q_id stringlengths 5 6 | title stringlengths 3 296 | selftext stringlengths 0 34k | document stringclasses 1
value | subreddit stringclasses 1
value | url stringlengths 4 110 | answers dict | title_urls list | selftext_urls list | answers_urls list |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
682y7i | why do we get impulses to do bad things? | Perfectly stable people can suddenly get impulses to say/do small malicious or rude things. I'll be staying at my friend's house and I'll suddenly get the urge to throw a glass across the room... Please tell me I'm not the only one who gets this. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/682y7i/eli5_why_do_we_get_impulses_to_do_bad_things/ | {
"a_id": [
"dgv84t5",
"dgv86fi",
"dgv8m4h"
],
"score": [
2,
2,
4
],
"text": [
"It's called an Intrusive Thought. Everyone gets them. You're not crazy.\n\nTo make you feel better, I literally answered this exact same question 3 hours ago for a different person: _URL_0_",
"We can't control the thoughts that pop into our head. All we can do is contro our reaction to them.",
"They're known as [intrusive thoughts](_URL_0_) and everyone gets them.\n\nHumans survived so well because we are very adaptable. Part of being adaptable is to be prepared for any variety of situations.\n\nTo be prepared for an effect, our brain has to imagine the cause. Remember this ordering: cause then effect. When we're driving on the road and have an intrusive thought, our brains are not thinking \"I'll total my car and probably myself if I swerve into the median.\" We think about the cause first: \"If I swerve into the median, I'll total my car and probably myself.\"\n\nSo when we first picture the possible cause \"I swerve into the median\", our judgement center of our brain raises an alarm! Woah there! Don't do that! Now that thought is unleashed and any number of emotions could result from it. \n\nThis is just our brain is just trying to figure out the effects of such an action because it is trying to analyze any random number of things that could possibly happen and prepare you for it. Your brain is doing this all the time and it's only the more crazy thoughts that actually catch your conscious attention."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/681van/eli5why_do_we_sometimes_have_these_nuts_thoughts/"
],
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intrusive_thought"
]
] | |
40upwu | beliefs of libertarians? people tell me it means "fiscally conservative but socially liberal" is that correct? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/40upwu/eli5_beliefs_of_libertarians_people_tell_me_it/ | {
"a_id": [
"cyx9497",
"cyxag4c",
"cyxkyfp"
],
"score": [
8,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Generally, libertarians believe that the government shouldn't do much; at the extreme end, that they should basically do nothing but enforce and adjudicate private contracts (or possibly not even that). That means limited governmental programs (which is one aspect of being fiscally conservative) and also limited regulation of private behavior (which is one aspect of being socially liberal). In the purest forms, they generally oppose basically any government action, including abortion restrictions, drug laws, Social Security and Medicare, military spending, public education, food stamps, corporate welfare, anti-discrimination laws, anti-trust laws, and so forth.",
"In American politics, \"socially liberal\" generally means supporting Democratic policies of both acceptance/tolerance **and** spending public money on social programs.\n\nLibertarians are socially liberal in the sense that they just think the government shouldn't spend any more money than absolutely necessary. A libertarian would support gay marriage because it's not the government's job to say who should & shouldn't get married. They'd support ending the War on Drugs because it's a huge waste of money but they're also not going to support social programs & welfare. Generally, their social views grow out the idea that the government shouldn't spend money on anything - either supporting or prohibiting it.\n\nIMHO, it becomes a great way for people who are already successful to say \"stop taxing me & let me enjoy my position in society\" while walking away from anyone who has been historically disadvantaged and leaving them out to try.",
"I'm a libertarian so I can probably provide more insight than most.\n\nGenerally with economics you find that we all support classical economics. I.e. Lassiez-faire, Austrian economics, monetarism, or the Nordic model. You have libertarians who would completely eliminate taxes, some would cut them, a few would raise them, and there are some who would implement a [negative income tax.\n](_URL_0_)\n\nPeople call us socially liberal, but I think that's not entirely correct. Generally social liberals want the government to fix social problems, we often see that government is the primary source of the issue (Slavery was legally protected, segregation was mandated by law in many places, gay marriage was illegal due to laws, etc.) and would require equal treatment under the law for all people. Many libertarians would still allow discrimination (for any reason) so long as it isn't being done by the government.\n\nExample: mandating that gay marriage be legal, or mandating equal treatment. Libertarians often believe that the government should leave all of this up to individuals, if you want gay marriage, go for it, because if there's no laws pertaining to marriage then there's no laws stopping two men from marrying. Issues such as divorce and taxes could be resolved through a co-habitation partnership, which would essentially be a non-romantic, legal equivalent of marriage. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax"
]
] | ||
2kyrj3 | in morse code, how do you know when a letter ends and another one begins? | When do you know if the dot or dash is the end of word A and not the beginning of word B | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2kyrj3/eli5in_morse_code_how_do_you_know_when_a_letter/ | {
"a_id": [
"clpv9kt",
"clpy50t",
"clq02fq"
],
"score": [
14,
7,
4
],
"text": [
"_URL_0_\n\n > The letters of a word are separated by a space equal to three dots (one dash), and the words are separated by a space equal to seven dots. ",
"Piggy-backing on this question, can you really send Morse with just some kind of percussive sound? You see in movies people trapped will rap out SOS by just banging on something and I can see how that will work, just because it's such a familiar pattern. The thing is that the bang only gives you the start of a dot or a dash so how can you tell which is which. It would be very difficult to tell the difference between a word ending with \"e\" and a word ending with \"t\". It seems to me that reading arbitrary messages in Morse with just a banging noise would be very difficult with ambiguity and guesswork everywhere. I know the original telegraph operators discovered that they could hear the letters just from the clicking mechanism but those devices made different clicks to start and stop each dot or dash.\n\nI learned Morse myself long ago (for my amateur radio licence) but was too slow reading to pass the test (had to take a limited licence). My guess is that the movies are about as accurate in this respect as they are in most other technical areas; not very.\n\nIn case the other explanations of OP's question are not clear enough ... Morse is sent by turning your transmitter on and off rapidly. Depending on how fast you want to send, choose one standard unit of time. Then:\n\n* transmitting for one unit is a dot\n* transmitting for three units is a dash\n* silence for one unit is separates dots and dashes within a letter\n* silence for three units separates letters\n* silence for seven units separates words\n\nThe transmitter doesn't actually send a beeping tone; it's just full on or full off. The receiver generates the audible tone, essentially based on how far the tuner is off the transmitting frequency. If you're 1kHz off you'll hear a 1kHz tone. If there are multiple transmitters close to the same frequency then you might be able to hear them all and have to distinguish them with your ear.\n\nAnd finally, thinking of the letters as sequences of dots and dashes is bad. Memorising them by writing down symbols on paper is a waste of time. You have to practice by listening to each letter's rhythm and learning those.",
"Ham radio operator here. There is a standard for the amount of space between letters, and between words. It is slightly longer than the space between the dot and dash elements that make up letters and punctuation marks. Someone who sends really beautiful code sends these elements precisely and accurately, making it easier for listeners to pick up where letters and words end. \n\n\"The time taken to produce the sound equivalent to one 'di' or 'dit' (dot) is taken as unit time and called a dot unit. A 'dah' is approximately of three dot units length and the space between two sound elements of a letter is one dot unit, i.e. silence period is one dot unit. The space between two letters or characters is equal to three dot units. The space between two words is equal to five dot units.\"\n\nFrom here: _URL_0_\n\nAnd by the way, in the United States, Morse code is no longer required in order to earn a ham radio license. However it sure comes in handy when you are trying to exchange messages with a station in Antarctica :-) \n\n...-.-"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morse_code"
],
[],
[
"http://www.qsl.net/vu2msy/learnmorse.htm"
]
] | |
2r1shl | why aren't the numbers 11-13 and 15 standardized like every other number (i.e. oneteen, twoteen, threeteen, fiveteen) | Learning numbers in English is actually pretty simple except for the teens. For some reason, the teens are all unique and fail to hold up the standardized decimal number sequence that seems to persist for the rest of the numbers.
So what's the deal. And why isn't "ten" called "teen". and the nubers teenone, teentwo, teenthree, teenfour. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2r1shl/eli5_why_arent_the_numbers_1113_and_15/ | {
"a_id": [
"cnbmimn",
"cnbnh7f",
"cnbqdh4"
],
"score": [
16,
4,
6
],
"text": [
"Eleven and twelve, you're not going to find a satisfactory answer. They've been weird going all the way back to old Germanic, and stayed weird until today. One thing worth noting is that lower numbers (up through 20) are more likely to be irregular across languages, and in general, more commonly used words are more likely to be irregular.\n\nThirteen used to essentially be threeteen, but it went through [metathesis](_URL_0_), which is a pretty common process. And fifteen is actually a result of five previously being called fif (pronounced feef).",
"It's different in Romance languages too.\n\nSpanish uses once, doce, trece, catorce,quince, deiciseis, deiciseiete, deicieocho, deicinueve.\n\n",
"Because they're going through a rebellious phase. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metathesis_\\(linguistics\\)"
],
[],
[]
] | |
342yxt | why don't desalination plants sell salt for cities to use during winter. | As the title states, mainly wouldn't this inflow of cash help offset the expensive cost of desalination? Leading to a more viable capital requirements to run the plants. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/342yxt/eli5_why_dont_desalination_plants_sell_salt_for/ | {
"a_id": [
"cqqr1lu",
"cqqr3gw"
],
"score": [
3,
2
],
"text": [
"Not all desalination plants are set up to also harvest salt, but those that are DO sell it. Mostly to grocery stores and restaurants as sea salt but also for salting roads. It does offset the expense of desalination, and that offset price is the one you see quoted when given prices for desalination plants. ",
"They often do. This Bloomberg article from a couple years ago mentions it:\n\n_URL_0_"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-07-24/durban-municipality-s-water-project-includes-salt-sales"
]
] | |
2m3n6v | why do marbles and other spheres make that "rolling" sound? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2m3n6v/eli5_why_do_marbles_and_other_spheres_make_that/ | {
"a_id": [
"cm0n7vp",
"cm0pdx9"
],
"score": [
2,
2
],
"text": [
"I think rolling is just a series of small impacts.",
"The surface of a marble isn't perfectly smooth. If you got a magnifying glass and looked, you'd see little grooves and ridges all over it. Thus, when you roll the marble across a surface (which is also going to have edges and grooves along it), you're going to hear the \"rolling\" sound you mentioned."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] | ||
9btjda | why is it so captivating to watch demolition/destruction of buildings or objects? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9btjda/eli5_why_is_it_so_captivating_to_watch/ | {
"a_id": [
"e55k61w",
"e55m041"
],
"score": [
4,
3
],
"text": [
"For me its fascinating to watch something that took hundreds/thousands of hours reduced to rubble in seconds.\nPlus, like visually its pretty interesting to see that stuff going on, not something we get to watch every day. My .02.",
"You get to see the various interesting ways materials and structures fail in spectacular ways from exciting forces (bullets, hydrolic presses) which are well outside our usual experience. In ordinary life breaking something means you've probably just lost money or at least owe an apology. So it's something suppressed that we all avoid. This makes watching objects smash fun because it's a freedom from this restriction of living in safe and careful ways that don't regularly cause property damage"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] | ||
4jup8b | why is testicle pain more painful than pain in say the arm or leg? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4jup8b/eli5_why_is_testicle_pain_more_painful_than_pain/ | {
"a_id": [
"d39s2c6",
"d39u2zo",
"d39x2a8",
"d39yu8j",
"d39yzxa",
"d39z4ka",
"d39zovh",
"d3a0bny",
"d3a21es",
"d3a68t5",
"d3a6bv4",
"d3a7oq5",
"d3abuqn"
],
"score": [
50,
4,
2,
24,
284,
2,
2,
3,
20,
5,
2,
3,
2
],
"text": [
"In a word: Evolution. While its far easier for someone to life a long life after the loss of their reproductive organs than without a limb (at least in the wild), they will not have any offspring and so will not pass on their genetics to future generations. The man who takes more care to preserve his testicles will be more likely to reproduce than someone who lives without worrying about damaging them, and if the reason he's so careful about his testicles is genetic (an excess of pain-sensing nerves), that carefulness (and pain) will be passed on to his sons, who are again more likely to reproduce than non-careful (and pain-free) males, etc until virtually all males have pain-sensitive balls.",
"Think about it. It's your future genes. The body wants to protect them (but they're outside of the body) so if you get hurt there, it hurts extra bad because your body has evolved to learn to protect your nuts for reproductive purposes.",
"Well there needed to be video game weakness so that girls could defend themselves when we at- I mean bad men attack them.",
"For the same reason having your penis pulled feels better than having your leg pulled. Nerves.",
"There are two good answers here, but the full picture needs to put both of them together. \n\nGet yourself two toothpicks. On yourself without looking or on someone else without them looking, test to see how far apart they have to be for you to realise it is two toothpicks and not one when you press them against the skin of your fingertips. Try this again with the skin of your upper arm/thigh etc. \n\nDifferent parts of your body are better or worse at detecting touch depending on the density of touch neurons, and subsequently a smaller or larger portion of your brain is devoted to processing those signals.\n\nPain receptors are different from touch receptors but the principle is the same. More pain receptors in an area will mean that you will be able to feel more pain in that area. Hence why there are more pain receptors in places that you need to survive and procreate.\n\n There is strong evolutionary pressure to have lots of pain receptors on your testicles, as trauma to them will screw up your chances of having kids. Therefore, making trauma to your testicles unpleasant makes you more likely to protect them, and makes your genes more likely to survive. ",
"Because if you hurt your nuts, you no longer can pass on your genes. If you your arm or leg, there is a good chance that you will recover.",
"Well evolution have provided for a higher pain response at trauma to the balls because animals which were more protective of their reproductive organs were more likely to be able to reproduce and secure their DNA would be passed down. On the other hand the other limbs can tolerate greater trauma without being damaged, and the ability to use them with less fear of pain response is of greater importance. ",
"Because when I got kicked in the leg I felt the impact, brain registered a minimal amount of pain, caused a bruise to form on the leg. No big deal. When I got kicked in the balls, I felt the initial impact, a shiver ran through my entire torso, instantly felt enormous stomach pain and nausea, and the desire to have diarrhea or cry my eyes out fought to the death. Then they both won. Fuck you Joanne G.",
"Literal reason is because of little to no muscle, skin, fat or bone around the testicles whilst the testicles themselves are riddled with nerves.\n\nAs for why that is: Evolution baby. Sperm is produced better at temps that are quiet cool compared to inside your body so we evolved exterior testicles, the less fat around them the cooler they were and so those humans were to an extent more sexually successful.\n\nHowever, at the same time that made testicles more vulnerable, if guys didn't protect their nuts ina fight or hunting they could very well end their evolution right there, guys who had more nerves on their balls would be more inclined not to smash them even accidentally meaning they were the most successful of them all.",
"Because leg pain means it's harder for you to live. Genital pain means it's harder for your child to ever live. Natural selection favored the one that had a bigger reason to protect his groin.",
"Just by a logical process of thought, the pain makes you very protective of your groin whereas if you did not experience such pain you may not be as protective. Through natural selection, you could figure that people who did not have sensitive testis where less protective of them and therefore allowed harm to come to them easier. So people with less sensitive testis failed to reproduce whereas those with more sensitive testis succeeded. ",
"Physiologically, more nerve endings and less protective tissue.\n\nEvolutionary, because from the standpoint of genetic code with the prime purpose of self-replication, losing your genitalia is just as bad as death, so creatures that evolved very sensitive genitalia are less likely to do stuff to damage them and therefore more likely to copulate and reproduce, thus further passing on the trait of sensitive genitalia.",
"Think of it in terms of evolution. Something that helps us stay healthy and reproduce will be passed on to our children. If your testicles didn't hurt a lot when hit or injured, we may not protect them as much and end up being unable to reproduce.\n\nSo, in other words, people that didn't have extreme pain from testicle injuries didn't reproduce as much as others!"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] | ||
6906lg | if everyone hates nickelback how did they sell 50 million albums worldwide? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6906lg/eli5_if_everyone_hates_nickelback_how_did_they/ | {
"a_id": [
"dh2msb9",
"dh2ocmh",
"dh2oin6",
"dh2okt6",
"dh2qfun"
],
"score": [
25,
37,
6,
5,
9
],
"text": [
"Sometimes the simplest answer is the correct one. Everyone doesn't hate Nickelback. They've sold 50 million albums because people want to listen to their music. ",
"I'll trace this back to a quote from Wayne's World, \" Led Zeppelin didn't write tunes that every one liked. They left that to the Bee Gees.\"\n\nI think most people who really care about music, especially rock music, would put Zeppelin above the Bee Gees but who sold more records? Folks who are way into music don't like Nickleback (or Smashmouth) because they're boring, uninspired, and derivative. But that's a perfect recipe for writing a catchy three-minute pop rock tune the average Joe flipping through the radio stations will stop and listen to.\n\nThey're the Miller Lite of music, safe and inoffensive to most people. I may have some specific craft brew I like and I'll look down my nose at some generic watery mass market beer. But guess what? Even the shitty mass market beer outsells my favorite micro-brew by orders of magnitude because it's inoffensive and good enough for people who don't care enough to dig any deeper.",
"The \"hate\" really sorta stems from people raging on someone \"selling out\" in order to win big. The same reason that the Chainsmokers are now receiving a similar reception as of late.\n\nThese artists, among others, essentially take the best selling aspects of their respective genres and beat it like a dead horse to sell records/mp3s/get radio play and make their millions. Be it a particular beat, a pandering cheesy lyric or refrain, subject matter, etc and so forth, rather than retaining any sort of artistic integrity, they simply make their songs into things they know will play with the masses.\n\nA lot of the time it likely starts with people who \"knew them before they got big\" and therefore hate it when they suddenly become everyone's new favorite and feel it cheapens the meaning of their songs / lyrics, and sometimes it may given the previous statement of them catering all their songs more in that direction because they know it'll sell, but, you get the idea.\n\n",
"Nickelback are not a bad band as such, but they have a style that sounds very much alike from song to song. But this also helps them as they are a rock band that is very easy to listen to as a casual listener.\n\nBasically Nickelback are the McDonalds of rock music. They make competent music that a lot of people kinda like, or at least don't mind, you always know what you get when you listen to one of their songs, and they sell big.\n\nBut just like McDonalds the quality of the merchandise is being criticized by people with higher standards. Some of this is fair (just like pointing out McDonalds food is not very healthy), but over time it has become a rather tired joke to people that Nickelback is the worst band ever. ",
"Everyone doesn't hate them. People just like talking about hating them. It's cool to hate them so even people who don't mind them, or maybe even like them, pretend to hate them to fit in. \n\nThe vast majority of people are indifferent (just like with any musician). \n\nNickleback fans, due to the stigma that's developed around liking the band, are largely silent on their fandom which is why the perception becomes that no one likes them. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] | ||
1qqpue | how there can be new dog breeds classified each year? | I keep seeing every year that there are "new" dog breeds. How/why does this happen? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1qqpue/eli5_how_there_can_be_new_dog_breeds_classified/ | {
"a_id": [
"cdfhfck",
"cdfiwus",
"cdfn8sb"
],
"score": [
3,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Are they truly new breeds or simply rarer breeds that are getting noticed? I own two boerboels, a mastiff breed originating in South Africa. They are becoming more popular in the US (where I am). I think the AKC has accepted them a a breed finally, but the process takes a long time. ",
"For the most part in America, breeds are considered official or not if the American Kennel Club considers them to be a breed. They also set the \"breed standard,\" the basics of what an ideal member of that breed should look like.\n\nNow, the AKC only recognizes a breed as being a breed if the breed meets certain requirements. This includes the breed having been around for many generations, there's accurate documentation of the breeds history, there's organizations around the breed, and enough people owning and breeding them. You can't just breed two mutts together and say, \"New breed! It must be recognized by the AKC!\"",
"By and large they are breeds long established in other countries that are just now finding enough enthusiasts in the USA to make them viable here. There are tons of breeds of dogs throughout the world- don't narrow your focus to think that \"breeds\" are only those in the USA.\n \n*Very* new breeds must first be enrolled in the AKC's [Foundation Stock Service](_URL_0_) that maintains records of individual \"foundation\" stock so that the integrity of a breeds pedigree and ownership records and kept organized and intact.\n\nA minimum of 150-200 dogs with complete three-generation pedigrees, owned by many different individuals residing in various parts of the nation, must be recorded as part of the criteria for approval to move to the Miscellaneous Class. A club representing the breed must be in existence to request eligibility for the Miscellaneous Class.\n\nThen they are classified as \"Miscellaneous\" by AKC and years and years may pass until there is proof of a substantial, sustained nationwide interest and activity in the breed. This includes an active parent club, with serious and expanding breeding activity over a wide geographic area.\n\nBreeds must remain in the Miscellaneous class for at least one year unless the breed has over 1,000 three generation dogs when entering the Miscellaneous class, then the club may request full recognition after six months.\n\nAt that point they may be officially recognized as a breed and admitted to regular breed status.\n\n\n"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[
"http://www.akc.org/reg/fss_details.cfm"
]
] | |
4s8utl | program installers | Why get an installer instead of downloading the program and files needed? Wouldn't it be more efficient? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4s8utl/eli5_program_installers/ | {
"a_id": [
"d57fgfs"
],
"score": [
6
],
"text": [
"The installer is generally more user friendly. It effortlessly picks a default installation directory, creates start menu and desktop shortcuts, it adds any needed registry entries and it may install other programs the main software may need like DirectX or Microsoft .NET Framework"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | |
4ejmsf | how do my card numbers keep getting stolen? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4ejmsf/eli5how_do_my_card_numbers_keep_getting_stolen/ | {
"a_id": [
"d20p5p0",
"d20p8v0",
"d20pcc4"
],
"score": [
5,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"This is just one possibility, but it could be a business you shop at that you trust. When the security of a company is breached, they aren't required to tell you. They let the banks know to look out, but you'll never be told \"This company is the reason your card info is getting stolen.\"\n\nI had this happen with two cards and I'm pretty sure I know which business it was. \n\nHow long of a timespan are you talking about? Do they change the numbers each time?",
"Could be you have malicious software installed on A PC or smartphone that you use said information on. Someone accessed my online banking account about a year back...fairly certain it was because I had installed a couple questionable apps on my rooted GS5.\n\nEdit: they somehow transferred 5000.00 that didn't exist into my account and withdrew it before I knew what had happened. I get text alerts when my account gets accessed...they logged in, xfered and withdrew all in about 5 minutes...by the time I called my bank it was too late\n",
"Generally it's a breach of a payment processor or a merchant. Someone finds a way in to the payment processor and steals a ton of card numbers. These are then (generally) sold to a person or enterprise that uses those card numbers to make fake cards that are used to make purchases before the bank's fraud system detects it and stops that card number. It's been happening more and more often recently...I work at a small bank and we have a few thousand cards reissued every month due to compromises and breaches.\n\n\nCanned response that I tell my customers. You're not doing anything wrong, keep using your card how you do and stay conscious of skimmers and things/places that don't feel right. Banks offer 100% fraud protection for this reason, so even if something happens you're not personally liable for the transactions. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] | ||
5g811n | why can't we just base the weight of a kilogram by saying that it is the weight of 1l of water instead of using the international prototype kilogram? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5g811n/eli5_why_cant_we_just_base_the_weight_of_a/ | {
"a_id": [
"daq7dsm",
"daq7e7d",
"daqbg60",
"daqc8tg"
],
"score": [
36,
10,
3,
2
],
"text": [
"1L of water at what temperature and pressure? A liter is a unit of volume, and a liter of steam is going to have a lot less mass than a liter of water at the bottom of the Mariana trench. Most human life exists in a similar band of temperature and pressure, so 1L of water weighs about a kilogram, but it lacks the precision of a set prototype kilogram.",
"We did it the other way.\n\nThe liter is pegged to the kilogram.\n\nEither way something is arbitrary, you would have to decide an arbitrary measurement for water volume rather than an arbitrary weight.",
"We want it to be as exact as possible.\n\nSure for most ordinary applications saying that 1 kg is the weight of a liter of water is sufficient, but we want to be exact.\n\nWe can try to be very specific about at what temperature we are measuring, but we would still have to deal with the difference the pressure would make.\n\nWe could try to be very specific about the pressure, but there is a problem there: How do you measure pressure?\n\nPressure is usually defined as something like force per area and force in turn is defined along the lines of changing the velocity of mass.\n\nMass is measure in kilogram.\n\nIf you break down how you measure pressure in the metric system you will find that 1 Pascal is just a short way of writing 1 kg / (1m ⋅1 s²).\n\nYou need mass to define pressure.\n\nIf you tried to define mass by using pressure you would need some international standard prototype for pressure and obviously it is a lot easier an more accurate to create a prototype that doesn't change its mass too much rather than trying to create a standardized example of pressure that stays the way it is.\n\nWe are trying to do away with the kilogram prototype, because it is a suboptimal solution. The long term plan is trying to define the kilogram as the mass of a certain number of atoms, but we can't really manipulate and count atoms well enough yet.\n\nRight now the SI-system has 7 base units and we sort of try to get them all defined through natural constants and in combination with each other. We have done away with the meter prototype by using the speed of light and our ability to measure time very exactly. The Kilogram is really the last holdout we have.",
"The problem with using water is its inconvenience. With water, you have to have the right purity. You have to have the right density, which means the right temperature and pressure. You have to have the right volume, which means having the right container. It is far, far easier to put a lump of metal into a balance scale pan than to put a litre of water there. It is also a lot easier to fine tune metal weights.\n\nActually, the water based definition of the kilogram only lasted for four years, from 1795 to 1799. After that the kilogram was defined as the mass of a prototype kilogram"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[]
] | ||
4h4gdh | stock market. how is it decided how many "shares" of a company is created? can the company print more shares, or is the first decision final? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4h4gdh/eli5_stock_market_how_is_it_decided_how_many/ | {
"a_id": [
"d2naemm",
"d2nb6dp",
"d2nbbqo",
"d2nc4pa"
],
"score": [
5,
2,
12,
2
],
"text": [
"It's entirely arbitrary. You just choose to divide the company into X parts. At a later point you can make more (thus diluting the value of existing shares) or you can choose to make every previous share now worth 2 or two old shares to now be just 1.\n\nYou can also have shares of different classes which represent a different percentage of the company or that have different rights (eg non-voting shares).\n\nYou can think of a share as representing a certain number of points. You add up ALL of the points then divide the number you own by the total number of points. That becomes your percentage of the total ownership.\n\nThe number of shares is thus controlled by the executive leadership of the company who in theory represent the share holders.",
"Companies do indeed make more shares at times - it's called a [stock split] (_URL_0_) - but there are rules. They can't just make new shares in a way that devalues existing investors' holdings. ",
"The value of a share is the value of a company divided by the number of shares that exist. When a company first makes a public offering, they decide how many shares they want to divide their company by. Once they do this, if the number of shares is effectively set; if they were to just \"make more shares\", that would decrease the percentage of the company that people who previously purchased shares owns (effectively stealing). Their only option is to \"split shares\", where everyone multiplies the number of shares they own by two, dividing the value of each in half. \n\nExample: A company worth 10 million dollars decides to sell off stock in the company. They decide to divide the ownership into 100,000 shares, giving each share a value of $100.\n\nAs the company grows and succeeds, its value increases to 100 million dollars. Awesome! Now, however, each share is worth $1000 each, and that's difficult for traders to work with. The company decides to split their shares. Now instead of 100,00 shares each worth $1000 on the market, there are 200,000 shares each worth $500 on the market. If you owned 10 shares of the company (for a total value of $10,000), you now own 20 shares of the company (net value is still $10,000). ",
"A company decides how many shares to sell at an \"Initial Public Offering\" and for how much those shares will be sold, usually at the help of consultants and investment bankers. Those shares are then released into the market. \n\nIf the company desires, it can recall or give out more shares in a similar fashion. The company can also decide to \"split\" the shares, meaning 100 shares worth $1 each will now be 200 shares worth $0.50 each, for a 2:1 split. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"http://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/113.asp"
],
[],
[]
] | ||
wkk0b | why aren't more pitchers in the mlb effective as batters, like babe ruth? | I understand that there aren't many that are stacking up to the legend of the Babe, but why aren't there more pitchers that are at least average at batting? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/wkk0b/eli5_why_arent_more_pitchers_in_the_mlb_effective/ | {
"a_id": [
"c5e4vsj",
"c5ekqwj"
],
"score": [
4,
2
],
"text": [
"Well, it's not as important for them to be effective batters. They can afford to be specialized. A team would rather have an ace pitcher who never is able to hit the ball than a mediocre pitcher who can bat decently. The pitcher 1/9th of the offense, maybe even less because he isn't batting in crucial positions like lead-off or cleanup, he's batting at the bottom with the worst hitters, utility players, and backups. However, due to the size and layout of a ballpark, there are certain hits that are going to get through the fielders. Home runs, obviously, but there's places you can hit a ball to where even the best fielder in the world can't get to it, because the field is too big for that few people to completely cover. So he's the most important player defensively by far. \n\nThus, batting ability is almost irrelevant for pitchers. They would much rather have an ace pitcher who bats like crap than a mediocre pitcher who is a mediocre hitter. The difference between your #9 hitter batting 0.120 and 0.280 is a lot less significant than the difference between your starting pitcher having a 0.280 opponent batting average and a 0.120 opponent batting average. ",
"The short answer: It just isn't worth it.\n\nA pitcher only has so many throws left in his arm and once he reaches the number 0, he's useless, unfortunately. Pitchers are always trying to improve their efficiency and reduce injury through constant hard work and exercise and you can't have that when they have to focus on 2 completely different aspects of the game.\n\nAlthough theoretically (more like in a perfect world), the best hitters would be pitchers because they know the \"pitching game\" inside and out. They know exactly what they're up against, but sadly, that's not real.\n\nThis isn't something like converting religions, this actually takes YEARS of practice to be both an effective hitter and batter. Hitting a 95 mph 4 seam fastball is no joke and you can't just pick up any Joe Schmoe pitcher and say I want you to bat up next. Even batters who are extremely adept in hitting have trouble hitting Dickey's Knuckleball, so can you even imagine a pitcher trying to hit it without decent practice? This goes for all pitches.\n\nIn a game like baseball where you don't need to be a jack of all trades because there are positions (although it would be nice to have one, no?), this idea of having both a good batter and good pitcher is slowing fading away. This all goes back to the purpose of why we have scouts, etc but I'm getting off topic.\n\nSo back to my short answer...It's not worth it\n"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] | |
6b7sjy | how do data collection companies get so much information on individuals? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6b7sjy/eli5_how_do_data_collection_companies_get_so_much/ | {
"a_id": [
"dhkh78r",
"dhkidyi",
"dhkp11h",
"dhkpmsl",
"dhkqk5v",
"dhkqx06",
"dhkr2uo",
"dhkre6g",
"dhkru0z",
"dhks5ld",
"dhkt9wh",
"dhkvcii",
"dhkw2bb",
"dhkwngv",
"dhkxzxk",
"dhl00b5",
"dhl0kkt",
"dhl0qzs",
"dhl1gr9",
"dhl1wc9",
"dhl2q53",
"dhl3o7d",
"dhl3usr",
"dhl5ol5",
"dhl5qut",
"dhl7u9e",
"dhlcrjs",
"dhld2j0",
"dhljkev",
"dhlktdq"
],
"score": [
47,
71,
32,
347,
6,
137,
61,
52,
17,
28,
8,
12,
5,
667,
141,
10,
8,
7,
5,
3,
3,
4,
3,
3,
2,
2,
3,
6,
3,
2
],
"text": [
"Follow up question: what did they have?",
"Accumulation. Steady accumulation combined with most marketing companies having collection done from a very wide net of corporations that hired them for advertising.\n\nHave you ever used a bank or credit card somewhere? That place - and *everything it's ever sold or lost personal information to, and that means basically every business and organization legit or not nowadays* have your name, address, and at least some card numbers. That means credit information. That includes where you're from, who owns what, what your debts are like, who gets the alimony, EVERYTHING. You have insurance? Insurance company? Now there's medical info - some of it that isn't supposed to be in public - and who you're married to and if you've ever smoked and who your kids are too.\n\nNow let's toss in your purchase histories. Your search requests. All the tracking cookies collecting data as you go from site to site; each and every single last one of them snitching and squealing and giving up the things you've done to whatever checks the data on the things. Databanks upon databanks, cross-checking the things you do the people you've talked to the stuff you've bought the porn you've saved, all of it in the hands of people who make their money by telling others they'll help them sell you more of what you want, and what you don't.\n\nAnd then there's the government as well.",
"I'm seeing your question has been already answered but I'm going to leave this here: r/privacy",
"This isn't totally related, but I worked for Microsoft's Data Science team and learned some really interesting facts on how certain companies get their data and user info... 1.) It's not technically illegal for giant tech companies to \"digitally spy\" on their software users... Example - If you are continuously visiting amazon and buying dresses or shopping online for women's clothing - you're most likely a woman... If you're buying kid's clothes, you're most likely a mother... If you're on dating sites, you're most likely single... Microsoft or large tech companies can easily bypass \"identity laws\" and based on your internet history and browsing history digitally \"guesstimate\" your age, race and sex in just a few days, weeks of monitoring your traffic. One allows this when you use their browsers, use Office, use their OS, etc. 2.) Companies are also sleazy and often don't care about your privacy - they sell your info and detailed personal info to these companies and their affiliates. I claimed bankruptcy last year and for the next 6 months of filing received 100+ offers for cheap car loans and bad credit lendors offering car loans from local dealerships (had a car and was not looking at all)... Anywhooo....\n\n",
"The internet.\n\n\nJust take for example the legislation that would wipe away landmark privacy protections for Internet users. Even without this new legislation, big companies would still be able to collect a considerable amount of data on you. This data is shared with/sold to other big companies. \n\nPlus, it isn't magic. When you browse around on the internet, Google Analyctics is constantly collecting data on what you are watching, which websites you are visiting, what products you are looking at online.\n\n",
"I sell voter and consumer data for a living. Agree with everyone else - we have a team of 20 that comb through PDF after PDF scraping personal info from documents, using fuzzy match techniques to link that data public records and voter file info, then investing in large consumer data lists from third parties to grab fields such as 'affinity for golf, number of credit cards, etc.' We then use that data to inform predictive models on people likelihood to like certain things or do certain actions. Then sell that data to end clients and reinvest in the collection process. ",
"They pay people to take Facebook personality quizzes that require giving access to just your name, profile and friends list. This allows them to access everything you and your entire friends list have ever posted or liked on Facebook. \n\n[Then they use this data to win elections.](_URL_1_) [I wish I was joking.] (_URL_0_)",
"[report]\n\nUser: cs02rm0\n\nDatapoint: Exhibited curiosity into our methods\n\nStatus-change-to: Troublemaker\n\n[end report]",
"I know one source of information is from supermarkets. You know those rewards programs you sign up to for points and the odd freebie? The small-print will contain information around them selling your data to marketing companies. You can assume a lot from someone's shopping list: age, sex, marital status, health, wealth, ethnicity etc. etc. \n\nThey then profile you based on this data and use it for targeted marketing. ",
"literally any rewards program you sign up for, every public database, any free account you created to get a free (insert item here). Even your CC purchases are tracked by cc number in many instances (typically by larger retailers, but it's becoming available with smaller businesses through various programs.) And then they use all of those with data aggregators to piece all of these together and build a profile of you. Once they have that they sell it to marketing people to try to get you to buy more stuff.",
"Check out this talk by [Mikko Hyponnen at re:publica2015](_URL_0_). The on topic part starts around the 12:00 minute mark but the whole talk is interesting to watch.",
"Closely related, the website _URL_0_ probably has you, your friends, and family all listed on there. One of my siblings had their residences listed going back almost 30 years.\n\nIt's been posted here on reddit over the past year, but if you haven't, remove yourself form that website. _URL_0_ Spread the word.",
"Lexis Nexis is legit but with the increase of identity theft, I've found a lot of their information to be inaccurate. \n\nEx: Someone files a fraudulent tax return with your SSN. The fake address on the return will end up on the Lexis Nexis report for that SSN. ",
"Aside from what's mentioned here, there's also inferred data. So for instance, a data collector might have 2 or 3 pieces of data on an individual, and from that data, they are then are able to predict another characteristic with a high degree of accuracy. \n\nFamous example is Target... They were able to predict with reasonable certainty that a woman was pregnant. Other examples would include religion, sexual preference etc...\n\n_URL_0_\n\nThis type of stuff happens all the time. \n\nSource: I work in a related space.",
"How long did it take to receive your report? I mailed mine in about two months ago and haven't gotten anything yet",
"Look up Renaissance Technologies, they have become one of the biggest data mining companies in the world. The co-ceo's were also the biggest political donors in the american election backing Hillary and Trump. The company uses algorithms to create a 4000-5000 point identification system for every person that contrasts people's social media, web history, and credit card history among other things. This is used largely by political strategists and corporations to tune advertising and talking points to the demographics they are attempting to appeal to.",
"I have been finding an ad in my Reddit for a pair of pants I bought since the day after I bought them, but I used someone else's credit card to pay. How did they pull that one off?",
"They buy real phone number and address info from all the major pizza delivery companies. Ya I'm serious. ",
"Your best defense is massive amounts of misinformation. All 3 credit reporting agencies have specific weaknesses which you can exploit to create ghosts of your real data. There are scripts to create random activity on Facebook and Google. There are also ways to create commercial transactions that get reported but are themselves ghosts. The real you then gets lost in the quagmire of bogus data. As the reporting agencies adjust their data analysis, the misinformation methods are also adjusted. Your consent to allow lenders to use your information for credit evaluation purposes does not allow that same information to be resold by 3rd parties unless you are also directly compensated by the sale. To do otherwise is identity theft.",
"I can tell you how some online marketing works. There are a bunch of companies that sell \"marketing plugins\" for websites. If you own a website that customers visit you would sign up for one of these services and then install their plugin. The company offers you \"Sales leads\" which means, on a regular basis they will provide you with names and phone numbers of people that would be interested in buying your products.\n\nNormally, you can have a lot of data about the people that visit your site. But you usually don't know who they are, or what their phone number is. These services plugins collect these people's browsing habits, and co-mingle them across multiple websites. So while the customer might not sign up for an account on your website selling snowboards, they might signup for an account on someone else's website selling goggles. As soon as they do that, the marketing plugin vendor creates a \"Sales lead\" for every other customer that's using their plugin. They then tie all that browsing activity that you had on all those other websites where you didn't have an account to your real name. Viola, they have your entire browsing history and the sales reps know what you're interested in. \n",
"Ever order a pizza from a friend's house with your cell? Their address is now listed as a known associate.",
"It is because people are stupid and volunteer information that they don't have to share to stores. Why do they need my phone number when I am buying something at their store? Why are they asking me to give to THEIR favorite charity. Why are you asking me if I would like to sign up for your credit card or rewards program? etc. etc. etc.",
"1. You would be surprised how much information is considered \"public\" and freely available to those with the time and money to collect it.\n\n2. You would be shocked if you actually read some of the legalese that you've signed over the years. You've freely given away tons of information.\n\n3. You would be awed at how much of your behavior can be gleaned through various forms of analytics. Think of how much your CC usage, buying habits, travel locations reveal about you.",
"it's incredible how much we are alike. There is an old story of a girl buying some certain things at Target (i believe) and because of what she bought, she was assumed to be pregnant as she fit the pattern of pregnant women. They then sent adds based on this to her. The problem was that she was 16 and lived at her parents place, so he called them and was, understandably furious that they would want to promote his daughter to get pregnant and of course, Target apologized profoundly. A week after this, he called again, to say he was sorry, it turned out his daughter was pregnant.\n\nBig Data is a scary, scary thing and because of how similar we are, despite our individuality it can predict an incredible amount of things about us, just based on what we think are insignificant everyday things.",
"We give it to them. Sometimes intentionally, sometimes it's compulsory (like in medical), and many times we agree to it through something we're usually unaware of. Laws are passed and you'll usually find most of these things in fine print. (Like how major cell carriers and now home ISPs are selling our browsing data). As far as I know, cell carriers only sell it to the government, but your local ISP can sell it to ad agencies because a law passed you weren't a part of (other than who you voted for in your local government).",
"So, cards on the table,I write software that is related to this.\n\nFirstly, the info comes from a shit ton of different places and is collated by LN. Seriously, so many sources.\n\nSecondly, you agree to most of it being shared. Tick this box if we can share your details with trusted partners.\n\nThirdly, info is either true, true for someone probably you, or implied. You'll get some info for other people, but not much. A lot comes from loyalty schemes, service providers, and so on, and a really worrying amount is deduced by statistical likelihood. If I know what you buy, for example,I can very reliably predict your gender, age (to higher precision than you would guess), address, education level, likely major, type and size of home, music preferences and just a ton more shit.\n\nI can't stress enough that you agree to most of this. In some cases you give the data and essentially don't notice.",
"Whatever you search on the internet.\n\nFor example, boys search (and do) video games more than girls, who prefer other things (please let me know what if you're a girl, I don't want to give wrong examples) and that the average age of interest in video games is (example, it actually is 31 years according to google) ~12 years old, so if you search for video games on your browser, your browser will think that you like video games, are a boy and is around 12 years old. But what happens after the browser knows this? And what if the information is inaccurate?\n\nYour internet browser will sell this information about you to advertising companies. Why so? For the simple purpose of marketing, the advertisement company will show you ads concerning your points of interest, in this case, video games. And by seeing the ad of, say, TETRIS, you would want to play that game, which will bring money to the TETRIS company. The game company, in return, pays the marketing company to show the ad for the game to internet users the browser recognizes as ~12 year-old boys who prefer video games (not all boys do). This is called the target audience.\n\n Of course, the information might be wrong and you might actually be a 25 year-old woman who just likes video games. In this case, the browser will use other search information you have provided (for example, job searches, bank searches, dating sites, real estate browsing, ...) and try to know the most about you to make ads targeted on you the best way: by searching the queries mentioned above, the browser will recognize you as a single young adult that just graduated, and that is looking for a new career (new bank, living space, profession, etc.). That way, the ad company will show you appropriate ads.\n\nAnd all this is the simple explanation. Some companies can register the restaurants and supermarkets that you visit frequently, the transport that you use, the foods you prefer, where you are planning to go during the vacation, when you are active on the internet / on your computer, etc. I will not be naming all the examples!",
"Hey yoda is cool but what kind of jedi are you?\nAnswer these special formulated questions from the jedi counsel to find out:\n\nhow often do you eat breakfast cereal?\nhow often do you spend $50 or more on unplanned purchases?\nhow far do you drive to work every day?\nhow much do you pay for insurance every month?\n\nCongratulations dark lord! you much be a sith.\n\nclick here to find out what kind of wizard you are",
"If you get a service free online, chances are pretty good that you are the product (your information being sold).",
"Google keeps track of all of its searches and where they come from. It is publicly available on google trends."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/07/the-great-british-brexit-robbery-hijacked-democracy",
"https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/how-our-likes-helped-trump-win"
],
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbF0sVdOjRw"
],
[
... | |
54rhey | flagfootball, american football and rugby | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/54rhey/eli5flagfootball_american_football_and_rugby/ | {
"a_id": [
"d84dh2q"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Both American football and rugby derive from the 19th century from a more generic football game. American football is, of course, mostly played by Americans, while rugby first came about in the UK, although it's spread more widely since then.\n\nThere's a lot of minor differences, but they aren't too dissimilar. The most obvious one is that American football has 11 players on each team, while rugby has 15. Rugby has fields that are slightly longer, slightly larger footballs, and requires less padding. It also has more playtime, but the game itself may be shorter since pausing of the clock only happens for injuries.\n\nFlag football is a version of American football that's basically the same, except instead of tackling someone, you have to pull off a flag that they've attached to themselves. This generally makes the game a little safer, so it's often played more casually."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
6c4u86 | why do people bounce their legs during class? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6c4u86/eli5_why_do_people_bounce_their_legs_during_class/ | {
"a_id": [
"dhrvofr"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"It's beneficial for a human to be active/alert during the day, way back when we had to be aware of predators or animals we could eat. This was usually during the day, so it is advantageous to be restless."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
2jq3ru | why do the settings on my fan go 0-3-2-1? | Wouldn't it make more sense for the settings to go 0(off)-1(low)-2(medium)-3(fast)? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2jq3ru/eli5_why_do_the_settings_on_my_fan_go_0321/ | {
"a_id": [
"cle1dco"
],
"score": [
10
],
"text": [
"This question has been answered before [here.]( _URL_0_)"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1gc3tc/eli5_why_do_settings_on_household_fans_go_from/"
]
] | |
1384ev | why does video on my hd tv always look awesome and flawless, but video on my hd laptop is always buffering and looks crappy? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1384ev/eli5_why_does_video_on_my_hd_tv_always_look/ | {
"a_id": [
"c71n1wu",
"c71neye",
"c71p19g"
],
"score": [
4,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"The quality of video isn't determined by the quality of the screen you view it on. It's based on the quality of the original video file. For example, you might watch a Blu-Ray on your TV, which has a bitrate of around 35Mbps. However, if you're watching Netflix in HD on your computer, it has a maximum bitrate of around 4Mbps- barely 1/9th the quality of the Blu-Ray file!\n\nEven broadcast HDTV is still going to be at around 16Mbps- four times the quality of your HD Netflix stream.",
"Laptop manufacturers call 1366 x 768 HD.",
"In principle, Internet video displayed on a laptop can look every bit as good as, or even better than, cable, satellite, broadcast HD or DVD on an HDTV. The only format that it can't match or beat is Blu-ray.\n\nHowever, achieving this quality requires many things. It requires a streaming service willing to serve video of that quality to your computer — for instance, Hulu reserves HD streams for paid Hulu Plus members. It requires a recent-model sustem or fairly high-end older model, as many mid-range older models can't decode a 1080p H.264 stream fast enough for smooth playback. It requires a good screen — you'll certainly be giving up some quality with the 1366x768 screens that have emerged as the 'standard' on a lot of Windows notebooks, as full 1080p is 1920x1080.\n\nIt also requires a fairly fast Internet connection — faster than your might think. Consumer Internet connections are rated based on their maximum capped speed, not a minimum guaranteed speed. The actual performance both of your connection and of the links between you and the video stream provider is variable. Personally, I found that my old 10 Mbps cable Internet connection was not sufficient to reliably stream the highest quality streams offered by Netflix (about 4 Mbps) — the player would usually settle on a stream one or two steps down from the highest quality. So I saw video quality improve quite substantially moving to a 50 Mbps cable connection, despite the fact that superficially 10 Mbps should have been enough.\n\nAnother factor to consider is that most modern consumer HDTVs are set up to modify an image in various ways out of the box. They may boost image contrast and saturation, artificially sharpen edges, and even perform frame creation to make motion appear smoother. This stuff drives video pros and purists crazy, because it causes images to be displayed very differently from the creators' intent, but some people may prefer the resulting images. None of this 'enhancement' usually occurs when playing Internet video on a laptop, which means you generally get a more accurate representation of what the content is supposed to look like, but it might not 'pop' as much.\n\nAs odd as this might seem, yet another factor is audio. I work in video production, and there's a (slightly tongue-in-cheek) saying in the industry that \"Sound is 80% of everything you see\". High quality audio can significantly influence your perception of content quality. If you're comparing an HDTV hooked up to a full 5.1 surround sound system to a laptop playing audio through its internal speakers, audio quality is probably influencing your judgement more than you realize. Many better laptops can be hooked up to a surround sound system, and some Internet video services deliver streams with surround mixes, but most people aren't taking advantage of this.\n\ntl;dr: You can get very high quality video playback on a modern laptop, but there are a bunch of prerequisites."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] | ||
3q9zph | why is it called "cellular" phone? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3q9zph/eli5_why_is_it_called_cellular_phone/ | {
"a_id": [
"cwdbjlj",
"cwdbldn"
],
"score": [
7,
2
],
"text": [
"Your phone is essentially a radio. The phone company has many, many antennas that the phone can communicate to. These antennas are laid out in a roughly hexagonal grid...with each little area called a \"cell\". If there was one giant antenna, you'd need a lot of special electronics to handle the thousands of calls. By having many antennas, it allows many people to spread the load over many cells. As you move around, your phone moves from cell to cell, and hits different antennas. The phone company is able to collect all this information to figure out where you are, how much to charge you, and of course, let your call/internet connection work. ",
"The network is setup in such a way that each transmitter sets up a zone (or **cell**) of reception. These all link up so that you basically have a kind of honeycomb of reception cells.\n\nHere's an image from Wikipedia illustrating it: _URL_0_\n\n-\n[And here's the Wikipedia article itself](_URL_1_)"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ee/Frequency_reuse.svg/400px-Frequency_reuse.svg.png",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellular_network"
]
] | ||
1j9enw | what causes some potato chips to go green, and is it poisonous in anyway? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1j9enw/eli5_what_causes_some_potato_chips_to_go_green/ | {
"a_id": [
"cbcf8qi"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
"It happens when there is not enough screening of the potatoes before the cooking, and cutting process, the green colour is caused when the potato is exposed to too much sunlight and the natural process of photosynthesis kicks in and starts activating chlorophyll. Which isn't dangerous, well mostly so anyway. Mainly because some of the chemicals that are created in this process along with the greening are toxic, but they are only dangerous very large quantities."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
1pk7tp | how does the nsa breaking into google & yahoo affect me? | Source: _URL_0_ | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1pk7tp/eli5_how_does_the_nsa_breaking_into_google_yahoo/ | {
"a_id": [
"cd359bm"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"Nothing. As long as you don't say or do anything that is in the interest of the government. So, that means you shouldn't be a terrorist, do anything against the cultural norm, you shouldn't be against the NSA politically, you shouldn't be the ex girl/boy friend of anything within the NSA or anything similar. As long as you don't upset or interest anyone in power, you'll be perfectly fine. "
]
} | [] | [
"http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/10/30/241855353/report-nsa-has-broken-into-google-and-yahoo-data-centers"
] | [
[]
] | |
4uo37z | how does the metric system work out so convieniently ? 1 ml of water weighs 1 gram and takes up 1 cm^3 of space | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4uo37z/eli5how_does_the_metric_system_work_out_so/ | {
"a_id": [
"d5rberf",
"d5rbgct",
"d5rbiyk",
"d5rbmek",
"d5rh7uy",
"d5rhh7d",
"d5ri08v",
"d5ri5k8",
"d5rjq76",
"d5rk2yw",
"d5rkevp",
"d5rkllj",
"d5rkse2",
"d5rl3ru",
"d5rlo37",
"d5rlohn",
"d5rlzpr",
"d5rnozv",
"d5rp30z",
"d5rp7kg",
"d5rpz83",
"d5rqfrp",
"d5rqzg4",
"d5rrbhi",
"d5rscp1",
"d5rsgc5",
"d5rvj4h",
"d5rxcac",
"d5ryw1l",
"d5s0pv7",
"d5s0yhd",
"d5s1n2t",
"d5s1roq",
"d5s7le5",
"d5s8022",
"d5s8yhr",
"d5sdq99",
"d5secfj",
"d5seni9",
"d5sfbiz",
"d5sfiio",
"d5shj5w",
"d5sjmpc",
"d5sm64e",
"d5sok45",
"d5spyuj"
],
"score": [
237,
3994,
50,
4,
2653,
3,
45,
150,
21,
3,
15,
161,
294,
2,
2,
7,
11,
33,
3,
3,
3,
26,
2,
11,
85,
3,
4,
2,
3,
3,
2,
2,
3,
4,
5,
2,
3,
2,
3,
6,
4,
3,
5,
4,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Because the metric system was designed rather than based on the distance from some kings nose to his thumb or whatever.\n\nI believe there was one physically defined standard left until recently, the kilogram, but even that is now defined in terms of unchanging (we think) physical constants ",
"Because that's how it was designed. It began with a metre, which was defined (originally) as 1/10,000,000th of the length of a line from the North Pole to the equator through Paris. Then one litre was defined as one cubic decimetre -- that is, the volume of a cube with sides 1/10th metre in length. And then one kilogramme (originally called a \"grave\") was defined as the weight of one litre of pure water.",
"The kg was defined as the mass of one liter of water at 4°C, the point of greatest density, and the liter was defined as 1dm³ of *volume*.",
"The original definition of the meter was \"1/10000000th\" of the distance from the equator to the pole (it's now based on some random fraction of the speed of light, which is more precise but looks less convenient). \n\nThe definition of a liter is that it's a volume of 1000 cubic centimeters (the liter is a derived unit, based on other units).\n\nThe definition of the gram was the mass of one ml of water. The kilogram is currently defined as the mass of this one metal block sitting in a vault in France (since the density of water changes based on temperature and pressure). There are plans to make it based on physical constants instead, but no one has come up with a good one yet.\n\nYou can see this sort of thing in the imperial system too, although less often. A fluid ounce was the volume of water that weighed one ounce (although it's since been redefined so its no longer exactly true).",
"Basically, it \"works out\" this way, because the values of the litre, kilogram and metre were deliberately *picked* to align in such a way. Water, being a very common substance, was a good reference point to base the values on.\n\nThis is basically the same reason the Celcius scale is conveniently at 0 at the point where water freezes, ~~or why the day is conveniently divided into 24 hours of 60 minutes each~~. There is no objective reality to the litre, kilogram, degree of temperature or any such measurement. They are simply numbers that have been picked because they were convenient and worked together - as opposed to measurements like foot or yard, which originally reflected common measuring methods (like using one's own body to measure stuff), and thus didn't line up too well.\n\nIn fact, this convenience is one of the major reasons (if not *the* major reason) the metric system was adopted in the first place.\n\nEDIT: deleted the \"time\" example, because it makes no sense within the context and I'm stupid ;)",
"Beause that's the exact definition. It's defined from 1 kilogram := 1 litre water := 1 dm^3. (1 Kilogram is defined as 1 litre of water. 1 Liter of water is defined as 1 dm^3 of water)\n\nYou can go ahead and make a new unit that says. 1 Smdplzlol-gramm := 60 kg. From then on calculating physical stuff related to you will be easy. What is your momentum when you drive 60 km/s ? 60 smdplslol-gramm*km/s\n\nHow large/big/wide are you ? 1 Smdplslol-meter.\n\nWhats your volume ? 1 (Smdplslol-meter)^3 = 1 Smdplslol-liter.\n\nOn the otherhand liter is just defined as 1 dm^3. So that equivalence isn't surprising whatsoever.\n \n. \n. \n. \nPreviously everyone did arbitrary definitions with some arbitrary lengths. This stick/kings elbow is our countries standard elbow/foot/inch. This length/weight had to be copied and everyone with a copy could agree that this indeed was their countries standard unit of length/weight.\n\nIf everyone agreed on standards from the start, units would have never become complicated, but they would have had to know all of science, beforehand which they did not. (And defining some standard length is always arbitrary, so different people coming up with the same definition on the fly wasn't possible.)\n\nThe same way of convenience bites other people in the ass though, as people doing stuff with barrels decided that it was a good standard unit, so everyone not handling barrels and instead other stuff has to translate from one unit to another.\n\nBecause length and volume are related the two have to be defined in a way that makes both definitions convenient.\n\nSo defining the volume 1 liter = 1 dm^3 based on another widely used standard unit makes stuff easier.",
"As an aside this highlights the differences between someone raised on metric and someone raised on imperial.\n\nI have the exact opposite thought, how the fuck did they come up with all this, 12 inches to a foot, 3 feet to a yard however many fucking yards in a furlong ",
"One thing that hasn't been mentioned here yet is that, while it works out because it was deliberately designed that way, the system is actually being redesigned so to speak. The changes won't alter anything in our day to day lives since we don't deal with anything on this level of precision, but there is a push for the base SI system to be based on physically derivable (and constant) values. It essentially takes the convenience of the SI system we have established and then backtracks to assign a physical and non-arbitrary way to measure each unit. Take this excerpt from the [relevant Wikipedia article](_URL_0_). \n\n > A committee of the International Committee for Weights and Measures (CIPM) has proposed revised formal definitions of the SI base units, which are being examined by the CIPM and which will likely be adopted at the 26th General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM) in the fall of 2018. The metric system was originally conceived as a system of measurement that was derivable from nature. When the metric system was first introduced in France in 1799 technical problems necessitated the use of artifacts such as the prototype metre and kilogram. In 1960 the metre was redefined in terms of the wavelength of light from a specified source, making it derivable from nature, leaving the kilogram as the only unit still defined by an artifact. If the proposed redefinition is accepted, the metric system (SI) will, for the first time, be wholly derivable from nature.",
"Because scientists put some thought into designing it that way. Whereas imperial system is assembled from various measurements used by uneducated peasants.",
"But why do we use milliseconds/nanoseconds but not kiloseconds or megaseconds?",
"Why in the world does the US not use the metric system? The only other two countries who don't are Liberia and Myanmar....and you never think of those two countries as having their shit together.\n\nFor the record...I am American.",
"The metric system was invented, not discovered. \n\nIt \"works out\" so conveniently because it was designed that way.\n",
"Because everything is defined to be simple and orderly. 10 milli units in a centi unit, 10 centi in a deci, etc. Everything is just nice round ones and zeroes. Easy to remember, easy to use. Similarly, 1 ml is defined as 1 cm³. This is literally THE definition of those units. If you fill that amount of space up with water, you get 1 gram. Again, it was designed like that. They basically filled up the 1 ml of water first, and then decided \"this will from now on be called a gram\". People sat down and froze and then boiled some water, and then decided \"this boiling point will be 0 degrees, and this freezing point 100\", although this was reversed soon after. Yes, 0 degrees used to be the boiling point. It was actually reversed for a short while. Nowadays, 0 is the freezing point of water, and 100 the boiling point. [Here's a video on that](_URL_0_). It should also be noted that nowadays, the definitions of these units are actually considered too unreliable, and various other more reliable (but more difficult to explain) definitions are used instead. \n\nCompare that to imperial, where there's 12 inches in a foot, 3 feet in a yard, and then the chain (22 yards) and furlong (10 chains), which are never used. And a mile is 8 furlongs or 5280 feet. That isn't a system. There is no order, no sense. It's pure randomness. I don't understand how you can remember all of that, or why you'd even want to. The definitions of metric units are just things that people came up with, but at least they're consistent by design. They have a structure that imperial completely lacks. That imperial was never designed to have. \n\nELI5 part of my comment stops here:\n\nPersonally, I believe that the objectively best measuring system would be purely based on physical constants. For example, the speed of light in a vacuum, or c, should be equal to 1. Every other speed would be a fraction of c. 50 km/h would be about 4.6*10^(-8) c. That may not seem like an improvement until you, until you start looking at various formulas. E²=(pc)². For daily usage, you could just decide that 10^(-9) c is called a nano-c. The 50 km/h I mentioned earlier would then become 46 nano-c. That seems practical enough to me. And it should be possible to to do the same for other physical quantities. It would make the life of a scientist a whole lot easier. ",
"Lots of complicated answers and commentary here. So here's my 5yo explanation.\nThe metric system was based on water, since it is the most common fluid available. So the smart people to designed it called 1 mL, 1 cm^3 and called the freezing temp to be 0°C and boiling to be 100°C. So it was designed around water. The values or different for different substances but still revolve around water.",
"Youd be surprised what works out if it's deliberately chosen to work out that way. These numbers related to one another in a consistent and predictable way, unlike imperial nonsense systems. ",
"Because they took 1cm3 of water, named it 1 ml, and made what that cm3 of water to be a unit of measure of weight called a gram. Not exactly but that's pretty much the just of it. It works out because that's how they designed the units.",
"people are doing a great job explaing it, so here's my side thought: as a euro having moved to the us, I sure miss it. I do however see more of my friends switching their apps (weather, maps etc) to metric to learn, that I think is awesome! Logic will eventually prevail😃",
"The metric system is made up, it works out well because it was DESIGNED. That is why it is so great.\n\nIt isn't that they all happened to work out, ml and cm^3 are both volumes, they were designed to work out that way. You can measure a volume in a container which isn't a perfect cube, but of course we still refer to volume in cubic units for various reasons. So the two are designed to work with each other and exist separately for obvious reasons.\n\nIt is a pretty obvious answer, you probably just didn't think about it because you are so used to imperial. It makes so little sense but we don't question it, so you are probably used to not thinking there is any design in the system.\n",
"The names of the metric unit of measurement, like every others, are just labels. Basically, you take the most common substance - water, and then measure a random distance that's somewhat people-friendly and call it metre (originally, one ten-millionth of the distance from the equator to the North Pole, but really about the average step of the adult male), then call the volume of water in a cube with the side of one meter 1000 litres and the weight of the same 1000 kilograms. There's your SI, and this is what the French did after their revolution while chopping heads with their guillotines... Pretty much every other measuring unit was chosen in the same way to align nicely with the ones above. The unit of time, the second, is a bit different because it is basically 1/3600 of 1/24 of something that's is really hugely variable (a day, defined as the time between two consecutive passes of the sun straight above the first meridian, which is hugely variable), so a more precise definition was required - you can read on that. Another one: the Celsius temperature scale is also driven by water, with 0 (zero) at the freezing point and 100 at the boiling point (all in very tightly controlled conditions of pressure, purity and so long, but that is less important). If you keep digging, you'll see this applies to pretty much every unit, to the most remote to our common sense (faradays and teslas and so long). For example, one newton is the force you need to apply to a mass of 1 kilogram to accelerate it at a rate of 1 metre per second squared.\n\ntl/dr: the whole metric system of units is defined so that units align nicely in ones and hundreds, starting with a somewhat randomly-defined metre and based on water, the most common substance in our lives. In a nutshell, it is so because we defined it so.",
"Because it is so *by design*. 1 liter is exactly 1dm^3 . 1 liter of water weighs 1kg (caveat: at one particular temperature). Because that is how these sizes were chosen.\n\nAlso: the distance from the equator to the North Pole is *exactly* ~~40000~~ 10000 km. Because that is how the meter was determined: as ~~1/40000000~~ 1/10000000 of that distance.",
"Bottom line... it doesn't \"work out so conveniently\" they did it on purpose. Intentionally. Specifically. Deliberately. By design. ",
"By design. Consider the alternative imperial measurement system: _URL_0_",
"That's how the French set it up. And, except for the fact they didn't measure things very accurately, it works.\n\nA meter was originally 1 /10,000,000th the distance from the Equator to the North Pole. Which would make the circumference of the Earth 40 million kilometers. The actual number is 40.075.\n\nNot bad, really.",
"tldr; it's by design, not coincidence. \n \n---\n \n**Ted**: We have to define length. How long should a meter be? \n \n**Fred**: Uh... *this* far. \n \n---\n\n**Ted**: Now, water units. How should we define a Liter? \n \n**Fred**: Uh... 1 milliliter of water should occupy 1 cm^3 \n \n---\n \n**Ted**: Now, mass. How should we define a gram? \n \n**Fred**: Uh... 1 gram should be the mass of 1 mL of water. ",
"This quote from a book is always relevant:\n\nIn metric, one millimeter of water occupies one cubic centimeter, weighs one gram, and requires one calorie of energy to heat up by one degree Centigrade - which is one percent of the difference between its freezing and boiling point. An amount of hydrogen weighing the same amount has exactly one mole of atoms in it. Whereas in the American system, the answer to \"How much energy does it take to boil a room-temperature gallon of water?\" is \"Go fuck yourself\" because you can't directly relate any of those quantities. ",
"1 mL is defined as 1 cm^3. \n\nAnd 1g is defined as the weight of a mL of water at the highest density of water.",
"The real question should be: Who was stupid enough to invent the American measurement system, and why are we still using it? It makes no sense. 1 mile = 5,280 feet. 1 foot = 12 inches. This makes no sense. \n\nIt makes sense to say one unit = 1. How do we get to the next larger unit? Multiply that unit by 10. That makes sense.",
"As everyone else has already pointed out, it works out that way because it was designed that way.\n\nIf you were making a new system of units of measurements you would pick the values too so they would end up being easy to work with.\n\nThe 1l of water weighing 1kg thing is only approximate though.\n\nThe density of water is close to 1 g/cm³ (or 1kg/l it is the same thing) under normal conditions but it can vary a bit due to temperature and stuff, so it is really only of limited use to do calculations with, however it is very useful to visualize stuff. I can easily picture how much a litre of water (or coca-cola etc) is and I have lifted a 1liter bottle often enough to have a good instinctual feel for that. I also can easily tell of most objects I encounter in every day life if they are denser than water or not by asking myself if they would float in water.\n\nThis allows you to make easy comparison and visualisations.\n\nThere is however far more to the metric system (or rather the SI system as it is actually called) than just the density of water being approximately 1.\n\nYou also have all subunits of a unit work out as powers of ten and use all the same prefixes for all units. A kilogram is a thousand gram, kilometer is a thousand meter and a kilowatt is a thousand watt, this makes things much easier than trying to remember out how many feet there are in a mile. To convert from one unit to one with a different prefix you just move the decimal point instead of doing math.\n\nThere is some confusion about the litre part which is not actually a real si unit but just a short name for what is in theory called a cubic decimeter. It is used mostly because if you talk about volume you talk about distance cubed. The normal interval between si sub-units get cubed too. 100 Centimetre are 1 meter, but it you cube the would thing you have 1,000,000 cubic centimeter are one cubic meter. the gap is too large so we use the cubic decimetre and call it a litre even though the deci- prefix gets hardly used anywhere else (except such things as decibell)\n\nAnother odd one out is the metric ton which is just another name for what in theory is a megagram. (A cubic meter of water weighs a metric ton for that reason)\n\nAll the SI units like Watt and Volt and ohm and Joule etc can all be expressed as simple combination of meters kilogram seconds and ampere.\n\nA volt is a kilogram times a meter squared divided by a second cubed times and an ampere. This makes doing math with si and si derived units really easy compared to trying to construct a similar unit using traditional American units of measurements like pounds and feet.\n\nAnother hidden aspect of the si units working out just fine is the paper size A4. It gets used in most countries other than the US (and its direct neighbours) and it is based on the square meter, which makes calculations about paper density and stuff like that rather easy.",
"I would explain this the following way to a 5yo:\n\nSo, imagine that there was a rope that goes aaaaall around the world. So they take this rope and fold it in two (from north pole to south pole) then in two (from the north pole to the ecuator), then in two, then in two and so on... ~they made it~ like ten million times ~smaller~! So many times that it ends up being long enough so you can extend it with your arms. (Because you want to have something that is handy and you can actually use!) That is called a meter. From there, they took a tenth of it (because, why not fold it again?), a decimeter (deci means ten), and made a cube with sides as long as that. 1 decimeter cubed. The space that is in there is called a liter (litre in British). You can fill that cube with a liquid, so you can have a liter milk, a liter of liquid lead... whatever fits in that cube. So then they wanted to have a base for weighing stuff, because a liter of lead does not weigh the same as a liter of... cheetos. And since there is a lot of water everywhere, they filled that cube with water and called its weight a kilogramm. Kilo stands for \"one thousand\", and it is because the cube fits one thousand very small cubes, maybe as small as your fingertip. And if you filled those with water, they would weigh a gram. ",
"First, the fact that 1 mL takes up one cm^3 of space is because the mL and cm^3 are literally two names for exactly the same thing. We could get away without having the \"liter\" as a separate unit at all - it's just another name for a cubic decimeter. But it's convenient to have an unprefixed name for a smaller unit to use with liquids, compared to the volumes we typically measure in cubic meters (like, say, houses). Since volume is volume is volume, this relationship between liquid units and spatial units holds in the English system as well, although with less convenient numbers; for example, a U.S. gallon is exactly 231 cubic inches.\n\nAnd the gram was *chosen* to be the amount of mass contained in 1 mL of water.\n\nThe ability to establish relationships like that is the nice thing about setting out to design a system of weights and measures from scratch, instead of making do with various units that developed organically but separately.",
"I always love the meme that points out how there are countries that use the metric system, and then there are countries who achieved space flight. I always chuckle to myself and wonder how they don't realize that NASA uses the metric system for their instruments and meters and any other measurement they take.",
"Because you can measure any arbitrary substance and from that call all its properties \"1\".\n\nSay I have a cube of an unknown metal that is 41.2\" on each side. It has a volume of 69,934.528 in^2. It weighs 86.2 kilograms.\n\nI could make up a new unit of measurement called a mycubeX, and set its value equal to the properties of my cube.\n\n1 mycubelength = 41.2\"\n\n1 mycubevolume = 69,934.8=528 in^2\n\n1 mycubemass = 86.2 kg\n\nSo now if we find that something weighs 8.645 mycubemasses, we know it weighs 745.2 kg\n\netc.",
"So, essentially you're asking how/why is the metric system based around water having a **density** of 1g/cm^3?\n\nA long time ago, the French made the weight of a gram. It was invented by them, and literally defined as \"the weight of a cubic centimeter of water\" [source](_URL_0_)\n\nA gram is a created, made-up measurement by people; so is a ml and a centimeter (and all other measurements). So they're all meant to use water as a standard of 1 to compare other things to.\n\nScientists in France said, \"Oui! Water is a common, natural substance that's well-understood and it's a liquid at room temperature (unlike solid things, which can have tiny cracks or gaps in them which made them difficult to truly measure way back in the day). So, it's easy to use as 1.\"\n\nThen they said, \"Oui! We have centimeters already, so let's just fill up a 3-dimensional centimeter, since water is in 3 dimensions, and however much that weighs, we'll call it a gram. Voila! And we'll also call this a milliliter so we don't have to keep saying 'cubic centimeter'\"\n\nSo, really density of 1.0 is man-made because we needed a good system, and it all started with needing to create a weight (g) and length (cm) and a volume (ml) that was based off of water=1.\n\nEdit: I was a biology major, not a French major",
"Measurement systems aren't discovered, they're designed.\nThe beauty of designing something is that you get to pick how big it is, even if it's just a concept or convention like a \"meter\".\n\nOther measurement \"systems\" have lots of gaps in them because different parts were designed by different people and with different uses in mind.\n\nExample:\n\nThe US gallon is defined legally as exactly 231 cubic inches. The reason is believed to be because it was very close to the volume occupied by eight medieval merchant pounds of wine, which altogether was a cylinder 6 inches deep and 7 inches in diameter. That ends up being 230.90706 cubic inches. Pi approximated to 22/7 gives 231 exactly though, so that's what became the legal definition.\n\nThe US Gallon was designed to be eight pounds of wine, not exactly a very scientifically useful amount. It got popular though because a gallon is simple enough to identify, lift, etc. It's unlikely that such a randomly defined amount would be useful for calculations.\n\nMetric and the SI system was designed almost specifically for the purpose of doing calculations.\nTime is already very well figured out. The system we have is uncannily accurate to our earth's speed, so we used that as one reference point, and water at its freezing point as the other.\n\n1m3 = 1000kg of water. 1 Newton of force is defined as 1 kg*m/s2. So accelerating 1 kg by 1 m/s2 requires 1 N.\nOne pascal of pressure was then defined as 1 Newton of force spread over 1m2 of area. Pascals worked out sort-of nicely with atmospheric pressure. 101325 Pa is the air pressure at sea level. We decided that 1 \"bar\" = 100 kPa, as a convenient number for the SI system, and 1 atm is 101325 Pa as a convenient number for atmospheric pressure at sea level.\n\nThis makes unit conversion calculations extremely easy for all force, pressure, distance, velocity, and acceleration formulas. This way you don't need to memorize conversion constants to use the formulas. It's designed for science, but it ends up being very useful for education because there's a bit less \"okay memorize this number because it's in every formula\" and more \"here's the core concepts of how pressure is related to force\".\n",
"1 ml of water doesn't weigh one gram by chance. the gram was DEFINED to be the weight of 1 ml of water. and a ml is DEFINED as 1cm^3 (though the definition of a kg is now dictated by the mass of the kilogram prototype, but its close enough)\n\none joule is also the amount of energy it takes to heat one ml of water by one degree.\n\nits not coincidence. the values were chosen specifically to be that way",
"Read your question again, it answers itself. Units of measurement are arbitrary. Lets say you define a centimeter. You can then define a milliliter as however much water fills 1 cm^3 of space. Whatever that water weighs is a gram.\n\nThe metric system works out so conveniently because it was designed by scientists who wanted it to work out conveniently.",
"To delve deeper into the interesting world of metrology, the Le Grand K is the \"last remaining physical object to define a unit of measure\": the kg. I was able to find the fascinating IEEE Spectrum article I read years ago about it. _URL_0_",
"because it wasn't devised with arbitrary-as-shit metrics like the weight of one of my farts being one glip-glop.",
"Because it was deliberately designed that way. They started with an amount of water and said, \"This is 1 ml, it weighs 1 g, takes up 1 cm^3, and requires 1 calorie of energy to heat 1 degree C (at room temp).\" Basically, it didn't conveniently work out, but was instead designed to be logical.",
"Another thing I haven't seen in the comments yet is that the metric system works because of our system of numbers.\n\nWhen you write the number 135, this obviously doesn't mean 1 + 3 + 5. What's happening behind the scenes is: \n\n-The 5 just means 'five',\n-The 3 actually means 'thirty', and\n-The 1 actually means 'one hundred'.\n\nSo what's going on here? Well, the 5 doesn't change at all, so we'll ignore that for now. However, the next digit up is interesting. The 3 is multiplied by 10 to get what it actually means, ie. 3 x 10 = 30. And what about the 1? Well, it's multiplied by 10, then by 10 again to get what it actually means: 1 x 10 x 10 = 100. Now can you see the pattern? As you go further left in a number, the value of digits are multiplied by more 10's. This means that the place left of the 1 would be multiplied by 10 3 times, the place left of that 4 times and so on.\n\nSo why did we choose the metric system where all the conversions multiply or divide by 10? Well, using the same number, 135, we showed that this was actually (1 x 10 x 10) + (3 x 10) + 5. Now let's multiply the whole thing by 10. Well, that's easy. All we need to do is multiply each digit by another 10, so we get:\n(1 x 10 x 10 x 10) + (3 x 10 x 10) + (5 x 10). This gives us \n1000 + 300 + 50 = 1350. Doesn't this look familiar? It's just 135 with another 0 on the end! Pretty much the same thing happens when you divide by 10; all you need to do is chop off 0's.\n\nSo in summary, the reason the metric system is so convenient to use is also based on our number system. Multiplying and dividing numbers by 10 is super easy.",
"That's how it was designed. Don't forget that all units of measurement are arbitrarily defined.",
"It's completely intentional. During the French Revolution, they wanted a standard of measures that was uniform, logical and consistent. They wanted weight, volume and lengths to all be related. The starting point is the meter, which was calculated to be 1/10,000,000 of the distance from the equator to the north pole. Once you have the meter, you can declare a liter to be 1/1000 of a square meter and one kilogram to be the weight of a liter of water. So it worked out conveniently because it was designed to work out like that.",
"So here's the math and history on why it works so damn well:\n\nBack in the good old days of murdering Indians (of both variety) and shitty medicine, scientists decided that their current units sucked, because who the hell knows how many ounces are in a pint‽ \n\nAll of the head honchos of scientists (but mostly the French) decided to start with length, so they took the distance from Paris to the North Pole (which in a pre GPS age was anyone's guess but the only thing that matters is that everyone agrees) and divided that distance by 10,000,000. They called their new length a meter. \n\n\nThey then took 1 cm^3 of liquid and called that a milliliter (why it's not a centiliter is because of the cubed part, refer to high school math for more details). Because water is (almost) everywhere, they took 1 mL of water and weighed it, and decided that that much weight is a gram. To stick with the water theme, they also incorporated the Celsius scale (which another, unrelated guy from ~~¿Germany?~~ Sweden invented). Time divides horribly so the scientists stuck with their (and our) time system.\n\nNow that we live in a world measured with satellites instead of crudely drawn maps, and we know that the mass of water actually fluctuates a teency bit depending on various stuff (isotropic diversity to be exact). Our modern metric system is based off of abstract definitions, such as light in a vacuum, or the timings of Cesium radiation, or my favorite, the force exerted by a PARTICULAR chunk of Iridium and Titanium under certain gravitational conditions. The liter has still stayed a cubic decimeter though.",
"Because everything is essentially based off one defined distance, a meter. You divide it into a hundred you get centimeters, and you need a baseline for weight and for volume, so you decide, 1cm^3 will be the baseline for volume, and whatever that weighs will be one gram.\n\nThe system in place in the USA was designed without the use of logic. They were like:\n\n \"we need a small unit of measurement, so, lets use that guys foot, we will call it a foot.\" \n\n\"Well, we need to measure things smaller than his foot too, what do we use for that?\"\n\n\"Just use the top of his thumb, we will call it an inch.\"\n\n\"Well, what if we need to measure something smaller?\"\n\n\"We will use fractions of an inch.\"\n\n\"Oh okay, well that is one tenth of an inch.\"\n\n\"NO DON'T USE BASE 10, 16 IS MORE EASILY DIVISABLE, WHO THE FUCK CARES THAT EVERYONE USES BASE 10, AN INCH IS MEASURED IN 16THS.\"",
"Units of measure are basically just made up.\n\nYou could take a glass of water and declare that is a luter. Then you make a cube that perfectly holds a luter of water and call that a cubic muter. Then you decide that the weight of that water is a grum.\n\nThat's basically all there is to it. They used a certain amount of water to be a reference point for the measurements. They also did it for temperature. The look at when water freezes and called that 0 degrees. They looked at when water boils and called that 100.\n\nSo, it's not by some weird coincidence that it works out. They just chose those measurements and used the water as a reference point.",
"Because it was designed that way. Before the French revolution, units were a mess and could differ from town to town. Each town often had examples of their local foot, yard and gallon fixed to the town hall. At the height of the French Revolution, scientists who had suddenly been elevated to high positions decided, with revolutionary fervour, that a new regime needed a new, *logical* system of units. Thus they conceived of the meter - to be defined as 1/10,000,000 of the distance between the North Pole and the Equator at the Paris meridian - and derived all other units from that.\n\nIf you're interested, try this book, which has a good history of what happened back then: _URL_0_"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proposed_redefinition_of_SI_base_units?wprov=sfla1"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://youtu.be/rjht4oAByCI"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://i.imgur.com/iDOzAa5.jpg"
],
[],
[],
[],... | ||
1i4xtx | how do certain mmorpgs without a subscription keep their servers up? | Compared to MMORPGs like World of Warcraft, how do MMORPGs like Guild Wars 2 keep their servers running without a monthly or yearly subscription? Also, do they shut their servers down earlier? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1i4xtx/eli5_how_do_certain_mmorpgs_without_a/ | {
"a_id": [
"cb10ryq",
"cb116gi"
],
"score": [
2,
3
],
"text": [
"Usually by offering the basics of the game for free, but charging users for premium content or specialty services. As I recall, World of Warcraft is free to play but you only get a few character slots and you're restricted to < lvl20. The Lord of the Rings MMORPG offers extra character classes for people willing to pay, and the DnD MMORPG offers extra character races and classes for paying users.",
"Guild Wars 2 offers gem store items, which fuel Arena Net's funding for servers. \n\nThey tend to last quite a while, the original Guild Wars lasted for seven years if I recall correctly, and is still online, meaning you can still play it."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] | |
9dqfg7 | why do some programs stop working properly and need to be reloaded after the computer has been idle for quite some time? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9dqfg7/eli5_why_do_some_programs_stop_working_properly/ | {
"a_id": [
"e5jd3ya",
"e5jd45u"
],
"score": [
3,
24
],
"text": [
"As programs run through their code, or instructions, it's possible for the software to hang on a line which doesn't execute properly. Generally this stops processing as it is in a sort of infinite loop in that it's still attempting to move forward but some requirement isn't being met.",
"Think of running a program like building a shed. You use the blueprint of a shed to build the structure. The shed gets wear and tear over the years, and stops being useful. Eventually you tear it down and build a new shed.\n\nPrograms work the same way. Your hard drive contains the program, but it's just a blueprint. The actual program is copied over to RAM - basically your computer's short term memory - and does its thing there.\n\nOver time errors and memory leaks could build up and it stops being useful. Restarting the program means rebuilding the program from the blueprint, getting rid of the errors. It's just like rebuilding a shed. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] | ||
375krk | why do suburbs have to have grass? | It's so costly to maintain why can't we just have concrete lawns? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/375krk/eli5_why_do_suburbs_have_to_have_grass/ | {
"a_id": [
"crjvth6",
"crjvwn3",
"crjy57x",
"crjz4ej"
],
"score": [
2,
2,
2,
3
],
"text": [
"Because it would look like shit? Nobody wants to live in a parking lot. Concrete also heats up horribly, people want to be able to relax on their lawn and let their kids play around, concrete does cost money to maintain (look at road maintenance)... there are tons of reasons.\n\nGrass grows pretty much everywhere naturally and all you really have to do is mow it. People who put a ton of money into their lawns are doing it by choice, you don't *have* to.",
"1. The cost to remove the grass, cement all the lawns, and replace the cement when necessary is so high.\n\n2. People use their lawns, all the time. Golfing, soccer, kids running and playing... All these things are better with grass. \n\n3. Aesthetics. Without the grass, you would see as many trees, flowers, or plants in general. It would be a sea of grey. Not good for home values and general population happiness.",
"Lawns are an artifact of the English aristocracy. They were a sign of wealth and power, but now they are affordable. They are good to play on, yes, but they are resource intensive. They take large amounts of water, and the mowers used to cut them are terribly inefficient. However, there are grassless lawns or at least lawns that don't have as much grass. Do a quick google search for this and you can find many attractive planted/hardscaped \"lawn\" areas that do not rely on blades of grass. ",
"A large front lawn is a status symbol.\n\nBefore Jacobean-era England, each inch of a tract of land was designated for production of food, either animal pastureland or fields for crops. \n\nEventually the idea arose that if you were a tremendously rich individual, the best way to show off wealth was not fancy clothes or shiny treasure. It was by having a large front lawn. If you purposely kept some land void of any agricultural growth except for some grass, that meant you had enough growing elsewhere to keep you fed and alive. \n\nSort of seen the same way today; as having a large lawn takes a lot of care and money to maintain. It's meant to show off how well off you are; being able to afford more land that what is needed to live.\n\n[my source](_URL_0_)\n"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawn#The_English_lawn"
]
] | |
4urvzl | how do vitamin names work? | Is there some significance to the naming scheme for vitamins? Why are they named after letters? Do the letters mean anything or do they just go in the order they were discovered? And why do some vitamins have multiple types per letter (lots of B vitamins for example)? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4urvzl/eli5_how_do_vitamin_names_work/ | {
"a_id": [
"d5sis6v"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"\"Vitamin\" is short for \"vital amine\", although many aren't amines. All of them are vital for (human) health and can't be produced by the body. Usually when someone isolates a new compound they just name it Vitamin (Last letter + 1). It's just standard procedure now, mainly because remembering the individual names of all the Vitamins is tedious and it's useful to have them all classified under one scheme. Gaps in letters (E through K) are compounds once thought to be vitamins but later proven otherwise, or vitamins that have been renamed, like riboflavin which is now a B vitamin. The B vitamins are are used as, or to make, important cofactors for cell functioning and so are classified together. As to why it's such a haphazard system, well science is constantly changing. Sometimes you miss-classify a compound and need to remove it, but it would be more confusing to \"bump\" all the names down to refer to new compounds."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | |
24hxjv | difference between catholics & protestants when it comes to communion. some history/background would also be great. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/24hxjv/eli5_difference_between_catholics_protestants/ | {
"a_id": [
"ch7adru",
"ch7aqla"
],
"score": [
2,
2
],
"text": [
"It would be unfair to state that all protestants approach communion the same way. Generally, the ritual derives from the last supper, where Christ took wine and bread and gave it to his disciples, instructing them that by eating and drinking them, they would be eating and drinking his flesh and blood, and in so doing remember him, honor him, and/or receive absolution for their sins.\n\nSome sects believe that what they are doing is symbolic. Other believe in trans substantiation, or the idea that the wine and bread, when blessed, actually become the literal body and blood of Christ. Some protestants and most catholics teach that such a ceremony can be administered only by a pastor or priest. Some demand the use of alcoholic wine; others just use grape juice. Many believe that the bread should be unleavened. There are a wide variety of beliefs and rituals surrounding the practice.",
"The principle difference between the Catholic and Protestant communion is the concept of transubstantiation - i.e. the literal transformation of the Eucharist (bread/wine) into the body and blood of Christ. A crucial part of the Protestant Reformation was the insistence that Christ is merely present at communion, not literally being ingested. The Catholics assert that the blessing converts the Eucharist into the substance of Christ.\n\nIt is a shame that people fought and died in wars to assert different levels of significance in what everyone agreed was a symbolic act of faith toward the same God. But that's history for you.\n\nToday some protestant churches have religious restrictions about taking the Catholic Eucharist and Catholics see protestant communion as merely a mid-sermon snack. Though the vast majority on both sides can't be bothered to care about such nonsense."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] | ||
1lwl7v | binaural beat brainwave/subliminal system | I have always been under the impression that subliminal messaging is made up/bad but I recently seen they can be deliver over binaural beats. What is going on with my brain that allows the rhythm and Hz pitch of sounds to unconsciously receive a message? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1lwl7v/eli5binaural_beat_brainwavesubliminal_system/ | {
"a_id": [
"cc3j8ev",
"cc3la4q"
],
"score": [
2,
3
],
"text": [
"I have a question about this. Back in my university days, my doctor refused to give me a higher dosage prescription of ADD meds. I never had ADD but the doctor thought the meds would be beneficial for me.\n\nAfter a while the doctor just told me to listen to binaural beats while studying. Does that actually help?",
" > I have always been under the impression that a subliminal messaging is made up/bad\n\nBasically correct.\n\n > I recently saw [that subliminal messages] can be delivered over binaural beats. What is going on with my brain...\n\nBinaural beats are an interesting illusion, but they're not a vehicle for people to embed secret messages in your brain. The \"subliminal message\" is the beat itself.\n\nListen to [this](_URL_2_) recording through earphones, and you can hear a distinct pulsing. Take out either earphone, however, and the pulse disappears. The 'beat' is an illusion -- it's not really there. But knowing that isn't going to make you stop hearing it, any more than knowing there are no black dots in [this image](_URL_1_) will stop you from seeing black dots. \n\n***\n\nBinaural beats are a result of your brain's sound processing system taking shortcuts, and prioritizing the perception of the location of a sound over the accurate portrayal of what actually arrived in your ears.\n\nSound travels as a wave. When two sound waves cross paths, the resulting sound represents the sum of the two waves. If two sine waves of slightly different pitch meet, the math works out such that their sum sounds like a 'beat'. [For example](_URL_0_).\n\nBinaural beats involve playing sine waves of slightly different pitch into each ear. The weird thing here is that even though the sound is played through headphones, and the waves never actually meet each other, our brain figures out what it'd sound like if they did, and that ends up being a large part of what we hear."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Beat_-_superposition_of_104hz_and_110hz_sine_waves.ogg",
"http://www.optigone.com/optical_illusions/Grid_illusion.png",
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuhuUa2XYac"
]
] | |
323sig | why can console games contain and directly portay extremely violent stuff that nobody would do irl, but be very subtle on sexual content which are perfectly legal | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/323sig/eli5_why_can_console_games_contain_and_directly/ | {
"a_id": [
"cq7l7jj",
"cq7ldxk",
"cq7n93i"
],
"score": [
3,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Because for whatever reason, western society has become more accepting of depictions of violence than it has of depictions of sex. You see the same thing in films, TV, book, and other entertainment media.",
"Touma_Kazusa : Well you just said it. We for the most part will never kill an human in real life but we will do it in video games. But we have sex in real life so we don't need sex scenes in video games. Video games lets you experience something you've never done and it's the beauty of it. Wanna know what it would be like to jump in a portal? There are games for that. Wanna be a nascar racer? Well you can do it, same for F1, motocross, ATV, boat, etc... But sex, it's part of our life but I guess there could be interesting scenes in some games. Not too sure which. I think the witcher was more sexual right? Haven't played it.",
"American church groups are afraid of people seeing sex but are generally OK with violence and they are the ones that make noise when sex or nudity is on TV or movies."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] | ||
3xy6x2 | so is renewable energy viable now or isn't it, the information ive read up on is contradictory | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3xy6x2/eli5so_is_renewable_energy_viable_now_or_isnt_it/ | {
"a_id": [
"cy8u0q3",
"cy8ugrf",
"cy8v27u",
"cy8vy86",
"cy8wap6"
],
"score": [
2,
6,
11,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"is it possible? yes. It is possible to switch all of our energy to renewable sources while still maintaining most of the luxuries we currently have.\n\nBut it costs trillions, the real question, will it happen? We certainly have the capacity to change, whether we will or won't is a big debate.",
"The big thing holding back renewables from being the only source of power is storage. Wind and solar are both intermittent (wind stops blowing, it gets cloudy or dark) so are not able to produce a set amount of power all the time. We like to be able to depend on electricity, not just for our own convenience, but hospitals and industies depend on it for all kinds of critical things. \n\nThe current solution to that is to have some kind of variable power plant on line ready to pick up the slack. This can be coal, gas, hydro electric or nuclear. Germany, one of the world leaders in renewables, backs up their wind farms with coal plants or imported nuclear from France. \n\nIf you wanted to go all renewables, you would need a lot of them and you would need to have some way of making extra power and storing it for use on cold, dark, windless nights. Some have talked about building big reservoirs when you use spare power to pump water up to a holding pond and then when you need the power, have it flow back down through a hydroelectric power station. The number and size of these reserviors which would need to be created is huge as would be the amount of environmental damage flooding large areas of land.\n\nBatteries would be another method of storing power, but the number and size needed based on current technology would mean huge installations of potentially environmentally damaging equipment (batteries contain materials which are harmful to the environment).\n\nSo while theoretically possible, it is not practical. ",
"Viable to start converting our infrastructure over to it? Yes. \n\nViable to fully convert our infrastructure over to it immediately? No. \n\nOur energy need are much higher than the current renewable tech allows us to generate, but it is improving and if we start converting now it will make what fossil fuels we do still need last longer. \n\nOur biggest problem is that we do not have a good method of storing power. That makes it difficult to use intermittent power sources such as solar, wind, and tidal problematic. This is being worked on by Tessla and others but having sufficient storage built into the power grid is years away if not longer. ",
"I've heard storage listed as a problem, but I read somewhere about Molten Salt Storage... \n\nUsing Concentrated Solar Arrays to heat up Salt to 1400+ degrees, which you then use to heat water into steam and traditional turbine tech = electricity...\n\nDuring the day you would heat up enough throughout the day to last you throughout the night.... \n\nBut haven't really heard/seen much about them since",
"When the car was invented it was very expensive, it broke down a lot, it didn't have very good range, and there were not many gas stations for you to fill up the tank. For the vast majority of people the horse was still a better method of transportation.\n\nHowever every year cars got better, there were more gas stations, and prices came down. As this happened some niche markets reached a tipping point where cars made more sense than horses for a specific use, then more years went by and it happened for more markets, then for the general public, then for almost everyone.\n\nIt is very rare that \"viability\" exists as a term without reference to a context.\n\nIf you live in Seattle is it a good financial decision to install solar pannels on your roof right now? No. It looks like in another five or ten years it will be though. If you are considering making a huge solar power generating facility in California is it a good financial decision? Likely we are just reaching the tipping point where the answer is yes."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] | ||
2lam3u | how are computer programs translated to new (spoken) languages? | If I write a program in English, and I want to export it to, say, Germany, how does that work? Does somebody systematically go through and change the code to another language? Does computer code just work ubiquitously across all languages? Are there scripts that convert code between languages? (Human languages, not programming languages)
For example, if I'm writing a simple java program, and I say,
System.out.println("Potatoes are good.");
What steps have to be taken for another programmer to see something like,
System.aus.druckenLn("Kartoffeln sind toll.");
For that matter, how does formatting vary from language to language?
Thanks in advance for the help! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2lam3u/eli5_how_are_computer_programs_translated_to_new/ | {
"a_id": [
"clsyltl",
"clsys19",
"clsyuws",
"clsyy9m",
"clsz1sw",
"clsz2ug"
],
"score": [
8,
5,
2,
2,
2,
2
],
"text": [
" > For example, if I'm writing a simple java program, and I say,\n\n > System.out.println(\"Potatoes are good.\");\n\n > What steps have to be taken for another programmer to see something like,\n\n > System.aus.druckenLn(\"Kartoffeln sind toll.\");\n\nThat will never happen, because Java is in English, and \"System.aus.druckenLn\" is not defined in the language. German programmers have to write \"System.out.println\".\n\nThat said, there is still quite a lot of effort needed to translate a program to another language. If you're writing a program with the intent of having it translated, you'll want to externalize all of your strings. That is, you'll have an external file that contains every bit of text that appears in your program (menu items, tooltips, etc.), and the program will then reference that file for all of its text. That way, you can hand that file off to a translator, and plug in the new, translated file to convert the entire program over to a new language. Again, note that this is only for text that is presented to the user. The actual source code will not change.\n\nOf course, it's not always that simple, since the translator needs to be aware of where those strings appear in the program, in case there are UI size restrictions to how long a particular string can be. But if you've done things right, you shouldn't have to recompile the program itself.\n\nBut things can still be . . . tricky. If you want to do more than the bare minimum, your program needs to be aware of its \"locale\", which tells it internally how to format things like times, dates and currencies, which aren't hard-coded strings. This is a fairly hard problem, and requires a significant amount of effort to design the program correctly from the beginning to make localization possible.",
"In Java, a German would write:\n\nSystem.out.println(\"Kartoffeln sind toll.\");\n\nPrograming langages don't translate the syntax of the language. The United States is, by far, the largest producer of computer languages - and English is a lingua franca across most of the world.\n\nMost of the other tech-savvy nations (Germany, Israel, Japan, India, etc) speak english as a de-facto secondary language. It's almost disappointing just how ubiquitous English is when you travel the world.\n\nA few groups have created [non-english based programing languages](_URL_0_) - many of which are simple ports - but they tend not to catch on. There just isn't a big enough demand.\n\nWhen a program is internationalized, the string literals are translated. Typically this is done by placing all strings that the program might write into a properties flies for different locales.\n\ni18n_en.properties might have the values\npotato.msg=\"Potatoes re good\"\n\ni18n_de.properties would have the value\npotato.msg=\"Kartoffeln sind toll.\"\n\nAnd something like a ResourceBundle (or whatever equivalent in other languages) would selectively load the right property list and the program would reference them by key.",
"Well, a: System.aus.druckenLn(\"Kartoffeln sind toll.\"); is utter shit and will never compile, because thats not Java.\n\nSystem.out.println(\"Kartoffeln sind toll.\"); is Java, but a poor solution.\n\nSystem.out.println(LanguageDB.LookUp(LANG_German, Str_Potatoes));\n\nWhere you reference a language database is a smart solution. You can even have:\n\nSystem.out.println(LanguageDB.LookUp(LANG_Irish, Str_Potatoes));\n\nSystem.out.println(LanguageDB.LookUp(LANG_Russian, Str_Potatoes));\n\nFor other places you sell your potato propaganda software.",
"There's no reason to translate 'println' to 'druckenln' - the core programming language is always English. The interface language changes nothing, nor is there a \"German Java\".\n\nA program written with translation in mind practices good [i18n and L10n](_URL_0_) practices. Basically, any time you display text on the screen, instead of just printing a string \"Hello World\" on the screen, you pass it through a function that looks up translations for you - often with a simple name like _(\"Hello World\"). This function will then look in a database for the appropriate translation.\n\nThe database is one you write specifically for your program, translating every text string in the interface. Other things, like help files or images with text on them, will need to be translated in whole & you'll have to give the program the logic to switch between them.\n\nIf you want to change to languages that use radically different scripts (like Arabic that goes right-to-left or Chineese that uses symbols instead of numbers) you might have additional complications.",
"Most of the actual programming is done in english pretty much everywhere in the world. System.out.println works just the same in germany.\n\nAs for how to manage multiple language: most variables are not hardcoded. Instead programs usually have a dictionary of all the used phrases in all the languages used.\n\nGoing by your example an international version of the potato print would be something like this:\n\n System.out.println(potato_message[current_language]);\n\nwhere current_language is a variable that is different for different languages and if you do it right is something that can be changed while the program is running. potato_message is just something that you can use to looking the actual string to be printed\n",
"Most programming languages are actually just built to be human-readable in English, really. There are some oddball languages written in different human languages, but most just stay in English, speakers of other human languages either just deal or make their own compilers. The strings are often the only bit that changes most of the time, with modifications to which way the text is oriented, like right-to-left, so on. It's not too difficult of a feat to write a program that reads your source code and marks anything in quotes so you can change it."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-English-based_programming_languages"
],
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internationalization_and_localization"
],
[],
[]
] | |
5yw6wr | what is the proper protocol if an ambulance fatally hits a pedestrian while rushing a dying person to the hospital? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5yw6wr/eli5_what_is_the_proper_protocol_if_an_ambulance/ | {
"a_id": [
"detd4no",
"detlxfv",
"detmb6b",
"detw4x3",
"detzxo1"
],
"score": [
58,
23,
140,
3,
3
],
"text": [
"The ambulance remains at the scene of the accident and another ambulance gets dispatched to pick up the dying patient.",
"Two additional ambulances are dispatched, one for each patient. The original ambulance and crew are taken out of service and remain on the scene of the accident pending a police investigation. \n\nOf note... (in most US states) they are also responsible for treating both patients until they are relieved by other arriving medical personnel.",
"Paramedic here. In the unfortunate event this happens, we are trained to handle it.\n\nFirstly, remember what most people call \"an ambulance driver\" is actually a trained medical professional, and in some districts, as trained as the Paramedic in the back of the ambulance. \n\nSecondly, we are trained for the care of more than one critical patient at a time (Mass Casualties, First on scene, etc...). So we can prioritize, multi-task, while waiting on additional resources. \n\nThirdly, \"Protocol\" is what tells us how to handle situations. Some services, its strict as hell and says \"If < this > , then you have to < do this > \" and some services it will say along the lines of \"If < This > , consider < this, this, this, or this 'within your scope of practice > \"\n\n\n\nNow, if I was transporting a critical patient, and we hit a pedestrian while transporting \"hot\", we would immediately notify dispatch and local 911 dispatch. If neither my partner, patient, or me were injured... then my partner would initiate care to the wounded pedestrian while I made sure the original patient remained stable, we would have also requested mores units to turn care over to.",
"I know this is totally anecdotal but I was watching one of those Cops-style ride along shows where this exact thing happened. One car crashed into another while trying to clear way for the ambulance and some guy got seriously hurt and they had to stay and help all victims while calling in backup. Dude was freaking out because he had a compound fracture in his arm (totally understandable) and I'll never forget that scene in the show. ",
"One time I saw an ambulance T-bone another ambulance in the middle of Manhattan, I couldn't believe my eyes. We stood there watching the situation and in this particular case, a third ambulance showed up fairly quickly because the intersection was only a few blocks away from a major hospital (14th st. and 1st ave. for any local readers)\n\nIn this case only one of the original ambulances had a patient in it, and it seemed really low-key because he was sitting up and joking with the paramedics as they transferred him to the new ambulance. \n\nAdding a special NYC touch, while this was going on a city bus attempted to steer around the accident scene, hitting and dragging a massive piece of debris down the street for at least a block. The whole scene was a mess, but since no one was in serious danger, it was pretty goddamn hilarious. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] | ||
eafps8 | where exactly is the extra energy in a pulley system coming from to lift so much weight with so little effort? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/eafps8/eli5_where_exactly_is_the_extra_energy_in_a/ | {
"a_id": [
"faqcmfw",
"faqcnmd",
"faqhmsq",
"faqjdeb",
"fasynwl",
"fata9r9"
],
"score": [
64,
16,
5,
31,
7,
3
],
"text": [
"Work (the total amount of energy used) equals force times distance. A pulley does the same work with less force by spreading the work over a greater distance. In order to output five times more lifting force, you have to pull the free end of the rope five times farther than the work end of the rope moves.",
"Conservation of energy is the whole reason it works in the first place. To get the end of the pulley system to apply twice as much force, it has to be arranged so you're pulling twice as much rope.\n\nenergy = force x distance\n\nIn your example, to move that object you're pulling 5 feet of rope for every foot you pull the object.",
"There are two things at play here: energy and force. You've used them interchangeably, as is common in regular speaking, but in physics they have precise meanings and aren't the same.\n\nForce is how hard something is pulling. When you're using pounds you're (usually) describing force (sometimes pounds mass is used, but that's another topic). As you point out, a pulley can give you a multiplication of force. To do this the pulley needs to be anchored somewhere.\n\nFor example, one could tie one end of a rope to an object, then run it to a pulley on the wall, then through a pulley on the object, then to your hand. When you pull on the rope the rope goes under tension: the first length of rope (hand to object) pulls between the object and you, then the next length of rope (object to wall) pulls between the object and the wall, then the final length of rope (wall back to object) also pulls on the object and the wall. In the end you're getting pulled on once, the wall is getting pulled on twice, and the block is getting pulled on three times. You've used the pulleys to make the wall (indirectly) pull on the object.\n\n*******\n\nEnergy is what you get when you apply a force for a distance (assuming the force and distance are in the same direction). If you pull with 10 lb for 1 ft then that's 1 ft-lb of energy (one may substitute Newtons, Meters, and Joules, if one is S.I. inclined).\n\nPulleys, like all simple machines, offer a trade-off between distance and force. One could pull on the block with 30 lb for 1 ft, or one could rig up the pulleys as above and pull with 10 lb to get the same 30 lb force on the block. However, in doing so we now have to pull three times as far, since we have to account for 1 ft of movement in each of the three lengths of rope. Instead of doing 30 lb \\* 1 ft we do 10 lb \\* 3 ft and do the same amount of work (thereby transmitting the same amount of energy).\n\nAny way you set up the pulleys that relationship is going to hold true: to multiply force you also multiply the distance you have to move at the input to get that force at the output. Same with levers, screws, gears/sprockets, inclined planes, etc. This is before considering inefficiencies of the pulleys or other mechanism, which mean that you will generally have to exert more energy to use the machine than to act directly.\n\nThe inevitable inefficiency of such mechanisms and the inability to make an energy multiplier often leads people to question why to use the machines in the first place, for which the answer is to recall that multiplying force is often a goal in and of itself. A person hoisting a heavy load can't pull down on a rope with more force than their own weight (and ideally would like to pull with much less). A pulley setup allows them to keep the forces low, even if it means pulling more rope.",
"You cant carry a thousand pound rock up a hill in one trip right? but you can carry a thousand 1 pound rocks up a hill, right? You're able to do it because you did what everyone else has been saying, you increased the distance traveled. Pulleys increase the distance the rope you're pulling on traveled to do the same thing.",
"A pulley block is like a lever for rope. \n\nYou can lift something heavy with a lever, by putting the heavy object on the short end of the lever. But this doesn't create extra force out of nowhere - you have to move the long end of the lever further than you would if both ends were equal. \n\nJust like the pulley block lets you lift a heavy object, but you have to pull the rope further than if you were using only a single pulley.\n\nBonus ELI5: A gear is just a continuously rotating array of levers.",
"I watched this the other day. I love his channel. He does a really good job at showing/explaining pulleys\n\n_URL_0_"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://youtu.be/M2w3NZzPwOM"
]
] | |
2ii4ns | how does aspirin prevent the formation of a potential blood clot? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ii4ns/eli5_how_does_aspirin_prevent_the_formation_of_a/ | {
"a_id": [
"cl2cxk6",
"cl2gh8q",
"cl2hfzd"
],
"score": [
2,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Aspirin (salacylic acid) acts as a blood thinner, which reduces the potential for blood clots to form in the first place.\n\nAlso why its dangerous to take a lot of it if you have a heart condition or issues relating to blood pressure. People with these conditions are typically prescribed specialised blood thinning agents if they need them, most commonly Wolfram.",
"Think of platelets in your blood as little tiny pieces of Legos. Normally, if there is an injury, these Legos will be attracted to this area where they will start piecing together through their little nubs, forming a clot. Aspirin essentially blocks a chemical from forming (thromboxane A2) which allows the little Lego pieces to fit together. Thromboxane A2 also stimulates the production of more platelets, and if you block thromboxane, there will be fewer Legos to form a clot.",
"If you know how Aspirin works please e-mail me and I promise to split the Nobel Prize money with you. (Seriously, we have vague ideas but no one really knows.)"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] | ||
5i10k3 | if i have 1000 dollars in a stock and the stock goes to zero, what happens to my money? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5i10k3/eli5_if_i_have_1000_dollars_in_a_stock_and_the/ | {
"a_id": [
"db4itsj"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"Stock represents your share in ownership of a company. When you buy stock, the company gets the money. If the value drops to 0 then that means the company is being appraised by the market as worthless. They may have your money somewhere or they may have spent it. You own a tiny sliver of the company though, and if the value of the stock goes up (based on the company's value) then you'll be able to sell your stock based on that value. \n\nPeople who own enough stock in a company get to make decisions about it, and even if they don't, companies often worry about \"shareholders\" and their interests since these people indirectly help fund the company, and through their buy/sell behavior, influence the value of company shares (stock) on the market."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
20wh5v | how are trains able to stay on a track while going around a curve. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/20wh5v/eli5_how_are_trains_able_to_stay_on_a_track_while/ | {
"a_id": [
"cg7d6p7",
"cg7ecfy"
],
"score": [
8,
2
],
"text": [
"The answer to this is actually kind of interesting. Now, when a car turns a corner, the differential allows the wheels to spin at different speeds, which is necessary, since the outer wheel travels a farther distance than the inner wheel, but in the same amount of time. But trains have the wheels on either side connected by a solid axle, so how do they do it?\n\nThe answer is that the wheels are slightly cone-shaped, being thicker on the inside and tapering off to be thinner on the outside. So when the train starts to curve, it's pushed in the direction of the outside of the curve. This causes the wheel on the outside to be moved in such a way that the inner part of the wheel (with a larger circumference) touches the track. Likewise, the wheel on the inside of the curve is pushed so that the part of the wheel with a *smaller* circumference is in contact with the track. This means that the train effectively has a large wheel on the outside of the turn, and a small wheel on the inside, allowing it to turn.",
"Asking this question means you think about things pretty carefully! \nThe wheels are cones, it's super clever. Train tilts on the corner so both wheels spin the same speed. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] | ||
9lffu6 | how come if your body can create proteins, that we need it in our food? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9lffu6/eli5how_come_if_your_body_can_create_proteins/ | {
"a_id": [
"e7695li"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Proteins are made up of amino acids. There are 20 amino acids in total. Our body uses amino acids to assemble the proteins we need. However, we cannot produce all 20 amino acids. So, we need to eat food sources that can give us the amino acids we can't produce. When you eat, the body digests the protein, breaks it down into amino acids, and then uses what it needs to make the proteins needed. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
2f4v0h | the legal distinction between regular police and university police | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2f4v0h/eli5_the_legal_distinction_between_regular_police/ | {
"a_id": [
"ck5xim8",
"ck5xiy0",
"ck5xkho"
],
"score": [
2,
7,
4
],
"text": [
"The jurisdiction for the university is the state as it is a state university/institution. City/Regular (as you put it) is through out the city. If it is a community college then usually it is through the city so they would have the same jurisdiction as regular/city police.\n\nThis is how it is where I live. Some states may differ.",
"Most Universities hire actual police officers. They have all the authority of any police officer but only have jurisdiction on campus and in a radius of a few blocks to a few miles. ",
"It depends. On many university campuses, the campus is policed by private security firms. These aren't actually cops, and in the event of a problem, they call in the real police. Other campuses though have dedicated police forces. City or state police patrol the campus, and if a problem arises, they can take care of it themselves.\n\nIt's very important to know if you're dealing with real cops or not. Your rights are very different depending on who you're interacting with."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] | ||
6snkeu | is masturbation healthy if done moderately and doesn't have any long term effects be it fertility? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6snkeu/eli5_is_masturbation_healthy_if_done_moderately/ | {
"a_id": [
"dle5a4x",
"dlecz9r"
],
"score": [
28,
21
],
"text": [
"They say it helps prevent prostate cancer. It's a study I've heard about numerous times. I'd shoot you a link, but I'm at work and not about to Google \"positive effects of masturbation\" on my work PC.",
"Masturbation is healthy :) A healthy, caring relationship with your body and its sexual nature is good. It releases endorphins, helps you relax, and heck, it feels good!\n\nMasturbation won't damage your fertility either. The only risk is with males if they get used to masturbating aggressively, or to porn each time... They might find they have develop an erectile dysfunction or can't orgasm with their partner, because either it doesn't feel as physically stimulating/intense enough with them, or because the psychological impact that high levels of poem has on the mind aren't being reached during normal intercourse.\n\nSimilarly with females, they might find that they can't reach orgasm with their partner, if for example, they use a vibrator regularly. It desensitises the clitoris in particular. BUT, all you have to do is not use a vibrator for a week, and the sensitivity returns! So there's no lasting damage there.\nLess studies have been done on the impact of women and porn, but I think that it's probably the same as with men. If a woman watches a lot of hardcore porn, normal sex may not be psychologically stimulating enough in comparison.\n\nBasically, everything is good, although it is possible to have too much of a good thing :)\n\nHappy masturbating! "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] | |
4px04q | how do migrant workers who move to california for work afford to live in such an expensive state when they are making low wages for their hard labor? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4px04q/eli5_how_do_migrant_workers_who_move_to/ | {
"a_id": [
"d4ogj2d",
"d4ogufc",
"d4ohmgk",
"d4ojjcu"
],
"score": [
10,
14,
5,
2
],
"text": [
"Room mates. If you pack enough people into a house, it becomes cheap.\r\rThey also live in bad neighborhoods and far away from the city.",
"In addition to living like sardines in a can, they have a surprising amount of local support. Cheap-to-free beans and rice at many Mexican food restaurants, and occasional rare opportunities for good money with well-off local families. Also, last time I checked, the going rate for a Home Depot Laborer is $10-20 cash per hour, depending on how much English they know and if they're familiar with the trade needed. However, that work is sporadic. ",
"Because it is much better living poor here than it is living poor in the countries where they live. India has places that are designated shitting streets, sure you can count SF as the same thing but we have better infrastructure, standard of living, food, healthcare lower crime, its safer to live here than there.\n\nOverall its just better to be poor here than over there. You also have a chance of getting a better job here than over there if you are lucky.",
"If you mean the seasonal agricultural folks, they have lots of resources, from specific \"camps\" to apartments that only rent to them. Quite a few live in motorhomes these days. California has been depending on them for so long that there is a very tried and true system in place. Most come up from Mexico with the jobs and housing, etc. already planned. Thanks to unions and even California government agencies, these folks are generally treated well, have access to emergency medical care, and are far less likely to be crime victims than in years past. Odd as it sounds, the biggest issues they have are from Mexican gangsters who victimize them far more than anyone else.\nIt is a very tough life, but no one else will do it- pick vegetables and stuff. Trust me on that.. they are NOT taking jobs from anyone. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[]
] | ||
181dxh | why do people say obama's drone program is illegal? | I ask because it seems like it would be a big deal if the President was illegally killing people, but out of all the self-interested partisans, all the morally outraged people, and all the media whores in the police, the law, and the courts that someone would at least try to sue if they had the slightest case just for the publicity of it. It seems to me that the fact that no one has even been thrown out of court for trying to sue the president for murder is an indication that he isn't doing anything illegal.
And yet Reddit seems quite upset by the drone policies, which makes me think that either the Reddit community is being extremely silly or that I am missing something important here. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/181dxh/eli5_why_do_people_say_obamas_drone_program_is/ | {
"a_id": [
"c8aq0yi",
"c8aq3l4"
],
"score": [
3,
3
],
"text": [
"I do not understand your question, when people say that it is illegal they usually say why.",
"In order to sue someone, they have to have harmed *you*. You can't just sue the government for doing something illegal, if the illegal thing didn't affect you."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] | |
2wfasu | open vs closed back headphones. | What are the advantages and disadvantages for them and which ones are used for what?
Edit: thanks to everyone who took the time. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2wfasu/eli5_open_vs_closed_back_headphones/ | {
"a_id": [
"coq9uti",
"coqa7h4",
"coqb7x5"
],
"score": [
3,
4,
2
],
"text": [
"Open: Your ears sit in a cup which is open to the atmosphere.\nAdvantages: Supposedly a more \"open and expansive sound\"\nDisadvantages: They leak noise a lot. (both ways) thus quiet details in music can get lost\n\nClosed: Your ears sit in a sealed cup not open to the atmosphere\nAdvantages: Supposedly better bass and less noise intrusion from outside (and less noise leakage)\nDisadvantages: Supposedly a more \"Shut-in\" and less dynamic sound\n\n\nFun fact: Closed earphones are not fun if you have blocked Eustachian tubes\n",
"Open ones usually make the sound stage bigger, you will be able to differentiate different instruments in an orchestra. It's just closer to listening to something in a big room. But it's horrible for travelling around, you will hear all the noise around you and everyone around you will have to listen to your shitty music. \n\n\nClosed headphones cancel noise a lot better, you'll be able to listen in noisy/busy environments without problems. For gaming it may be preferable or you might have some feedback to your microphone.\n\n\nThat being said it doesn't really matter for listening pleasure, everyone has his own preference. I like my open headphones for playing guitar, especially useful when i try to play along to a song but don't want people to hear me practice, i can just turn up my sound system and use the headphones for guitar and i'll be able to hear both quiet well. Or sometimes in the evening i use them as speakers, if you turn the volume up it's usually good enough to listen to some silent music while you fall asleep.\n\nOn the other hand i hate them for gaming, i sometimes confuse what happens around me for things in game and people on team speak hear my game sound when i turn it up too much. Using the closed phones allows me to leave the world behind and just life in the game for a while. \n\nFor travelling/noisy environments i never carry around headphones (i don't know why anyone does... i guess mostly for posing reason). My rather cheap in ear headphones cancel the noise and have good enough sound for my daily train rides. With all the noise in the background i won't enjoy the higher quality from the other headphones anyway. And i would hate to break my better headphones by accident while they are in my bag. \n\n\nEdit: And while i love listening to old guitar songs, concerts and things like that with my good headphones (they're like goosebumps guarantee for good songs) i feel like most party/dance music really doesn't do to well with good speakers... you really start to notice cheap effects and it just makes some songs unenjoyable for me, not sure if anyone else has noticed the same. Usually headphone people tend to only brag about how good the sound becomes with great headphones. ",
"The physical construction of open back headphones means that your ear is still exposed to everything around you. This tends to make the sound more \"airy\" and \"expansive\" - some would say improving the \"soundstage\". If you are unfamiliar with the concept of \"soundstage\", this is a term loosely describing the headphone's ability to recreate the sound in 3-dimensional space (think of it kind of like the difference between having 2.1 speakers and surround sound). \n\nSince the noise doesn't reverberate in the headset on open back models, the bass response tends to be weaker than closed back headphones, but this can also improve the clarity of the sound. Because you are open to the environment, noise leaks to and from the headset as well: if you are not in a quiet environment the background noise will leak a lot into what you are listening to, and people nearby would be able to hear it quite clearly.\n\nClosed back headsets are the opposite to the above. Your ears are isolated from the environment. The sound tends to be \"fuller\" and \"more powerful\" - the soundstage is typically worse (sounds more \"in your head\" compared to open-back headphones), though this can vary a lot still depending on a bunch of factors. \n\nNoise reverberates in the headset, tending to make the bass frequencies sound more powerful, though this can also obscure some of the finer details (sometimes described as having a \"muddy\" bass for instance). You are isolated from the environment, and background noise will be greatly muffled and obscured, hearing only the noise the headphones are playing.\n\nThe usages for each vary, but it's basically personal preference. Each type just provides a different listening experience and it's subjective what people will prefer. The main drawback of open-back headphones is the noise leakage, meaning they typically aren't suitable for everyday use (you wouldn't be able to use them on a bus or train for instance). A niche application for open-back headphones that comes to mind is competitive gaming - competitive gamers value the excellent soundstage which gives great directional cues (for instance, picking the direction of footsteps in a shooter game) and the more balanced sound signature can prevent the game's sound effects from becoming overwhelming (stop loud, bassy sound effects like explosions from interfering too much with audio cues - conversely some may prefer closed back headphones for the opposite reason in that it makes sound effects like this sound more weighty and immersive)\n\n\n\n"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] | |
59gj68 | if we are naturally / subconsciously most attracted to people with a set of genes that's very different from ours. why aren't we by default most attracted to people with distinct different features from ours e.g. a different skin color? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/59gj68/eli5_if_we_are_naturally_subconsciously_most/ | {
"a_id": [
"d989yw7",
"d98a32d",
"d98ez83"
],
"score": [
2,
4,
2
],
"text": [
"There's a whole bio-anthropo-sociological PhD thesis in there potentially. But here's a simple answer: because you live in a particular climate and a particular environment, and you're well-suited to that environment, since you've survived there. A very different genotype from yours is probably ill-suited to survival, and therefore unattractive.",
"Different, but not too different. That's the golden rule. That's why you aren't attracted to trees, for example. ",
"Imagine there's not genes or anything but friends pulling and pushing you from and towards other people you may like. One of them reeeally wants you to ask that very genetically different girl and pulls you towards her, but another one is like \"no! Her chin is square as heck!\", and then another guy is like \"try that other girl, her eye colour is unlikely!\" and so on. These people have to compromise or overpower the others to get you to a girl they can accept. So that's like why you don't just like someone as different as possible!\n\nEdit: I'd like to add that different skin colour doesn't necessarily mean different histocompatibility."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] | ||
5d8gl4 | how do documentary shows like in history channel manage to record videos deep inside things like an ant colony, bee hive, etc? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5d8gl4/eli5_how_do_documentary_shows_like_in_history/ | {
"a_id": [
"da2lydy",
"da2m0jk",
"da2mqf3",
"da2scrl",
"da2snv6",
"da2v0z2",
"da2v6fd",
"da2w1hv",
"da2wu8b",
"da2z8cz",
"da361yg",
"da37b4g",
"da39u0e",
"da3ncga"
],
"score": [
2,
128,
33,
2210,
5,
53,
1526,
4,
139,
131,
3,
8,
69,
3
],
"text": [
"Ever heard of endoscopes (where they shove a camera attached to a wire down your throat)? Similarly, they can use a \"fibrescope\" (i think that's what they are called) to record ant colonies, bee hives, etc.",
"They use a [fiberscope](_URL_0_). Basically a camera lens on the end of a long, thin fibre optic cable. It's thin enough that it can be put into the regular entrances of the bee hive or ant colony.",
"Others have mentioned ways how it can be done, but often they simply don't truly.\n\nSome documentaries edit together footage taken on location and in the studio. So they may not actually show you the inside of the ant hill the guy was standing next to in the scene before, but that of a more convenient one in the studio.",
"All of these answers are essentially incorrect or incomplete. They do use various camera scopes to look down holes, but that won't really give you very interesting footage most of the time. This is usually just used for short filler shots that are spliced together with shots created in a studio, as another poster mentioned. \n\nFor any shots where you see real details of an insect colony, they create their own colony and have a cross-section up against a pane of glass (like an ant farm). A lot of shots for nature shows, especially almost all insect and small animals (not just ones in colonies), do not have any actual connection to nature and are created on sound stages with captive animals. Chameleons eating insects? All set up with a drugged insect so it won't run away. Nobody's following a chameleon around all day hoping they'll capture it snatching a cricket up.\n\nAlso, a lot of the audio in nature documentaries is recorded separately or artificially created (using Foley techniques) and then added in post-production (and it often represents what the producers think viewers want it to sound like, not what it actually sounds like; e.g., horses sound like they're running on cobblestones when they're walking on grass).\n\nEdit: Another thing to consider is that they often stitch together events from multiple days/weeks, and sometimes from entirely different individuals, to create a cohesive narrative out of whole cloth. Sometimes that cheetah you're watching eat a gazelle isn't actually the same one from the cool chase scene they captured, or that antelope escaping from the lions was actually filmed the day before the chase and it was actually killed in the chase but they didn't happen to capture that part of it on film.",
"As for what type of technology is used, I couldn't say exactly. Regarding everything else, it always seemed simple enough to me watching Animal Planet. A lot of the shots they do are taken in set up \"environments\" using captive animals/insects.\n\nThat's really all there is to it. The smaller organisms in the animal kingdom are easy to do this with as they are far more easily controlled and usually do not pose a threat to the researcher(s). Constructing a convincing environment and probably drugging smaller prey for the eating scenes is a must. ",
"History Channel and documentary? I don't think those two can go together anymore.",
"They create fake sets that the animals become acclimated to to do the filming:\n\n[Example #1](_URL_4_)\n\n[Example #2](_URL_1_) \n\n[Example #3](_URL_2_)\n\n[Example #4](_URL_3_)\n\n[Example #5](_URL_0_)",
"[Tim Ferris interviewed Erik Vance](_URL_0_), who's job it was to get a porcupine to ignore humans by catching one, inserting a tracker in it, so that Erik could basically hang out with it, tell it his problems until it stopped giving a fuck about humans being around it and talking around it. That made filming them a lot easier.\n\nIt's not the only way to skin a cat, but it's the one I know about.\n\nEDIT: Just realized the question was insect specific, oh well.",
"BBC Planet Earth is real. That little iguana prevailed over all of those snakes in a genuine moment of greatness. I won't tolerate it any other way! ",
"What about the \"Planet Earth\" series?? Please tell me David Attenborough and his crew actually shot everything without use of false stages :(\n\nEDIT: Okay, so some stuff may have been faked, but the majority of it is factual and documented \"evidence\" of animal behavior(s) and such right?",
"As others have mentioned there's lots of fakery. \n\nThe misconception that Lemmings commit mass suicide has been around for a long time but was exacerbated by a Disney documentary\n\n > Even more influential was the 1958 Disney film White Wilderness, which won an Academy Award for Documentary Feature, in which staged footage was shown with lemmings jumping into certain death after faked scenes of mass migration.",
"Documentaries in history channel? That's something I haven't seen in a long time.",
"Super late to the party so I doubt anyone will see this, but I make wildlife documentaries about invertebrates. Basically you use a mixture of sets and wild shot footage. You have certain things that you can't film in a studio and other things that you can't film in the wild. \nThis is an example of the latter: _URL_1_\n\nAnd this the former: _URL_0_\n\nSay you want footage of the inside of a nest. You won't be able to get this in the wild without disturbing the animal. So you need to construct a specially made tank that will allow them to be calm relaxed and go about with their normal behaviour, but also allow you to light it and get good camera angles.\n\nThe footage of the wasp in the tunnel in this film illustrates this. What I did was cut a sample tube in half, fill it with sand so it looked natural. Then stuck it to the side of an opti-White glass tank. Kept it in the dark till the wasp got used to using it, then once it had I just filmed away.\n\n_URL_2_\n\nEdit: mixed up former and latter.",
"History channel...documentaries...unless it's a mockumentary about pawning crabs or shark nazis, you must be watching another channel by mistake."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiberscope"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://theinfosphere.org/images/9/99/Planet_Express_Cross_Section.jpg",
"https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/6b/32/bf/6b32bffe21d2eceb098f1772588053ec.jpg",
"http://media.gettyimages.com/photos/crosssecti... | ||
3bhgyu | why is tuesday's leap second a massive issue for the exchanges of the world? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3bhgyu/eli5_why_is_tuesdays_leap_second_a_massive_issue/ | {
"a_id": [
"csm7vvc"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"It really shouldn't be. The leap second doesn't serve any important semantics and is a mere adjustment that would be best left ignored.\n\nUnfortunately, the world's infrastructure was not built to be good at ignoring a second. This additional second is straying out of the conventions that everyone knows and tested well. The machines of the world are used to, and build for, seconds switching from 23:59:59 to 00:00:00 the next day. The sudden notation 23:59:60, which is between 23:59:59 and 00:00:00, is unexpected.\n\nAnd machines panic at unexpected. They range from doing the wrong thing to reporting an error and preventing the rest of the work chain.\n\nThe obvious solution would be to not allow this second to exist in any system. But this second does exist in Universal Coordinated Time, and doing everything as if it didn't exist, mean running a second early compared to Universal Coordinated Time. This is not a state of facts we want to last, but what can be done about it? When synchronizing time with the Universal Coordinated Time, the time of the systems who ignored the leap second, will suddenly get back one whole second in time. One second may have contained many operations, a going back in time for that amount of time, will make this second duplicated in the record of events, making it ambiguous, possible for events to be recorded \"ending before they started\", and various other problems that computers don't like when going back in time. Because losing precision on keeping track of the time is a common problem, computers have been adapted to small adjustments. But a whole second will trigger bigger problems.\n\nThere are solutions, of course. For starters, it is possible to just flat-out support leap seconds, if the whole chain does. Plus, there are more clever solution to remove the leap second and instead make all seconds of the surrounding hours, a little longer. This spreads the time adjustment problem within reasonable bounds.\n"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
x30wc | why do people breathe through paper bags when they feel sick? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/x30wc/why_do_people_breathe_through_paper_bags_when/ | {
"a_id": [
"c5iqjr9"
],
"score": [
6
],
"text": [
"It's used for when people are breathing too fast (hyperventilating), often during a panic attack.\n\nWhen a person is breathing too quickly, they're getting rid of too much carbon dioxide and have too much oxygen. Breathing in a paper bag gets you to breathe back some of the carbon dioxide, trying to reverse the process.\n\nThis is a little complicated:\n\nHaving too much oxygen in your blood makes your blood vessels constrict. It also causes alkalosis (the opposite of acidosis) which makes you breathe even faster and makes it harder for your organs to get oxygen. All this gives people the tingly feeling in their lips and mouth, and dizziness."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
cpify2 | where do magnets come from? can we induce magnetic properties? | Are they found in nature? Can you make something to behave like a magnet with electricity or something? Or can you destroy a magnet so that it doesn’t behave like one anymore? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cpify2/eli5_where_do_magnets_come_from_can_we_induce/ | {
"a_id": [
"ewpl8r4",
"ewplg5k",
"ewpni8x",
"ewpt74f",
"ewqveat"
],
"score": [
3,
2,
2,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Yes, one example is a Load stone. Yes, we can induce a magnetic field with electricity, one example is a door bell. Yes, you can destroy the magnetic properties of a bar magnet by heating it up or by taking it with a hammer.\n\nMagnets come about when you line up particles which have a dipole, such as iron particles. These particles are like tiny individual magnets, when they line up their magnetic field add together. \n\nInducing a mag field in a wire occurs when a current passes. It creates a magnetic field around the wire. When you coil the wire around those small magnetic fields around the wire add together to make a strong magnet.",
"Yes there are naturally occuring magnets. The earths core is a giant magnet for example. (Hence why compasses work)\nYes, electromagnetism is the principle used to create magnetic fields in _URL_0_. ferrometals (like steel) using electricity.\nI know this is eli5 but this is primary school level knowledge bro, just google how magnets work and you have anything from wikipedia to physics textbooks.\nEdit: also, read the rules first. I literally typed in magnets into eli5 search bar and saw tons of questions lots of which do have answers you're looking for.",
"Atoms have a positively charged nucleus (protone) and a negatively charged shell (orbiting electrons). \n\nFor most elements those electrons are relatively evenly distributed around the nucleus such that their charges cancel each other out.\n\nFor some materials, like iron, nickel and cobalt, those electrons are oriented more to one side turning each atom into a dipole with one side being net positive and the other side being net negative. Creating it's own little magnetic field.\n\nWhen you have a bunch of random iron atoms grouped together they're oriented in different directions with their magnetic fields pointing in different directions. Result is the material has a net neutral magnetic field.\n\nBut if you free up those atoms such as by heating them or grinding them into a powder, then you can apply a strong magnetic field across. Each atom will rotate to align its magnetic field with the big one. Then when the heated metal cools or you apply a bonding agent to the powder which dries, then it locks the atoms in that position.\n\nResult is instead of all the atom's magnetic fields cancelling each other out, now they're aligned and the net magnetic field is amplified to create one large one.\n\nOver time magnets lose their magnetic field strength as the atoms get slowly moved around in their environment.\n\nOne element, neodymium, is so polarized each atoms magnetic field is strong enough to impact the neighboring atom. At some point in nature the neodymium atoms were hot thenthey oriented themselves then it cooled and created a very powerful magnetic field. It's commonly known as a permanent magnet as they generally do not lose their magnetic field strength within our lifetime.",
"Magnets come from magnet factories. (Actually a super-small fraction are natural, but that's almost impossibly rare.)\n\nYes, you can make a magnetic field with an electric current. Yes, this is how the factory makes the magnets\n\nYes, you can demagnetize magnets. This is how magnetic tape is erased (ask your parents about \"VHS video tape\"). For very well made magnets, you might also need to heat them up.",
"Find a magnet and a few things that will stick to the magnet (say a fork and a needle).\n\nStick the magnet to the fork. Now the fork will be (temporarily) magnetized and you can use it to pick up the needle.\n\nNow draw the needle over the magnet a few times. the needle will now be (permanently) magnetized.\n\nYou can also put the fork near the magnet and tap it a few times. That will also weakly (permanently) magnetize the fork. \n\nIf you rap the fork a few times when it is not in a magnetic field, the molecules will randomize again and the fork will de-magnetize.\n\n\nThere is also a very close relationship between electricity and magnetism. Moving electric fields create magnetic fields and moving magnetic fields create electric fields. An electromagnet is nothing more than wire wrapped around a ferrous core. Apply current and, viola, a powerful magnet that can be turned on and off with a switch. Electric motors and generators use the same principle."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"f.eg"
],
[],
[],
[]
] | |
2x21m3 | this whole keystone debacle, why is the new addition such an issue, and why did boehner call it "a national embarrassment"? | I'm an Australian recently looking into the circus of american politics and i'd love to know more. Thanks! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2x21m3/eli5this_whole_keystone_debacle_why_is_the_new/ | {
"a_id": [
"cow6cuh",
"cow6kma",
"cow86v5"
],
"score": [
6,
3,
2
],
"text": [
"Boehner calls it an embarrassment because he lost. He doesn't have the votes to override a Presidential veto.\n\nThe Keystone XL pipeline would connect Canadian tar sands in Alberta to the Gulf of Mexico. It would create a few jobs, and lower the global cost of fuel by a little bit. But it would benefit TransCanada a lot. \n\nRepublicans see any amount of economic growth as worth fighting for, especially when it's for a traditional friend of the Republicans, the oil industry. Democrats see it as an opportunity to tout their environmental credentials without putting much at risk politically.",
"There are three schools of thought on the Keystone XL pipeline.\n\nThe first school of thought is that it will significantly improve the ability to pipe raw petroleum products to refineries. This is Boehner's position.\n\nThe second school of thought is that it will take jobs away from Americans who operate the trains that currently ship the raw petroleum, and destroy the ecosystems it crosses over if there is a spill, because the corporation operating it will not be held to regulations. This ignores the fact that there are a lot of spills from the trains, because the corporations shipping petroleum by train are not being held to regulations.\n\nAnd then there are the people who note that, in order to construct the XL pipeline extension, the US government would have to seize sovereign land belonging to Native American tribes and sell it to a private corporation.\n\nAll of these are national embarassments — Boehner, the trains, the pipeline, developing petroleum when we should be developing wind, hydro and solar, and the serious consideration of seizing sovereign tribal lands.",
"This can explain a whole lot better than most people here: \n_URL_0_"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[
"http://youtu.be/RU-Y_VEhbj8"
]
] | |
2t9guf | why can't you burn money but you are allowed to store it in a safe and never use it? | The safe part is just an example.
Another one will be put it in my draw and never use it or put it in my sofa... etc | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2t9guf/eli5_why_cant_you_burn_money_but_you_are_allowed/ | {
"a_id": [
"cnx11ft"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"1) If you put it in safe, someone else will inherit it some day.\n\n2) Laws do not inherently make sense. Laws get passed because they mustered enough votes to pass them at a specific time."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | |
aoabox | why do people like fortnite? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/aoabox/eli5_why_do_people_like_fortnite/ | {
"a_id": [
"efzdvn8",
"efze9i2"
],
"score": [
3,
2
],
"text": [
"There's a steep learning curve for building in combat. That's what drew me in, being able to build your own cover and use it to position yourself all around your opponent. It's a unique mechanic",
"I play with my friends a few times a week, its fun multiplayer gameplay, and we have good craic just chatting shit with each other. And the nature of a battle royale style game makes wins that much more satisfying"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] | ||
2f7ury | can a man receive the genetics to be hairy from a greek mother? | This is assuming that if the mother were a man/produced testosterone they would be very hairy. Can boys only receive body hair genetics from the father or will the Greek genetics be received from the mother and the production of testosterone will allow for the Greek-like body hair? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2f7ury/eli5_can_a_man_receive_the_genetics_to_be_hairy/ | {
"a_id": [
"ck6pbtz"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"Depends on whether or not the mother's side of the family tends to also be hairy. If yes, then she totally can. If no, then maybe, but not as likely. One thing to remember about genetics is that they don't only start or stop at the parents, they go back generations."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | |
2zqntd | what was the internet like before web 2.0? what is/are netscape, america online, aol disks? eternal september, and all that other stuff? also just to make you feel old, i'm able to buy cigarettes and join the army. | Did you guys pay for browsers or something? What even is "web 2.0" and "web 1.0"? What did people do on it? What was pre-year 2000 online porn like? Was website or forum culture different?
I'd really like it if some one could point me to some reading material about it, or try to explain what it was like on an average day? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2zqntd/eli5_what_was_the_internet_like_before_web_20/ | {
"a_id": [
"cplen4b",
"cplere7",
"cples20",
"cplfcex",
"cplfe06",
"cplgtjz",
"cplgxow",
"cpljoqr"
],
"score": [
4,
2,
2,
3,
3,
7,
3,
2
],
"text": [
"Most of this can be googled, but ill link everythign here:\n\n[Eternal September](_URL_0_)\n\nNetscape was an internet browser like IE/mozilla/chrome\n\nAOL is just the abbreviation of America Online. they used to send out TONS of these CDs with thier software on them to advertise thier ISP services.\n\nThe internet was a much smaller place back then and chatrooms and IRC was a part of life.",
"all I remember was using netscape navigator to search the names of porno magazines with my friend, that was probably 1999/2000. chronically slow loading times, where you'd just watch images slowly reveal on the screen\n\nand using a text to speech tool at school to call my friends faggots, again around 1999/2000\n\nas far as i was aware there wasn't much else to do on the internet and it wasn't really used by any of my friends outside of school until we started playing unreal tournament and Wolfenstein and COD a year or two later ",
"Browsers were free. Netscape gave away theirs for personal use. \nThere is no difference between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 \nBack in the very early days, most web pages were static - meaning, there wasn't any animation, popups or other things that are totally annoying.\\\n\nBack then, bandwidth was really slow. It would take several minutes to download a picture and there wasn't streaming videos. \nPorn at best was just picture that took several minutes to download just one.\n\nThere weren't that many forums until the mid to late 90s. We would post on Usenet groups. You can still access some of them - look at your favorite email program and yo may still see the ability to Subscribe to them.\n\nAOL used to send out disks then CDs with their program and service on it. It was real easy to setup and subscribe but to cancel, you had to put it in writing, snail mail it into their corporate offices and wait for them to cancel - all the while you had to pay your monthly access fee of $9.99. \n\nSteve Case was the guy behind all that then he got Time Warner to spend waaayyyy too much money buying him out - it was all part of the DotBombs. Time Warner got so screwed. \n\nAnyway, too much information.",
"Let's be clear...the internet, in one form or another, has been around since the late 60's....The ARPANET. It was basically a way to connect a pile of computers (mostly military and educational) together. That's it. Move files around, send mail, etc. Simple stuff by today's standards. In 1989, the World Wide Web was born. In a nutshell, it was simply a simple way to share/display information. You had HTML 1.0 to format the information, and a simple browser to decode it. HTML 1.0 was very simplistic...no fancy tags. No flash, no javascript, etc. There were only a few very simple browsers back then. I remember all this from the early 90's...and it was awesome. Most websites looked the same...and compared to today, they were absolute garbage. But they did not have a lot of neat tools to work with, so it took years for the tools to evolve and standardize to what you see today.",
"\"Web 2.0\" was a term coined to highlight the fact that websites were becoming more interactive.\n\nBack in the early days of the web most pages were static, just containing some information put there by whoever made the website. Not every website was like that though, there were online shops, and there were forums too.\n\nDuring the 2000s websites came about that were more about user interaction. The users were making the content, and the website was an application to allow them to do that.",
"Website culture was different. People had way much more personal home pages on whatever servers offered free space. Now people have facebook, instagram, tumblr and such pages where people create *profiles* of an unified page system instead of making personal pages.\n\nPersonal home pages where just a page you made completely yourself and posted whatever things were interesting to you. Some people had blogs on their home pages, some people had their photography, some people listed their interests, some wrote about their interests. Often people linked their friends home pages to their own home pages. Home pages had calculators on how many people had visited, and guest books where visitors would comment like \"nice home page :)\"\n\nAn example of \"old internet\" is [this Star Wars fan page](_URL_0_) made by an engineer where he wrote about the Star Wars movies starting from 1995 with the thought \"if this was real, how would it work?\" The overlay, design, fonts, graphics all are very typical to internet from the 90's. And [here](_URL_1_) is a personal home page of someone called \"Jenna\".\n\nIRC was also much more popular. IRC or Internet Relay Chat is a pretty simple chat program where people joined different channels arbitrarily created by people themselves and used nicknames to chat with each other.",
"It. Was. Wonderful. We didn't know any better, of course.\n\nVisually, think of it as the \"Pong\" version of the internet. Minimal graphics, colors, and a tantalizingly slow connection. But it was just incredible to us - that all this information was just...there, for the reading. \n\nWe got spoiled really fast. After Hurricane Ivan in...2003? I had no cable internet for two weeks and had to use an AOL disk and dialup. Thought i was going to go insane. \n\n ",
"It was slow compared to what we have now. \n\nWe had the AOL dial up back in the day. Of course I had all kinds if restrictions because I was young, but I don't remember watching videos online. There were gifs that took forever to load. Fuck, I remember if someone sent you a picture over MSN it would take a good 5 minutes to load... And porn was just pictures. I'm sure there were videos but I don't even want to think about how long that would have taken to load. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.theforce.net/swtc/index.html",
"http://www.oocities.org/i_am_pippy43/"
],
[],
[]
] | |
81qook | why can't astronauts use sunlight in space to help grow vegetables/plants? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/81qook/eli5_why_cant_astronauts_use_sunlight_in_space_to/ | {
"a_id": [
"dv4f3x9",
"dv4fkpz",
"dv4fmdf",
"dv4fq5d",
"dv4frrf",
"dv4fx89",
"dv4g3zj",
"dv4he34",
"dv4hy3g",
"dv4o8oy",
"dv4ox53",
"dv4uqex",
"dv4z4i7"
],
"score": [
7,
2,
58,
5210,
6,
632,
106,
82,
5,
2,
10,
8,
2
],
"text": [
"I am not sure, but probably they looked into the possibility and disregarded it for what I imagine would be the following reasons: \nThere is no filter to the sunlight as we have it in Earth, no atmosphere, making the radiation more energetic. Sunlight is good for plants to an extent. It has to be of limited frequency. \nAnd exposure. I assume there is no way to mimic a day-night cycle for the light arriving. The light that gets to Earth is different along the day, it is of a different \"quality\" per se. And of course, at night there is no sun light. Plants need light, but a limited amount and over cycles. \nSo, in resume, space offers too much exposure of light and no temporality of it. ",
"It is probably a situation of \"more potential problems than benefits.\" Ships get hit with micrometeoroids constantly, which I would imagine do more damage to the \"glass\" than a standard hull. Also, the ISS goes around the Earth really really fast, so I'm not sure how plants would deal with a sped-up light cycle.",
"The Earth is covered with a layer of ozone that greatly reduces high energy ultraviolet (UV) light from reaching the surface. This type of UV-B light will damage DNA, the genetic blueprint that makes up all living things on Earth. It is what causes sunburns and can lead to skin cancer. \n\nIn space, there is no ozone protection so the light has the full force of the high power UV. For plants, even if they are used to being under the sun all day on Earth, too much UV will also damage their genetic information. Damaged DNA means they cannot produce the correct materials or properly copy cells to grow.\n\nEDIT: Yes, glass can filter UV light. But how much filtering is needed to be comparable with the 65 km thick ozone layer? Taking a look at the first graph on _URL_1_ , you can see that the ozone layer blocks low wavelength UV light from 10^-4 above the Earth to 10^-12 on the surface. This means the glass has to filter at least 99.999999% of UV to be comparable. This tolerance is just too high for manufacture. While the windows on the ISS are coated for UV protection, you won't see any astronauts sunbathing under the windows.\n\nEDIT2: _URL_0_\n\n\"The best of these coatings built-up from deposited dielectric lossless materials on the perfect smooth surfaces can reach reflectivities greater than 99.999% (over a fairly narrow range of wavelengths).\"",
"If their only mission was to grow plants, they'd be able to do so. Since they've got other concerns, it's much easier to recreate the light source than it is to constantly maneuver the ship so to have direct sunlight for 14 hours a day. You'd also need a clear bulkhead to allow the light in. \n\nIt's just easier to balance all of the needs on the ISS with artificial light.",
"There are very few windows in spacecraft as they are both a point of physical weakness that can blow out, and a point where unfiltered solar radiation can come into the spacecraft. That solar radiation is far more potent than plants or animals are evolved to deal with and so it would kill most plants. ",
"Plants don't use the whole spectrum of light (all the colors) needing mostly red and some blue. Some plants also control their stages with a photoperiod (the amount of time light hits the plant a day) which changes with earth's seasons.\n\nLetting in sunlight is problematic on the ISS because windows in space are difficult and costly and also the ISS orbits the earth every 90mins (half the time in the dark and half in light).\n\nOn the other hand you could just grow the plant anywhere inside the ISS and use led lights instead of the sun. They are very energy efficient (low power draw and only use the colors of light you need) and produce very little heat.\n\nTl;dr - it's cheaper and less complicated.",
"/u/PrionBacon covered the biology side of it, so I'll throw in some context from an engineering perspective of why constructing a greenhouse in space isn't such a simple task.\n\nHeat is a major concern. Look at the cupola, for instance, which has the largest windows on the ISS. From Robert Frost, an engineer with NASA,\n\n > \"Nominally, the shutters for the Cupola windows are closed. They are open when the windows are to be used. We don't like to keep the shutters open for three reasons:\n\n > 1) micrometeor impact risk\n\n > 2) overheating concerns\n\n > 3) contamination of the windows from off-gassing visiting vehicles and thruster plumes.\"\n\nFrom [this](_URL_0_) page.\n\nKeep in mind that the overheating concern isn't just for the window pane, it's for the equipment inside the module as well. Direct sunlight in space is tricky because the heat from it doesn't like to naturally dissipate, and it isn't diffused by atmosphere, which would probably damage the plants, as others have said. In other words, \"natural light\" on Earth isn't the same as \"natural light\" in space. So there are a few reasons why windows are a difficult engineering task to overcome. The windows on the cupola actually have RTDs on them that monitor the temp of the window. It the temp exceeds flight rule limits, the shutters have to be closed. Basically whenever the windows aren't actively being used the shutters are closed.\n\nEdit: Syntax and stuff.",
"You'd get 45 minute days and 45 minute nights in orbit at ISS altitude. Plants are not adapted for such short cycles.\n\nInfrared and UV are problems outside the atmosphere, but fixable. A gold lined polycarbonate window could block both IR and UV, like the visors on astronaut helmets.\n\nHeating/cooling is a problem for a greenhouse in orbit. The light side heats up to 250 C, the dark side cools down to minus 250 C. You need heat pumps to equilibrate temperature and radiative fins for passive cooling.\n\nYou need closed circuit atmosphere control within, to keep gas balance and humidity within appropriate limits.\n\nMost of these problems are solvable, but the 45 minute light cycle is not. Therefore you need artificial lighting.\n\nThis is only an orbital problem. If you're not in orbit (like on a trip to Mars), you could tow a greenhouse behind your ship and just give it a slow spin to give it 12 hour days.",
"Intensity or UV content is NOT a problem- you could add a tint or use UV-blocking material. Or a smaller window. IIRC sunlight in space is only about 40% stronger than a standardized 1kw/m^2 \"sun\" (more or less temperate zone average sunny afternoon). It's marginally more intense than the sunniest summer noon at the equator.\n\nThe notable problem is that spaceproof glass is VERY heavy. It has to hold in pressure and tolerate tremendous impacts. It is hard to picture what damage a paint fleck from another craft does when it hits at 20,000 mph (like 400x more impact energy per gram than a bullet) because nothing that small can go that fast on Earth without slowing down in the first foot. When you try to hold in 14.7 psi, that's over a TON per sq ft. The problem scales with window size. With a 1ft dia circle, that's 1662 lbs total and 44 lb per inch along the edge where it's mounted. With a 5 ft dia window, that's 41,563 lbs and 220.5 lb/in along the edge. So maybe 0.5\" impact glass was sufficient for the 1ft window but you might need 2\" glass for a 5ft. By contrast, aluminum holds tensile strength far better and its weight is trivial.\n\nMating glass to aluminum is very problematic. The flexibility and thermal expansion are very different than the rest of the hull. That causes a lot of stress on the interface.\n\nSpace is not exactly \"cold\". Well, in deep space far away from a sun, objects will slowly cool to 2.7K, the ambient temperature of space. That's an equilibrium of what it radiates off vs the light that falls on it from the rest of space.\n\nBut when sunlight at Earth's distance from the sun hits an object, being in a vacuum means it holds heat like a Thermos. It just gets hotter, there's zero conductive cooling- no fans work in space. Actually cooling can be a HUGE problem. Spacecraft are painted white to reflect sunlight to minimize the problem. A greenhouse means most of the 1.4-1.3kw/m^2 that hits it becomes heat which has to SOMEHOW get radiated back out.",
"Besides all of the orbit cycling of light and radiation concerns that others have mentioned, a key factor in using artificial lighting in these experiments is where the food will most likely be grown - deep space. In general, plants, especially food plants, grow best under high levels of light. As you get farther in space from Earth the intensity of light from the sun drops significantly. To make up for this either you have to concentrate the remaining light, mechanically complicated, or use artificial lighting. ",
"There are a bunch of problems with using direct sunlight on a spacecraft:\n\n* Windows are a structural weak point on a spacecraft, and having enough windows to run a greenhouse would put the craft at risk of explosive decompression. Also, controlling temperature is extremely difficult, and windows would add to that complexity by allowing the craft to absorb heat in an uncontrolled manner (heat is actually really hard to get rid of in space).\n\n* Earth's atmosphere filters out UV-C radiation, which would burn plants (as well as anything else living)\n\n* A low orbit around a planet creates a very short day-night cycle, and a high orbit creates *no* day-light cycle, meaning that a complex set of shades would be needed to accommodate the plants' need for something close to a 24-hour cycle (people have suggested rotating the craft to simulate a day-night cycle, but that would make docking with it rather nightmarish and would create problems for solar panels.)\n\n* Space is at a premium in spacecraft, and using windows to provide sunlight require not only the space for the plants but also clear line of sight from the windows to the planters, which means you can't use that space for storage or other plants.\n\n* If you want to have separate day cycles for different plants (for example bringing some plants to maturity by simulating a \"winter\" photoperiod while letting others \"summer\" and grow), you would need to have either a separate greenhouse for each cycle or else a bulky and complex set of shades inside the spacecraft.\n\n\nAll of these problems can be overcome, but there simply isn't anything other than aesthetics to recommend natural sunlight over artificial light, so until reaching orbit becomes easy enough that we can start prioritizing aesthetics over functionality, it makes more sense to go with the artificial option.",
"LEDs are very low power. If you think about it, they are still using the solar energy generated by the outer panels to grow their veggies :)",
"Very informative. This brings up another question for me. Is a 12 hour cycle vital for plants to grow or would a plant grow just as well under constant sunlight?"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_coating#High-reflection_coatings",
"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_layer#Ultraviolet_light"
],
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://www.quora.com/What-if-the-windows-in-the-ISS-Cupola-got-over-heated"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] | ||
3b646w | why isn't there massive landfills in the desert? | A coworker and I were weighing out the reasons and it seems that it would be a good idea, especially if they had a composting site for fertile growth. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3b646w/eli5_why_isnt_there_massive_landfills_in_the/ | {
"a_id": [
"csj71co"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"One of many reasons would be that not many live near deserts. We would want to ship trash hundreds of miles."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | |
3qabvw | what is happening in this gif of a black hole consuming a star? | _URL_0_ | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3qabvw/eli5_what_is_happening_in_this_gif_of_a_black/ | {
"a_id": [
"cwdegda",
"cwdei16",
"cwden63",
"cwdh2r4",
"cwdkhxo"
],
"score": [
3,
22,
5,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"A big ball of stuff (a star) is being drawn towards a black hole. A lot of the material ends up in a ring in close orbit around the black hole called an [accretion disk](_URL_0_).",
"The star(hydrogen) is being \"pulled apart\" due to the black holes gravity, as it gets pulled apart the core of the star no longer has the density to initiate nuclear fusion thus it don't glow. As the particles are being sucked in to the black hole, a fraction of them gets slingshot to the \"poles\" of the black hole resulting in 2 streams of particles being ejected in opposite directions.",
"Think of the black hole like the drain in your tub, and the star as the water being sucked down the drain. It doesn't all get sucked straight down, it circles the drain, slowly succumbing to the pull of gravity, and falls into the black hole. The cloud is called an accretion disk. As for the pulses of light...no idea. Nothing I've learned about black holes includes light pulses like that.",
"Also keep in mind that as all this star-matter is being drawn in and spiraling around, the spiral part you can see is ONLY the part you can still... actually... see. The black hole's event horizon is where all this glowing matter becomes invisible to us. It doesn't disappear or form a sharp-edged ring; it's just not visible. Technically-LI5, it's more of a spinning frisbee with a jet-black center. The matter closer to the center gets compressed and hot and glowing, some of it radiating away heat/light/X-rays, which are visible up to a certain proximity to the center.",
"Shouldn't the light coming off the black hole be dark as the matter producing it moves away from you?"
]
} | [] | [
"https://i.imgur.com/3GpLLJL.webm"
] | [
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accretion_disc"
],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] | |
60ikxm | relative temperature difference | For example, a 2°C temperature increase outside is hardly noticeable. Yet a global 2°C increase is catastrophic and a 2°C increase in your body is a high fever. Why is this? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/60ikxm/eli5_relative_temperature_difference/ | {
"a_id": [
"df6odzc"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"2 degrees is a lot. It's very much noticeable going from 28 to 30, for example. Maybe it's not much going from very cold to very very cold, but the difference between a little warm and uncomfortably hot is very small.\n\nIn global temperature, it's because there's always a lot of ice close to melting. At the very edge of the Arctic and Antarctic ice sheets, the ice is very close to becoming water. At the point where the ice touches water, the ice is -0.1 degrees, just barely solid. When global temperature rises 2 degrees, the whole stretch of ice that was -2 degrees or above will melt. Ice further inland will lose structural integrity, and that might push it past the critical point where it drops tons of ice into the sea. You know how jet fuel can't melt steel beams? It can weaken them until a tower collapses. Same idea.\n\nAlso, it causes entire climates to move closer to the poles. The difference isn't that much. And when an area becomes less suitable for coniferous trees and more suitable for deciduous trees, the deciduous ones don't replace the conifers, the conifers just die and it takes a while for the deciduous ones to move in.\n\nFor your body, your body temperature is what it is because it's the ideal working temperature for your enzymes. Enzymes allow life to take place. Enzymes are proteins that hold a specific shape using a few kinds of bonds. The higher the temperature, the faster things work. But get too hot, and some of the weaker bonds break and the enzyme deforms, or denatures and can't do anything anymore. Your body walks the knife's edge to get as hot as possible without denaturing its enzymes. So 2 degrees hotter is pretty bad."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | |
dddlme | how is it possible to stream in real time? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dddlme/eli5_how_is_it_possible_to_stream_in_real_time/ | {
"a_id": [
"f2fxevl"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"If you pay attention to streamers who display their chat on screen, you'll see a delay between when someone types a message in chat (that the streamer sees basically real time) and when the streamers reaction to that message (or the message itself) displays on the stream. It's not a 0 lag system, but rather something on the order of 5-10 seconds depending on a variety of factors.\n\nAs far as how, good internet connections and streaming software that enables the streamer to upload live video/audio footage and the streaming platform to quickly turn around and distribute it to anyone watching."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
3apsyy | why when i use my electric toothbrush do the numbers on the alarm clock dance around, but nothing else i look at moves similarly? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3apsyy/eli5_why_when_i_use_my_electric_toothbrush_do_the/ | {
"a_id": [
"cset2eo",
"cset745",
"csevsub"
],
"score": [
22,
17,
3
],
"text": [
"Because everything else isn't a blinking light. If you take a string with an LED on it, and spin it really fast you can see if it is blinking or constantly on, because it effectively spreads out the \"framerate\" in space.",
"The lights on your alarm clock aren't constantly on, they actually flicker on an off at a high frequency. When you're using an electric toothbrush, it causes your whole head to vibrate at a different frequency. This causes a weird frequency mismatch that makes it looks like the numbers are jumping around. Normally your brain can compensate for the vibration, but the flickering light messes it up. It's a similar effect to how if you film a computer screen you see weird bars moving down, because of the frequency mismatch between the computer refresh rate and the camera FPS.",
"Didn't nasa have a problem like this in the shuttle? The lights danced around due to the vibrations during liftoff but they came up with a way to synchronize the vibration and the pulsed leds to diminish the effect. Someone who knows the story better please feel free..."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] | ||
2bf92y | "cats have nine lives." | Why? When? Where? Who? wat. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2bf92y/eli5_cats_have_nine_lives/ | {
"a_id": [
"cj4r3o7"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"It generally refers to their ability to survive falls that would injure or kill another animal and other such feats of daring do. \n\nThe number of lives varies, depending on the region. In parts of Europe they only have seven, and in the Islamic tradition they are said to have but the six. In most of the English speaking world it is nine. I suppose that's a handy conversion rate for you if you're a cat. \n\nThe number itself potentially came from Gypsy legend (which, like Voodoo and Santeria combines the best parts of Catholicism with magic). Nine is a trinity of trinities and is thus a lucky number. \n\nInteresting side note: Baldwin III, Count of Ypres, psychotic little shit that he was, was fascinated by the cat's ability to land on its feet after a fall. So he toss a few out of a tower window to see if they would survive. They did and an annual festival was born where the cat toss is reenacted. In the 1800s they started using toy cats as after a real cat was tossed from the window, they would run off too quickly to be caught so that they could be retossed the following year. \n\n "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | |
3rwr36 | r. kelly sex crimes | Saw an episode of the boondocks that made fun of the whole thing. Was wondering how everything really went down? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3rwr36/eli5_r_kelly_sex_crimes/ | {
"a_id": [
"cwryxyd"
],
"score": [
9
],
"text": [
"He pissed on (and presumably fucked) an underage girl. Fucking underage girls is considered poor form. I assume pissing on them is frowned upon as well. People were somewhat upset about the whole situation."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | |
ecygz8 | how does a much smaller company like amd compete toe-to-toe with a much larger company like intel that has far more available resources? (cpu market) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ecygz8/eli5_how_does_a_much_smaller_company_like_amd/ | {
"a_id": [
"fbehqgu",
"fbehz6y",
"fbeiv2p",
"fbeq32n"
],
"score": [
2,
5,
3,
2
],
"text": [
"Intel still uses a 2012 architecture because they had the Monopoly since then and haven't got a backup plan.\n\nTheir fabs have shortage issues and they keep insisting of using their own labs instead of third party ones like TMSC.\n\n(There are rumors that Samsung is going to help them)\n\nAlso it seems like corporate people are so out of touch with the technology and competition of the market .\n\nTheir latest marketing materials have some outrageous claims against AMD like accusing AMD for using a \"glue-like\" design (while there used the same technique with the Pentium series).\n\nAnd that AMD is worse on \"real world scenario's\".\n\nCombining all these issues and with the management of Lisa Su AMD has taken a huge percentage of the market in just 3 years",
"The advantage of having a smaller company is that you can make changes and adjust course much quickly than a big company can. Additionally intel competes in many more markets than AMD, such as mobile, big data, and pc markets. As a former enployee i was also aware of a handful of projects that were government related.",
"Even when intel could they are not allowed ot remove AMD out of the market, they would be in violation of Monopoly laws+ it would be suicidal for them in the long term for a few reasons.\n\nAMD has a few very significant advantages over intel that makes them independent of the market state and ensures they cant really go away:\n\n1: **They Own the x64 instruction set** aka \"AMd64\" and Intel has to license it from them to make their modern CPUs, this is considered to be the main reason why Intel cant stomp AMD out of the market, they would lose the x64 license with no chance ot ever get it, meaning they would become unable ot manufacture their own CPu's(but in turn AMD must get a licence from intel to use X86).\n\n2:AMD has their own fabrication facilites: they own \"Global Foundries\" meaning they have access ot a Inhouse Manufacturer and supplier : therefore AMD has a nentire supply chain on their side, while Intel has to sub contract other companies ot make their CPU designs.\n\n\nsorta 3: AMD has played in the back foot of the market for many years, this meant they had the time and incentive to massively invest in R & D ot try ot get ahead.(this is important because Intel still uses an arch from 2012)\n\n4? : They own Radeon technologies and all their patents allowing them ot integrate GPU Tech in their own designs.",
"Fundamentally: \n\nthey had the talent. Founders were engineers. \n\nThey found the capital to conduct the research. A founder was the CFO of Fairchild semi. \n\nThey made a product free from legal patents that competed with intel. \n\nThey undercut intel everywhere they can. \n\nThey filed lawsuits against the big players for having back room deals with intel. \n\nThey out sourced their fab facilities to cut costs, but it’s not working as expected. \n\nThey bought a brand much like it, ATI also outsourced their fab. \n\n\nTLDR. \nThey had a product that someone would buy and they used anti-monopoly law suits to break up sole source contracts then undercuts intel prices."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[]
] | ||
3pzfo7 | how did they keep people alive when they were in a coma back before they could tube feed people. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3pzfo7/eli5_how_did_they_keep_people_alive_when_they/ | {
"a_id": [
"cwarlvj"
],
"score": [
22
],
"text": [
"[Here's](_URL_0_) a reddit thread from /r/AskHistorians about the subject. \nIt implies that they mostly starved to death or died of dehydration. \nBut pushing food through the butt might have been used."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2plh4q"
]
] | ||
2q05hg | is kim jong-un really that bad? | for us americans and europeans he is subject to a lot of ridicule, but to be honest I don't even know what he actually does, or what position he occupies. he has a negative image, but why is that? is our opinion of him distorted by the media? or is he actually evil? or incompetent? as opposed to other korean leaders for example.
also I don't even know if they like him in korea. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2q05hg/eli5_is_kim_jongun_really_that_bad/ | {
"a_id": [
"cn1lmnw",
"cn1lu8x",
"cn1mtp0",
"cn1my88"
],
"score": [
4,
3,
3,
18
],
"text": [
"He probably has no real power and does what he’s told by older guys.",
"I'm guessing you haven't heard about the concentration camps?",
"To be a tyrant you must be a murderer, so I'd say yeah. What's more he was educated in the west, so he knows the truth but doesn't care.",
"North Korea under the Kim dynasty (of which Kim Jong Un is the third member, following his father Kim Jong Il and his grandfather Kim Il Sung) is a totalitarian and Stalinist type of government in which everything is under government control. There is no freedom of speech of any kind - all education, books, radio broadcasts, etc., are under complete political control by the regime. Nobody is allowed to express any opinion without the approval of the regime. Anybody can be arrested and tortured and/or killed for any reason. There is no independent judiciary. Millions of people are in concentration camps as political prisoners, and when people are arrested for any reason all of their immediate relatives are also arrested and face the same punishment; guilt is hereditary. The Kim dynasty has unlimited power and must not only be obeyed, but worshiped by the population. People were arrested for not crying when Kim Jong Il died. There is mass starvation throughout North Korea but money is diverted to military spending rather than food (something Chairman Mao used to do in China, as well, causing millions of unnecessary deaths). The people of North Korea receive constant lies from their government. For example, the US has been sending in food aid which the population are told is a form of tribute resulting from America's defeat by North Korea. This year, Kim Jong Un promised to launch a nuclear attack against the US. (Ironically enough, he considers this perfectly acceptable yet considers it to be an act of war that someone makes a satirical movie about North Korea.) Agents of North Korea have kidnapped people from other countries and taken them to North Korea. North Korea has attacked South Korean ships on several occasions. North Korea has counterfeited large amounts of US currency and engages actively in drug smuggling; in general, the government acts like an international gang of criminals. It is hard to imagine a more insane government than that of North Korea. So yes, Kim Jong Un really is that bad. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[]
] | |
9hp0jx | what determines the "grade" of fish and whether or not it meets the standards to be used for raw sushi in a restaurant? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9hp0jx/eli5_what_determines_the_grade_of_fish_and/ | {
"a_id": [
"e6dku6b",
"e6dma61",
"e6dr7tl",
"e6drtcn",
"e6dv2vg",
"e6dx81o",
"e6dxwuu",
"e6dytaf",
"e6e0czp",
"e6e0pwt",
"e6e1wjn",
"e6e2ad9",
"e6e6hpf",
"e6e6pjm",
"e6eboen",
"e6et74t",
"e6evc96",
"e6f27nk"
],
"score": [
338,
67,
3613,
33,
3,
22,
16,
15,
4591,
2,
7,
3,
2,
10,
4,
3,
10,
2
],
"text": [
"I could be wrong but I believe that sushi grade fish has to be held below a certain freezing temperature for a certain length of time to make sure that parasites are killed and that it's safe to eat raw.\n\nEdit: Found a great serious eats article about it:\n_URL_0_\n\nSo the article states that \"sushi grade\" is just marketing, but the FDA does have guidelines for fish that are to be eaten raw which specify keeping fish super frozen for a certain length of time to kill parasites.",
"I've seen a documentary on farmed tuna, if I remember correctly they grade tuna on its fattyness and whether or not they used ground fish or industrial feed",
"According to US regulations, fish that spawn in fresh water must be frozen for a period of time in order to reduce parasite risk (eg salmon for a period of 48hrs). Tuna does not need to be frozen, you could slice that thing up for sashimi right after you caught it if you want. \n\nSource: am a sushi chef. \n",
"Technically it doesn't mean anything because it isn't legally enforced, but generally means the fish was frozen below a certain temperature and ideally it's a nice piece of fish. Regardless of where you buy you always want to visually inspect for freshness and inquire about how it was stored prior to your purchase. If you can't trust your source, I wouldn't make sushi out of it ",
"Any fish that's parasite free is generally accepted as sushi or sashimi grade fish. It could either be done through freezer it to -20c for 7 days or visual inspection. \n\nI personally don't trust visual inspection on the fish like salmon and yellowtail during the summer season. But I'm fine with anything smaller than a snapper. ",
"Funny thing about that actually.\n\nYou know what fish is sushi grade fish? Whatever the restaurant deems is sushi grade fish.\n\nI think there’s a usda requirement for fish being frozen once to kill parasites though I’m not positive on that, however the name “sushi grade fish” only comes about because someone thought of it as a marketing ploy. It has no specifically defined meaning by the usda like choice select or anything else does.\n\nIt’s kinda like how both “low-fat” and “reduced fat” have exact definitions to follow, but “less fat” or “lower in fat” doesn’t mean anything on the box.\n\nOr how organic, organically produced, ad made with organic materials are all different levels of how much in a product comes from organic sources but “made from organic farms” or anything not specifically labeled under the standards can be 0% organic and still claim to be “produced in organic environments” or something like that.",
"In Japan, fresh fish is commonly sold as 刺し身用 (i.e. “for sashimi”), indicating that it is fresher and is a cut suited to being eaten that way (there is also fish sold labelled for different preparation methods - from memory “なべ用” “for hot pots” or “煮物用” “for simmered dishes”).\n\nThis is not, AFAIK, a term of science or regulation, but advice/a recommendation from the retailer to the purchaser. In Japan, where customers tend to trust their fishmonger/supermarket, this is taken seriously.\n\nI suspect that this concept carried through into the “sushi grade” idea. It’s a kind of “take it from us, we’re only bringing you the freshest and very best” message, particularly important with raw fish of course...",
"In Japan, they sell sushi in some restaraunts from fish that were caught minutes/hours ago. Especially in Ginza, which is where the fish auctions happen and if you go early enough at around 5AM you can enjoy fresh sushi made from incredibly fresh fish!",
"Well I caught this one way to late so this will be buried but here ya go. I was chef of a very large expensive Manhattan restaurant for several years. I am speaking specifically of tuna. The fish is graded by the wholesaler who buys the fish at auction or by contract at wholesale markets. There is no legal definition BUT we pay higher price for higher grade tuna. It is graded on size, texture, fat content (by appearance), and color. Now believe me, if my wholesaler sells me grade A tuna that isn't up to my sushi chef standards he is gonna hear about it and I'm gonna replace him before the end of the business day. Everyone is working off of professional reputation and any breakdown along the way, whether by fishmonger, chef, or wholesaler will be very detrimental to business. Grade B tuna isn't any less fresh and A grade isn't any safer",
"There's no governing body in US that defines what that stuff means. It's all marketing. Laws regarding whether and which fish need to be frozen in order to be consumed raw, varies state to state. \n\nGenerally speaking, anything you eat in a sushi restaurant has been frozen, either to kill parasites, preserve for shipment, or both. The highest quality stuff is frozen using special \"proton\" freezers, which freeze the product very quickly while preserving the cell structure. You can kill parasites by throwing the fish in your home freezer, but it won't have the same texture as something that was proton frozen.\n\nThe super high quality stuff is processed and frozen right on the boat, as soon as it's pulled out of the water. The really cheap stuff, which you should not be consuming raw, is simply thrown on ice and can be days or even weeks old before the boat comes back to port, where the fish is processed and finally frozen.\n\n\n\nAll of the added measures to freeze optimally and early increase the cost, of course, which is why a pound of \"sushi grade\" salmon costs a lot more than the frozen filets you can buy at Sam's Club.",
"For Tuna\nQuality is graded via fat in the meat and color. A core sample is then taken and it must be a solid reddish clear color and consistent throughout the core sample.",
"We pull parasitic worms from sushi grade fish. We joked it was used for our off menu “Tremor Roll”.",
"Sushi \"grade\" doesn't exist and it's been spread around for some reason to the point I hear it all the time. US FDA doesn't regulate it as much as beef or pork so \"grading\" fish like you would a beef is just silly.\n\nAll fish caught in the sea must be frozen on the boat to kill parasites. The best way to look for the best fish raw is if the fish doesn't smell. If it smells even a tiny bit fishy from where you're standing, it's better you cook it.\n\nThe fish you eat at your sushi restaurant and the fish you buy at your Japanese/Korean supermarket probably come from the same fish market/supplier.\n\nSource: former sushi chef",
"If you watch the \"documentary\" *Jiro dreams of sushi* on Netflix there's a short segment about their trips to the local fish market.\n\nDifferent \"grades\" of tuna are based on fat content/marbling (distribution of fat through the tissue). Fatty tuna has different flavor from lean tuna, similar to how a fattier piece of beef has different flavor than an ultra lean piece.\n\nAgain, if you're interested in sushi I'd really recommend the movie, and even some episodes of *Chef's Table* discuss sushi and fish in general.",
"As mentioned many times here - there is no such thing as \"Sushi Grade.\" That's just marketing. The real issue is potential parasites and many others have good and detailed posts already discussing those ins-and-outs. But I'm posting because there are lots of references to freezing \"at a certain temperature\" for \"a certain amount of time\" but I didn't see anyone say what those times and temps were exactly. \n\n & #x200B;\n\nThe actual USFDA regs on parasite mitigation are basically: You can either flash-freeze at minus 36 degrees F (or below) for at least 24 hours OR minus 4 degrees F (or below) for 7 days. That doesn't apply to all fish obviously, and mitigation probably isn't as important if you really know and trust your fish market or local monger and where they source, how they freeze, etc. But if you don't know the source and you just want to be sure, keep in mind that some consumer/residential style refrigerators don't go down to -4, and even those that do are not set that low by default. So make sure you get it to -4 as your standard freezer temp (0 deg F) will not cut it. ",
"Fish mongers inspect the catch, they look at to see how beat up the fish is, how fat it is in certain parts. How firm meat is before recommending it for sushi. Their are no government rules on the subject. It's up to the fish longer and the the sushi chef has to feel like it's worth serving, because nothing like bad fish to kill your business.",
"In the USA, the FDA requires you to freeze fish meant for raw consumption at \"−35 °C (−31 °F) for 15 hours, or at −20 °C (−4 °F) for 7 days.\" That's what \"sashimi grade\" means in the USA.\n\n_URL_0_\n\nThe EU has similar regulations.\n\nInterestingly, restaurants/grocers aren't required to do the freezing if they contact the FDA in advance with an \"alternative approach\" to destroying parasites in raw fish. Likely this is meant as a loophole for restaurants preparing lutkefisk and other technically \"raw\" fish products that are made sterile by saponification.\n\nNations that don't do this and serve a lot of sushi (Japan) have relatively high incidences of parasitic infections from fish. While extremely practiced sushi chefs can usually tell when a cut of fish has parasitic eggs or worms in it, the cheap sushi takeaway or 7-11 sushi is not prepared by extremely practiced sushi chefs... which is why most countries require you to freeze the fish and kill any potential parasites first.",
"This is really two different questions. The grade of the fish is sorta like the grade of steak. Just better grades fish for what qualities they are looing for (like fat) determine grade. \n\nSushi Grade pretty much means nothing. There isn’t any legal definition of what that means. But for a piece of fish to be deemed safe to eat raw one of two things need to happen. It either needs to be the type of fish (like tuna) that doesn’t carry parasites. These you can safely eat raw when it’s “fresh,” meaning not frozen. Or if it is a type of fish that has parasites that are harmful to humans, like salmon, it either needs to be flash frozen to a low enough temperature, or over a long enough period of time to kill those parasites. \n\nA lot of times when chefs serve Sushi Grade fish and say “fresh” as in never frozen a lot of times that’s complete bullshit. Even high grade Ahi is frozen. I think Mitsubishi has like tons and tons of Ahi in a warehouse frozen to combat future price increases. I honestly think it’s very very rare you would ever get actual fresh (never frozen) fish at a sushi spot in America. Most shit needs to be shipped frozen anyways and lots of species need to be frozen first to be safe."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://www.seriouseats.com/2017/05/how-to-prepare-raw-fish-at-home-sushi-sashimi-food-safety.html"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.fda.gov/downloads/Food/GuidanceRegulation/UCM252393.pdf"
],
[]
] | ||
23ihrx | why do people develop malware? also, what exactly did the headbleed bug want to accomplish? what kind of people do this, is it a job? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/23ihrx/eli5_why_do_people_develop_malware_also_what/ | {
"a_id": [
"cgxbng1",
"cgxbpw2",
"cgxjuud"
],
"score": [
10,
6,
2
],
"text": [
"The heartbleed bug wasn't deliberately in the code, program code is incredibly long and is basically a book written in another language, sometimes these books have translational errors and need to be patched up - if that makes sense. The longer the book, the more errors you might find, so computer security is a bit of an oxymoron, malware is a program specifically designed to either exploit security flaws like the heartbleed vulnerability, or designed to exploit users directly by mining information stored on the hard disk, to destroying data and disrupting communications. As for why they develop it, theres a lot of money in credit card theft, as well as in espionage - although government agencies and other organisations dealing in sensitive data are among the most difficult to disrupt with such programs.",
"Malware is both used to scam people into paying money and to get access to personal information like passwords or anything that can be used to get money. Creating viruses is typically done as a sport to screw people over.\n\nThe heartbleed bug was an unintended bug that happened as a side-effect of someone working to improve OpenSSL. It has nothing to do with malware. OpenSSL is used to encrypt traffic on the internet like the communication between your PC and a website (server) you use.",
"The heartbleed bug was not put in the code maliciously, nor was it discovered by anyone malicious. It was discovered and reported by security researchers,who also submitted a fix. We don't know if there was anyone that had discovered it and didn't tell anyone, because it had remained unknown for so long.\n \nIt allowed the attacker to read up to 64 kilobytes of memory from the target computer, which is extremely serious because it may contain crypto keys or other information that should not be public. If you are using OpenSSL you should already have upgraded to the latest version."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] | ||
c1infv | why do printers make so much noise before and after actually producing a document? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c1infv/eli5_why_do_printers_make_so_much_noise_before/ | {
"a_id": [
"erdhi1e",
"ere0tza"
],
"score": [
27,
3
],
"text": [
"Howdy there, printer technician here.\n\nThere are several parts in the machine that get \"synced up\" before pulling the paper through.\n\nIt's easy to get deep in the weeds on the types of printers and how they work, but the most common method is by using a laser to draw the image on a spinning tube, the toner attaches to that drum as it spins, and then the paper is pulled past the spinning drum and through a heated roller that melts the toner into the paper.\n\nSo, before the paper even gets picked up the machine has to\n\n1. Spin the hexagonal mirror that the laser bounces off of to write to the drum--this is the initial high pitched whine you hear\n2. Clean any leftover toner from the last print off of the drum--this part usually sounds more \"rumbly\"\n3. Move new toner to the drum to be put on the next page\n4. Make sure the heated roller is up to the exact temperature to melt the toner without burning the paper--most machines have ceramic heating elements that take a few seconds to warm up\n\n...and on top of all that, there are anywhere from 4-10 ventilation fans that all turn on to make sure the above processes don't get too warm.",
"For inkjet as well they like to purge a little bit of ink if it hasn't been used in a while, it's a lengthy and noisy processes that wastes some of your precious ink, but it protects your printhead and makes sure your prints come out properly."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] | ||
59bu80 | why does the warm, humid air of a shower "open up" my sinuses, yet the cold, dry winter air also "opens up" my sinuses. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/59bu80/eli5_why_does_the_warm_humid_air_of_a_shower_open/ | {
"a_id": [
"d979zbi",
"d97a3xw",
"d97ll1s"
],
"score": [
226,
4,
110
],
"text": [
"They both work in different ways. The humidity of the shower wets the mucus that coats your sinuses, allowing it to flow better and making it less viscous. The cold dry air stimulates the flow of mucus, a normal physiologic response to prevent nasal dryness. The cold air can also constrict blood vessels in your nasal cavity, which has the effect of expanding the interior nasal airway and bringing down tissue swelling.",
"I have no explanation I just wanted to say I know what you mean - and I think it depends on where you live/your body. I don't think these other posters quite understood. \n\nWhere I live we have cold, very cold dry winters and the cold air always makes my nose run. Not just me, everyone I know - you go outside in -40c, you're gonna get a runny nose. It's just something we deal with. \n\nHot showers also are known to make many people's noses run. I do know what you are talking about, it is not because of allergies or mold/dust - there is some other explanation but I have no idea what. Perhaps it is also more pronounced in certain people dealing with those conditions?",
"Your nose is a tube, with an inflatable inner lining, filled with butter.\n\nAt room temperature it's clogged.\n\nIf you heat it up, the butter melts and flows out - it's open!\n\nIf you cool it down, the inflatable lining loses pressure as the air gets denser, expanding the passage - it's open!"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] | ||
2tuqnd | how is the mass of individual protons and neutrons converted into energy when a nucleus is formed? | I read about binding energy and the famous E=mc^2 formula. But how exactly does this work?
I apologize for any English mistakes I made, it is not my native language. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2tuqnd/eli5_how_is_the_mass_of_individual_protons_and/ | {
"a_id": [
"co2ho1u",
"co2k75r"
],
"score": [
2,
2
],
"text": [
"You sure you want this to be an ELI5 post ? I'd suggest you post the same on r/askscience ",
"Imagine dropping a rock form 2 m up on your foot. It is going to hurt quite a bit. But dropping it from a few inches, not so much. The rock is the same in both cases, it just has more energy when you hold it up high.\n\nProtons and neutrons work the same way. Running around free, they are in a higher energy configuration, but in a nucleus, they are in a lower energy configuration.\n\n"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] | |
3x47b2 | the lhc might have found a new particle but how does it find new particles by slamming 2 protons into each other? | Shouldn't the particles be visible without bombarding protons together? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3x47b2/eli5_the_lhc_might_have_found_a_new_particle_but/ | {
"a_id": [
"cy1cx4z",
"cy1e00u"
],
"score": [
2,
5
],
"text": [
"This is going to sound like a horrible analogy but imagine you have a bunch of clocks, and you want to know what's inside them. You could theoretically dismantle them, but what if you don't have the tools to do that? You could smash one apart and look at the bits and pieces that come out, that'd give you a reasonable idea about what they're made from.\n\nThis is when the analogy breaks down - when you smash these particles apart they break down into a whole mess of different particles, but given the energies involved some might combine together to form something new, others don't like existing in their new form and decay into others, possibly even producing yet more new types of particles as they do.\n\nThe LHC instruments very carefully monitor what goes on at the moment of impact so they can look for traces of these different particles, and going through the data the scientists identify everything they understand and know about, but occasionally like recently there's something they just can't quite explain based on their current understanding.",
"Our universe is composed of fields. All physical quantities are disturbances in these fields, bumps, and each field has one or a couple different fundamental particles associated with them, such as quarks, photons, electrons, bosons... These ripples can interact with several fields at once. For example, all particles with mass interact with the Higgs field, sort of like the wake of a boat. So some physical quantities are the sum of these interacting ripples, such as protons and neutrons.\n\nSo the \"stuff\" you are made of is actually a bunch of ripples, like waves, in some overlapping, interacting fields, that exist everywhere in all directions.\n\nIf you want to observe an obscure field, you need to create a ripple in it. \nWe manage to stir up disturbances in these hard to observe fields because matter and energy are interchangeable. While you can't accelerate mass to the speed of light, you can increase it's momentum. When two highly energetic particles slam into each other, that energy has to go somewhere, and it disperses into the other fields. Get energetic enough, and you get your observable disturbance - a particle of some type associated with that field. If you're lucky, it might just be energetic enough to stick around long enough to measure it. As the energy bleeds off, it goes into other fields, which looks like sub-atomic particles! So these massive, energetic particles decay into particles of other fields they interact with.\n\nSo it's not like all these other particles are sitting inside a proton; the proton interacts with a whole bunch of fields like a boat leaving a wake. In this case, even the boat is itself a wake... If you can concentrate enough energy into one place, you can create a ripple big enough in one of these obscure fields to actually see it."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] | |
1o1pox | why is the cockpit of an airplane not completely separate from the passenger area? | Having a completely seperate entrance and steel between pilots and passengers seems like a great way to eliminate hijacking. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1o1pox/eli5_why_is_the_cockpit_of_an_airplane_not/ | {
"a_id": [
"cco1i69",
"cco1jdc",
"cco1kul",
"cco20sn"
],
"score": [
2,
4,
2,
3
],
"text": [
"when was the last hijacking of a commercial plane? On commercial flights the cockpit door is basically impossible to open from the outside and the pilots have strict protocol about not opening it regardless of the situation inside the passenger areas. \n\nI also suspect that every entrance you make on a jet creates more air resistance and structural vulnerability. \n\nedit: as /u/rexandor mentioned, price is an issue since it'd be super expensive to replace the current fleets. ",
"The vast majority of hijackings in history aren't about crashing the plane, 9/11 was a fairly rare event. Most hijackers just end up pulling a DB Cooper or something similar - using the people on board more or less as hostages to try and secure passage to somewhere, money or something.\n\nThe hostage ploy works just as well outside the cockpit, just tell the steward to inform the pilots they're now flying to Cuba or passengers will start dying. It's just as convincing as it would be to bust in personally really.\n\nAdditionally it'd do nothing to stop what most people really fear from terrorists on a plane - bombs. Even if the cockpit was made of pure mithril and survived anything, a cockpit without a functioning plane around it isn't going to come in for a safe landing.\n\nOn top of all that: who wants to pay for retrofits? Not the aviation industry for one.",
"There are probably a few logical reasons for this that I can think of.\n\n* Hijacking is not a big enough concern to impose the following inconveniences:\n* Pressurizing and engineering a shared space is easier.\n* Added weight is added fuel which is added cost.\n* Being served food and face to face communication with staff is easier.\n* Boarding is more efficient with a shared entry.\n",
"Most commercial aircraft have a lifespan of 20-30 years or more & it can take 5-10 years to design, test and begin production of a new model. 9/11 was only 12 years ago. Even if the industry decided on the day after 9/11 to design an aircraft with a separate cockpit, they would just be starting to enter service with 90% of the planes in the air with connected cockpits.\n\nThat's all working under the assumption that a 9/11 style hijacking is a concern that an entire industry needs to base its policies around. Given that commercial airlines have been running for about 100 years, with thousands of flights in the air every day, and we've only lost 4 planes to a 9/11-style attack, it isn't that big of a concern.\n\nIf you're really worried about making travel safer, you'd require ignition interlocks on cars to stop drunk drivers. More than 3 times as many people die *every year* (around 10,000) as died in the one time incident on 9/11 (3000). Automobile accidents in general are about 300,000 deaths in the US every year.\n\nTerrorism is big and scary because it's not common. The fact is that, even at its worst, it isn't really anything to worry about. It sure as fuck doesn't justify the costs of a decade of war (and the 100,000+ deaths that have resulted from it)."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[]
] | |
a9d3id | how 60fps works on a 144hz monitor | According to quick calculations in my head, for a 144Hz monitor to display 60 fps, each frame would have to run for 2.4 "cycles" of the monitor, which to my understanding wouldn't be possible (only changes on whole digit "cycles", 144 of which happen per second)
Do I have some kind of fundamental misunderstanding of this?!? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a9d3id/eli5_how_60fps_works_on_a_144hz_monitor/ | {
"a_id": [
"ecibx99",
"ecic110",
"ecic2x5",
"ecieqab"
],
"score": [
5,
5,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"They are unrelated. The screen is always technically flickering at 144hz no matter what the FPS is. The FPS is from your computer only",
"The fps is the limiting factor. If the GPU pushes a new image 60 times per second, but the monitor is refreshing 144, it will refresh the screen with the same image. When it GPU sends a new one, the monitor will desplay that next refresh, no matter where in the time between monitor refresh the GPU sends it. ",
"Usually its the application you're running that limits frames to 60fps on a 144hz, so in that case you computer is just repeating the frame you see multiple times so that a new frame appears only every 16.7 miliseconds (60 frames per second) even tho your monitor is still showing 144 frames per second, its repeating frames over and over until it needs to show a new frame for you. \n\n\nBasically the monitor always is at 144hz. You are just seeing your software (games, desktop, videos) spit out duplicate frames simulating a frame update every 16.7 ms.\n\n Think of it like how an old timey camera works where they crank it to spin the reel of film to show a bunch of still images flipping showing new images, its a giant looong strip of photos. If you spin it at a certain speed it updates often enough for the illusion of a movie instead of just looking at a bunch of pictures. In the case of a game on your monitor at 144 hz while playing at 60 fps, imagine the reel of film showing the same picture multiple times so that it doesnt change for a long strip of the same photos showing a slower movie even tho the guy cranking the camera is spinning it waay faster (at 144hz \"air quotes\")\n\nAnd then theres g sync and free sync which is a whole nother conversation i am not fully equip to have. \n\nedit: I couldnt figure out a clever metaphor for this like people usually do with ELI5 but i think i summed it up well. Let me know if you dont understand something\n",
"If things are working well, each frame is displayed either 2 or 3 times. If things aren't working right, the frame swap happens while the screen is being redrawn, which causes a form of distortion called 'tearing' as you get half of one frame and half of the next."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[]
] | |
1ube4f | why does my car idle at a higher rpm when its cold? | When I started my car this morning it was -15F and my car was idling at 2,100 rpm then ~10 minutes later when it was warmed up it idled at just under 1,000 rpm. Does the car purposely increase the idle speed to help warm up the engine or is it a mechanical thing that just happens on its own? Its a 1995 honda accord if that helps. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ube4f/eli5_why_does_my_car_idle_at_a_higher_rpm_when/ | {
"a_id": [
"cegd18v",
"cegf0ct",
"cegg3yx",
"ceggb7j",
"ceggcjm"
],
"score": [
7,
2,
41,
9,
2
],
"text": [
" > Does the car purposely increase the idle speed to help warm up the engine\n\nYes. It's called high idle and it is to help warm up the engine. Engines work better and last longer when they have had a chance to warm up before you give them a load (drive the vehicle). \n\nThis is especially important when temperatures are low because the oil can get thick and it won't protect the engine as well as it should. I don't think it's as common anymore, but we used to switch the grade of oil we used, depending on the season. We would use a lighter oil in the winter so that it wouldn't be too think, and we use a thicker oil in the summer. \n\nFrom what I'm seeing, newer vehicles are made to use thin/light oil all the time. \n\n",
"Also, at lower RPM there is more \"time\" between firing, and as the engine is cold and possibly not firing as cleanly as it should (more for old cars) this time is reduced, pulling the chance of a stall down.",
"It's not actually to warm up the engine for the oil, it has to do with combustion. The requirements are fuel (gasoline), air, and a spark - all under pressure in a precise ratio and timing. This process happens ideally at warmer temperatures (the \"operating\" temperature) as this is where the fuel vaporizes naturally.\n\nWhen it's cold, combustion requires much more fuel in the ratio because it does not sufficiently vaporize from liquid gasoline into a gaseous form (liquid gasoline, for the sake of this discussion, does not burn). The problem is, too much fuel through the engine at a low speed bogs down the engine as the unburned liquid fuel will kill the spark and cause it to stall. The RPMs are bumped up to push this fuel out more quickly until a more desirable temperature is attained. Once warm enough, the fuel vaporizes as it should, the computer dials back the fuel mixture (or the carburetor opens the choke) and the RPMs can come down.\n\nSource: 10 ASE certifications and 7 years as a mechanic to get through college diagnosing/repairing smog and computer systems.",
"To everyone saying \"your car is trying to warm itself up\":\n\n1. A car is not sentient. It doesn't \"try\" anything.\n\n2. High idle is definitely for cold starts, but the higher idle speed isn't simply the result of the car \"trying to warm up faster\".\n\nCars used to have carburetors. Now they have fuel injection. Back in the days of carburetors cars had what's called a choke. The choke caused the mixture of air and fuel to have more fuel than it would normally have. Such a mixture is said to be rich. A rich mixture is needed when the engine is cold because the fuel does not evaporate as quickly when it's cold, so more fuel is added to compensate. Modern fuel injected cars don't have a choke, but they also run rich when the engine is cold for the same reasons.\n\nYou may not know this, but liquid gasoline doesn't burn. It's the vapors that burn. Therefore: too cold, not enough vapors. No vapors, no fire. No fire, engine doesn't run.\n\nBut why does it run at a higher speed? A few reasons... When an engine is cold, there is more resistance to overcome. The oil is thicker, the tolerances are tighter (cold things contract), etc. Another reason is that the engine is running very rich. A rich mixture doesn't make nearly as much power or burn as well as a stoichiometric mixture, and if the engine didn't run at a higher speed it would probably stall. (Stoichiometric means part for part. Not lean. Not rich. Just right.) To put it simply: it's to keep the engine from stalling during cold operation.\n\nAnd I suppose a beneficial side effect of all of this is that the engine warms up. But that's not the reason why it runs at a higher idle speed.",
"Before ECU's there was a lever in the car to pull which opened the accelerator a small amount.\n\nThis caused the engine to idle higher & not stall if stopped when cold.\n\nIt was called choke, please take a moment to remember 'the choke'.\n\nUK, where manual is king!"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] | |
3p6nzu | why don't big armies participate the most in un peacekeeping? | Why do countries like Pakistan, Rwanda, and Egypt contribute so many troops to UN Peacekeeping operations instead of America, Russia, or China? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3p6nzu/eli5why_dont_big_armies_participate_the_most_in/ | {
"a_id": [
"cw3n6at"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"UN peacekeeping operations have to be thought of in more terms than just troops. There are 2 main aspects. 1) the initial troop contribution and 2) financing these peacekeepers. Though the US and China do not contribute a lot of physical personnel, they do contribute small groups of officers for training but more importantly large amounts of cash to fund the peacekeepers. \n \n \nAlso keep in mind, nations with more advanced armies are also often those with a domestic population opposed to sending it's own \"children to war\" for matters not directly to the state interest. Nations such as Rwanda or Bangladesh see this as a way for which to increase their international reputation.\n \n \nIn a final note, un peacekeepers get financed well (the troops often get paid more than serving in their own nations services). Thus, developing nations see this as a way to receive extra financing and training for troops which will eventually be returned to them. This bonus does not matter for large military spenders Luke the US. \n\n*edit : also, just to play Devil's advocate, Pakistan and India have large armies and do contribute a lot of peacekeepers. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | |
bn3xk3 | why do some high quality animations and cgi seem more real than real life? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bn3xk3/eli5_why_do_some_high_quality_animations_and_cgi/ | {
"a_id": [
"en21it6"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"To me everything looks a bit blurry. A TV at a certain distance looks fine, if it's HQ I can see every detail I'm meant to. Real Life has depth, which is what changes the angle the light hits your eyes at making it difficult to focus on every detail."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
m5c6e | iridescence | How does it work? Magic? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/m5c6e/eli5_iridescence/ | {
"a_id": [
"c2y9wof",
"c2y9wof"
],
"score": [
3,
3
],
"text": [
"According to Wikipedia, it is often caused by something called thin-film interference. It happens when a transparent material is spread out in a very thin layer (a thin film). A part of the light-waves that hit the material are reflected on the surface, a part goes through and is reflected on the backside.\n\nBut because the material is so thin, the two parts of the light-wave end up going to the same place. But the material is still thick enough to have caused the two waves to become out of sync. So they interfere, which makes colour.\n\nDisclaimer: I am not a physicist, so I might be wrong about some details.",
"According to Wikipedia, it is often caused by something called thin-film interference. It happens when a transparent material is spread out in a very thin layer (a thin film). A part of the light-waves that hit the material are reflected on the surface, a part goes through and is reflected on the backside.\n\nBut because the material is so thin, the two parts of the light-wave end up going to the same place. But the material is still thick enough to have caused the two waves to become out of sync. So they interfere, which makes colour.\n\nDisclaimer: I am not a physicist, so I might be wrong about some details."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] | |
al7c2v | what happens to alcholic products like wine or whisky when they are 'aged' and what is the point in doing so? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/al7c2v/eli5_what_happens_to_alcholic_products_like_wine/ | {
"a_id": [
"efbgd0m",
"efbhg34",
"efbpk48",
"efd112b"
],
"score": [
33,
2,
25,
6
],
"text": [
"Basically to add flavor and mellow the alcohol. Once the distillation process is done you have a clear alcohol, think moonshine or everclear. Once it's put into the barrels the alcohol is absorbed into the wood, circulating in and out of the wood. During this process it picks up flavors and color from the wood. This helps mellow the flavor. The longer it's aged and more flavors are imparted to the alcohol. This is why younger whiskies are lighter and \"harsher\" than older, generally darker ones. Same process for wine as well.",
"It deals with organic chemistry,\n\n1. The liquid extracts complex wood components from the oak barrels;\n\n\n2. Oxidation of extracted wood components and constituents originally present in the liquid;, and\n\n\n3. Cross-reactions between various organic substances already present in the liquid, which leads to the formation of new and additional congeners\n\n\n",
"I'll also just add that liquor stops aging once it's bottled. So if you have a bottle of 10 year old Scotch and save it for 5 years, it doesn't become a 15yr Scotch, it's still only been \"aged\" for 10 years.",
"There's a big difference between the aging or maturation of fermented only products like wine/beer/mead and a fermented-then-distilled product such as whiskey/rum/vodka/etc. \n\nwith a fermented only product like wine or beer, a lot more organic compounds are present in the finished product. varying levels of acidity, bitter tannins, and unique flavors (based on the grape type, grain, hops, or what have you) are involved which react and rebalance with age, very depenent on their environmental temperature, humidity, and light exposure. so aging of this type of product will have an effect (but not always a good one, many wines/beers deteriorate with age after a certain point).\n\ndistilled products begin with the complexity of a fermented product, but most of the complex compounds are removed during distillation. what remains is mostly water, alcohols, and some of the heavier flavoring compounds that evaporated during the last portion of the process (read about heads/heart/tails for more info on the process). The high concentration of alcohol and the relatively less-complex mixture of compounds results in a very stable product, which does not really change as drastically with age. 'aged' spirits are actually ones which have been flavored by a barrel that has been charred or absorbed flavorings (or just with a pleasant wood) and the real change that occurs is evaporation and flavor additive from the container. aged spirits are more expensive partially due to the time it takes, but mostly due to the loss of volume they incur from evaporation (see angels' share). a 15-year charred-oak bourbon barrel can lose a good 2/3 of its volume over that time, which is a huge loss and requires some incentive (usually higher pricepoint) to offset.\n\nsoo TL;DR: wine is able to age itself in the bottle, but hard liquor only 'ages' in flavored barrels or with infusions. liquor on the shelf does not age noticably."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[]
] | ||
6rcfmz | how exactly do digital currencies work? where do they derive their value? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6rcfmz/eli5_how_exactly_do_digital_currencies_work_where/ | {
"a_id": [
"dl3y8zd",
"dl4a0m8"
],
"score": [
9,
2
],
"text": [
"Digital currencies have value for the same reason other currencies do: because people believe they have value and are willing to trade stuff for them. If someone is willing to trade a pizza for whatever currency you have, be it bitcoins, dollars, or cowry shells, then it has value. If they don't, it doesn't.",
"The first thing to look at is one of the most widespread digital currencies that you would never think of as a digital currency: dollars, or euros, pounds, yen, yuan, etc. Take your pick; I'll use dollars.\n\nDollars in a bank account are a digital currency. They're just a number in an account. The owner of that account can make the number in someone else's account go up by making their number go down. That transfers value because the number has value. \n\nMake no mistake in considering that statement: it is the number that has value. That number could just as easily have been printed on a piece of cotton/linen \"paper\" or stamped into a copper nickel disc of metal. Those have value because of the number on them.\n\nSo why do dollars have value? For the same reason anything has value: utility and scarcity. Anything with both utility and scarcity will have a value.\n\nThe scarcity of dollars comes from the monetary policy enacted by the Federal Reserve. People trust that the Fed won't go off and pull a Zimbabwe, printing quintillions if dollars. The utility comes from the fact that dollars allow people to do business without resorting to barter. It also comes from the facts that the US government requires taxes to be paid in Dollars, and any debt paid in Dollars will be acknowledged as paid by the US court system (hence the printing \"this note is legal tender...\").\n\nCryptocurrencies, which I assume you're referring to when you say digital currencies, also derive their value from scarcity and utility. Their model for scarcity is stronger than the Fed's: there's a finite number that can ever be made for some cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, or for others there's a predetermined inflation rate. This can be seen in the openly viewable and universally followed rules for any cryptocurrency. \n\nFor utility cryptocurrencies can't rely on things like a nation collecting taxes in that currency or treating it as legal tender, but they do have the same use as a medium of exchange. They allow people to move numbers in accounts similar to a bank. Cryptocurrencies allow a person to send money around the world very quickly and cheaply, often beating out competition like Western Union in every way that matters. \n\nAnother big place where cryptocurrencies differentiate themselves from national currencies is in anonymity, privacy, and control. Some governments have tried to lock down their nation's currency, freezing balances in banks or halting withdrawals and foreign currency exchange. Many governments have used banks as a means to pry into the lives of their citizens. Cryptocurrencies make that difficult or impossible, which makes them often favorable to a national currency. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] | ||
5tg7ua | can a person who breaks their neck (say from a hanging), have a chance to still be alive, just end up paralyzed from the neck down? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5tg7ua/eli5_can_a_person_who_breaks_their_neck_say_from/ | {
"a_id": [
"ddmad8y",
"ddmbmpn"
],
"score": [
2,
8
],
"text": [
"Hanging will still kill by strangulation in a few minutes - in fact, that was originally how it was done. You'd tie the noose around the hangee's neck, and then pull on the rope to raise them off the ground. Dropping them was a relatively recent development.\n\nI am not aware of any cases where the drop breaks someone's neck and also wasn't strong enough to cause catastrophic damage to the spinal column - the spine is MUCH stronger than the spinal column. Lots of people have been cut down mid hanging, but their problems were strangulation or a crushed throat.\n\nTrivia: [William Brodie](_URL_0_) is said to have worn an iron neck brace and stuck a silver tube down his throat to survive a hanging. It didn't work.",
"Just gonna leave this here: \n\n**National Suicide Prevention Lifeline**\n\n_URL_0_ "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Brodie#Capture_and_trial"
],
[
"https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/"
]
] | ||
5nxhh4 | above all things, what makes children so susceptible to ear infections? | I used to get them quite regularly as a child... But nothing in nearly 15+ years. I guess children might have a developing immune system, but ear infections seem oddly skewed towards the young. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5nxhh4/eli5_above_all_things_what_makes_children_so/ | {
"a_id": [
"dcf01x3"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"It's more about anatomy than immunity; plus, as we get older, we learn to clear our sinuses, making them less likely to drain into the middle ear, which is the usual site of infection; the middle ear is close to horizontal in infancy and childhood, making it fairly easy for mucous and fluids to accumulate there. Once there is fluid, the Eustachian tubes can get clogged up; they would normally drain into the throat. Babies also can get \"backwash\" if they are put to bed with a bottle; the fluid that accumulates in their mouths can get into the middle ear (and can sit in their mouths and cause tooth decay, but that's another issue).\n\nAs humans mature, the \"drainage system\" in the middle ear gets more efficient, and infection becomes less likely.\n\nIt's really best to look at some anatomical drawings to completely understand this. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | |
5wx67m | is it possible for a nuclear bomb to ignite the atmosphere on fire? if not, why did physicists think it was possible? if so, how? | I've heard multiple times through the years that scientists working on the Manhattan Project were legitimately concerned the first atomic bombs could destroy the world by lighting the atmosphere on fire.
Obviously it never happened, so is it still a legitimate concern that a freak occurrence like this could happen? If not, why did they think it was a possibility back then? If so, how exactly do they expect it could happen? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5wx67m/eli5_is_it_possible_for_a_nuclear_bomb_to_ignite/ | {
"a_id": [
"dedhezs",
"dedlfzj"
],
"score": [
3,
2
],
"text": [
" > Obviously it never happened, so is it still a legitimate concern that a freak occurrence like this could happen?\n\nNo, the idea was sparked by the realization of nuclear fusion of hydrogen. The ocean or perhaps even the atmosphere might set off a self-propagating fusion reaction. Of course it can't but they needed to run the math to know that, and doing so wasn't the easiest of things so the idea could be kicked around a bit before being dismissed.",
"It was a legitimate concern when at the time they had no observable data or previous detonations to learn from, they only had theories on how the Atomic reaction would take place and how much energy it would release. \n\n "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] | |
67agep | why will the usps leave $600 worth of car seats on my porch but i need to be present and sign for a $30 world of warcraft toy? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/67agep/eli5_why_will_the_usps_leave_600_worth_of_car/ | {
"a_id": [
"dgovprn",
"dgovuml",
"dgox86i",
"dgoxl46"
],
"score": [
2,
8,
55,
7
],
"text": [
"Isn't it depending on the shipper? You pay extra to have a signature delivery. ",
"That fully depends on the shipper. They request if they want to be delivered only in the case of a signature.",
"It has nothing to do with what you ordered, it's all about how the shipper sent it. They may have paid for a signature, they may request it not be safe dropped at the receivers door without them being home, they also may say they want it left at the door even if nobody's home. \n\nIt all depends on the seller requested.\n\nSource: am a mailman",
"What would you rather steal, a bulky car seat you might be able to get $100 for at a pawn shop? Or an easy to grab toy you will have no trouble selling on eBay?\n\nYour vendor knows this too, and often have to replace items that were lost in transit. If something gets stolen or is claimed to have been stolen too often, they will require the shipper to get a signature."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[]
] | ||
1i363n | why are construction areas on streets often left unworked and repaired for weeks on end with machinery still sitting there, blocking things? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1i363n/eli5_why_are_construction_areas_on_streets_often/ | {
"a_id": [
"cb0jqzq",
"cb0lorw",
"cb0lwj8"
],
"score": [
6,
3,
3
],
"text": [
"Sometimes it has to do with the surveys, If the crew finds a utility they weren't told about they can't do much till it gets re-surveyed and marked. It could also be a contract dispute, if the city is using outside contractors, that company might have other contracts besides the city one to fulfill. If they work is in an area with lots of clay and it rains work will stop till it dries out. There are tons of possible reasons. ",
"There are lots of possible reasons. They may range from inclement weather, to the discovery of an unforeseen utility, right of way or geotech issue; to something entirely political; and (rarely) even to disputes between conractors and clients, or contractors and designers, or any of the other parties involved (and there are a LOT of parties involved in the construction of even a simple stretch of road).\n\nIt costs an awful lot of money and planning to mobilize a construction site so often it's more efficient to try to resolve the issues without too badly affecting the construction schedule than it would be to re-open the construction site temporarily. \n\nSometimes there is a public involvement issue as well - in that the public has been informed for months (or even years) about when the stretch of road will close - and re-opening it at random just because construction can't progress for some reason would be much more confusing than it's worth. Trying to reclose it quickly after the issues are resolved would be even more confusion.\n\nAlthough it seems chaotic and frustrating, there's actually an incredibly large amount of thought that goes into the closure of areas of street. Design engineers have to figure out everything down to the tiniest details - things like where to divert the traffic and whether that route needs to be improved first to handle the extra volume, what order to sequence contruction \"packages\" in to best effect, where to position concrete medians for safety, how to keep routes available for emergency workers, police, fire and hospitals; how to alter traffic volumes by shifting light patterns etc etc. What looks like an annoyance to the average motorist is usually a very efficient and careful plan to get the needed work done while minimizing the impacts to motorists, businesses, utilities like electric and sewer, pedestrians, emergency crews, the community and the environment.\n\n(source: I work for a large engineering infrastructure firm.)\n\n",
"Other redditors have listed some detailed, accurate, well thought out answers, and I do not disagree with them.\n\nBut sometimes it is just laziness and greed.\n\nAfter a very small local road project (originally projected to take 2 months) had gone on for 10 months and the contractor told the city it needed more money and submitted an engineering report explaining why it was \"impossible\" for the project to be completed in less than 4 more months our city called in another company who completed the project, to specifications, over a 4 day weekend, for less than the original estimate."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] | ||
lr4nm | why i hate waking up but some people love mornings | Seriously. It's infuriating. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/lr4nm/eli5_why_i_hate_waking_up_but_some_people_love/ | {
"a_id": [
"c2uxfaj",
"c2uxp5i",
"c2uxxan",
"c2v0ygq",
"c2uxfaj",
"c2uxp5i",
"c2uxxan",
"c2v0ygq"
],
"score": [
16,
3,
2,
2,
16,
3,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Some people love mornings because they're fucking insane.",
"I think people like the idea of getting a ton of stuff done before 3/4 of the country has even gotten out of bed. I know that on the days I was forced to get up early (when I didn't have a morning job), I could do like 2 days worth of chores, come home, and make breakfast by 8am. I feel like I have twice as many hours in the day.\n\nThat said, fuck mornings. ",
"I started waking up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed in the mornings after I balanced my diet with more fresh food and less meat and started drinking more water and almost no tea or soda.",
"Possibly because you skip breakfast. If you start eating at lunch, your body thinks lunchtime is morning and it would explain why you feel so shitty all morning.",
"Some people love mornings because they're fucking insane.",
"I think people like the idea of getting a ton of stuff done before 3/4 of the country has even gotten out of bed. I know that on the days I was forced to get up early (when I didn't have a morning job), I could do like 2 days worth of chores, come home, and make breakfast by 8am. I feel like I have twice as many hours in the day.\n\nThat said, fuck mornings. ",
"I started waking up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed in the mornings after I balanced my diet with more fresh food and less meat and started drinking more water and almost no tea or soda.",
"Possibly because you skip breakfast. If you start eating at lunch, your body thinks lunchtime is morning and it would explain why you feel so shitty all morning."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] | |
4sqgcx | why aren't tornados a threat to destroy major cities or nuclear facilities in the midwestern us? | Wikipedia says tornadoes are more common in the US than any other countries. There have been some devastating tornado outbreaks in the past 10 years that have left hundreds of people destroyed and have caused billions of dollars in property damage. Yet I haven't heard anyone raise concern about what would happen if a tornado hit a big city in the Midwest's "tornado alley" like Chicago. I also haven't heard concern about the possibility of a tornado hitting a nuclear power plant in the region. I'm guessing there is a reason I'm not aware of why this threat isn't talked about more... namely that there's some scientific reason why this isn't likely to occur. Can anyone help me out? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4sqgcx/eli5_why_arent_tornados_a_threat_to_destroy_major/ | {
"a_id": [
"d5bcfkg",
"d5bdwu0",
"d5bdyku",
"d5bf4hs",
"d5bk2fz"
],
"score": [
6,
4,
5,
49,
2
],
"text": [
"There was a close call near Chicago, at [Braidwood](_URL_0_).\n\n > Braidwood was built to take a direct hit from a tornado. It has concrete walls as thick as a refrigerator, reinforced by steel bars the size of your arm. The nuclear plant is rated to withstand 300 mph winds. But for a time, it was right in the path of a ferocious twister.",
"You will probably hear a lot of urban legends like \"city heat keeps tornados away\" or \"tornadoes don't do between rivers\" or other pseudoscientific bullshit. Ignore people like that. \n\nThe reason is this: dense urban areas make up a very, very small percentage of the land. Tornadoes are powerful, but small, so they affect a small amount of space. So the odds of a tornado hitting a city are very remote. Kind of like how you don't hear about meteorites hitting cities -- there is a lot of land on earth, and almost none of it is occupied by cities. ",
"Tornados are mostly in certain areas of the US, otherwise known as Tornado Alley:\n_URL_0_\n\nYou'll notice that there aren't that many large cities in that area of the country. A large percentage is country and small towns. On top of that, tornados cover a relatively small area when they do happen, so it is particularly bad luck and somewhat rare for them to go through a city, which cover a very small percentage of land, particularly in the Midwest. \n\nI grew up near Joplin, Missouri which had a horrible tornado hit it a few years ago. It was disastrous because it went through the most populous and busiest part of the town. So just really bad luck. If it had traveled a half mile differently, very few would have been effected. ",
"I'm a nuclear engineer at a Midwest plant. \n\nTornados are part of the design basis and are extensively addressed by the related sections of chapter 2 and 3 of the plant's final safety analysis report. \n\nAnything that is not behind a hardened missile resistant enclosure is considered damaged or destroyed by a tornado. So when we consider what types of accidents the plant could have to deal with, for weather related we assume all that stuff is destroyed, and if, using just the systems that have missile shields, we can bring the reactor to a safe shutdown state, then the design of the plant is considered acceptable. \n\nTypical tornado analysis for a Midwest plant looks at an F5 tornado throwing a telephone pole at 230 mph, or lifting a VW bus/van at something like 90-95 mph. \n\nThe most likely hazard of tornados is losing the connection to the power grid. Loss of Offsite power is typically one of the dominant accident precursors, as it means you lose most or all of your non safety systems, and become reliant on your diesel driven pumps and generators for emergency core cooling. This is an undesirable state for the plant and with multiple successive failures can lead to a station blackout or extended loss of AC power ( SBO and ELAP respectively). \n\nSBO is an event lasting 4 hours or less, ELAP is an event which can be indefinitely long. SBO requires a loss of the diesel generators or some other electrical fault that knocks out all primary and emergency AC power. The goal is to get the power grid or an emergency generator back. If the plant transitions to ELAP, then the FLEX (post Fukushima) equipment is used to keep the plant stable for at least 24 hours, until portable generators and pumps are air lifted to the site from one of the two SAFER centers in the US. long term cooling is then by using the SAFER and FLEX equipment. \n\nFLEX equipment is all in bunkers that are tornado resistant. It's all portable equipment that can be deployed during a SBO to extend the coping time until the large offsite equipment can be delivered. \n\nPlants have been hit by tornados. Davis Besse had one touch down and damage electrical equipment. Browns ferry lost nearly all offsite power connections in 2011. These plants shut down and used emergency power until offsite power was restored. While a natural circulation and isolation cool down is challenging for the operators, it's a scenario we are trained on and the plant is designed to deal with. \n\nIf you have any questions about this stuff please let me know!",
"Hiddencamper talks a lot about the nuclear sites. I can tell you after having lived in Oklahoma for my whole young life that it IS talked about. You seem concerned only with big cities, but people are in danger regardless of how many neighbors they have. If anything, the storms are stronger *because* there are fewer structures to absorb force. \n \nThe National Weather Service's headquarters is in Norman, OK, and now that I live elsewhere I miss the pinpoint accurate forecasts I used to enjoy when predicting weather was more than just about preventing nuisance. When I was young they didn't have nearly the ability they do now to accurately predict the path of a storm and provide enough warning to the right people. There's a lot of your federal tax dollars that have gone into that prediction ability.\n \nSo, you have your 5 minutes warning to get into a safe spot in the house. These days, it's more about getting grandfathered structures brought up to modern code so those safe spots are more than the hallway header or the bathtub. The thing is, the only way you can build against EF5 tornadoes is reinforced concrete poured walls, and that's just an expensive way to build a house. Frankly, the average person in Oklahoma could afford nothing else after paying for that house. So, you can build a [concrete closet with a steel door with multiple deadbolts](_URL_0_) (just some random google image I found) which will save you and your family and let insurance take care of the rest. Anything more than that, and you're better off financially just paying your premiums and rolling the dice, unless there's stuff that you can't live without that you just can't replace. In that case, move someplace where there aren't disasters. Oh wait, there aren't any.\n \nIn 1999, [a monstrous tornado hit Moore, OK](_URL_1_) that killed dozens and destroyed hundreds of buildings, including brand new commercial buildings. You can read on the Wiki about the aftermath, but I saw firsthand how new construction had safe rooms integrated into the house from the foundation up. The changes are happening, but it will take a state with a weak government like Oklahoma a long time to enact any sort of standards. They like their freedom there, and one of the things that comes with freedom is risk."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://abc7chicago.com/news/braidwood-nuclear-plant-nearly-hit-by-tornado-/801857/"
],
[],
[
"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/43/Tornado_Alley_Diagram.svg/2000px-Tornado_Alley_Diagram.svg.png"
],
[],
[
"http://www.rhinovault.com/SAFEROOMDOORS.htm",
"https://en.w... | |
5ki4ar | in terms of feeling satiated, do our bodies treat calories in liquid form the same way as calories in solid form? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5ki4ar/eli5_in_terms_of_feeling_satiated_do_our_bodies/ | {
"a_id": [
"dbo6emk",
"dbobht0"
],
"score": [
3,
3
],
"text": [
"Calories themselves are neither liquid nor solid; they're a unit of measure.\n\nWhat calories measure is the energy stored in a certain amount of matter. A sample of matter contains one calorie if, when burned, the heat energy it releases raises one gram of water by 1°C. That said, measuring the calorie content of samples isn't always as simple as lighting it on fire, whether solid or liquid. Sill, however complicated the method of measuring the calorie content of a sample, the result is always in the same units. 1 calorie = ∆ +1°C. (\"∆\" or \"Delta\" means \"a change of.\")\n\nSince we usually use calories to talk about foods, it's worth mentioning here the difference between \"calories\" and \"Calories.\" The scientific term for a thousand calories is, \"kilocalorie.\" That's a perfectly acceptable word in scientific discussion, but for reasons of simplicity (and arguably for advertising purposes), most non-scientific discussion of this topic (and most food labeling, at least in the United States) uses the capitalized \"Calorie\" to mean \"kilocalorie.\"\n\nSince the matter that contains all the calories we ingest comes in the form of food and drink, it's all handled by our digestive system. Eventually, everything we ingest is turned into liquid (or almost-liquid) in the stomach, then is absorbed by the body via the small intestine. From there, the body's various chemical processes extract the vitamins and other nutrients to nourish the body's cells. At the same time, other chemical processes convert energy-releasing matter to sugars or ketones for immediate use, or to fat for storage. The rest is evacuated from the body as waste.",
"ajblue98's answer on calories was very good. As for satiety, remember that calories are not the only things that make us satiated. It depends on many other things: how much that food stretches our digestive tract (specially stomach streching sends signals to the brain that make us feel full); in what form the calories are—Different types of food also trigger different signals in your body, e.g. Fat triggers the release of **cholecystokinin** by the small intestine which makes you feel full; and how fast those calories are absorbed than turned into glucose (which stimulates insulin release. Insulin also decreases hunger). These are just a few examples on the many factors that involve satiety."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] | |
1xjkwz | why do new games/services always launch with under powered servers? | In the past year I have had to sit through the SimCity launch and Nintendo's failure with releasing Pokemon bank. Why do publishers always start off with under powered severs? Is it a business move or just that they don't know how many people want their product? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1xjkwz/eli5_why_do_new_gamesservices_always_launch_with/ | {
"a_id": [
"cfbwrdm"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
"Its a cost issue.\n\nIf you buy servers for 100,000 People and you only get 80,000 you just wasted 20,000 people worth of servers... and got fired.\n\nOn the other hand, if you buy for 80,000 and actually need 100,000 then you go out and buy another 20,000 and laugh all the way to the bank."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | |
3gj06v | why do cops always get paid administrative leave after abusing their power instead of being fired? | With all the recent commotion of Police abusing their power against minorities, when caught, why don't they get fired? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3gj06v/eli5_why_do_cops_always_get_paid_administrative/ | {
"a_id": [
"ctykfcy",
"ctykguh",
"ctykozp",
"ctykqq0",
"ctykxh9",
"ctym3y1",
"ctyn6p5",
"ctyp9dp"
],
"score": [
21,
115,
7,
47,
8,
2,
19,
2
],
"text": [
"they are put on leave while under investigation, unlike the general public, some have the good sense to do a little digging before grabbing the noose.\n\nUltimately, when the decision is made, the punishment will be handed out.",
"Paid administrative leave isn't their punishment. It's just a tool to allow an investigation to commence without them potentially interfering in that investigation, or even possibly making things worse for themselves or for the organization by their continued actions. It's basically, \"Stay out of the way until we figure out what the actual facts are.\"\n\n*After* the internal investigation, they may be punished (including being fired) depending on what was discovered.",
"The Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prevents the government from taking someone's property without \"due process of law.\" Courts have held that people have a property interest in their jobs, so if you work for the government, you can't be punished with the loss of your job or salary until after some kind of formal adjudication. ",
"They don't.\n\nThey get paid administrative leave while being *investigated* for abuse. Due process, and all that.\n\nOnce the investigation is completed, they are subject to real punishment.",
"\"Abusing their power\" is the operative phrase here. Basically, what you're asking is considered a moot question because the assumption it builds on is false. Since cops don't always get paid administrative leave after abusing their power instead of being fired, no one can really explain to you \"why\" that is. It doesn't happen.",
"Because they're not guilty of anything until it's gone to trial. You can't fire someone for nothing.",
"I'll let /u/thatsnotminesir explain it [better](_URL_0_)\n\nThe myth I see the most of reddit is that when officers get in trouble, they just get \"paid vacation.\"\n\nWhen an accusation of misconduct comes up, especially criminal misconduct, the officer is placed on Administrative Leave with pay. This is NOT the punishment. This is to get them off the streets while the investigation is being conducted, while at the same time, not punishing them (financially at least) until the accusations are investigated and proven. \n\nWhen an accusation of Police Misconduct is investigated, there are TWO separate investigations. One is an Administrative Investigation, the other is a Criminal Investigation. They have to be separate because of Garrity\n\nGarrity is like the evil twin of Miranda for government employees, mostly police. After the Garrity admonitions are read to us, we MUST answer all questions, and MUST answer them truthfully. If we refuse to answer, or lie, we can be fired just for lying or refusing to answer.\n\nThat completely violates our 5th Amendment Right against self incrimination. Because of that, nothing said after Garrity can be used against us in criminal court. It can only be used in administrative actions against our employment.\n\nTherefore, two separate investigations are conducted. An Administrative Investigation where they read us Garrity, and a Criminal Investigation where they read us Miranda. Nothing found in the administrative investigation can be used against us in the criminal, but things found in the criminal CAN be used against us in the administrative. So the criminal is usually done first, then the administrative afterwards. \n\nBecause the administrative is usually done after the criminal, that's why it often takes time for the firing to happen, because the firing won't happen until after the Administrative. While that seem strange to the lamen, if the Administrative was done first, and officer could say \"Yeah I stole the money\" under Garrity and it couldn't be used against him in court. But if the criminal is done first, and he says \"Yeah I stole the money\" after miranda, it can be used to prosecute him AND to fire him. \n\nOnce the two investigations are complete, THEN the punishment is handed down if the charges are sustained. Media articles don't always follow up on the case, so all people read in papers is \"officer got in trouble, is on paid leave.\" Administrative Leave is just the beginning, not the end of the story. \n\nEven then, the Administrative Leave isn't fun. The take your badge and gun and you are basically on house arrest between the hours of 8am and 5pm on weekdays. You cannot leave your home without permission of your superiors, even it its just to go down the street to the bank or grocery store. You must be available to come into the office immediately at any time for questioning, polygraphs, or anything else involved in the investigation. Drink a beer? That's consuming alcohol on duty, you're fired. So even when officers are cleared of the charges and put back on the street, Admin. Leave still isn't \"paid vacation.\" \n\nEDIT: I did not realize the wiki explained garrity, but gave such a poor example of the admonitions, leading to some confusion. Here is a much better example. \n\nEDIT:#2 I changed the Garrity wiki link because the wiki had a very poor example of the warnings, which led to a lot of confusion. Plus the change has a lot of links to more information on garrity for those wanting to learn more about it. Here's the original wiki for those who wonder what I changed. \n\n",
"Innocent until proven guilty.\n\nThey have to conduct an investigation first and they put the cop on paid leave so he/she won't interfere with it and to just be safe."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.reddit.com/r/ProtectAndServe/comments/1s01lr/z/cdslvma"
],
[]
] | |
jbgcc | the message/meaning of fight club | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/jbgcc/eli5_the_messagemeaning_of_fight_club/ | {
"a_id": [
"c2aq8qc",
"c2aq996",
"c2aqa28",
"c2aqjrs",
"c2aqniu",
"c2argye",
"c2ari77",
"c2arp5l",
"c2as4s5",
"c2asm06",
"c2asohg",
"c2atbnr",
"c2atdsj",
"c2atdyi",
"c2aut3q",
"c2aq8qc",
"c2aq996",
"c2aqa28",
"c2aqjrs",
"c2aqniu",
"c2argye",
"c2ari77",
"c2arp5l",
"c2as4s5",
"c2asm06",
"c2asohg",
"c2atbnr",
"c2atdsj",
"c2atdyi",
"c2aut3q"
],
"score": [
8,
13,
113,
2,
60,
8,
7,
17,
16,
4,
2,
2,
7,
5,
3,
8,
13,
113,
2,
60,
8,
7,
17,
16,
4,
2,
2,
7,
5,
3
],
"text": [
" I assume any message gotten from it will depend on the person interpreting. What you probably meant to ask is what the authors intended message was, which i doubt anyone can say for sure.\n\nMine. Tyler was the id who was right initially, but went to far, as was bound to happen given his nature.\n\nA lot of people (those proud non conformists!) probably in response to the popularity of Tyler's philosophy (so to speak) among fans have taken the fact that he went too far to mean that he was wrong all the way. I imagine there is also that twinge of satisfaction (usually seen among conspiracy theorists too, hmm) they get from feeling that they have figured out something others haven't.\n\nI say that is a failure to identify nuances. The things you own *can* end up owning you, as pithy as it sounds. A visceral experience like being in a fight *can* shake you up. A lot of people *are* numb.\n\nThat is just me.",
"A brain tumor is best cured by gunshot.",
"The main message of the film is laid out to you right at the start with the warning message you expect to be about piracy but then turns out to be this: _URL_0_",
"In my opinion, the message and meaning are best summed up with a few key Tyler lines. \"Let the chips fall where they may.\" \"LET GO.\"",
"Personal interpretation: It's about social alienation and consumerism. Essentially, Ed Norton's character is living the modern American dream. He has a nice office job that probably pays alright. He's got a nice apartment and can fill it with all kinds of *stuff* to make him happy. All he needs is a wife and to keep moving up the corporate ladder. \n\nBut he's not happy with this at all. His parents told him, go to college, get a job, get married, but he doesn't sense any deeper meaning to it. He hates his job and doesn't want a relationship just for the sake of having a relationship. He starts losing sleep and feels hallow. He knows his life is \"good\" and has nothing to complain about so he starts attending the support groups to pretend that he has a reason to feel as miserable as he does. It lets him cry and have sympathy from people, which he wouldn't normally get. \n\nWhen Marla shows up, it exposes his lies back to him. He knows that she knows his secret and he can't let himself go emotionally any more. This is when he invents Tyler. Tyler is everything he can't be. He's the guy who truly doesn't give a fuck. Tyler wants to get into fights just to see what's it's like. He doesn't care about perfection and to Ed Norton, this is a kind of freedom. He has to be able to beat the shit out of himself and destroy everything he owns to be like Tyler. He has to give up everything in order to feel free of the weight of the world. \n\nBasically, to me, it's about the disillusionment of adult consumer life and a fear of wasting one's life. ",
"Fight Club was about the current generation of humankind, specifically males, and how we're being driven into complacency and just how wrong that is.\n\nIt touches base on numerous themes, like all of Palahniuk's work, but it is mostly about Man's dismissal of modern consumerism and, eventually, all of society.\n\nTyler represents subconsciousness manifested, and \"Jack\" represents all of Man. The act of fighting is Mankind meeting itself for the first time, experiencing (once again--like generations before) just what it means to be man and how easy it can be to lose sense of that visceral nature.\n\nSo the story is about mankind losing itself in society and culture, but finding itself in its own destruction.",
"People are animals and have the need to act like animals. Today, though, acting like an animal (by doing things like fighting) is thought to be bad. if you don't let people do these things for a really long time, they'll get really sad and bored, and when they finally do get a chance to act that way they can get carried away and do really bad things while thinking that they're good things. It might be a good idea to let people act enough like animals that they won't need to get carried away.",
"You're far too young to be watching fight club. Would you like me to put on some Sesame Street?",
"There are many ideas in Fight Club, but I think most central is the dividing effect of civilization on men, which causes them to turn against themselves.\n\nIn essence, men become split into their domesticated half (Narrator) and their suppressed animal half (Durden). However, neither is capable of living effectively on their own, and both hate women (one by ignoring them, and one by using them as sex objects, both represented by their connection to Marla). The Narrator is powerless over his own life, while Durden is powerless over himself and his destructive nature.\n\nThen comes catharthis and re-integration: the Narrator accepts responsibility for who he is, and he becomes interested in a genuine relationship with Marla. He has let go of both his misguided desire to be an uber-male (he's had the power all along; \"the gun is in my hand\"), and his fear of death, through ritualistic human sacrifice of himself. He becomes a whole person again, man as he was meant to be: eternally incomplete, eternally imperfect, but in control of himself and unafraid.\n\nTo put it another way, by the end of the film, \"nothing was solved, but nothing mattered\". (There are also strong Buddhist undertones throughout the film, which is a separate discussion.)",
"On top of the consumerism message the movie is also (IMO) speaking about masculinity. There is a part where Tyler complains \"We're a generation raised by women.\" He is lamenting how feminized modern society is and that brute strength and the ability to fight don't count for much these days. Notice how everyone in project mayhem was a dude?",
"A 5 year old wouldn't understand any of the explanations given with all the 'big' words... come on ELI5. ",
"There are better ways to be happy than buying furniture and having lots of condiments. Living that way will just drive you mad.",
"This is a tall order because fight club is a very adult movie with many complicated themes, but this is my best shot. spoilers (obviously) within. This is part 1 of my answer.\n\nThis is the story about a man (let's call him Jack, even though we never find out his real name) who has a job where that makes him travel a lot and see the results of terrible car accidents. He works for a car company and it's his job to figure out if the car accident happened because the cars are made badly. Even if the car is made badly, if a lot of people don't know about it or ask for money from the car company, the car company doesn't stop making the car. So, in a way, Jack's job is to help the car company to keep making cars that are made badly and that hurt people. So, not only does Jack have to see a lot of terrible car accidents every day, but he is a little bit responsible for all those accidents.\n\nAs you can imagine, this job could be very upsetting, but Jack doesn't seem that upset. Instead, he is very tired and unhappy because he can't sleep. I think Jack really is upset but that he's trying to hide it. Adults call this *repression*. Many people who have seen bad things but repress remembering them have problems that don't seem related to the bad things. In this story, I think Jack has trouble sleeping because he is repressing the stress from seeing all these horrible car accidents.\n\nJack also spends a lot of time talking about how nice his apartment is and how his job let's him buy really nice things. I think this is another sign of repression. Instead of thinking about how messy and sad the car accidents are, Jack can go home and look at how nice and clean his apartment is. \n\nJack tries to see a doctor to get some medicine to help him sleep but the doctor doesn't seem to believe him. Some people make-believe being sick to get certain medicines from doctors because the medicines make them feel good. Doctors get nervous about giving these medicines to people because, if you take too much to too often, you can't feel good without them. Adults call this *dependence*. In the movie, Jack's doctor might be worried that Jack will become dependent on medicine to help him sleep. Instead, he tells Jack to visit a group of people who are really sick and who meet up with each other to talk about being sick. Even though talking doesn't fix them from being sick sometimes talking still makes them feel better.\n\nJack goes to this group and pretends that, like the other people there, he is very sick with something called *cancer*. Cancer is a very scary kind if sick because even though it doesn't happen to a lot of people, anyone can get it, even kids. It can also make people really sick and a lot of people die from it. There are some things that people do, like smoking, that make you more likely to get cancer. That's why adults usually say that smoking is bad. They don't want kids to smoke because they don't want them to get cancer later.\n\nJack is surprised to find out that when he goes to these meetings and pretends to be really sick, he starts to sleep again. He starts to go to meetings, where people are sick with different things, every night. remember how the doctor is afraid Jack might become dependent on medicine to sleep? Well, now Jack is dependent on these meetings to sleep.\n\nMost adults think that pretending to be sick when you are not is wrong. People try to be really nice to people with cancer because cancer is so scary. If you can imagine a doctor who only has ten minutes to spend with two sick people, and one person is really sick while the other person is pretending, you can see why it's wrong. It's not fair for the person who isn't sick to get attention from the doctor, and steal that time away from the person who is really sick. So Jack is doing a bad thing by going to these meetings.\n\nAfter a while, Jack starts to notice a lady at these meetings who is doing the same thing he is doing. She is also pretending to be sick. Jack doesn't know why she is there, but since he has noticed her, he has stopped being able to sleep. Eventually he gets mad and talks to her about it, and they make a deal to split the meetings. Jack is hoping that if he doesn't see the lady again (her name is Marla), that he can get back to sleep.\n\nOne day, Jack is flying home from a trip to see another car accident and he meets a strange man on the plane. This man is named Tyler and the two men become friends. When Jack gets home he finds out that his apartment has been blown up by an explosion! Remember how I thought Jack was using his clean and nice apartment to help him repress all the sad and messy things he sees at the car accidents? Now his apartment is sad and messy too, so Jack is very upset. He doesn't know a lot of people, but he remembers making friends with Tyler, and he decides to call him on the phone. Tyler and Jack decide to meet at a bar to talk. \n\nWhile they are talking Tyler tells Jack that nice things don't really matter, and says that Jack can be his roommate. When they are leaving the bar, Tyler asks Jack to punch him. This seems really weird because most people don't like to be hurt or to hurt other people. Tyler says he has never been in a fight before but he wants to see what it is like. The two start fighting with each other and even though it hurts, they decide it is actually fun. \n\nJack moves in with Tyler and they keep fighting outside the bar. Other men at the bar become interested in it and they start fighting too. This is where the name of the movie comes from because they start a \"fight club.\" Jack likes the fighting so much that he stops pr going to the meetings and pretending to be sick.\n\nWhen people like to hurt other people, adults call it *sadism*. When people like to hurt themselves, adults call it *masochism*. It seems strange that men would like to be in a club that is all about fighting, because it seems like they are acting *sadistic* (they are hurting the person they are fighting) and *masochistic* (they decide to fight, even though they know they will probably be hurt in a fight). In the movie, though, the men like to fight. A lot of adults are not sure about this part of the movie, and they argue about it, but here is what I think.\n",
"This is a tall order because fight club is a very adult movie with many complicated themes, but this is my best shot. spoilers (obviously) within. This is part 2 of my answer.\n\nThe men in the fight club don't have a lot of money and feel sad, like Jack when he couldn't sleep. They don't really like their jobs or their apartments or the way the world works. They feel like their teachers, and their parents promised them that they were important but they don't really feel important. Instead they feel weak and sad and bored most of the time. Remember how Jack had a really pretty apartment with nice things that seemed good, but that he was actually repressing the sad things? The men in the fight club like fighting because, even though they hurt other people and they get hurt, they finally feel important and strong. \n\nThe fight club starts getting more and more popular and fight clubs start to form in other cities around the country. Tyler starts to become more and more popular and acts like a leader. He gives out homework assignments to the men in the fight club to help recruit people. Tyler tries to convince people that expensive apartments and nice things are outside things and are not really important. Instead, he says that what is important is what makes each person *feel* important. This idea, that everyone decides for themselves what is important and there is no single set of rules is called *nihilism.*\n\nIn one part of the movie, Tyler threatens to kill a stranger with a gun. The man is very scared and upset and he doesn't want to die. The stranger, like many of the men in the fight club doesn't have a lot of money and has a job that isn't very fun. Tyler asks him, when he was a kid, what kind of a job he he wanted to do when he grew up. He said he wanted to be a doctor for animals. Adults call these doctors *veterinarians* or \"vets\". When Tyler asks him why he has a job that isn't very fun instead of being a veterinarian, the man said it was too hard. Tyler says that, unless the man becomes a veterinarian he will kill him and let's the man go. A lot of adults like this scene a lot. \n\nThe kind of job you have is very important, because that's what you do every day. He said he wanted to be a veterinarian, probably because he really liked animals and wanted to take care of them. Instead of becoming a veterinarian though, he was doing a job he didn't like very much because he said it was too hard. Do you see why this might make someone sad? \n\nA lot of adults end up doing jobs they don't like and are sad because of it, but repress it. This is like Jack repressing the sad parts of his job. This is also like the men in the fight club who also have jobs they don't like very much. Tyler thinks that all these men have given up on the things they really wanted to do, like the man who wanted to become a veterinarian. The people in fight club start to quit their jobs and make money by making soap with Jack and Tyler. Tyler likes soap because it was originally made from ashes of the bodies of people who had died and been lit on fire. He says that everyone will eventually die and that's why nihilism is so important. Tyler thinks you have to do what you think is really important before you die because it's your only chance.\n\nRemember Marla from the beginning of the movie? Well, while this is going on Marla calls Jack and says she is going to kill herself. This is called *suicide*. Jack doesn't like marla very much and thinks that she is pretending to be suicidal for attention. He ignores her, but Tyler goes to save her. Marla and Tyler like each other and start to have sex with each other (sex is something adults do with each other to feel good, but it is very complicated and needs some time to explain well). \n\nJack is a little angry that Tyler and Marla are having sex. It's hard to tell if he's angry because Jack wants to have sex with Marla or if it's because Marla gets to have sex with Tyler, and he doesn't get to spend as much time with Tyler. It's probably important for you to know that men can have sex with each other, and a lot of people think that Jack wants to have sex with Tyler but the movie doesn't make it clear. \n\nThen Tyler disappears. Jack is very upset. A lot of people have joined the fight club and they all seem to be working together to spread the ideas of Tyler and they are ignoring Jack. At one point a friend of Jack's who is in the fight club dies while trying to spread Tyler's ideas. Jack gets scared and doesn't want anyone else to die. He tries to stop the fight club but it's too big now and Jack can't stop it. It's a little bit like Mickey Mouse in the [Sorcerer's Apprentice](_URL_0_). \n\nHe starts flying around the country looking for Tyler but he can't find him. He starts to lose track of time and get really confused. Eventually Jack calls Marla and finds out that he is actually Tyler. Most people who watch the movie did not expect this. In movies this is called a *twist ending*. Some people who are under a lot of stress can have something called * disassociated identity disorder*. what this means is that sometimes Jack felt so upset and sad that to cope with it, his identity actually split into two parts. One part was Jack who had the bad job looking at car accidents. The other part was Tyler who hated all the things that made Jack sad and all the things Jack used to repress the sad things. \n\nSo when Jack and Tyler fought each other, it was really Jack fighting himself. When Tyler was starting fight club and acting like a leader, it was really Jack the whole time. This fits with the story of the movie very well because, Jack is just like the man who wanted to be a veterinarian but had given up on it before Tyler helped him. Jack also needed some help to quit his job that made him so upset and to find out what was really important to him. But instead of Tyler coming from outside to help him, Jack's brain invented tyler from the inside. Remember how nihilism says that what's really important is inside?\n\nAt the end of the movie though, Jack finds out that Tyler is planning on blowing up a bunch of buildings to get rid of every american's debt. *debt* is the amount of money a person owes. Tyler thinks that a lot of people have jobs they don't like because they need money to pay their debt. He hopes that destroying debt will help the people to do the jobs they want to do and be happier. \n\nJack thinks the Tyler part of him has gone too far and shoots himself to destroy the Tyler part of him. It works, but it's too late to stop Tyler's plan and the movie ends with Marla and Jack watching the explosions and the buildings falling. \n\n",
"Guys, whats the first rule? Come on now.",
" I assume any message gotten from it will depend on the person interpreting. What you probably meant to ask is what the authors intended message was, which i doubt anyone can say for sure.\n\nMine. Tyler was the id who was right initially, but went to far, as was bound to happen given his nature.\n\nA lot of people (those proud non conformists!) probably in response to the popularity of Tyler's philosophy (so to speak) among fans have taken the fact that he went too far to mean that he was wrong all the way. I imagine there is also that twinge of satisfaction (usually seen among conspiracy theorists too, hmm) they get from feeling that they have figured out something others haven't.\n\nI say that is a failure to identify nuances. The things you own *can* end up owning you, as pithy as it sounds. A visceral experience like being in a fight *can* shake you up. A lot of people *are* numb.\n\nThat is just me.",
"A brain tumor is best cured by gunshot.",
"The main message of the film is laid out to you right at the start with the warning message you expect to be about piracy but then turns out to be this: _URL_0_",
"In my opinion, the message and meaning are best summed up with a few key Tyler lines. \"Let the chips fall where they may.\" \"LET GO.\"",
"Personal interpretation: It's about social alienation and consumerism. Essentially, Ed Norton's character is living the modern American dream. He has a nice office job that probably pays alright. He's got a nice apartment and can fill it with all kinds of *stuff* to make him happy. All he needs is a wife and to keep moving up the corporate ladder. \n\nBut he's not happy with this at all. His parents told him, go to college, get a job, get married, but he doesn't sense any deeper meaning to it. He hates his job and doesn't want a relationship just for the sake of having a relationship. He starts losing sleep and feels hallow. He knows his life is \"good\" and has nothing to complain about so he starts attending the support groups to pretend that he has a reason to feel as miserable as he does. It lets him cry and have sympathy from people, which he wouldn't normally get. \n\nWhen Marla shows up, it exposes his lies back to him. He knows that she knows his secret and he can't let himself go emotionally any more. This is when he invents Tyler. Tyler is everything he can't be. He's the guy who truly doesn't give a fuck. Tyler wants to get into fights just to see what's it's like. He doesn't care about perfection and to Ed Norton, this is a kind of freedom. He has to be able to beat the shit out of himself and destroy everything he owns to be like Tyler. He has to give up everything in order to feel free of the weight of the world. \n\nBasically, to me, it's about the disillusionment of adult consumer life and a fear of wasting one's life. ",
"Fight Club was about the current generation of humankind, specifically males, and how we're being driven into complacency and just how wrong that is.\n\nIt touches base on numerous themes, like all of Palahniuk's work, but it is mostly about Man's dismissal of modern consumerism and, eventually, all of society.\n\nTyler represents subconsciousness manifested, and \"Jack\" represents all of Man. The act of fighting is Mankind meeting itself for the first time, experiencing (once again--like generations before) just what it means to be man and how easy it can be to lose sense of that visceral nature.\n\nSo the story is about mankind losing itself in society and culture, but finding itself in its own destruction.",
"People are animals and have the need to act like animals. Today, though, acting like an animal (by doing things like fighting) is thought to be bad. if you don't let people do these things for a really long time, they'll get really sad and bored, and when they finally do get a chance to act that way they can get carried away and do really bad things while thinking that they're good things. It might be a good idea to let people act enough like animals that they won't need to get carried away.",
"You're far too young to be watching fight club. Would you like me to put on some Sesame Street?",
"There are many ideas in Fight Club, but I think most central is the dividing effect of civilization on men, which causes them to turn against themselves.\n\nIn essence, men become split into their domesticated half (Narrator) and their suppressed animal half (Durden). However, neither is capable of living effectively on their own, and both hate women (one by ignoring them, and one by using them as sex objects, both represented by their connection to Marla). The Narrator is powerless over his own life, while Durden is powerless over himself and his destructive nature.\n\nThen comes catharthis and re-integration: the Narrator accepts responsibility for who he is, and he becomes interested in a genuine relationship with Marla. He has let go of both his misguided desire to be an uber-male (he's had the power all along; \"the gun is in my hand\"), and his fear of death, through ritualistic human sacrifice of himself. He becomes a whole person again, man as he was meant to be: eternally incomplete, eternally imperfect, but in control of himself and unafraid.\n\nTo put it another way, by the end of the film, \"nothing was solved, but nothing mattered\". (There are also strong Buddhist undertones throughout the film, which is a separate discussion.)",
"On top of the consumerism message the movie is also (IMO) speaking about masculinity. There is a part where Tyler complains \"We're a generation raised by women.\" He is lamenting how feminized modern society is and that brute strength and the ability to fight don't count for much these days. Notice how everyone in project mayhem was a dude?",
"A 5 year old wouldn't understand any of the explanations given with all the 'big' words... come on ELI5. ",
"There are better ways to be happy than buying furniture and having lots of condiments. Living that way will just drive you mad.",
"This is a tall order because fight club is a very adult movie with many complicated themes, but this is my best shot. spoilers (obviously) within. This is part 1 of my answer.\n\nThis is the story about a man (let's call him Jack, even though we never find out his real name) who has a job where that makes him travel a lot and see the results of terrible car accidents. He works for a car company and it's his job to figure out if the car accident happened because the cars are made badly. Even if the car is made badly, if a lot of people don't know about it or ask for money from the car company, the car company doesn't stop making the car. So, in a way, Jack's job is to help the car company to keep making cars that are made badly and that hurt people. So, not only does Jack have to see a lot of terrible car accidents every day, but he is a little bit responsible for all those accidents.\n\nAs you can imagine, this job could be very upsetting, but Jack doesn't seem that upset. Instead, he is very tired and unhappy because he can't sleep. I think Jack really is upset but that he's trying to hide it. Adults call this *repression*. Many people who have seen bad things but repress remembering them have problems that don't seem related to the bad things. In this story, I think Jack has trouble sleeping because he is repressing the stress from seeing all these horrible car accidents.\n\nJack also spends a lot of time talking about how nice his apartment is and how his job let's him buy really nice things. I think this is another sign of repression. Instead of thinking about how messy and sad the car accidents are, Jack can go home and look at how nice and clean his apartment is. \n\nJack tries to see a doctor to get some medicine to help him sleep but the doctor doesn't seem to believe him. Some people make-believe being sick to get certain medicines from doctors because the medicines make them feel good. Doctors get nervous about giving these medicines to people because, if you take too much to too often, you can't feel good without them. Adults call this *dependence*. In the movie, Jack's doctor might be worried that Jack will become dependent on medicine to help him sleep. Instead, he tells Jack to visit a group of people who are really sick and who meet up with each other to talk about being sick. Even though talking doesn't fix them from being sick sometimes talking still makes them feel better.\n\nJack goes to this group and pretends that, like the other people there, he is very sick with something called *cancer*. Cancer is a very scary kind if sick because even though it doesn't happen to a lot of people, anyone can get it, even kids. It can also make people really sick and a lot of people die from it. There are some things that people do, like smoking, that make you more likely to get cancer. That's why adults usually say that smoking is bad. They don't want kids to smoke because they don't want them to get cancer later.\n\nJack is surprised to find out that when he goes to these meetings and pretends to be really sick, he starts to sleep again. He starts to go to meetings, where people are sick with different things, every night. remember how the doctor is afraid Jack might become dependent on medicine to sleep? Well, now Jack is dependent on these meetings to sleep.\n\nMost adults think that pretending to be sick when you are not is wrong. People try to be really nice to people with cancer because cancer is so scary. If you can imagine a doctor who only has ten minutes to spend with two sick people, and one person is really sick while the other person is pretending, you can see why it's wrong. It's not fair for the person who isn't sick to get attention from the doctor, and steal that time away from the person who is really sick. So Jack is doing a bad thing by going to these meetings.\n\nAfter a while, Jack starts to notice a lady at these meetings who is doing the same thing he is doing. She is also pretending to be sick. Jack doesn't know why she is there, but since he has noticed her, he has stopped being able to sleep. Eventually he gets mad and talks to her about it, and they make a deal to split the meetings. Jack is hoping that if he doesn't see the lady again (her name is Marla), that he can get back to sleep.\n\nOne day, Jack is flying home from a trip to see another car accident and he meets a strange man on the plane. This man is named Tyler and the two men become friends. When Jack gets home he finds out that his apartment has been blown up by an explosion! Remember how I thought Jack was using his clean and nice apartment to help him repress all the sad and messy things he sees at the car accidents? Now his apartment is sad and messy too, so Jack is very upset. He doesn't know a lot of people, but he remembers making friends with Tyler, and he decides to call him on the phone. Tyler and Jack decide to meet at a bar to talk. \n\nWhile they are talking Tyler tells Jack that nice things don't really matter, and says that Jack can be his roommate. When they are leaving the bar, Tyler asks Jack to punch him. This seems really weird because most people don't like to be hurt or to hurt other people. Tyler says he has never been in a fight before but he wants to see what it is like. The two start fighting with each other and even though it hurts, they decide it is actually fun. \n\nJack moves in with Tyler and they keep fighting outside the bar. Other men at the bar become interested in it and they start fighting too. This is where the name of the movie comes from because they start a \"fight club.\" Jack likes the fighting so much that he stops pr going to the meetings and pretending to be sick.\n\nWhen people like to hurt other people, adults call it *sadism*. When people like to hurt themselves, adults call it *masochism*. It seems strange that men would like to be in a club that is all about fighting, because it seems like they are acting *sadistic* (they are hurting the person they are fighting) and *masochistic* (they decide to fight, even though they know they will probably be hurt in a fight). In the movie, though, the men like to fight. A lot of adults are not sure about this part of the movie, and they argue about it, but here is what I think.\n",
"This is a tall order because fight club is a very adult movie with many complicated themes, but this is my best shot. spoilers (obviously) within. This is part 2 of my answer.\n\nThe men in the fight club don't have a lot of money and feel sad, like Jack when he couldn't sleep. They don't really like their jobs or their apartments or the way the world works. They feel like their teachers, and their parents promised them that they were important but they don't really feel important. Instead they feel weak and sad and bored most of the time. Remember how Jack had a really pretty apartment with nice things that seemed good, but that he was actually repressing the sad things? The men in the fight club like fighting because, even though they hurt other people and they get hurt, they finally feel important and strong. \n\nThe fight club starts getting more and more popular and fight clubs start to form in other cities around the country. Tyler starts to become more and more popular and acts like a leader. He gives out homework assignments to the men in the fight club to help recruit people. Tyler tries to convince people that expensive apartments and nice things are outside things and are not really important. Instead, he says that what is important is what makes each person *feel* important. This idea, that everyone decides for themselves what is important and there is no single set of rules is called *nihilism.*\n\nIn one part of the movie, Tyler threatens to kill a stranger with a gun. The man is very scared and upset and he doesn't want to die. The stranger, like many of the men in the fight club doesn't have a lot of money and has a job that isn't very fun. Tyler asks him, when he was a kid, what kind of a job he he wanted to do when he grew up. He said he wanted to be a doctor for animals. Adults call these doctors *veterinarians* or \"vets\". When Tyler asks him why he has a job that isn't very fun instead of being a veterinarian, the man said it was too hard. Tyler says that, unless the man becomes a veterinarian he will kill him and let's the man go. A lot of adults like this scene a lot. \n\nThe kind of job you have is very important, because that's what you do every day. He said he wanted to be a veterinarian, probably because he really liked animals and wanted to take care of them. Instead of becoming a veterinarian though, he was doing a job he didn't like very much because he said it was too hard. Do you see why this might make someone sad? \n\nA lot of adults end up doing jobs they don't like and are sad because of it, but repress it. This is like Jack repressing the sad parts of his job. This is also like the men in the fight club who also have jobs they don't like very much. Tyler thinks that all these men have given up on the things they really wanted to do, like the man who wanted to become a veterinarian. The people in fight club start to quit their jobs and make money by making soap with Jack and Tyler. Tyler likes soap because it was originally made from ashes of the bodies of people who had died and been lit on fire. He says that everyone will eventually die and that's why nihilism is so important. Tyler thinks you have to do what you think is really important before you die because it's your only chance.\n\nRemember Marla from the beginning of the movie? Well, while this is going on Marla calls Jack and says she is going to kill herself. This is called *suicide*. Jack doesn't like marla very much and thinks that she is pretending to be suicidal for attention. He ignores her, but Tyler goes to save her. Marla and Tyler like each other and start to have sex with each other (sex is something adults do with each other to feel good, but it is very complicated and needs some time to explain well). \n\nJack is a little angry that Tyler and Marla are having sex. It's hard to tell if he's angry because Jack wants to have sex with Marla or if it's because Marla gets to have sex with Tyler, and he doesn't get to spend as much time with Tyler. It's probably important for you to know that men can have sex with each other, and a lot of people think that Jack wants to have sex with Tyler but the movie doesn't make it clear. \n\nThen Tyler disappears. Jack is very upset. A lot of people have joined the fight club and they all seem to be working together to spread the ideas of Tyler and they are ignoring Jack. At one point a friend of Jack's who is in the fight club dies while trying to spread Tyler's ideas. Jack gets scared and doesn't want anyone else to die. He tries to stop the fight club but it's too big now and Jack can't stop it. It's a little bit like Mickey Mouse in the [Sorcerer's Apprentice](_URL_0_). \n\nHe starts flying around the country looking for Tyler but he can't find him. He starts to lose track of time and get really confused. Eventually Jack calls Marla and finds out that he is actually Tyler. Most people who watch the movie did not expect this. In movies this is called a *twist ending*. Some people who are under a lot of stress can have something called * disassociated identity disorder*. what this means is that sometimes Jack felt so upset and sad that to cope with it, his identity actually split into two parts. One part was Jack who had the bad job looking at car accidents. The other part was Tyler who hated all the things that made Jack sad and all the things Jack used to repress the sad things. \n\nSo when Jack and Tyler fought each other, it was really Jack fighting himself. When Tyler was starting fight club and acting like a leader, it was really Jack the whole time. This fits with the story of the movie very well because, Jack is just like the man who wanted to be a veterinarian but had given up on it before Tyler helped him. Jack also needed some help to quit his job that made him so upset and to find out what was really important to him. But instead of Tyler coming from outside to help him, Jack's brain invented tyler from the inside. Remember how nihilism says that what's really important is inside?\n\nAt the end of the movie though, Jack finds out that Tyler is planning on blowing up a bunch of buildings to get rid of every american's debt. *debt* is the amount of money a person owes. Tyler thinks that a lot of people have jobs they don't like because they need money to pay their debt. He hopes that destroying debt will help the people to do the jobs they want to do and be happier. \n\nJack thinks the Tyler part of him has gone too far and shoots himself to destroy the Tyler part of him. It works, but it's too late to stop Tyler's plan and the movie ends with Marla and Jack watching the explosions and the buildings falling. \n\n",
"Guys, whats the first rule? Come on now."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[
"http://cdn.buzznet.com/assets/users16/wtfisnaomi/default/warning-fight-club-intro--large-msg-127890126563.jpg"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XChxLGnIwCU"
],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://cdn.buzznet.com/assets/users1... | ||
332432 | how are signals, such as wifi, generated and detected? | Recently I took an introduction to data communications and networking course. It talked a lot about different protocols and how the signals are supposed to be sent an received from a computer and how a packet works but never about how an actually a signal is sent from one place to another. I read up a little about it and I saw it was using voltages? So How does one router talk with another? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/332432/eli5_how_are_signals_such_as_wifi_generated_and/ | {
"a_id": [
"cqgse39"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"it's a radio signal. it's same as your fm radio. just on smaller scale and different frequency"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | |
2mz2hg | the bono hate | He seems to do a lot of charity and is the lead singer of one of the biggest bands in the world and recent U2 gave away their newest album for free, but everybody just seems to hate him. Why? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2mz2hg/eli5_the_bono_hate/ | {
"a_id": [
"cm8uh04",
"cm8uh47",
"cm8ukvk",
"cm8umpc",
"cm8uput",
"cm8v38l",
"cm8v6zs",
"cm8vwi7",
"cm8wkyd"
],
"score": [
8,
6,
3,
2,
3,
3,
2,
3,
4
],
"text": [
"Bono has an enormous ego. There was a time in the mid-90's when he was acting like he was the second coming of Christ. ",
"It's easy to hate someone you can't relate to.",
"once upon a time U2 were the underdog band - then they became commercial and the biggest sellout of their time",
"For me, it's all summed up in one quote:\n\"Someone has to have the best band in the world job, and it may as well be us.\"",
"\"Gave away their new album for free\" yeah, by forcing it onto everyone's phone.",
"Bono is a douchebag. On the subject of the \"free album\" fiasco, people are mad because it wasn't just *free*, it was forced on them and downloaded to their iPods/iPhones without any option to delete it.",
"I was walking down 8th street and he blew me off when I tried to talk to him. So to hell with him. ",
"I'm not sure anyone actually \"hates\" Bono. I know over the last 10-15 years the word \"hate\" has been redefined to mean \"anything other than love\". The KKK hates muslims, no one really hates Bono. I think people just think Bono's kind of an ass with an overinflated sense of self. \nHe's a singer in an above-average band that does a bunch of charity work. That's a pretty good thing to be, but to hear him tell it he's a cross between all 4 Beatles and the Dalai Lama and Mark Twain. \nI think my Bono aversion started when he introduced Frank Sinatra at the Grammy's in 1994. [It was pretty cringey.](_URL_0_) Bono rambled on so long doing his beat poetry homage to a man that was a legend 15 years before Bono was even born that Frank's acceptance speech got cut short. ",
"Personal the whole giant ego thing is what pisses me off about him. Plus the fact that he does all this charity work, making out he's God's gift to the world, tells everyone to donate money and then goes home to his multimillion pound houses and apartments all over the world. Flying around on private jets, sailing his yachts and driving big fancy cars. Not to mention all the things he will have in those apartments, his clothes, his kids private schools and those God awful sunglasses he always wears. \nYeah, I understand that he has earned a lot of his money, but I earn my money (which isn't even pocket change to him) working a lot harder than he does, and my work actually benefits society. So why should I, or anyone else in the world, give up what little we have to keep him happy and keep his ego inflated? \nTo me he seems more bothered about having the image of being the most charitable man on the planet, than actually being the most charitable man on the planet. \nAt the moment the man has a net worth of around six hundred million dollars.\n\nAlso the fact that he's in a band with a man that calls himself Edge really grinds my gears. I mean, get a fucking grip. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdRk2oo3jRg"
],
[]
] | |
21kb1z | what is a nervous breakdown? what causes one? what does one feel like? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/21kb1z/eli5_what_is_a_nervous_breakdown_what_causes_one/ | {
"a_id": [
"cgdva7h",
"cge175c",
"cge2lvw",
"cge39c9",
"cge63gu"
],
"score": [
30,
14,
2,
3,
2
],
"text": [
" > [Mental breakdown (also known as a nervous breakdown) is a colloquial term for an acute, time-limited psychiatric disorder that manifests primarily as severe stress-induced depression, anxiety or dissociation in a previously functional individual, to the extent that they are no longer able to function on a day-to-day basis until the disorder is resolved. A mental breakdown is defined by its temporary nature, and often closely tied to psychological burnout, severe overwork, sleep deprivation and similar stressors, which combine to temporarily overwhelm an individual with otherwise sound mental faculties.](_URL_0_)\n\nThe key points are:\n\n* It's not a technical term or a diagnosis - it doesn't refer to any one particular thing but rather a general term for somebody that kind of \"snaps\".\n* The person was otherwise \"normal\" and healthy beforehand - they're not \"crazy\" or mentally ill. They'll probably bounce back after it.\n* It interferes with their ability to carry on with normal life. Maybe they just can't get out of bed, maybe they constantly break into tears for no reason, maybe they're just overcome with fear that everything is going to go wrong & they can't stop it.\n* It's generally triggered by some sort of stress - maybe the result of things building up over time (eg - stressful job) or possibly a sudden thing (eg - getting dumped).\n\nTL;DR - sometimes life is too much to deal with & people just can't handle it.",
" > What does one feel like?\n\nMentally and emotionally, you are sort of beside yourself, watching as the mental defense systems in your psyche are systematically torn asunder and the stress of whatever's getting to you steamrolls everything. You're completely exposed. The metaphorical water that cools you has boiled off into hot steam. The metaphorical heatsink has lost its connection to you and can't stave off heat. Your very core has been shaken. The mind is in total chaos and you have no clue what to do. You start sweating, your skin goes white, you start hyperventilating. A miniscule part of you knows what's happening, but is completely powerless, like an ant trying to stave off a tsunami.\n\nYour body does what it knows to do: blood pressure spikes, you start crying like crazy, snot leaks from your nose, you're trembling, you can barely speak correctly. You might even vomit. Your body is under a ton of stress, and it all came from within the ethereal thing inside you known as the conscience. The floodgates have opened, and the only thing left to do is try to survive the onslaught.\n\nAt the end -- if you're lucky -- you'll be free of a lot of stress and have some psychological scarring. The stress is gone, but the memory isn't. You'll spend hours trying to figure out what was wrong with you, what you can do to prevent it from happening again. Your mind hit the \"Oh shit\" button and handed shit off to the body. For once, you understood what it's like to be the body: completely aware of what's going on, but unable to stop it.\n\nIt is Hell itself.",
"Well son, remember that championship little league game when it was the bottom of the sixth inning, bases were loaded, and it was your turn up at bat? Your family was in the stands watching you, all your friends were in the dugout. Your coach walked over to you and said, \"Listen up boy, anyone can do this. It's no big deal. But all these people are watching you and waiting for you to mess up, and you probably will. You've messed up before, and you're going to keep doing it. You may as well quit now before you even try. Stop failing.\" Or at least that's what you heard him say. \n\nStanding on home plate you felt all the pressure and you didn't want to let anyone down, least of all yourself, so you dropped the bat, screamed \"I can't do it, I'm just going to fail,\" and you ran away and crawled into your bed and slept. Because when you sleep, you don't feel things. \n\nThat's the early stages of a nervous breakdown. Your anxiety takes over and you feel powerless to move. Eventually you give up moving altogether, you don't try and you're pretty sure it's going to feel this way forever. ",
"You run out of the ability to processes the incredible despair from seeing no way out of a terrible situation when your anxiety triggers an iteration of extreme distress or \"passing the braking point\" point like losing a job while in debt or something akin to the E.G. ",
"I am a veteran of both Iraq and Afghanistan. Upon completing 4 tours in nearly 8 years I was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), social anxiety, and survivor syndrome, although social anxiety and survivor syndrome both fall under a branch of PTSD. When I returned I declined de-stressing therapy and any medications they wanted to throw me on because of course I felt I knew best and didn't want a \"prescribed lifestyle\" the situations I was placed in I felt that I alone had to take responsibility for. This eventually caught up with me.\n\nThe scary part is ANYTHING can trigger a breakdown or at least a mental/psychotic episode i.e...high stress levels, familiar sights, sounds, smells, the whole vast array of anything. \n\nMy first instance of a breakdown is when I got home and people started asking me about the war and what I had done/where I had been. It didn't bother me at first but then later on it really started to itch at me, especially before I went to sleep, a lot of the times I ended up dreaming about it. One night I had a night terror, woke up screaming, seeing people that had been killed (all psycho-somatic of course) and ended up with me collapsing on the ground. It felt like I couldn't breath, almost like I was having a heart attack, your thoughts are rushing at 1000mph and then ended up vomiting. Next thing I knew I was in a hospital near my home. The next few weeks I would have crying fits, fits of rage, I would have trouble breathing, sleeping, etc etc. There were even a few days where I just physically could not bring myself to talk to anyone. I eventually sought help through MUCH convincing and got over most of it. I was told that the thoughts that sat with me just made themselves more brought to light with people constantly asking me, the lack of sleep and stress of work definitely didn't help either.\n\nA few months later the massive wildfires in Bastrop, TX broke out. I was driving home about 8PM on HWY 183 (Bastrop is just north of where I was). I rolled down my windows to smoke a cigarette not thinking anything about it. I smelled the most awful smell I care to remember. IMMEDIATELY I started shaking, heavy breathing, chest tightening up, and had to pull over, started vomiting again. Thankfully my wife was with me and she called the Texas Highway Patrol (who thankfully too was a veteran and got us assistance almost instantly). I learned then that the smell was the burning flesh (livestock) and wood (paneling of homes), a scent I had gotten all too familiar with in Iraq. I had completely reverted from all the progress I had made from my first bit of de-stressing. Later on I was told that they believed the smells of this fire had triggered another mental response and that they were treating 6 other Iraq veterans for similar symptoms.\n\n**TLDR** Sorry for the book but the only way to know is to have a description of living it..Overall, having mental breakdowns/panic attacks are not fun. It's hard to put into words but they do feel like they cause you physical harm. It's a shortness of breath, heart races, chest tightens up, etc etc...They do impose on your day to day life and are very hard to get over and took me MONTHS of de-stressing therapy to get back to normal. Hope this helped."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_breakdown"
],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] | ||
o6f8b | how can netflix acquire the rights and permission to ship dvds of a movie, but not acquire the rights and permission to instant stream it? | I understand why every movie ever made isn't on Netflix, and I understand why new movies don't immediately appear on Netflix too. What I don't get is why would a distributor of a movie would agree to let Netflix ship out their movie on DVD but not allow them to stream it. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/o6f8b/eli5_how_can_netflix_acquire_the_rights_and/ | {
"a_id": [
"c3eqo64",
"c3eskdp",
"c3etfgl",
"c3eueps"
],
"score": [
22,
7,
3,
6
],
"text": [
"Why indeed. What's the truth is that the digital streaming rights are negotiated completely separately to the DVD Rental rights, and movie studios see streaming as a threat to their big-ticket DVD sales, that's why hardly any new releases get authorized for streaming. Understand that Netflix WANTS to stream everything they offer, but if the movie studios don't offer the rights, they can't. Netflix's hands are tied. Understand? ",
"Netflix has to buy every DVD that they ship out. This allows the movie studios to make more money. ",
"From what I understand, Netflix purchases DVD's directly from the company that sells the movie (E.G: Disney) and rents it out that way. However, at one point, they threatened NOT to sell any more DVD's to Netflix. Netflix threatened to purchase the DVD's at retail, and ship them out that way, as U.S law allowed them to \"lend\" a purchased copy. As this is a physical copy instead of a digital copy, they have more rights.",
"There is a law in the US called the [First-sale doctrine](_URL_0_). It states, roughly, that if you buy a legal copy of a copyrighted work then you have the legal right to sell, loan, transfer, etc. that copy. This is how all libraries, used-CD stores and video rental stores operate.\n\nFirst-sale doctrine does not apply to streaming because there is not an actual purchase. Netflix, Amazon, etc. are only given licenses, not an actual copy. The license can come with whatever restrictions the licensor wants, including not allowing resale or rentals.\n\n*EDIT - typo."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine"
]
] | |
fapjrb | how is it that the sun can light up the earth but doesn't light up any of the near it. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fapjrb/eli5_how_is_it_that_the_sun_can_light_up_the/ | {
"a_id": [
"fizlr3p",
"fizm3ep",
"fizmqot"
],
"score": [
6,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"I think you're missing a word....any of the what near it?",
"It does light up the stuff near Earth. For example, the Moon. There just isn't much stuff in the vicinity of Earth. It's all empty space, which won't reflect the Sun's light.",
"It lights up what it can, planets and moons and asteroids, but it can’t do much about an empty vacuum, there’s nothing to reflect off"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] | ||
2vspao | why paper is a rectangle and not a square? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2vspao/eli5_why_paper_is_a_rectangle_and_not_a_square/ | {
"a_id": [
"cokkr8y",
"cokl1jw",
"cokl4nq"
],
"score": [
2,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"It's easier to orient for one, and it's just so expected now it'd be hard to change.",
"The most likely reason we use rectangular paper goes back to the early days of paper production. Until the middle 1800s, paper was made by hand, dipping a mold (mould if you prefer the British spelling) into a large vat containing beaten pulp in suspension. Early papermakers found it much easier to control rectangular molds than square ones. The rectangular size tradition continued after the process was mechanized, and mechanical blades were used to cut the rolls of paper for the commercial market. Tradition has kept the shape rectangular.\n\nSource: _URL_0_\n\nTIL: There is an Institute of Paper Science and Technology",
"The A standard of papers have a very cleaver quality. If you take an A4 (standard printing sized paper) and cut it in half, you end up with with 2 A5 papers and they have the exact same proportions as the A4.\n\nThe ratio of 1 to the square-root of 2, is the only ratio for which this is true and is the ratio is what is used by the A paper series.\n\nHowever, if you are talking about US paper sizes, there really isn't any logic to it. The sizes are just plucked out of thin air and have no real relation to each other.\n\nYou might find this informative _URL_0_"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"http://www.ipst.gatech.edu/amp/general/museum_faq.htm%23rectangle"
],
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHeo62B0d0E"
]
] | ||
4fad5y | what is the most sustainable diet for humans to take? | Vegetarian? Omnivore? Carnivore?
I want to know what the ideal sustainable option is | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4fad5y/eli5_what_is_the_most_sustainable_diet_for_humans/ | {
"a_id": [
"d278xew",
"d27dpi8"
],
"score": [
3,
2
],
"text": [
"What is a sustainable diet? One definition might be along the lines of *\"Diets with low environmental impacts which contribute to food and nutrition security and to healthy life for present and future generations. Sustainable diets are protective and respectful of biodiversity and ecosystems, culturally acceptable, accessible, economically fair and affordable; nutritionally adequate, safe and healthy; while optimizing natural and human resources\"*...\n\nWell thats quiet a mouthful and no easy feat. How do we translate that into something that is easy for the average consumer to carry-out?\n\nAfter doing some research myself into the subject the answer is, for me and my situation, at least:\n\n**Local (includes intense farming) & In Season - Omnivore, mostly plants**\n\nBut its not always clear-cut. For example, grass-fed cattle release more GHG's than factory farmed cattle (because they are alive longer and they are not as intensely produced) of course we need to balance that out with decreased animal welfare associated with intense farming. Another aspect that many people fail to realize is that pasture land for cattle is usually too poor to be farmed for plants...its not as if there are any other options for that land anyway (except maybe reverting it back to its wildstate). Organic farming might sound like an awesome sustainable choice until you realize that you need way more cleared land to feed the same number of people - you can't farm the land as intensely. Which might sound like a good thing, until you realize that in order to farm organic you have to chop down more forest than if you farmed intensely. \n\nMy point is, any choice is going to have its positives and its negatives, trade-offs. Its not going to be perfect. There isn't going to be a single best answer because well there are too many factors that depend on your personal choices and morals. Just do your best to make the most informed choices for your area. For example, I don't live anywhere near the sea so I don't tend to buy any fish. Instead I'm buying eggs, chicken, and sometimes beef. I try and avoid processed food, and where I can I try and make the [foreign] products I do buy come from companies that pay their workers well and respect their local environments (sorry but I'm not going to give up coffee). One of the difficulties is that I come from a region with poor local winter selection of produce - so much of its shipped in. It can never be a hard line. But this diet wouldn't work sustainably for others - for example people who live in the far north of Canada have basically all their westernized food shipped in. It makes no sense economically or from a sustainability point of view to eat that food (its pretty poor quality anyway). What makes sense is trying, as best you can, to eat a diet similar to that of the Inuit - in this case they would be eating mostly meat...fish, seal, caribou, whale. So what works for one person isn't going to be what works for another - local constraints, personal economic constraints, dietary constraints, preferences, moral choices...these are all going to influence what \"sustainable\" means to you. \n\nJust do your best and maybe research a little bit more into your current diet. What do you eat the most? What can't you live without? What could you trade in? Can you make better selections? Are alternatives available where you live? \n\n\n\n",
"I think insects will be a large part of human diet. They are very efficient to make and can supply you with proteins."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] | |
chnzhm | how important is sleep for muscle gains? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/chnzhm/eli5_how_important_is_sleep_for_muscle_gains/ | {
"a_id": [
"euvpajj"
],
"score": [
9
],
"text": [
"Extremely. Exercises causes “muscle gains” by damaging the muscle fibers (technically the microscopic action and myosin filaments which are what cause muscle contraction). The main period of time that that damage is fixed is during sleep. No sleep, no large scale repairs. When the damage is fixed, either more fibers are made (hyperplasia) or the fibers get bigger because more actin and myosin chains are made (hypertrophy). \n\nIt’s kind of like how a large scale highway repairs and roadwork is typically done at night, when there are less people on the road. The workers are more productive and can make more progress at night, with less traffic. During the day, with thousands of people driving by, the workers have significantly reduced productivity. Muscle repair is similar. You have reduced energy demands at night, which means more energy can go to fixing muscles. You also aren’t really using the muscles during sleep which allows for repair to occur. Muscles will start getting repaired during the day, just not nearly at the level as during sleep. (Also sleep is just good for you in general. No sleep will literally kill you, either acutely or through an increased risk in heart failure, metabolic disorders, stroke, and motor vehicle accidents)."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
5ihsgm | let's say our universe was created by the big bang. what created the big bang? to what space was our universe born into? how far back do our current theories go for this? is there a theory for the ultimate first instance of anything? this keeps me up at night. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5ihsgm/eli5_lets_say_our_universe_was_created_by_the_big/ | {
"a_id": [
"db87v98",
"db87wdj",
"db8ab4f"
],
"score": [
11,
3,
4
],
"text": [
"We have no idea. Really, that's the ELI5.\n\nThere are theories like M-theory and brane cosmology that put forth the notion that there are higher dimensions that our universe exists in, and the multiverse itself is a hypothetical set of ideas based around the idea that there are an infinite number of universes existing independently but on top of or next to an infinite number of other universes..... but it's all just speculation.\n\nThe thing about the universe and us and everything that exists within our universe is that we can't see what is \"outside\" our universe, if there is anything \"outside\" at all. For all we know, this is \"it\", and we may never, ever know what, if anything at all, existed before the initial \"big bang\" that describes the beginning of time and space.",
"There's no data about what happened or existed before the Big Bang, as we haven't found any way to detect any information that would have come from before. So, nobody knows anything about what might have existed beforehand or what could have caused it. There are some ideas people have come up with, but there's no evidence for or against them, because there's no data at all.",
"We don't know where it came from, but it's not unreasonable to say that it happened. \n\nIf you see a boulder rolling down a mountain, and you draw its path on a map, you can use that information to find out where the boulder came from. (Approximately)\n\nProving that a Big Bang happened is similar; scientists have noticed that certain objects in the universe are moving away from each other. You can calculate their movements, and from that you would conclude that at some point they would have been in the exact same place. \n\nAs for why it had to be an explosion, that's simply what an explosion is. Most of them are formed by putting a solid or liquid in a container, and somehow turning it into gas. Gas takes up more space than a liquid (and liquids usually more than solids) so when you turn all of it to gas the volume of the container isn't enough to contain all of the stuff inside. If the conversion happens fast enough, you get an explosion. \n\nUnfortunately that's all we can know about this. We've mapped the path of our boulder, tracked it back to its origins, and even managed to figure out what happened when it started rolling, but as for the cause - the push that made the boulder roll... We've no idea."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] | ||
lkn21 | evolution via adaptation. | I get evolution. But how is it that the genetic make-up of an organism can be change so significantly that it changes the organism itself to adapt?
Take for example, some of the Galapagos Islands' turtles. Some of them needed longer necks. If they just kept stretching and stretching... how did it change their DNA? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/lkn21/eli5_evolution_via_adaptation/ | {
"a_id": [
"c2tgcq1",
"c2tgdky",
"c2tgcq1",
"c2tgdky"
],
"score": [
14,
2,
14,
2
],
"text": [
"You're approaching evolution from the wrong direction. It starts on the genetic level and works its way up over time and several generations.\n\nBasically, no organism is completely identical (twins exempted). There's always some slight variation, whether it be in color, length, furriness, etc. In the case of the turtles, there's a difference in the length of necks. What happens over time is that some turtles do better than the other turtles at getting laid. It could be any number of reasons: access to food, protection from predators, or maybe the females just liked longer necks. Whatever the reason, the longer-necked turtles have more children. Repeat this over several generations and account for any small mutations that occur (the few turtles with freakishly long necks). Eventually you have super long-necked turtles.\n\nIt's not that they 'needed' longer necks. The long-necked ones just survived better.",
"Let's take wugs, fictional animals on the equally fictional Planet X, for instance. About half of the wugs are colored bright pink, the others more mauve. Wugs live in blue grass. This variation in colors is a reflection of some basic genetic variation. (And without variation, we could not have evolution.)\n\nNow let's say some of the wugs undergo a genetic mutation: instead of being pink or purple some are now blue. So far, this mutation and the overall variation in colors is neither beneficial or harmful. The wugs still go about wugging with only a superficial difference that they themselves don't even notice.\n\nBut let's say a predator, the voracious zib, is introduced. This is a change in the wugs' environment. Zibs are easily able to see--and thus catch--the bright pink wugs, but are not able to see the mauve wugs so easily, and have trouble catching them. Blue wugs are all but invisible to zibs.\n\nOver several generations, the mauve wugs are more successful than the bright pink wugs, and the blue wugs are more successful than both the mauve and bright pink wugs, until over time the original mixed population of wugs which was 1/3rd bright pink, 1/3rd mauve, and 1/3rd blue has shifted to basically 1/3 mauve and 2/3 blue. This is natural selection. What was just variation has become beneficial for survival, so it ends up being what is dominant in the population. Evolution itself has technically not touched the genes; it has just \"picked\" which ones are the best for the wugs.\n\nIt's these little changes--beneficial, neutral, and harmful--and how lots of them accrue over time that make evolution capable of producing ridiculously large changes, like a single photosensitive cell into the human eye.",
"You're approaching evolution from the wrong direction. It starts on the genetic level and works its way up over time and several generations.\n\nBasically, no organism is completely identical (twins exempted). There's always some slight variation, whether it be in color, length, furriness, etc. In the case of the turtles, there's a difference in the length of necks. What happens over time is that some turtles do better than the other turtles at getting laid. It could be any number of reasons: access to food, protection from predators, or maybe the females just liked longer necks. Whatever the reason, the longer-necked turtles have more children. Repeat this over several generations and account for any small mutations that occur (the few turtles with freakishly long necks). Eventually you have super long-necked turtles.\n\nIt's not that they 'needed' longer necks. The long-necked ones just survived better.",
"Let's take wugs, fictional animals on the equally fictional Planet X, for instance. About half of the wugs are colored bright pink, the others more mauve. Wugs live in blue grass. This variation in colors is a reflection of some basic genetic variation. (And without variation, we could not have evolution.)\n\nNow let's say some of the wugs undergo a genetic mutation: instead of being pink or purple some are now blue. So far, this mutation and the overall variation in colors is neither beneficial or harmful. The wugs still go about wugging with only a superficial difference that they themselves don't even notice.\n\nBut let's say a predator, the voracious zib, is introduced. This is a change in the wugs' environment. Zibs are easily able to see--and thus catch--the bright pink wugs, but are not able to see the mauve wugs so easily, and have trouble catching them. Blue wugs are all but invisible to zibs.\n\nOver several generations, the mauve wugs are more successful than the bright pink wugs, and the blue wugs are more successful than both the mauve and bright pink wugs, until over time the original mixed population of wugs which was 1/3rd bright pink, 1/3rd mauve, and 1/3rd blue has shifted to basically 1/3 mauve and 2/3 blue. This is natural selection. What was just variation has become beneficial for survival, so it ends up being what is dominant in the population. Evolution itself has technically not touched the genes; it has just \"picked\" which ones are the best for the wugs.\n\nIt's these little changes--beneficial, neutral, and harmful--and how lots of them accrue over time that make evolution capable of producing ridiculously large changes, like a single photosensitive cell into the human eye."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.