphies (shared traits across taxa and their most recent common ancestor). \n\nAmphibians (anurans, urodeles, gymnophiona) are tetrapods (four legs), which separates them from fish, but non-amniotes, which is really what separates them from amniotes (reptiles, mammals, birds). Non-amniote because their eggs don't have an impervious membrane that keep moisture in and stuff out (which is why all amphibians NEED water to reproduce. Their eggs will dry out otherwise). Their skin has no scales and its still tied into respiration, so their skin is very venous and their circulatory system can bypass the lungs and go directly to the skin for gas exchange. They also have positive pressure respiration, which means they have to actively pump/swallow air through buccal pumping/gular fluttering (as do reptiles). All amphibians have metamorphic development (egg, larva, metamorphosis, adult)\n\nReptiles (testudines, sphenodontia, squamata, crocodilia) have various traits that classify them as reptiles like skull morphology/dentition/jaw articulation (where anapsid/diapsid/synapsid comes into play), respiration/circulatory system (reptiles have , along with the whole \"cold blooded\" (really, ecothermic or poikilothermic are more accurate descriptions) and scaley stuff that everyone's taught in elementary. \n\nSO, Reptiles: three chambered heart, ectothermic, beta-keratin, diapsids (except for turtles which are anapsid, but we think they got by losing a hole through evolution), negative pressure respiration supplemented by buccal/gular pumping. Respiration is also tied in with locomotion, meaning the side to side motion they make when moving is literally tied to their ability to breathe in and out which is why you don't have long distance running reptiles. Crocodiles get around it because they've evolved an analogous structure to the mammalian muscular diaphragm that's tied in somehow to the liver/pelvic structure. I forget how, specifically. Jaw articulation is also quadroarticular (uses quadrate/articular parts of skulll). \n\nMammals (monotremata, metathera, eutheria) have synapomorphies that boil down to of mammary glands (all mammals possess identical mammary gland structure because this was passed down from a common ancestor), hair, single lower jaw bone (dentary-squamosal articulation, just uses dentary and squamate part of skull), three inner ear bones (stapes, incus, malleus which in less derived animals like fish/reptiles/amphibians these are still a part of the jaw articulation), muscular diaphragm, left aortic arch (in the mammalian four chambered heart, the right aortic arch disappeared somewhere along the evolutionary timeline, so that's one of the differences between avian vs mammal hearts, birds have the left aortic arch), and mammalian hair is made up up alpha-keratin proteins rather than the beta-keratin found in the claws and scales/feathers of birds and reptiles. \n\nAs for the platypus, it's one of two extant members of monotremata (tachyglossidae < < echidna, ornithorhynchidae < < platypus) and are considered a mosaic animal because they display the derived characteristics of mammals but still possess the less derived traits of more reptilian ancestors (for example, monotremes still possess a sclerotic ring like reptiles/birds but it never ossifies. Another example is the pectoral vs pelvic girdle; the pelvic girdle is upright and the limbs are positioned below the body like most other therians (metatherians/eutherians), but the pelvic girdle has sprawling sideways positioned limbs like therapsids (pre-mammal, still \"reptile\" like ancestors). They also still have hemipenes like reptiles. \n\nBasically, platypuses as a group aren't strange so much as really freaking old. \n\nSorry for the word vomit, phylogenetics is totally my JAM, haha"
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242c0x | why is it so much cheaper to buy 100% juice than to just buy the fruit and make the juice yourself? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/242c0x/eli5why_is_it_so_much_cheaper_to_buy_100_juice/ | {
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"Juice is usually reconstituted frozen concentrate that is made from damaged, fallen and overly ripe fruit that can't be sold at the store, so the raw material is cheap. When you buy fresh fruit at the store you are paying for the prettiest product from the prime harvest that has been carefully handled.",
"My guess is because the best fruit gets sent to market, whereas fruit that may have been bruised or otherwise deemed unacceptable will just get juiced. I'm really curious on the correct answer myself. ",
"It's cheaper to make a lot of juice when you buy thousands of oranges at a time than it is to make one glass at a time. It's also easier to transport juice in sturdy cardboard cartons without damaging them than it is to transport thousands of oranges. Also, a ton of fruit might only produce half a ton of juice, so it costs less to transport that fruit in the form of juice than it is to transport the juice and the useless parts of the fruit.",
"Things generally cost as much as the people selling them are able to get away with.\nIt is also much easier to play around with the prices of fresh produce since these prices are usually dynamic and people buy them by weight, so they are less likely to notice shifts in price.\n\nAlso, when buying fresh fruit, some of that fruit will spoil before being sold and will have to be thrown out. Prices will need to reflect that, as well as the amount of space they take up, cost of handling and so on.",
"Huge amounts of fruit are delivered to the juicing factory in bulk - often in dump trucks. This is a really cheap way of moving the fruit around. The factory buys entire outputs of whole farms, and get the fruit at low cost, because the farmer knows that they have a guaranteed buyer for their whole crop, and don't have to carefully pack it all into boxes. Then all this fruit is juiced in bulk, the juice clarified, concentrated and sterilized into another bulk liquid that can be shipped and stored cheaply.\n\nCompare this with individually picking fruit, packing it into boxes, carefully shipping it in refrigerated trailers, only to have a good proportion of it destroyed because of damage or because it couldn't be sold, and several wholesalers and retailers who also need to be paid, and you can see why fresh fruit is so much more expensive."
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2jg0jh | the breakthrough in fusion technology | I wanna know the cool shit we can do with this new tech, hypothetically and realistically speaking here guys.
[link for those who don't know](_URL_0_) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2jg0jh/eli5_the_breakthrough_in_fusion_technology/ | {
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"The Skunk Works design is not particularly a breakthrough yet. Keep in mind that the ITER project is not exactly lighting fires, so it's a low bar to exceed. Currently there are several high-profile fusion projects aimed at power generation that are non-tokamak designs:\n\n* Polywell, a Navy controlled project at this point with limited public details\n* Focus Fusion, who recently installed a solid tungsten electrode to eliminate metal contamination through vaporization at the contact point.\n* Tri-alpha\n* Skunk Works\n* (and more?)\n\nThese are four very different means of confinement. Radically different experiments usually learn more than highly similar projects up to the point that we know a lot and development proceeds like convergent evolution.\n\nFusion reactors in aerospace applications have two problems:\n\n* Neutrons emitted by the lowest temperature fuels require heavy neutron shielding. Heavy is bad for aircraft/rockets etc.\n* Energy capture through a thermal cycle means a lot of plumbing, which is heavy and fragile.\n\nIn particular I'm in favor of focus fusion because they have demonstrated that at really high magnetic fields, the energy loss through radiation is mitigated by a quantum effect because electrons are orbiting so tightly that the photons they would emit are essentially captive. This lets them reach a very, very high temperature, which can sustain Boron-proton fusion, which doesn't emit neutrons, so it doesn't require radiation shielding like the Skunk Works design.\n\nThe focus fusion project has also been working on their energy recovery problem. First the result of a \"shot\" in a DPF is two beams of particles going opposite directions and carrying opposite charges. This is about as organized of a result as you can get out of a high-temperature situation, and organized means we can recover the energy, in this case by reversing the principle of a particle accelerator to instead harvest energy from accelerated particles. Second, the X-rays emitted by this reaction need to be converted back to electricity. Depending on whether we can use photovoltaic effect or photoelectric effect, we have some options. Ceramics have band-gaps in the 100keV range corresponding to hard-ish X-rays, so if we can grow single-crystal ceramics that won't prevent mobilized electrons from flowing, perhaps we can build essentially a solar cell for X-rays that re-absorbs emitted X-rays. Also, because X-rays penetrate well, multi-junction cells can be pretty effective too. I'm speculating about ceramic X-ray cells because I don't know if another effect takes over at those energies.\n\nThe coolest thing we can do with DPF is enable AWESOME heavy-lift spacecraft on the order of whatever we want to build without requiring also building GIGANTIC fuel tanks and rocket engines and instead focusing on cargo. The payload to launch vehicle weight ratios will drop inversely to the altitude of our next space stations, colonies, Mars trips, Europa trips... "
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3p9jq3 | why do people have beer belly but not wine belly? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3p9jq3/eli5_why_do_people_have_beer_belly_but_not_wine/ | {
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"\"Beer belly\" is largely a myth. Men tend to gain weight in their belly, and men tend to drink beer more than wine than women do. Though, it's true that beer has slightly more calories per serving and more carbohydrates per serving. The difference isn't quite enough to cause \"beer belly\" and not cause \"wine belly.\"",
"Beer is far more commonly consumed in the US than wine is.\n\nIf you drink a lot on a regular basis, you're consuming a lot of extra calories (don't forget that alcohol itself is a huge source of calories) over and above your normal daily solid food intake.\n\nWhen calories in is larger than the calories you burn, you're going to gain weight. Thus, guys who drink a lot of beer while still eating & exercising \"normally\" are going to gain significant weight over a period of time.",
"Well, the correct answer is that it is a myth. You won't get a beer belly by drinking beer. It's the lifestyle rather, because drinking alcohol and eating goes hand in hand. \n\nBeer does not make you gain more weight than wine."
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39377q | why, under blue light, do some black clothes look red? | I noticed this at a musical preformance I was at today, where my pants turned red, but my jacket stayed black, while other's had their jackets turn red too | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/39377q/eli5_why_under_blue_light_do_some_black_clothes/ | {
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"They don't. But your brain recognizes that you're in blue light, and adjusts your color perception accordingly: a red object appears black under blue light, so your vision cannot directly tell the difference between blue and red in those conditions. Instead, your brain tries to fill in the colors based on context, and sometimes it gets it wrong."
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3um0qp | why are exoskeletons on small creatures and not large ones like elephants? | Thinking why I don't see ants the size of dogs or vice versa. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3um0qp/eli5_why_are_exoskeletons_on_small_creatures_and/ | {
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"IIRC my biology lessons properly, it's becuase in small creatures an exoskeleton is sufficient to hold them together, or in creatures that live in water. But with large terrestrial creatures it becomes more difficult and a muscular-skeletal system was neccesary to support the creature. It should also be noted that in theory even the muscular-skeletal system can't support creatures too much larger then a ~~elephant~~ dinosaur on land. \n\nEdit: dinosaurs existed. Duh. ",
"It has to do with breathing. Arthropods breath through spiricles or book lungs. They don't actually breath, air diffuses into these tubes. This limits their size. Structure function. Love that bio/zoo!",
"Pretty much any time a question involves size, the answer is the square-cube law. The square-cube law is basically that volume changes faster than surface area. For instance, if you double the size of a sphere by doubling its radius, its surface area increases 4x, but it's volume increases 8x. If you were to multiply the radius by 10, the surface area would increase 100x, and the volume would increase 1000x.\n\nHow is this relevant? Well, an exoskeleton is basically an external surface as a support structure, so the weight it can support is tied to its surface area. The amount of weight it has to support is however much is inside it, so it's tied to the volume. The amount of weight it needs to support increases faster than its ability to support that weight. \n\nPlus, if there isn't any internal support, everything ends up crushed against the bottom, kind of like how fruit will get crushed if you put it in the bottom of your shopping cart. As a creature gets bigger and bigger, it needs more and more internal support to prevent this from happening, and eventually it basically ends up with an endoskeleton anyway. \n\nAt that point, the only real benefit the exoskeleton provides is protection, and an exoskeleton is an expensive way to provide that. Reptile scales or an armadillo shell do a good enough job of that, and more cheaply."
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2gzrqh | why does society view the exposure of the female chest so differently from that of a man's? why do women have to cover and men don't? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2gzrqh/eli5_why_does_society_view_the_exposure_of_the/ | {
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"In New York State wherever a man can legally be topless, so can a woman. ",
"It actually wasn't that long ago that topless men was seen as obscene as well. Just look at all those old pictures of men wearing full bathing suits at beaches. ",
"Convention from a less enlightened time.\n\nThere's no rational good reason behind it, it's \"just how we've always done things around here\".",
"Societies will always view a man's bare chest differently than a woman's bare chest, because breasts are a secondary sex characteristic that men don't have. How exactly that plays out in a particular culture at a particular time will change, but it will never be an apples-to-apples comparison due to sexual dimorphism.",
"In France, Spain, and other European countries it's equality of the sexes: where men can go topless, women can too. They don't understand why the US isn't that way.",
"Here's a list of traditional societies in which some degree of toplessness is normal.\n\n_URL_0_\n\nIn humans, the female breast is a secondary sexual characteristic, meaning mens' chests and womens' chests are different. And non-emaciated boobs are a sign of good health, which makes it easier to attract a mate.\n\nUnlike all other apes and monkeys, we have boobs, even when we're not nursing. And walk upright, which mean you can see them. And we get off when a partner plays with them.\n\nWhich means we're a bit wired to see breasts as sexual.\n\nNote that this does not mean I think women should be harassed or abused for exposing their chests in public."
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249ycy | why does it take so long to regain your breath after you get winded? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/249ycy/eli5_why_does_it_take_so_long_to_regain_your/ | {
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"Bear with my silly comparison:\n\nYour body is a toilet, with the water in the bowl being the oxygen in your blood stream, and the tank being your lungs.\n\nWhen you're winded, you're flushing the oxygen out of the bowl faster than the tiny tube that fills the tank can fill it up. You can't stop flushing the toilet because your body always needs that oxygen.\n\nThe tank fills as quickly as it can, but the flushes are spaced a little further apart each time after the body has finished being overexerted. It takes a while before the time between flushes and the time it takes to fill the tank are back in sync again. Until they're synchronized, the bowl never quite fills completely, and neither does the tank, leading to that feeling of being winded until the oxygen in your blood stream has reached acceptable levels again.\n"
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dbvqjm | why don’t cars have external airbags? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dbvqjm/eli5_why_dont_cars_have_external_airbags/ | {
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"They cost a lot of money. But there are some manufacturers looking at adding an airbag to the hood in case the car hits a pedestrian.",
"They already exist but are not widely used.\n\nCompanies like Volvo and jaguar have toyed with or even implemented these ideas for pedestrian safety.\n\nIt's just very costly to have an airbag system for pedestrians.\n\nIt would be more expensive to have it wrapped around the whole car for any sort of collision.\n\nSo unless you're comfortable paying 40k for a base model corolla, it's unlikely we would see external airbags anytime soon"
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2ewx92 | why is considered more "formal" to wear a suit and tie, but a t-shirt and jeans is considered more "casual"? who determined that one is more professional attire than the other? | Was always curious about why a suit and tie was considered formal attire for males and not something else. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ewx92/eli5_why_is_considered_more_formal_to_wear_a_suit/ | {
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"I think, it's a matter of the quality of the material. Having the money to afford a good quality material which were in the form of suits and a tie was because you were higher up in the social scale, so you attended \"formal\" events, it's something that fashion just stuck with. Sorry for the poor explanation but I think you can figure out what I'm trying to say. ",
"Jeans were traditionally cowboy attire and therefore representitve of a lower working class. This is because denim is a tough material. The suit and tie look evolved from dinner jackets worn by the English aristocracy. Overall it comes down to a difference between indoor and outdoor clothing.",
"Because a 100 years ago a t shirt was underwear, and jeans were heavy duty clothing you owned to do manual labour.\n\nThe same as, even though it almost looks like normal clothes, you will probably not go out to a meeting or restaurant today in your pyjamas because you'd look like you just got out of bed\n\nYou would not go to dinner, event or meeting with your working clothes back in the day. \n\nThe tie that has been crucial 30 years ago, is now more formal than everyday. It original purpose was to close your shirt in the lack of buttons. Later on it became a way to display your university, club, sports team etc. Depending on the type of event you were going to. People from good schools and exclusive clubs liked showing where they went to so it was the norm for dressing for the occasion.\n\nJackets used to serve a purpose, it was a mix between a formal overcoat and a leisurely sports jacket (sports jacket made from tweed) to keep you warm and clean while you were riding, without hanging on the saddle. This was very modern and casual for its time, but became practical for middle class people working in the city as they needed to travel into work.\n\nThe waistcoat is not considered a must anymore.\n\nSuit trousers are just trousers that match your jacket. \n\nShoes are pretty self explanatory. Obviously nylon and mass produced trainers are relatively modern so you wore leather shoes (instead of boots) to match your attire back in the day.\n\nHats have lost much of its practical purpose, but used to protect the wearer from sun rain and cold (Europe). Funnily enough the bowler hat was made for worker class men to protect them from the elements while being strong durable and practical.)\n\nI will not even mention Dinner suits, Tuxedo's morning suits etc, becasue time has forgotten most of them by now. Even \"Black Tie often allows you to go with a regular suit these days...\n\nSo the reason we still wear it when needed is the history behind it. If you Really consider it, the suit is the bare basics that's left over from a time where clothes needed more specific purpose than just covering yourself, based on the occasion.\n\nYour work trousers and pyjama top will probably be considered formal in the future, who knows. \n\nTLDR; The modern suit is actually the last remains of what was considered the most basic of practical casual wear back in the day.\n\n"
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5tm5yo | in downloading, what is "seeding" and "leeching"? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5tm5yo/eli5_in_downloading_what_is_seeding_and_leeching/ | {
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"Seeding means you have 100% of the file being shared. You aren't downloading anymore you are just letting other people download from you. Leaching mean you don't have 100% of the file yet. You are still downloading parts and people are downloading the parts you have from you.",
"Seeding and leeching refer to downloading via torrenting clients. Torrenting revolutionized downloads by spreading the load among many computers. For instance, if you have a very large file (like a 4k quality movie file) or a lot of smallish files together (like a 10 season TV series), it's a huge burden on a server to upload to other users. One guy uses ALL of the bandwidth on the server, and it still takes many hours to download, which makes those files unavailable to other users.\n\nTorrenting divides the files up into tiny pieces and keeps track of everyone using the same trackers and what pieces they have, so that once one person downloads the file from the first server, the next person can download some of the files from the server and some of the files from the other guy. Spread over tens or hundreds of users, everyone is using just a little bandwidth at a time from any one source. It's awesome.\n\nSeeding refers to contributing your file to the pool of resources. As you download files to your computer, your torrenting client will start uploading those files to other users even before you've finished downloading the whole thing. That's part of the magic that makes torrenting work. Seeding means letting other users download the bits that you already have.\n\nLeeching, then, is turning that off, so you're only downloading files from others but not contributing your own bandwidth. The whole point of torrenting is distributing the files and having a network of sources, so when you don't seed your copy of the files, you're defeating the purpose of torrenting for other users. That's obviously undesirable - if everyone was leeching and no one seeded, the whole concept would fall apart and stop working. So leeching is considered rude at best.",
"Correct me if I'm wrong, but 10 years ago when I was fresh out of high school and into college, I was opened up to the world of torrenting. The guy that explained it to me told me to look for files with high seeds and low leeches for a faster download. But he also told me that seeders is what the government looked for when they were looking to prosecute people for pirating and that I shouldn't actively seed files I download. Is there any truth to that?\n\nTL;DR: does seeding files open you up more for pirating charges by the Man?"
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fekb6o | how does a light carry information? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fekb6o/eli5_how_does_a_light_carry_information/ | {
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"The light doesn't really carry information; it IS the information. Every speck of light-sensitive chemical on the film is essentially asking \"has light hit me yet?\".",
"Light (or more specific photons) each have a wavelength, this determines how they behave and appear to us for humans eyes this is between 380-770 nanometers light outside of that range is mostly invisible to our eyes. While light close to 380nm appears violet light close to 770 appears red, all other colors are in between these ranges (green being about in the middle at 500nm). \n\nCameras can detect these wavelengths just as our eyes can.",
" > there was a stream of water bouncing off the tree into the camera, the film wouldn’t have any information as the water won’t carry any.\n\nActually it would! \n\nThe 'Information' light carries with it is its wavelength. \n\nWhen white light hits an object some of that light's energy is absorbed and some of it is reflected. When something appears green it is because the object absorbed (or scattered ) all other wavelengths of the light and reflected the 'green' light.\n\nThe color you perceive is the light that was reflected. \n\nSo imagine your stream of water. Water bounces off of different things in different ways. A stream hitting a flat surface will bounce back at you. That same stream hitting a rough surface will diffuse into it. This is why you'll see people use lake stones at the bottom of their down spouts. The stones scatter the water falling down instead of letting it hit the ground full force where erodes the land. [This is called RipRap](_URL_0_)\n\nIn short, the 'information' is 'how the light bounced off what it is hitting'",
"The light isn't carrying information--well, side note: it is, in a scientific sense, but for the sake of argument here the light is just existing. The only information it's really carrying is its color.\n\nThe lens of the camera compresses the light down to a small section, while still retaining how each ray of light is in relation to all the rest.\n\nFrom there, a sensor in the camera (for digital) gets hit with a part of that newly-compressed stream of light, and records A) where the light was, and B) what color the light was.\n\nThen, it translates that into a picture by simply lighting up the appropriately colored pixel at the appropriate location to recreate the original image. \n\nFor film, the process is similar. The film is coated in substances that react with various colors of light. When the light from the lens hits it, the substances react--this acts similarly to the digital sensor, recording where what color of light hit it.\n\nAs to why not water? The film, and the sensor, aren't designed to be sensitive to water. And besides that, water doesn't reflect nicely the way light does, so the \"picture,\" if someone were to design a water-sensitive camera sensor, would by necessity be very blurry.\n\nBut, with that said: you *could* make a rudimentary camera if you could spray a tree hard enough that the water reflects back, and could reasonably determine the direction that each drop was coming from. It'd just be a silhouette, though, since water doesn't carry color information the way light does."
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1udopf | how can north korea treat it's people in such horrible conditions without the un or another country intervening? | Isn't the United Nations supposed to protect the people of the world, no matter what country? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1udopf/eli5_how_can_north_korea_treat_its_people_in_such/ | {
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"The cost of doing so would be very high in terms of human lives. The north has a shit ton of weapons pointed at Seoul, including nukes. If they knew they were going down,they would absolutely try to wipe out South Korea on their way down",
"There are many complexities involved in UN intervention or any global intervention. Many of these are political and economical in nature, but in North Korea's case, there is one single factor that trumps all of these: \n\nLess than 40 miles from a number of major North Korean military bases is a Seoul, South Korea's capital. It is ranked in global importance equivalent to Los Angeles, San Fransisco, Moscow, Mexico City, and Beijing. This city, including its larger regional population, contains a quarter of South Korea's population. North Korea has made it very clear that any military intervention would result in the end of Seoul - and therefore South Korea, as we know it. ",
"Because it's easier to go and force non nuclear states to follow your instructions. North Korea has the nuclear trump card.\n\nPlus there are enough artillery cannons on the border to flatten Seoul, not to mention that NK has the world's largest military at 9 million personnel. South Korea doesn't want anything to be done because they'll be the ones who pay for it the most.",
"Credit /u/Ferredog:\n\n* **UN:** The UN only matters by way of the Security Council. One of the main members of the UNSC is China. China doesn't want America gaining a larger foothold in Asia, nor refugees at its doorstep. Individual members of the UN very rarely like it when one member is given free reign to enter a country with which it has interests (France going in to Mali had almost zero consequences for any members of the UNSC hence why the UN didn't complain). For the rest of the UN, they don't like it when other countries attack countries which are dealing with their own problems (questions of sovereignty). North Korea's prisoners count as North Korea's citizens therefore they are North Korea's problems (at least that's what some of the more atrocious governments of the world want).\n\n* **South Korea:** an unspoken desire in South Korea is not to reunify. You'll never hear an official say it to the press but the reason South Korea doesn't want to reunify is because reunification with North Korea will annihilate the South's economy as East Germany's reunification did to West Germany (and West Germany was a lot richer than South Korea and North Korea is basically 3rd World). This is quite shocking for non-Koreans to hear but it is remarkably common for Koreans to voice in private, especially the younger generation who have little connection to what transpires in North Korea.\n\n* **Intervention for morality:** The question of intervention for a moral basis in international politics is highly debatable/subjective. World War 2 began for the West due to Hitler's breach of sovereignty and Pearl Harbor, not due to their atrocities. Former Yugoslavia is debatable if it was internal (genocide within Yugoslavia) or external (genocidal war between the newly formed nations). The external, like the first Gulf War, is much more clear-cut in terms of interventionism. The Rwandan genocide was a disaster for the UN in terms of interventionism and disgusting considering how France hijacked the intervention to further their own political desires and rearm the genocidaries.\n\n* **Good intentions, bad consequences:** Obvious reason, nuke and war in Korea. If the West were coming for North Korea, the Kim dynasty would have nothing to lose and no reason not to set off the nuke. Also, it's possible that eradicating the leadership could make the country unstable, especially if no-one were willing/able to occupy the country after the war (China wouldn't allow US, South Korea wouldn't allow China). An unstable country with nukes is bad which is why Pakistan gets so much padding despite being a mess of a country.\n\n**Source:** Masters in International Relations; Dissertation on the UN and moral necessity in Interventionism; North Korea are my neighbors.\n\nEdit: Grammar and changed \"exists\" to \"matters\"",
"You know how sometimes in movies 17 people have guns aimed at each other and can't shoot because then everyone else would? Its that but with much bigger weapons. ",
"One of my favorite teachers had us write a 10 page UN style resolution on what the US should do to settle the problems in NK, took about 2-3 days of no sleep, on the day we turned them in he was wearing a NK/China flag shirt, in front of the whole class put them in the garbage can and burned them, while screeming THIS IS DIPLOMACY, THIS IS BUREAUCRACY.",
"South Korea go boom. "
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21pyv4 | what is the purpose of relocating people in the military? | I have no military background or family members in the military, but it seems that members of the US military are constantly being relocated to other bases. Why is this done? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/21pyv4/eli5_what_is_the_purpose_of_relocating_people_in/ | {
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"To get them where their training and skills are most needed, within the limits placed on them due to rank. If they go from a rank 4 to a rank 5 and their location doesn't have room for someone of that rank, they go to a place that does. That let's everyone beneath them have a place to move up to and gain further experience in their job.\n\nHave you ever worked some place and knew you'd have to leave for another job or wait until someone quit or was fired in order to get promoted? It's kinda like that but the military moves you around so you don't get stuck.",
"Military relocations serve two purposes that I can think of -- and they have to do with professional growth, both for the individual and the unit as a whole.\n\nFirst, people are constantly being promoted into newer and higher positions, or retiring, or separating, so that leaves a void to be filled. This void is sometimes filled with people who are already in the unit, but it's also filled by new people. The new people bring new experience and knowledge to the unit.\n\nSecond, an experienced military is a strong military. If you have experience doing many types of jobs, both you and the military as a whole are stronger. You have a greater breadth and depth of knowledge that you can apply to a job, and you have a greater understanding of the military as a whole. Remember that most installations have a different focus (fighters, heavy, research, test, etc), so if you spend all of your time at one place, you only experience a small part of the military as a whole.\n\nYes, it's expensive and it can be a pain, but it definitely keeps you from getting bored. Spending two or three years in a position and moving on keeps things interesting, builds connections and relationships, and prepares you for having to deploy and work under a new commander with a whole new unit.\n\nSource: 5 Years Active Duty AF"
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3g55fr | why do we have "program files" and "program files(x86)" and not just one folder? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3g55fr/eli5_why_do_we_have_program_files_and_program/ | {
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"The shortest, simplest explanation is that Microsoft did it for backwards compatibility when the world was switching from the 32-bit x86 processor architecture to the 64-bit x86 processor architecture designed by AMD (which is sometimes called amd64 or x86-64). Most programs were still produced for 32-bit machines and so those two folders separate the old format \"Program Files(x86)\" from the new format \"Program Files\" which is also called the _native_ format; the format that the processor was designed to use.\n\nThe more interesting part of this is why both of these formats still work. 64-bit processors run 32-bit processor programs in a compatible machine instruction set. A machine instruction set is the set of commands to a processor that make up a program (e.g. add two numbers together, save the result, check if a number is greater than zero). AMD64 was designed around sharing the same basic instructions with its predecessor x86 design, which allows both styles of programs to run simultaneously on the same processor.",
"None of the replies so far are an actual answer - Windows was 32-bit originally and now a lot of computers are running the 64-bit version and hence mostly 64-bit applications, but why split them into 2 folders? It's a good question and I also can't really give an answer, it doesn't \"tell Windows to treat the program differently\" (as one person said) just because it's in one folder or the other, Windows is smarter than that and that kind of information is usually held in the registry.\nIt's probably mostly for tidyness and to help administrators run scripts and things that will target/look for certain types of applications. Hopefully someone out there can give a real answer.",
"ELI5 version: Because it's easier to organize. Imagine you have two boxes of crayons. One box has 32 because the picture you are coloring only needs 32 crayons. The other box has 64 crayons. These are for different pictures and must be kept separate. The box with 64 has some of the same colors, and more. However, these are for a different purpose. By placing all of them in the same box then we won't know which is for what picture. \n\nTechnical reference:\n\n_URL_1_\n\n_URL_2_\n\n_URL_0_\n\n",
"...and then Microsoft decided to *really* fuck with us and put the 64-bit stuff in System32 and the 32-bit stuff in SysWow64. \n\nFun.",
"It's splitting up programs mainly based off 32bit architectures I believe. 1 folder for 32bit architecture programs, one for 64bit. That's at least what makes the most sense to me. ",
"64 bit programs are restricted to writing in the appdata folder. 32 bit are not. 32 bit can write to their own folder in program files x86.\n\nThe real question is why isnt it:\nC:\\Programs\\x32\\\nC:\\Programs\\x64\\",
"More than 10 years ago CPUs had to migrate to a new architecture that primarily allowed using more RAM. The old 32-bit architecture normally allowed max 4 GB of RAM, which already today seems a low amount. The new 64-bit architecture allows a gazillion of GB and that should be enough for everybody.\n\nThe problem with switching to a new CPU architecture is that the huge number of existing programs (which were made for the previous architecture) will not execute at all and will require being remade and tweaked by their manufacturers. This requirement is WAY too expensive for everyone involved and after some major failures to understand that, a solution appeared through which 64-bit CPUs can do some tricks and seamlessly execute existing 32-bit programs along side with new 64-bit programs.\n\nCPU support needs to come hand in hand with OS support and so Windows implemented an emulation layer that kicks in when Windows detects you launch a program built for the old 32-bit architecture. Beside telling the CPU how to behave for this old program, Windows itself needs to appear as if it's fully compatible with the old 32-bit architecture, even though Windows is now built on 64-bit. This means that if the program decides to execute some tool provided by Windows, or ask Windows to help it out with some routine, then Windows needs to do that task using 32-bit, compatible, tools and routine libraries.\n\nPrograms frequently use the help of Windows' tools and libraries and one example is when programs install themselves, they need to ask Windows where they should put their files. This is because the text \"C:\\Program Files\" is not a valid directory path everywhere. For example, if you're running a Windows built for Spanish speaking regions, the directory is named \"Archivos de programa\" instead of \"Program Files\". Also, it may not be located on the C: drive but some other one. So the program installer needs to first ask Windows what is the root path for where it should put its files and Windows could respond \"C:\\Program Files\" or \"D:\\Archivos de programa\", etc.\n\nIn its quest to provide a perfect emulation for old 32-bit programs, Windows will use different tools, libraries, \"Program Files\" directories, etc. for old 32-bit programs vs. new 64-bit programs. This is why you see the \"Program Files\" and \"Program Files (x86)\" folders on your computer. When an old program asks Windows for the location where its files should be installed to, Windows will respond \"C:\\Program Files (x86)\". That way, the old program can happily continue to execute without ever getting mixed up with newer 64-bit code with which it can't directly couple. Windows does these emulation tricks for old programs with many other subsystems, not just Program Files but that is less apparent to a casual user."
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2tbzd6 | what is the difference between an archetype and stereotype? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2tbzd6/eli5_what_is_the_difference_between_an_archetype/ | {
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"Archetype: An original model or type after which other similar things are patterned; a prototype: \"'Frankenstein' . . . 'Dracula' . . . 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde' . . . the archetypes that have influenced all subsequent horror stories\" \n\nStereotype: A conventional, formulaic, and oversimplified conception, opinion, or image. One that is regarded as embodying or conforming to a set image or type. \n\nSo, in a nutshell, archetype: Marylin Monroe. Stereotype: The \"dumb\" blonde."
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3akggn | why are abandoned places left to weather and rot? | I'm more or less meaning actual public places, like amusement parks and such.
Wouldn't it make sense to strip them and recycle the metal and stuff? Or at least use the buildings for something else? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3akggn/eli5_why_are_abandoned_places_left_to_weather_and/ | {
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"I believe it's a cost thing. Might be more expensive to have a company come in and tear it down than it is to just up and leave.\n\nEventually stuff does get torn down, but whomever is doing it just has to eat the cost or hope to re-coup the money by redeveloping the land."
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49bka5 | tame animal | What does this mean? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/49bka5/eli5tame_animal/ | {
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"\"Tame\" means that an animal that has been socialized to minimize aggression towards humans or a plant that has been adapted to growing in controlled environments. This is different from \"domesticated\", which means that humans have genetically altered the species to make it work in a symbiotic relationship with humans. ",
"[Domestication](_URL_0_) differs from taming. Taming is just a wild or feral animal that becomes used to the presence of humans (e.g. zoo animals). We basically just train the wild animal to be calm around humans. We are changing the behaviour of the individual through training - nothing more. \n\nWhen we *domesticate* we are genetically changing a species's DNA by artificially selecting for specific desired traits - like say a spotted fur coat or docility. Domestication genetically changes a population. *You domesticate a species, you tame the individual.*\n\nMost animals can be tamed, but only a few species can be domesticated. Here are a couple of traits that make a species more likely to be a successful candidate for domestication:\n\n* Flexible diet – Species that are willing to consume a wide variety of food sources and can live off less cumulative food from the food pyramid (such as corn or wheat), particularly food that is not utilized by humans (such as grass and forage) are less expensive to keep in captivity. Carnivores by definition feed primarily or only on flesh, which requires the domesticators to raise additional animals just to feed them, though they may exploit sources of meat not utilized by humans, such as scraps and vermin.\n\n* Reasonably fast growth rate – Fast maturity rate compared to the human life span allows breeding intervention and makes the animal useful within an acceptable duration of caretaking. Some large animals require many years before they reach a useful size.\n\n* Ability to be bred in captivity – Species that are reluctant to breed when kept in captivity do not produce useful offspring, and instead are limited to capture in their wild state. Species such as the panda, antelope and giant forest hog are territorial when breeding and cannot be maintained in crowded enclosures in captivity. Still others like the Indri have never been successfully kept or bred in captivity.\n\n* Pleasant disposition – Large creatures that are aggressive toward humans are dangerous to keep in captivity. The African buffalo has an unpredictable nature and is highly dangerous to humans; similarly, although the American bison is raised in enclosed ranges in the Western United States, it is much too dangerous to be regarded as truly domesticated. Although similar to the domesticated pig in many ways, Africa's warthog and bushpig are also dangerous in captivity.\n\n* Temperament which makes it unlikely to panic – A creature with a nervous disposition is difficult to keep in captivity as it may attempt to flee whenever startled. The gazelle is very flighty and it has a powerful leap that allows it to escape an enclosed pen. Some animals, such as the domestic sheep, still have a strong tendency to panic when their flight zone is encroached upon. However, most sheep also show a flocking instinct, whereby they stay close together when pressed. Livestock with such an instinct may be herded by people and dogs.\n\n* Modifiable social hierarchy – Social creatures whose herds occupy overlapping ranges and recognize a hierarchy of dominance can be raised to recognize a human as the pack leader."
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1zvds4 | is it possible for two fertile humans to be so genetically different that they couldn't reproduce together? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1zvds4/eli5_is_it_possible_for_two_fertile_humans_to_be/ | {
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"By definition, if they're too genetically different to reproduce, then they're different species so wouldn't both be human. But if you're wondering whether two people living today, or born today, could be that genetically different, the answer is no. There would have to be two groups of humans separated for a very long time before they would diverge enough to not be able to produce offspring.",
"The degree of variability within humanity is remarkably small compared to other species. As such, the two must genetically diverse humans are typically less diverse than various chimps who are members of the same troop.\n\nAll humans can easily interbreed."
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21npvl | how does a camera/phone make a panorama image? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/21npvl/eli5_how_does_a_cameraphone_make_a_panorama_image/ | {
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"The camera takes multiple individual still pictures. The phone analyses these pictures looking for simple things, like the edges of items in the picture, that it can use to tell how much the camera has moved. It also takes measurements from the compass and accelerometer to tell how the camera has been moved. In then *morphs* (twists and distorts) the images so they match up, and blurs the edges between them to produce one continuous image.",
"Through a process called [image stitching](_URL_0_) in which the computer analyzes several images that were taken together, and (figuratively) glues them together along lines and seams that make sense.\n\nPart of the reason your cell phone requires you to follow the line and pan slowly is because it makes the image stitching easier/possible."
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30nwos | what is the religious freedom restoration act (rfra), and what are the implications of it being passed? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/30nwos/eli5_what_is_the_religious_freedom_restoration/ | {
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"text": [
"It basically says people can't sue you when you you refuse to provide them service because their views conflict with your religious beliefs.",
"* In 1993, Congress passed the original RFRA. It basically said that the government cannot do anything to impede religious liberty or inconvenience religious activity except in extreme circumstances. The major implication at the time was that it became legal for Native Americans to use peyote, a hallucinogenic drug, in their religious ceremonies (something they had been doing since before the drug was made illegal). \n\n* Later, a lawsuit about whether or not it was legal to renovate a historic church in Texas reached the Supreme Court. The Court looked at RFRA and decided that it only applied to federal laws, not state laws. Since then, states that want RFRA-like protections have to pass their own version of the bill at the state level. Lots of states have done this. \n\n* In recent years, a handful of conservative Christian business owners have refused their services to gay couples' weddings, claiming that gay marriage is against their religion. When sued for discrimination, they often cite religious freedom legislation like the First Amendment or the RFRA.\n\n* In 2014, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence and conservative Republican lawmakers tried to ban same-sex marriage in Indiana. They failed. In 2015, the conservative Republican lawmakers passed an Indiana version of the RFRA and Pence signed it into law. \n\n* Critics feel that Pence/the conservative lawmakers passed the law specifically to protect gay marriage opponents who may refuse to serve at gay weddings in Indiana. They also worry that the law is too broadly written, and that it might be used to justify businesses refusing to deal with gay customers in circumstances other than gay weddings.\n\n* Why do critics think these things? [Because the conservative lobbyists who pushed for the bill have said, point blank, that it will protect Christians who refuse to serve at gay weddings.](_URL_0_) That's Advance America, a group headed by conservative lobbyist Eric Miller. When Pence signed the bill into law, Miller was literally standing behind him.\n\n* Due to the extreme backlash and potential economic implications, [Pence has said he will try to alter the bill so that it cannot be used to justify any kind of discrimination.](_URL_1_) How that will work out remains to be seen."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"http://www.advanceamerica.com/blog/?p=1849",
"http://www.indystar.com/story/opinion/columnists/tim-swarens/2015/03/28/swarens-gov-mike-pence-push-clarification-religious-freedom-law/70611906/"
]
] | ||
8h607r | why did the kinder egg candy get banned from the united states? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8h607r/eli5_why_did_the_kinder_egg_candy_get_banned_from/ | {
"a_id": [
"dyhc19f",
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"score": [
39,
6
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"text": [
"It's a law about not being allowed to put non-food items inside food.\n\nOriginal Kinder eggs are a toy, inside a plastic capsule, inside a chocolate egg. Logically, the capsule is big enough nobody should accidentally swallow it, but the food law stating you can't have non-food inside food prevents it from being legal.\n\nThey have kinder eggs in the US now, but they put a toy on one side and a half-egg of chocolate on the other side so the toy is no longer *inside* the food.",
"The US has a law that no not edible item can be incased within an edible item, this presumably was to stop drug smuggling and the like into the country.\n\nSo as the kinder egg has the toy part completly sealed within the chocolate shell this violated that law.\n"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] | ||
408f8t | why do so many type fonts have indistinguishable symbols for upper case i "i" and lower case l "l"? | I l | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/408f8t/eli5_why_do_so_many_type_fonts_have/ | {
"a_id": [
"cys8siq"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"Because in the majority of situations in which you could tell which is which by context, which leaves the designer free to make stylistic decisions.\n\nBut I'm with you - it bugs me and I try to avoid using them."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | |
dpnh4c | how do the physical properties of molecules cause differences in their effects? | I was reading a piece about dextro-and levo-amphetamine and how they're mirrors of each other. They're both stimulants that affect your cognitive abilities although they have subtle differences (levo-produces more cardiovascular effects). By contrast, dextro- and levo-METHamphetamine have drastically different effects. The former is the world's most potent stimulant and the latter is a nasal decongestant with no psychoactive effects.
So how do the particular shapes/orientations of drugs give them their effects? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dpnh4c/eli5_how_do_the_physical_properties_of_molecules/ | {
"a_id": [
"f5wpett"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"It is all about how the drug binds to its receptor lock a key fitting into a lock. Even though they look incredibly similar they each fit the receptor differently, thus having drastic differences."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | |
1soret | why don't video streaming sites (netflix, youtube) use bittorrent protocol? | On the surface, it seems that video content providers would be better off using BitTorrent protocol (or other peer-to-peer sharing). | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1soret/eli5_why_dont_video_streaming_sites_netflix/ | {
"a_id": [
"cdzoy2t"
],
"score": [
14
],
"text": [
"1. Bittorrent is not designed to stream files. It downloads the chunks in random order.\n\n2. A large company that either requires fees, or paid advertising, isn't going to leave the quality of its service in the hands of the users."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | |
7t34rk | how does vector art save information? | For regular pictures, you have color values for each pixel.
How does vector art save the information so that it's guaranteed to look unpixelated when scaled up? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7t34rk/eli5_how_does_vector_art_save_information/ | {
"a_id": [
"dt9ho4r",
"dt9hqtq",
"dt9jnci"
],
"score": [
3,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"It saves a different kind of information.\nA pixel graphic saves on wich point on the screen wich color value should be.\nA vector saves information that describes the picture. For example for a circle it would save where the middle of that circle should be, its radius and the thickness of the Line.\n\nIf you scale this up the picture doesn't get unclear, because it is basically the same circle just with e.g double the radius and line thickness.\n\nHope that explains it clear enough.",
"It stores information about each line. A formula for the shape of it, the colour, the thickness.\n\nA very basic vector format that only supports straight lines would essentially just be a list of coordinates describing the start and end of each line.\n\nFor curves there are various different ways of describing them mathematically. [Bézier curves](_URL_0_) for example.\n\nWhen it draws the image it essentially runs the equations for those curves and plots them onto as many pixels as it needs to.",
"so in a 'normal' picture that is defined by pixels, you have something like this:\nImagine every pixel has a color value, and in this small example b stands for blue and g stands for green in this tiny picture consisting of 20 pixels:\n\nb b b b b\n\nb g g b b\n\ng g g g b\n\ng g g g g\n\nYou might 'see' that this tiny picture has some sort of green shape that is surrounded by a blue area on the top, like a hill in front of the blue sky. And you might get that this would not look good if you would scale it to lets say 200px. It would look 'pixeled' as every pixel then would simply consist of more pixels, creating an image of blue and green squares.\n\nInstead of pixels, you could store the information in the picture in a different way. Instead of pixels having color values, you define where the things in the picture are. You might define the 'hill' as a shape that is defined by 1 line that splits the picture in half. On the left side, it starts at half the picture's height, goes up in a certain slope, flattens and descends until on the right side it ends at 1/4 of the picture's height. This information you can scale to any size of any picture and the line will never look 'blocky'. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bezier_curve"
],
[]
] | |
2zbd8z | why is light beer so popular in america? | I find it really strange when I see that about half of the 20 most popular beers in the US are of the light variant. In Australia light beer is extremely unpopular and is only really consumed when trying to stay under the legal limit. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2zbd8z/eli5why_is_light_beer_so_popular_in_america/ | {
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"cphcxnq",
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"cphgoa4",
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],
"score": [
23,
9,
3,
24,
3,
7,
2
],
"text": [
"It's really cheap and gets you drunk. Most of the consumption comes from college kids and alcoholics.",
" > light beer is extremely unpopular and is only really consumed when trying to stay under the legal limit\n\n\"Light beer\" in the US isn't that much lower in alcohol. Bud Light & Coors light are 4.2% ABV, while the regular versions are 5%.",
"check out the movie [Beer Wars](_URL_0_)\n\nits a pretty good documentary about the beer industry in the US today, and as I recall has a bit of history too.",
"In Oz light beer means lower alcohol and tastes like urine and is understandably unpopular (accidentally drank one once.... once)\n\nIn US, it refers to calorie count. Overadvertised, sponsors etc just as much as Carlton Draught or VB. Is no one's favourite, but since its everywhere it gets drunk",
"Marketing mostly. I still remember \"Won't fill you up never lets you down\"\n\nLight beer is shit but it has a great cost:alcohol ratio. It's more about getting tanked than taste.",
"most of my knowledge on this subject is coming from what I recollect of a single chapter from this fantastic book: [_URL_0_](_URL_0_) plz excuse any errors i make in formatting, this is my first time actually saying anything on reddit! \n\nThe simple answer of course, is Prohibition. \nThe years of prohibition in this country destroyed the beautiful rainbow of different beer styles previously available in this country. Most smaller breweries simply dissappeared, as their product became illegal, while a few larger ones turned their grain processing facilities towards cereal production. \n\nWhen prohibition ended, some of these companies, and I suppose a couple new ones, decided to go ahead and profit once again from alcohol production. But the problem they faced, was how to overcome the stigma still associated with alcohol consumption? Beer was considered by many to be a \"dirty, sinful\" product, consumed by criminals. Basically they decided that they needed to market their product to the ladies. If women could be seen drinking beer, then the public would decide it must be alright. \n\nSo, in an effort to make it appealing to more women, they set out to brew the lightest, smoothest, \"dainty-est\" style they could think of. Which happened to be a newer style from Czechoslovakia, called \"pilsner\". It was basically the fruity wine cooler, \"liquid panty remover\" of its day. Since the only brewing companies left standing after prohibition were the few really big ones, they cranked out millions of gallons of the stuff in huge batches, and took over the market with it. The pilsner style became the norm, and adjectives like \"smooth, crisp, cool, refreshing etc.\" became imprinted on the mainstream mind as the idea of what beer \"should\" be. \n\nWatch a lot of american beer commercials and you'll see for instance how much attention they focus on the WATER which goes into making their beer; not the hops, nor the grain, and certainly not what strain of yeast is involved; no, they like to prattle on about what sort of water they use, and also how cold it is. Kinda bizzarre huh? \n\nNow, as for what we call \"light\" beers in this country, another poster seems to have mentioned that apparently \"light beer\" means something a bit different in Australia? \n\nWell as previously mentioned, here it means \"low calorie\", basically \"diet beer\" and there is some idea (esp. among college kids) that light beer actually has MORE alcohol, as it well might in some cases, at least where pilsners are concerned. Lowering the caloric content of beer usually involves reducing the carbohydrates (sugars) of the final product, and one way to do this is to ferment more of those original sugars into alcohol. \nThey also tend to use adjuncts like rice and corn. (i think rice and corn convert more easily to alcohol maybe? not sure)",
"Light beer in the US refers to calories, not alcohol.\n\nSo either you're young and it's cheap, or you're old and you don't want to get fat by pounding carbs all day. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[
"http://www.hulu.com/watch/235712"
],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.amazon.com/The-Complete-Homebrewing-Fourth-Edition/dp/0062215752"
],
[]
] | |
b5g3sv | when it's sunny and hot, why does the image of far objects get warped? and also, why asphalt in the distance looks like a water surface/mirror? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b5g3sv/eli5_when_its_sunny_and_hot_why_does_the_image_of/ | {
"a_id": [
"ejd9bdy"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Asphalt heats up very quickly. This means the air right above it also becomes very hot. Hot air rises but once it's not close to the asphalt anymore it cools off quickly. The hot air coming off the asphalt and the cooler air immediately above it have different densities because of the different temperatures, and they refract light differently. From hottest to coolest this creates a lens-like effect. Close to the hot surface it can refract light to look like there's a reflective pool of water.\n\nSince the air is constantly in motion and hot and cooler air constantly mix and flow (convection) this means looking through that air can produce a shimmering \"warping\" effect."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
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