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6tdd9t | why is cgi/special fx in movies more noticeable when being played on tv? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6tdd9t/eli5_why_is_cgispecial_fx_in_movies_more/ | {
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"Could be because most tvs either run PAL (25 fps) or NTSC (29.97 fps) formats, whereas cinemas typically run at 24 fps. The more frames per second, the more detail your brain gets and so the easier it is to see the special fx and sets etc."
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18jvnc | - the relationship between time, space and gravity | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/18jvnc/eli5_the_relationship_between_time_space_and/ | {
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"Man, you don't want much, do you? Okay, here's the best I can do:\n\nYou are, right now, moving. I don't mean like the Earth is orbiting the sun or whatever. I mean even now, as you sit there perfectly still, you are moving.\n\nYou're moving toward the future.\n\nAnything that's moving can be said to have a *velocity.* Velocity is just an expression of how fast a thing is moving and in what direction. Motion through *spacetime* — that is, just space and time taken together — is quantified with a particular type of velocity called *four-velocity.* That unimaginative name reflects the fact that four-velocity takes into account your motion in four directions: backward-to-forward, down-to-up, left-to-right … and past-to-future.\n\nYour four-velocity, then, describes your motion through *space and time* together. Not independently, but as a single quantity. Because it turns out that's how the universe actually works.\n\nNow, remember how velocity is how fast a thing's moving and in what direction? The how-fast part of that is called the *magnitude* of your velocity. A lot of times people are interested not in which way a thing's moving, but only in how fast it's moving; for that, we only consider the magnitude (or \"norm\") of that thing's velocity.\n\nHere's the part that's gonna make it all come together: *The magnitude of your four-velocity is constant.*\n\nHere's what that means: Imagine an arrow. You can twist that arrow around to make it point in any direction, right? But you can't *stretch* the arrow to make it longer. It's always the same length, no matter how you turn it. That's your four-velocity. It can point straight toward the future — as it does now, as you sit there motionless — *or it can turn,* but it can never stretch or shrink. You always move through spacetime at a constant speed, always.\n\nThat speed? It's the speed of light.\n\n\"Why,\" you might wonder, \"is it just *coincidental* that everything moves through spacetime at exactly the speed a ray of light moves through space?\" The answer is it isn't coincidental at all. In fact, it's just the other way around: A ray of light moves through space at that speed because *that's the speed at which everything moves through spacetime.* The speed of light isn't an empirical constant at all. It's a *consequence* of this more fundamental truth about the universe.\n\nNow, back to the twisty-arrow thing. Like I said, you can be sitting there motionless, and your four-velocity points toward the future. You are right now moving toward the future at the speed of light.\n\nBut if you get up and walk into the kitchen, you'll be moving through space. Remember, your four-velocity can't get any longer. The magnitude of it has to stay constant all the time. So when you move *faster* through space — including going from not moving at all to moving a little — you move *slower* through time. Your arrow *turns.* It doesn't stretch.\n\nThis, incidentally, is why nothing can ever go faster than the speed of light. If you were able to turn your four-velocity all the way over so you're going *entirely* in some space direction and *not at all* toward the future — you can't do this, but we're saying what if — then your velocity through space would be equal to the speed of light. Never any faster than that, because your arrow can never stretch.\n\nBut what does this have to do with gravity? Well, I said that when you start moving, your arrow turns so it's not pointing entirely toward the future any more. Gravity is what you get when your arrow *turns by itself.*\n\nWithout getting into the details of curved spacetime and all that, suffice to say that when you're around a gravitating body — like the Earth — your four-velocity is *turned* by the gravitating body so it no longer points entirely toward the future. It points *mostly* toward the future, still, but it's also pointing *slightly* toward the ground.\n\nMeaning you're now *moving toward the ground* whether you wanted to or not. In other words, you're falling.\n\nOf course, to you it doesn't feel like you're falling. You still feel like you always feel: Like you're motionless, and your arrow points entirely toward the future. And in fact it does … in your frame of reference. From your point of view, your arrow points straight toward the future, but from the point of view of the ground, your arrow points *mostly* toward the future but a little toward the ground.\n\nSo that's why apples fall from trees: because their future lies in that direction. Falling is, it turns out, as inevitable as the arrival of tomorrow.\n\nOf course, you don't *have* to fall when you're near a source of gravity. Safe bet that you're not falling right now, in fact … because your chair is *pushing up against you,* keeping you stationary against the inexorable destiny of gravity. But explaining that gets into accelerated frames of reference and hyperbolic geometry and frankly I don't know a good metaphor for that, so we'll skip it.\n\nShort answer: When your future points toward the ground, you fall. That's gravity."
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5xzd6a | how do translators capture the writing style of a writer when translating books? | How do they mimic it without making the book loosing the writer's identity? Can they actually do it properly? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5xzd6a/eli5_how_do_translators_capture_the_writing_style/ | {
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"\"Traduttore tradditore\". Translator, traitor.\n\nThey try to, but it's never perfect. They need perfect command of both languages. It's not uncommon for living accomplished authors have one specific translator in one language, that knows them inside and out. Sometimes they even work together.\n\nBut translations are never perfect. That's why classic works keep being translated over and over again.",
"We do it in the same way that you capture the writing style of a writer when reading a book in your own language. How easy this is depends on the nature of the source text. I'm a professional translator, but I avoid reading translated literature for pleasure, maybe that tells you something. ",
"With great difficulty, is the answer to that question; and many a book has been ruined for some audiences by terrible translating.\n\nThe gold standard of literary translation is sometimes considered to be Anthea Bell and David Hockridge's translations of the popular French *Asterix* comics -- yes, not even an actual book: comics, aimed mostly at children. The original French versions (at least the early ones, before the writer Goscinny died) were known for their sophisticated parody, satire, wit and -- a particular nightmare for translators -- an endless stream of puns. Puns can almost never be translated, and so Bell and Hockridge had to write their own puns of the same quality of the French originals *and* (because these were comics) which also fitted in with the pictures and the speech bubbles.\n\nIt takes a translator who is not only proficient in both the source language and the target language, but also understands what the author is trying to do and has a similar level of literary skill.\n\nAn example of where, in my opinion, this failed catastrophically might be the German translations of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels: in some cases, the translator (or translators) appears not to have understood some of the aspects of culture Pratchett was satirizing, and so many of the gags fall completely flat."
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e25vuq | why is foreign-owned fox news so popular with americans when other foreign news services like the bbc and al jazeera are not? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/e25vuq/eli5_why_is_foreignowned_fox_news_so_popular_with/ | {
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"Most Americans dont know Fox News was created by an Aussie at all, and it isnt presented like a foreign network."
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46zfnh | why is a frozen computer not considered a malfunction? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/46zfnh/eli5_why_is_a_frozen_computer_not_considered_a/ | {
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"It could be a driver issue, you could have a software incompatibility, if you are saving the files across the network you could have a network transport issue (whether it be the file server, the network switch, a router, etc). If the computer freezes consistently, have someone from IT look into it. Especially if it happens whenever you are saving a file. \n\nVery rarely is it \"The computer\", rather it is one of the components that is acting up (you don't say \" the human\" is acting up if you wake up with a crick in your neck, do you?).",
"Computers usually freeze because a program is using all of the computers ability to process things. For sake of the argument, I'm going to refer to this as the computers attention.\n\nAll of the attention is being given to the one guy who keeps screaming \"I NEED HELP NOW!\" and it gets occupied with that one guy so nothing else can done until it is finished with that one guy.\n\nMost of the time, the computer gets done with that guy and moves to the next person. Sometimes, the guy hands the computer a task that can't be done, i.e. infinite loop, so the computer will use all of its attention to focus on this one task and nothing else. It will continue to do this until done with the task, which because the task is infinite, it will never be done.",
"Something not functioning correctly is *literally* what the word \"malfunction\" means. \n\nNow whether it's caused by something you did or by the computer being broken is another matter. I don't have enough details to try and figure out what's broken (/u/Melmab has some good suggestions though) but as to whether or not this would be \"considered a malfunction\" - yes, it would. Like I said, that's the literal meaning of the word. "
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2vzbuw | when dogs/pets sit their looking guilty after being yelled at do they what they are actually in trouble for, or do they know just looking cute and ashamed is what you want? | EDIT: There* | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2vzbuw/eli5_when_dogspets_sit_their_looking_guilty_after/ | {
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"There was a research about dogs recognising angry faces and happy faces.\nSo basically when we yell at them.They realise that they've pissed us off.And then they go sit in a corner till we cool down . Sometimes they are SO DAMN cute when they do that you feel like comforting them immediately.",
"They can't make long term associations. So if you get on to your dog for peeing in the house an hour ago, he or she literally has no idea why you are mad at them. ",
"Somewhere I read that they can't really feel guilt, but their \"guilty\" reactions are sadness or fearfulness.",
"I know with dogs, they are able to notice the smallest dilations in your eyes which are avid descriptors of emotion. ",
"Dogs are social creatures, like you or I. They want to please us, their pack leaders, and so if you yell at them for doing something wrong, they genuinely experience shame. \n\nLike you or I, they can also be manipulative. Part of wanting to please us is wanting to gain our favor, and so sometimes their reactions aren't completely genuine. \n\nIt depends a lot on the dog and the circumstance. Some dogs like to manipulate people in order to get what they want. On the flip side of the coin, if any dog doesn't understand what you are angry at them for, they will register shame. It is hard to say to what extent they are faking it, but the response is at least partly genuine, in the sense that they know they have displeased their leader and this makes them feel bad.",
"So why does my dog get into the garbage while I'm out and refuse to come downstairs? Like, before I even realize he has gotten into the garbage, he refuses to come out from under the bed.",
"Currently, scientists believe that the \"guilty look\" in dogs is not because the dog actually feels guilty. Most likely, the dog is offering you body language that he hopes will appease you and turn off your threatening posture.\n\nWhen we scold our dogs, our body language is very different from our usual happy greeting, and dogs are well aware that we are behaving in a threatening manner. That's why they consistently offer the \"guilty\" behavior when we scold them: they've learned that doing so causes us to stop!\n\nAs previous comments have noted, most people don't continue scolding the dog once he looks guilty; we feel better because the dog \"understands that he has done something wrong\" and we feel satisfied that we have successfully disciplined him. (Also, they look so cute!) So yes, they know that looking cute and ashamed is what we want.\n\nA recent study by Alexandra Horowitz showed that [owners are more likely to say their dogs looked guilty when they believed their dogs had done something wrong, even if the dogs were innocent of the alleged transgression.](_URL_0_) So the guilty look in dogs likely has more to do with human perceptions than actual guilt. (But we cannot say for sure if dogs feel guilty or not; we just haven't been able to establish this experimentally.) ",
" I had a dog one time that taught me that dogs have the capacity to tell lies, or at least act deceitful.\n\n At the time I had a dog and a cat. i used to feed them on the back porch, and they ate peacefully out of the same bowl. One summer I thought the cat had worms, it was growing thin and it's ribs were visible. I kept giving it wormer, but it really didn't help much.\n\n One afternoon I fed the animals like usual, and they were both chowing down, dog's tail wagging like usual at dinner time. i watched them for a while, and then because it was getting cool out I closed the door. Just by accident I happened to look out the window. As soon as the door closed the dog's demeanor changed. His tail stopped wagging, he looked at the door and then turned and snapped at the cat, making it back up from the bowl, and then he started wolfing down the food. When i opened the door, he acted calm and friendly just like before and allowed the cat to resume eating.\n\n it was one of those experiences that made me realize that animals are more complex individuals than the simple minded food driven robots I had always assumed them to be.\n"
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4b03c1 | if wisdom tooth impaction is so common, and 90% of people have them extracted, how did humans cope for so long before dentistry? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4b03c1/eli5_if_wisdom_tooth_impaction_is_so_common_and/ | {
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"Our jaws used to be larger, so there was more room for teeth. Over time, our jaws shrunk but the number of teeth stayed the same, making our mouths more crowded over time. Wisdom teeth complications are \"recent\" (relative to the amount of time that humans have existed).",
"An impacted wisdom tooth doesn't really cause any problems other than some jaw pain. So the simple answer as to how people coped before modern dentistry is the same as how people coped with any low-level injury or minor disease before modern medicine (and indeed how they cope even in the 21st century in less wealthy countries) -- they simply put up with the discomfort.",
"Brushing teeth is a relatively new idea, most people would have lost a tooth or two prior to wisdom teeth and there would be more space for them = they wouldn't be impacted",
"Because wisdom teeth removal is mostly a scam. \n\nAccording to the American Journal of Public Health, over 2/3rds of wisdom teeth removal is completely unnecessary. \n\n_URL_0_"
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a62a1i | why does cereal get a nice soggy with milk but a gross soggy with water? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a62a1i/eli5_why_does_cereal_get_a_nice_soggy_with_milk/ | {
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"Milk has fat which slows down how much it absorbs into the cereal. If you leave cereal in milk long enough it will get gross soggy and non-fat milk gets gross soggy at the same rate. ",
"Viscosity. \n\nMilk, has a higher viscosity due to protein and fats. So it holds up and doesn’t absorb into the cereal as quickly. \n\nIt’s all a matter of timing though. Cereal will absorb the milk, just at a slower rate. \n\nThe higher the viscosity, the slower it absorbs. So in order, it would stay crunchiest with creamer and work it’s way down to whole milk, 2%, 1%, skim and then water - where the rate of absorption would be fastest. \n\nMore fun facts: This is why many commercials use motor oil instead of syrup for promotional shots of items like pancakes. It absorbs much slower and allows the product to appear fuller. "
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eqaqqk | how does the body get rid of baby fat despite not being in a caloric deficit? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/eqaqqk/eli5_how_does_the_body_get_rid_of_baby_fat/ | {
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"Mass is getting redistributed across different parts of the body. A part that was \"fat\" now has the same amount of fat, but it's grown in length so it looks more proportional.",
"By getting taller- more body means that fat is spread farther apart. \n\n\nIf it's true fat loss and not just the fat being spread out then it'll require a deficit. But don't forget that the body will need more calories as it grows bigger so a slight deficit can be created accidentally if the person doesn't increase their calorie intake enough to take into consideration their extra caloric needs",
"'Baby fat' tends to disappear around 1-2 years of age. A skinny 10 year old would have more fat on their body than a child of that age. To me this suggests the fat appears to go away because it's spread over a larger area as the child will be much bigger.\n\nIn the case of a teenager that has rounder features they may tend to hold their weight more on their face making it look like 'baby fat' which can change as they mature. And sometimes a child can be mistaken for holding onto 'baby fat' when they are just over weight."
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21nzuk | how can sound from a vinyl record contain all those different frequencies at once? | There is just one groove and one needle on the player, while a typical record/song containes lots of different sounds at the same time. How does a record combines all these different frequencies in that single groove?
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/21nzuk/eli5_how_can_sound_from_a_vinyl_record_contain/ | {
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"Its just the captured vibrations recorded on the vinyl. They just get re-vibrated when you play it. My question has always been, how do they get stereo from one needle?",
" > How does a record combines all these different frequencies in that single groove?\n\nSound is vibration, pressure waves in the air. The air can only have one pressure at a given point and time. Different frequencies combine through constructive and destructive interference into one waveform.\n\nThink about it, you only have one eardrum (per ear). Therefore any sound you can hear can be produced by one speaker.",
"It's how ears work. The eardrum registers a backwards and forwards motion we perceive as sounds or frequencies.\nSo, all the information required to reproduce this stimulation is a single groove that makes the needle go backwards and forwards (or sideways in this case)\n\nThere is no limitation to how many frequencies fit in one groove because they all combine to a sequence of backwards/forwards vibration anyway. "
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4y0qt0 | why is the dea so concerned about narcotics, barbiturates etc? | This might seem like a funny question but I went to the doctors today for a severe health problem I'm having and I noticed the doctor was worried the prescription I'll need for treatment won't be covered. At first I didn't understand. I got a text from pharmacy and it says my medicine is being delayed so I figure there's a fight going on between doctor, pharmacist, insurance to cover medicine. So I looked up the medicine and realized it's kind of a "naughty" one, like the DEA isn't a big fan of this medicine so it's often hard for patients to get it filled. I didn't realize it was one of them meds. It's actually no problem, I just want whatever treatment works. And I understand "drugs are bad mmkay.." type theory, people like to abuse narcotics and stuff and often times they die from it. But why does the DEA care in the first place if people die from narcotics? I think my question sounds edgy like I'm implying the DEA is stupid but I'm not. I mean it in a sincere way. I mean I've read before how often times cancer patients can't get access to pain meds, I understand it's a thing that happens, but why? Is this to do with the illegal drug trade? I guess I'm asking why is there an agency for this at all? Is it about patient care? I don't get it. Without the DEA would we all get addicted to narcotics and then the world would end? Would that slow down the economy and so it's bad? Sincere and slightly naive(?) question here, I'm not being sarcastic and edgy. Any insight is appreciated. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4y0qt0/eli5_why_is_the_dea_so_concerned_about_narcotics/ | {
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"they are concerned that the drugs are being misused, resold to dealers and addicts. who become burdens on society. Thats the general reason for any drug to be illegal.\n\nThese are not illegal, they are just often misappropriated to the black market to be used illegally. So it sounds like they have some red tape. though Im not certain the reasons your getting are legit. could just be the insurance company being a jerk, or some other self interest of one of the parties getting in your way.",
" > But why does the DEA care in the first place if people die from narcotics?\n\nBecause they are the agency put in charge of regulating and controlling such things. It is like asking why the Department of Transportation is so enthusiastic about roads and stuff, like they are some sort of weirdos.\n\nSo why does the government in general care about drug abuse and deaths? One reason is because it has significant social impacts to have drug abuse in a community. Drug addicts are often poor workers and generally unstable, along with being a source of crime not directly connected to the drugs themselves. For example if someone is addicted to crack they probably aren't able to hold a steady job for long, and once they lose that income they will often turn to crime to fund their habit.\n\nAnother issue is that drugs which have dangerous side effects can tax public health services. If the hospitals are spending a bunch of money helping people ODing on heroin that they never get back, they aren't as effective as they might otherwise be.\n\nAnd of course there is the initial Puritanical opposition to drugs or anything that alters conciousness which creates a prejudice against drug use.",
"The DEA isn't just concerned about the drug, they are also concerned about doctors and patients. They monitor doctors very closely, to try and find any that are diverting drugs into the black market by writing prescriptions that patients don't need/take. They also try to detect patients that are abusing the medication by visiting several doctors.\n\nMy kids took a medication they were very concerned about, and while the paperwork was a hassle, eventually you learn all the steps and it doesn't add that much time."
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nk6ts | cthulhu | So, i always have had a general idea of what he/she is, like some sort of death god. But i never really understood where it originated from or what it is all about.
The only time's ive heard it has been in video game references, so i assume its a nerdy thing. The first place hearing it was in like 2005 on WoW, and then just continually in different video games. Anyone care to shine some light? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/nk6ts/eli5_cthulhu/ | {
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"In the early 1900's, H.P. Lovecraft wrote several fantasy/horror novels involving a mythology of his own creation. The main theme is gods are completely alien, non-anthropomorphic beings of unimaginable power and inscrutable motives, often with multiple tentacles. \n\nMerely trying to understand them leads to insanity. They lay dormant or are in some other way blocked from influencing the earth, but someday when the stars align, then will awake and consume us all.\n\nCthulhu is one of these gods, become well know because its name is fun to say.",
"Also check out r/lovecraft! ",
"[Here ya go](_URL_0_). Not Lovecraft's first reference to the big guy, but certainly the most pervasive one.",
"There are things man was not meant to know.",
"Cthulhu (pronounced kuh-THOO-loo or kuh-loo-oo) is a fictional monster created by the horror writer H. P. Lovecraft. Cthulhu is a god-like being from another planet, and it (Cthulhu is neither male nor female) is supposedly very ancient. It has the appearance of being a large green dragon with the head of a squid.\n\n\nCthulhu is one of the Great Old Ones, a group of godlike monsters from another place that now inhabit Earth, waiting to rise up and destroy the human race so they can rule the planet. The Old Ones are neither good nor evil, meaning that they do not hate humans, they just do not care about them. They think of humans as if they would be ants. Also, their appearance is so unlike anything of this world, that it is said that any human who so much as gazes upon one of them will go insane.\n\n\nIn one of Lovecraft's tales, The Call of Cthulhu, he said that Cthulhu currently lies in a dreamlike state in the sunken city of R'lyeh (rill-ee-yeh), waiting for the time when the Old Ones shall rise again. R'lyeh is located in the Pacific Ocean (though it is not a real city).\n\n\nFrom the simple english Wiki. \n(_URL_0_)",
"If you have an Android smartphone there's a free app called \"Cthulhuoid\" that has pretty much every short story, book, poem or other writing related to the Mythos or by Lovecraft. I'm relatively sure there's a similar app for iOS as well.\n\nThere are audiobooks available for some of the shorter stories as well. I read and listened to The Colour Out of Space simultaneously and it was terrifying! Currently crawling through At the Mountains of Madness.\n\nA Cthulhu themed expansion was recently released to Magicka. I can't wait to have my friends over to play through it!",
" > That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons death may die.\n\nLord Cthulhu is one of the Elder Gods. He has awesome and terrible powers of otherworldly origin. To gaze upon his visage is to be driven mad. \n\n > In his house at R'lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming.\n\nIt is said that one day he will rise again and then it is the dead who will rejoice for they are already free of his grasp. ",
"In the early 1900's, H.P. Lovecraft wrote several fantasy/horror novels involving a mythology of his own creation. The main theme is gods are completely alien, non-anthropomorphic beings of unimaginable power and inscrutable motives, often with multiple tentacles. \n\nMerely trying to understand them leads to insanity. They lay dormant or are in some other way blocked from influencing the earth, but someday when the stars align, then will awake and consume us all.\n\nCthulhu is one of these gods, become well know because its name is fun to say.",
"Also check out r/lovecraft! ",
"[Here ya go](_URL_0_). Not Lovecraft's first reference to the big guy, but certainly the most pervasive one.",
"There are things man was not meant to know.",
"Cthulhu (pronounced kuh-THOO-loo or kuh-loo-oo) is a fictional monster created by the horror writer H. P. Lovecraft. Cthulhu is a god-like being from another planet, and it (Cthulhu is neither male nor female) is supposedly very ancient. It has the appearance of being a large green dragon with the head of a squid.\n\n\nCthulhu is one of the Great Old Ones, a group of godlike monsters from another place that now inhabit Earth, waiting to rise up and destroy the human race so they can rule the planet. The Old Ones are neither good nor evil, meaning that they do not hate humans, they just do not care about them. They think of humans as if they would be ants. Also, their appearance is so unlike anything of this world, that it is said that any human who so much as gazes upon one of them will go insane.\n\n\nIn one of Lovecraft's tales, The Call of Cthulhu, he said that Cthulhu currently lies in a dreamlike state in the sunken city of R'lyeh (rill-ee-yeh), waiting for the time when the Old Ones shall rise again. R'lyeh is located in the Pacific Ocean (though it is not a real city).\n\n\nFrom the simple english Wiki. \n(_URL_0_)",
"If you have an Android smartphone there's a free app called \"Cthulhuoid\" that has pretty much every short story, book, poem or other writing related to the Mythos or by Lovecraft. I'm relatively sure there's a similar app for iOS as well.\n\nThere are audiobooks available for some of the shorter stories as well. I read and listened to The Colour Out of Space simultaneously and it was terrifying! Currently crawling through At the Mountains of Madness.\n\nA Cthulhu themed expansion was recently released to Magicka. I can't wait to have my friends over to play through it!",
" > That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons death may die.\n\nLord Cthulhu is one of the Elder Gods. He has awesome and terrible powers of otherworldly origin. To gaze upon his visage is to be driven mad. \n\n > In his house at R'lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming.\n\nIt is said that one day he will rise again and then it is the dead who will rejoice for they are already free of his grasp. "
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4dbj7f | why is wrestling (wwe, wrestlemania, etc.) so popular? is it acting? is it staged? is it real fighting? i literally know nothing. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4dbj7f/eli5_why_is_wrestling_wwe_wrestlemania_etc_so/ | {
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"Acting? Yes. Staged? Yes. Real fighting? No. Real physicality? Absolutely, especially all the jumping and body slams and whatnot. They just don't actually hit each other hard enough to do damage. It's basically a manly soap opera.",
"It's exciting and dramatic. Do you question why people like movies or plays? They're acting and staged.",
"Its a show. People watch it for entertainment. \n\n\"Fake\" isn't exactly the right word. The chairs are real. People get fucking beat up. Its like being a stuntman. They are acting, but it is still an athletically challenging, dangerous, often painful activity. ",
"As others have pointed out, it's scripted, but there's absolutely physical danger involved.\n\nCheck out [this famous match](_URL_0_) between Mankind and The Undertaker in which things go very wrong (and outside of the script) for Mankind.\n\nEdit: Note around 12:20-ish, that's Mankind's tooth that came out his nose.",
"Wrestlemania is the WWE's biggest event of the year. I haven't followed wrestling in years but generally the plots are developed for months and culminate at a major PPV event like Wrestlemania so that most of the main matches have some sort of significance, the good guy who has been getting screwed over by the evil champion for months finally gets his title shot and wins the belt after a match where the champ uses every dirty trick he knows. That kinda thing.\n\nPro wrestling has been a thing in the US and elsewhere for decades, it was mostly a bunch of small, unaffiliated, regional promotions that would each tour around a small area and not really interact with each other.\n\nFrom what I understand Vince McMahon signed away a lot of talented performers and built the WWF in the 1980s out of his father's small promotion. He was able to smother the competition and became the only nationwide wrestling promotion. A few rival promotions sprang up only to get bought out and absorbed into the WWE (they had to change their name because of the World Wildlife Fund)\n\nLike others have said it's popular because it's essentially a violent soap opera with sexy girls sometimes. The outcomes are scripted but the skill needed to pull off some of the stunts they perform is genuinely impressive.",
"Is it acting? Yes. \nIs it staged? Yes. \nIs it real fighting? No, to an extent. \n\nThe reason it's so popular is the combination of athletic competition with the rivalry between the two competitors deliberately heightened.\n\nWhilst there are real rivalries in sports these rivalries tend to not be mentioned by commentators, pundits or the competitors themselves. In wrestling these rivalries are deliberately written, mentioned and paced to deliver thrills and disappointments along the way.\n\nThe result of who wins and who loses is pre-determined which is known as **booking**, the person doing the booking (known as the **booker**) will choose two or more competitors who they know will work well together to tell the story that the booker wants to. \n\nFor example if \"Toy Story\" was a wrestling show: Buzz Lightyear is introduced as the new top wrestler, the former top wrestler begins a rivalry to assert his position and the two evidentially work together in order to stop a bigger threat: Sid. Each stage of this would be booked as a match where Buzz or Woody would win their respective matches, leading to them teaming together. \n\nWhat happens inside the ropes is largely not choreographed; there might be one or two pre planned sequences of moves, known as **spots**, but the wrestlers will communicate with each other in the ring to let each other know what's going on. \n\nOften it's not just important who wins but also how they win: take for example the moment in Toy Story where Buzz gets hit by the lamp and ends up outside. This moment, or the **finish** will be discussed with the competitors and an **agent** who is usually an experienced wrestler who will help work out how to arrive at the finish the booker is after.\n\nI could go further but I hope that makes things a little clearer."
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1xh37m | why does science get involved in religious debates? | Science is only concerned about that which can be proven. Religion can not be proved. Why debate? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1xh37m/eli5why_does_science_get_involved_in_religious/ | {
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"To perpetuate the false binary between the two.",
"Because the two overlap in many areas.\n\nFor example, scientists look at facts and come up with sound, logical and demonstrable examples of how mankind evolved, they can tell you what the universe was like a billionth of a second after the big bang, they can carbon date things to show how they are millions of years old. And then you have Creationists saying 'no, your wrong, its all bullshit, God did it all in 4,000 years'. \n\nAnother example, way back when the religious leaders would tell us that God made the earth and it was the center of the universe, but then scientists started to look at the sky and soon realised that actually this was rubbish, the earth clearly orbited the sun but the church would call the scientists blasphemers and ostracise them even though it was obvious they were right.\n\nIts kind of reasonable for the scientists at that point to say wtf. And then the debate starts.",
"Because religion get involved with scientific debates."
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2dsqfu | why does storing scotch/wine for ages make it better? | In my mind there must be some sort of chemical reaction happening in order to affect the taste. Couldn't they find a way to speed it up by altering temp, surface area, redox, ph? Why does it take more than a decade for scotch and wines to get good? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2dsqfu/eli5_why_does_storing_scotchwine_for_ages_make_it/ | {
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"often its the alcohol and the mixture of various chemicals within the liquor reacting. the alcohol either mellows and allows the flavors of the individual chemicals to be tasted, or the alcohol becomes stronger due to more time \"fermenting\"\n"
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ems329 | why hasn’t any asteroid, or any sort of force applied onto earth, changed our orbit path or changed our rotation speed? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ems329/eli5_why_hasnt_any_asteroid_or_any_sort_of_force/ | {
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"The largest asteroid, Ceres, is 0.00016 earth masses. It's many orders of magnitude larger than anything in an earth-adjacent orbit.\n\nThey're the astronomical bugs compared to Earth and just splat on the windshield."
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7a9pr1 | why are video game graphics just now becoming so detailed and in depth? 10 years ago, you couldnt see reflections or walk up stairs properly, but now you can? what has happened to code writing that's allowed this? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7a9pr1/eli5_why_are_video_game_graphics_just_now/ | {
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"It’s not code really. It’s waaaay more powerful processing being widely available. Both CPUs and GPUs. All of those details take a ton of processing power to do, processing power that 10 years ago wasn’t so readily available. ",
"In some cases it can be coding, with programmers learning to do new things, but the big thing would be processing power. 10 years ago, the average consumer computer was much weaker than it is today. The computers could only do so much at once, while maintaining a reasonable framerate to make the game playable.\n\nA really good example is the movie Toy Story. Looking back at it, by today's standards, it is pretty basic, but at the time in 1995, it was cutting edge. To add to how hard it was to make, each **frame** took 45 minutes to **30 hours** to render. And this was done at 24 fps at 1536x922 resolution. And even then, it took about 300 processors to render all of that. At the time, that was pretty impressive for a film that could probably be rendered in real time with a modern day machine.",
"Computers got more powerful. It isn't the code.\n\nWe take for granted the sheer amount of computation needed to render stuff in games. Just take a look around you in the room you are in, you are probably in the presence of a light bulb or the sun. This is a bit more fun to think about with a light bulb, but just take a look around you, at all the shadows, how everything is lit up, the reflections, ect. Light radiates out predictably in a straight line and this makes our calculations possible. The computer has to calculate all that, it has to calculate if there is line of sight between an object and a light source to see if a shadow is applied to behind it, it has to calculate how that shadow will look like based on blocking it. You can do all this by hand theoretically, it is just algebra and trigonometry, but you would likely die before you finished all the calculations needed just for one second. Colors as a result of lighting as well, and even the player's line of sight has to be calculated. And it is all done at the very least 30 times per second. All done on a rock that we tricked into doing calculations. ",
"We've known how to render reflections for decades, but that doesn't mean we have the computing power necessary to do it in real time. It isn't really the programming that's the limiting factor, it's the available computation time.\n\nEven today, reflections in games are usually \"faked\" by rerendering part of the scene from a different perspective, or storing pre-rendered reflections in a texture map (sometimes this doesn't). This gives a result that isn't physically correct, but is a hell of a lot less expensive than actually calculating reflections.\n\nComputing hardware has improved *exponentially* over the past decades. CPU transistor counts double every 2 years or so. A laptop today has more computing power than a multimillion dollar supercomputer from 1980."
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26p5b0 | if we've passed the point of no return regarding climate change, why are we still trying to contain it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/26p5b0/eli5_if_weve_passed_the_point_of_no_return/ | {
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"I figure it's like the difference between getting shot in the junk, and getting shot in the head. If people change their ways now, it will only be \"bad\", and not \"worse\".",
"The fact that some projections indicate that we've hit a point of irreversible change doesn't mean that things can't get any worse.",
"the damage thats done is done. we cant fix that. but we still have to mitigate the damage to prevent it from getting worse"
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64gx4f | what are the philosophical differences between transsexual and transracial? why is transsexual the only one accepted? why are transrace people not accepted by any communities? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/64gx4f/eli5_what_are_the_philosophical_differences/ | {
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"Transexual also known as gender dysphoria is generally considered a real thing. Transracial largely exists on Tumblr and among stupid people.\n\nYou can make certain biological arguments that since people are all created as one sex and our bodies morph during early stages of life that there can be a spectrum for gender, especially considering hormones change people's behaviors, perceptions, etc. \n\nBut, there is no such thing as being transracial and there is no coherent argument that can be made for it. There is no biological basis for it. It's just nonsense. Transracial people aren't accepted because it isn't a real thing. If someone says they believe they are transracial they are either lying or need to see a high quality psychiatrist for a serious mental disorder. Wanting to be or wishing you were a different race doesn't mean you are or that you are transracial and it is an insult to transexual people who are struggling with serious issues to make such an equation.",
"My guess? Race and sex are very different. There are many scientific studies suggesting that there are such things as \"men's brains\" and \"women's brains\" but no such studies exist for black brains, Asian brains etc. the only evidence that might point to this is mostly considered to be pseudoscience, and is used by super far authoritarian right wingers to justify segregation ",
"Let me start by saying I don't think there is an objective answer to this question so I'm not sure this is the best sub to have this discussion on. Maybe /r/askreddit would be better.\n\nMy personal opinion is similar to what you've said: LGBTQ+ rights are very real and there are a lot of people suffering today due to outdated beliefs and hateful people spreading those beliefs. However, being \"transracial\" in my mind can't exist. You can identify with the culture of another race, sure. Some white people identify with urban black culture. Some white kids grow up wishing with all their might they were growing up in Japan. Your actual race, however, is easily traceable and can't be physically changed through any surgery or hormone treatment. You could change your appearance but not your lineage. ",
"Questions that are subjective or asking for/about opinions are not what ELI5 is for. That doesn't mean your question is bad, it would just fit better in another subreddit. Try /r/askreddit, /r/askphilosophy, /r/casualconversation, /r/nostupidquestions, or another more general \"ask\" subreddit. This post has been removed.\n\nPersonally, I feel like a lot of things seem, on the surface, to be valid comparisons, but are actually totally different. Transgender/transsexual and transracial are like this. They sound similar because of how the words are structured, but there is empirical evidence that treating trans people as the sex/gender they transition into leads to better life outcomes. There is no empirical evidence for \"transracial\" even existing. \n\nI see the whole \"why aren't transracial people accepted\" argument kind of like the \"why aren't people who think they're Jesus Christ accepted.\" Just because one condition sounds like another, doesn't mean it actually is the same or should be treated the same. (note that treating people who think they are Jesus as if they are Jesus does not, in fact, improve outcomes). "
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2j7tvj | what makes rugby safer, as not needing protective gears, compared to american football? | I've seen some brutal tackles in rugby, and it makes me wonder how the "health and safety department" never imposed obligatory helmet or something. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2j7tvj/eli5_what_makes_rugby_safer_as_not_needing/ | {
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"No proof of this but I've always heard that it's because they don't wear pads and helmets that there are less injuries. Because the men don't feel invincible and therefore don't take as many risks. \n\nCould be total bullshit. But it makes sense to me. ",
"Padding was kind of an arms race in US Football. As padding got more sophisticated, the players got larger (and started using their padding as a weapon. Those helmet hits are brutal), requiring more padding to withstand the hits.\n\nRugby players are beefy, [but they're not 350 pound tanks that can outrun over half the people on the field.](_URL_0_) When a 80kg bloke hits you, it's a fraction of energy compared to the 160kg yank that flattens you.",
"Like someone smarter once said: \"it's game for thugs played by gentlemen\". ",
"* Football is played in 10 second bursts, which allows players to expend energy at a very high levels, then recover. A rugby player who tried that would be on the ground gasping in minutes.\n\n* Rugby forbids blocking, which removes a lot of the contact from the game.\n\n* Football has deep passes and returns from set formations, that have players running full speed in different directions. Rugby has a flow where everyone is going to be running in about the same direction.\n\n* Rugby is more of an endurance activity, which requires lighter, less muscular bodies less capable of delivering injuring blows.\n\n* The absence of pads favors a grabbing technique over a hitting technique when tackling. ",
"Watch a middle line backer putting a hit on a running back, and I bet you he leads with his head first. Than watch a simliar play in Rugby and I bet he leads with his shoulder. These different tackeling techniques can better protect the head and reduce concusions. Both are very tough sports and injuries will occur. "
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9ghu8x | why does split pea soup thicken over time? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9ghu8x/eli5_why_does_split_pea_soup_thicken_over_time/ | {
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"Dried peas have starch in them, when heated the starch is loosened and absorbs water, as it cools down, those water saturated grains kinda-sorta interlock and thicken it. \n\nMuch like how a roux or cornstarch can thicken gravy.",
"The same reason any starch thickened sauce will. The peas contain starch, which mixes to create a sort of molecular mesh, a jumble of long molecular strands that gives the sauce or soup body. The longer it stands, the more the strands will entangle. "
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ch0r8k | - why is some lightning not accompanied by thunder? | We're currently having a great lightning storm in the UK right now, but there is no, or very little, thunder accompanying the lightning. Why is this? It's very eerie! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ch0r8k/eli5_why_is_some_lightning_not_accompanied_by/ | {
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"It is just lightning that is too far away for you to hear the thunder. It takes the right atmospheric conditions for you to see it. It is often called \"heat lightning\" but there is nothing different about it.",
"I’m having the exact same thing in the southeast. I get flashes of lighting then either a really small rumble or nothing. This could be because we’re just far from teh center of storm."
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j4d3w | can someone explain li5 wattage, voltage, amperage and resistance and how they relate to each other. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/j4d3w/can_someone_explain_li5_wattage_voltage_amperage/ | {
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"I've always pictured it like so: (Could well be wrong though)\n\nIf you have a pipe of water the voltage would be the pressure (try putting your finger in the end of a tap and turning it on, the water pressure is what is pushing it out), the resistance is what's stopping the water flow (your finger) and the current is the amount of water that is coming out and spraying all over your shirt.\n\nI'm not sure how to explain wattage with water though, maybe someone else can pick that up?",
"Think of flowing electricity like a fire hose.\n\nVoltage is a bit like the pressure on one end of the hose. The higher the pressure, the more the water wants to flow away from the source of the pressure.\n\nResistance is a bit like the nozzle at the end of the hose. Close it up so it's smaller, and it's a lot harder for water to flow through. Open it up, and it's easier for water to come out.\n\nAmperage is like the volume of water that moves through the end of the hose. If you have high pressure and low resistance, you'll move lots of water through the nozzle. Lower pressure and high resistance, and much less water goes through the end.\n\nWattage is \"power\". Imagine sticking your hand in front of the hose. The water coming out is going to push your hand back. The higher the wattage, the stronger the push of the water is going to be. High volumes of water moving at a high rate means the water pushes hard at whatever is in front of it. Lower volumes at lower rates means less push.\n\nThus ends the explanation as I would give it to a 5 year old.\n\nVoltage = a difference in electric potential. The greater the difference in electric potential (like an abundace of electrons in one place and a shortage in another place) the more the electrons \"want\" to travel from one place to another.\n\nResistance (ohms) is exactly what it sounds like. How difficult is it for the electrons to travel through a medium.\n\nAmps is the amount of electric charge passing a point over a certain time. Each electron has a certain charge (in culombs), so you can think of amps as the number of electrons passing through per second.\n\nThese three are related by Amps = Volts * Ohms. More resistance with the same voltage means fewer amps, and so on.\n\nWattage is electric power. Watts = Volts * Amps. It's the rate at which the electricity can \"do stuff\". That's why the electric company charges you by the kilowatt-hour. One kilowatt-hour means you used a kilowatt of power for one hour.",
"Another water analogy that helped me in physics class.\n\nImagine you're by a river watching the water flow. Amperage, or current, is the amount of water that flows past you in a certain amount of time. (This represents the amount of electric charge flowing through a wire.) The voltage is the steepness of the ground the river flows on. If the ground is very steep, the water will flow very quickly. Similarly, a higher voltage means there will be a higher current.\n\nThe river is not flowing on perfectly smooth ground, though. There are bumps and turns it has to flow past, and there might be a bunch of rocks that slow down the water slightly. This is resistance. It's impossible to have a perfectly smooth, rock-free river, just like it's impossible to have a wire with zero resistance.\n\nWattage is how much energy is moved by the electricity. This energy is what electrical devices use when they work. I'm not sure how this would fit in the river analogy. But, if you know any two of the resistance, current, or voltage, you can calculate the wattage."
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7yhq1i | why do our joints ache when the barometric pressure changes? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7yhq1i/eli5_why_do_our_joints_ache_when_the_barometric/ | {
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"If I had to guess I’d say it has something to do with pressure between the joints. More pressure more expansion. Less pressure then maybe the closer they are together? ",
"Where two ends of the bones meet, they form a synovial joint. Basically a sac encloses the joint with fluid inside called synovial fluid. Low barometric pressure can increase the pressure inside of the synovial joint, indirectly increasing pressure on the ends of the bones.\n\nEDIT: Someone rightfully corrected me, low pressure will cause the pain not high. ",
"To add to this, I only started feeling this when I had metal inserted into my legs after breaking my right leg and left knee. Same reason? It's not extremely painful but it's there. ",
"_URL_0_\n\nHere's a study that sought out to answer that question. My understanding is that when it rains (low-pressure system), there's less force (atmospheric pressure) exerted on your knee joint. Which means everything inside your knee joint is going to expand slightly because of this loss of external pressure. When tissues expand inside a finite space, like during an inflammatory response, structures like nerves are going to be compressed, which causes pain. \n\nNot sure how it works in practice, they just took subjective assessments in this study.",
"How does this work with old injuries? Because whenever the weather gets particularly bad my ankle starts acting up. Essentially, I'm asking if I'll be bothered by this forever :'(",
"I always kind of assumed it’s because you’re more sedentary when it’s rainy/bad weather/low pressure.\n\nThere are lots of low pressure days that don’t come with bad weather and people don’t seem to complain much about them",
"My ex's joints would ache really bad when the weather would change and storms would occure. Heck it would do it a few days before any storm. I wish it didn't hurt her like it did. Used to call her my little barometer because of it.",
"It’s my understanding that this is largely confirmation bias, but I’m definitely no expert. I’ve been told by medical professionals that if our internal body pressure was actually affected by external pressure, we would have a whole host of more grave issues than joint aches. \n\nThis study (_URL_0_) seeks to put the claim to the test, and is from a reputable source with seemingly reasonable statistics. \n\nBasically, I think the answer is that there isn’t evidence beyond anecdote that joints are negatively affected by barometric pressure change or rain!",
"I’m super fascinated by how injuries play a part in this. I have had quite a lot of injuries in my younger days (though I’m still only in my twenties) and that, combined with some genetic stuff, leaves me in some pretty decent pain with pressure changes. \n\nI also had this interesting experiences once where lightning struck my brothers house while I was standing on the porch, I felt the electricity and my phone even restarted. The next day, my left knee (my worst joint) felt like I had freshly injured it. It was swollen and hurt for about 2 months afterwards. "
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40lald | what makes coming to america legally difficult? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/40lald/eli5_what_makes_coming_to_america_legally/ | {
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"If it weren't legally difficult, a great many foreigners thinking they'd have a better life in America would do so. \n\nIn some Americans' eyes this isn't desirable because it would place great stress on social systems, possibly increasing crime, taking jobs away from those that were born and live in America, and having other negative effects. \n\nSo laws have been put in place to greatly restrict immigration, generally with the intention to \"filter out\" those that are less desirable."
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3k2xr1 | why was google glass such a big deal a while ago, but now it is more or less dead? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3k2xr1/eli5_why_was_google_glass_such_a_big_deal_a_while/ | {
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"It's not dead it's just that they ended their trial runs and sent it back to the drawing board. You will hear more about it if they decide to stick with the product.",
"Because the idea was cool and futuristic, but as we didn't have futuristic enough technology the product was shit.\n\nIt's a bit like the idea of hover boards and flying cars. It captures the imagination of people, but it's incredibly hard to actually make it happen. Glasses with technology will maybe make a return when we can make it actually work in a practical way.\n\n",
"\"Google Glass: It's like a Segway for your face!\"\n\nIt was a big deal because of what people thought of its *potential*. The power of the cloud, right in front of you! Being able to take a photo whenever you want, without holding a camera! Searching what you're looking at, email wherever and whenever!\n\nThe *reality* was somewhat less. Headaches, lack of apps (and hackability in general), and it turns out that having the internet all over your face 24/7 is novel at first but not actually the desirable, life-changing event that we first thought it would be.",
"Glass isn't dead, they're just ditching the developer version and looking at version 2 that needs to actually be a consumer friendly design. The version you saw and heard a lot about was basically a developer kit, sort of functional hardware, but without the polish of a finished product. The 'final' version was supposed to look more or less like regular glasses from the outside for example. \n\nThe problem is that all of the interesting stuff you could and should be able to do with Glass is possibly illegal, is largely unpopular, and the pushback against glass from a lot of the tech and privacy crowd was quite strong (don't be a glasshole). It's one of those things where everyone wants to be the one with the glasses, and no one wants to be the one being filmed by them.\n\nIf you think about all of the neat stuff you can do with glass - you've got face recognition, always on recording, instant camera, being able to send and receive messages without grabbing your phone, etc. (and then application specific augmented reality where your glasses might be able to help you see more of a problem than your eyes do natively). All of those things seem great, until you're the one being recorded in a bar, or it's your daughter some creep is filming while she walks down the street. The ability to send and receive text messages sounds good, unless it turns out to be as distracting as using your phone, at which point you can't wear them while driving etc. etc. etc. For every cool thing you can do with glass there's a fairly strong reason you probably shouldn't, at least not for the general public walking around. Google hasn't sorted that problem out yet. About a [month ago](_URL_0_) they pushed some Glass stuff for business, and that seems like the most likely application at least initially.\n\nThe basic problem of being able to record any time anywhere, undetected, is one there's no easy way for google to solve. As much as they're fast little devices, some problems (image and character recognition, and probably speech recognition) require fairly significant processing power, which might mean you're moving a lot of data back and forth. That's bad in an era of cell phone companies with pitiful data caps and massive fees for using data. ",
"A lot of technologies follow a set pattern, consisting of the following cycles:\n\n1.) Conception - Someone comes up with the central idea and starts to develop it. Other scientists latch on in small numbers.\n\n2.) Research hype - Advances have been made, the public becomes aware of the possibilities and a large number of scientists starts to latch on. Companies start to explore the technology.\n\n3.) Post-hype development phase. The biggest problems have either been solved or they aren't solvable at the moment. The public loses interest and the number of scientists working on the technology thins out. Companies start to work towards prototypes.\n\n4.) Renaisance - Breakthroughs (possibly in other fields) allow for a lot of new developments in a short time. Renewed interest of the public. More companies latch on. Usually followed by a second post-hype development phase. For some technologies the cycle repeats itself several types.\n\n5.) Prototype phase - Actually working prototypes are developed and showcased. The first products reach the market but they usually fail because the technology is not mature yet. New companies focussing on the technology spring up and existing large companies start to invest a lot.\n\n6.) Maturation phase - Hype again dies down, the details of the technology are worked out and market-ready prototypes start being develop. A lot of companies will go bankrupt during this phase, or they ditch their research in the technology as they cannot keep up or were working towards dead ends.\n\n7.) Early market penetration - Market ready prototypes start being sold and actually make an impact. Companies start to make a profit and early adaptors make use of the technology in increasing numbers\n\n8.) Further development and full maturation - Continued improvements and cost reduction make the technology affordable for a large number of people.\n\nVR technology like Google Glass is probably in phase 6, which means that the hype has died down and people are working on making it an actual mature product. If it actually survives that part of the cycle you'll see actually useful prototypes hit the market at some point, but if it will and how long it'll take is anyone's guess.",
"I have Google glass and I love it. I wear it every time I go outside. I've been told the current version isn't polished/final, but the current functionalities are good enough for me. They're more of a convenience than anything else (Think Tablet vs Smartphone or Laptop vs All in one).\n\nI was in class like 5 days ago when my teacher told me I couldn't use my laptop in class to take notes. Since I didn't have a notebook, I took pictures of what she was writing on the board with my glass. I couldn't have my phone out in class, so glass kinda helped me there.\n\nLittle things like that make them worth it to me. The price was a bit high, but if you can afford it, its a nice addition :D",
"\"Glassholes.\"\n\nThe product was out for less than two weeks before complaints flooded in, not from the users, but from the people around them. The idea that one or more people around you have cameras that can be used to make sneaky recordings means that when you're out in public, you have *no* protection against whatever you're doing or saying ending up on the Internet, not even the faint warning you get when you see someone raise their phone to aim the camera lens at you.\n\nThere weren't even that many reports of \"glassholes\" abusing their face-mounted cameras. Didn't matter, because people didn't like the idea that they could be so easily abused. Google did what they could by putting a front-mounted light on it that would light up while recording. Didn't matter, because people suspected (correctly) that the light could be hacked to not turn on. That's why there kept being fights between people who didn't want to be under surveillance and people who felt entitled to go out in public wearing surveillance gear, and why the majority in the first group started calling the minority in the second group \"glassholes.\"\n\nThis resulted in more and more businesses, especially bars and movie theaters, banning Google Glass, and now you've got two problems: people having to leave $2000 face-computers in their cars to be stolen, and, worse, people who need prescription glasses being told that they can't wear them because of the computer and camera in the frame.\n\n*Google should have seen this coming.* There was a guy out there who was famous on the Internet for having made his own, many years ago, and one of the first things he documented was that he couldn't go anywhere in public without getting assaulted by people trying to make him take it off and turn it off. Somehow either nobody on the Google Glass team knew about this guy's experiences. Or maybe they thought that if there were enough Glassholes out there, the rest of us would just have to get used to them. I don't know. Anyway, it was no surprise to a lot of us that it crashed and burned.\n\nThat's why, when Google ended the public test, they announced that future development is going to focus on industrial applications, where you put it on at work and take it off before you go home."
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bf1kjo | how can a healthy diet and exercise "unclog" arteries? | Is fasting good way to unclog arteries? Or otherwise?
Is surgery the only way to actually remove the plaque in our arteries? Is a person who used to eat unhealthy for say, 10 years, and then begins a healthy diet and exercise always at risk for a heart attack? -From old post [_URL_2_](_URL_3_)
What good side effects and bad side effects of surgery that just remove plaque from arteries?
[_URL_0_](_URL_1_) is real?
I want more information (scientific information). I'm happy to hear all information and advices from you. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bf1kjo/eli5_how_can_a_healthy_diet_and_exercise_unclog/ | {
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"Side effects: better blood flow and lower strain on your heart. And ya know, normal surgical risks.",
"Preface: I’m not a doctor, but I know a bit.\n\nFrom what I understand, your body is always naturally attempting to unclog your arteries. The issue is our diets increase the clogging faster than our bodies can break it down. So either fasting or switching to a healthier diet would help in decreasing the clogging, but I’d recommend a healthy diet as it would give your body the nutrients it needs to be as productive as possible versus fasting that would just tell your body to work with what it’s got. Technically we’re always at risk for a heart attack, some things just aggravate that risk. But a person who’s had a trash diet, for a long amount of time can definitely go back to a healthier state just not the state that they would’ve been in if they had never eaten the diet. At that point the damage was done and the body could only do so much to bring it back to working order. Another issue apart from plaque in the arteries is that arteries can lose their elasticity, a condition known as arteriosclerosis (Plaque/fat build-up is atherosclerosis). Arteriosclerosis isn’t a huge deal in and of itself as it happens to our bodies naturally, the issue happens when it is paired with atherosclerosis and you start to have reduced blood flow to certain portions of the body and well you can see how that’s an issue. \n\nAs for the surgery portion/questions of yours, I can’t really say as I don’t have much hard experience/knowledge on the surgery aspect of it. \n\nHope this helped though.",
"A little fact I don't see anyone else throwing in there. Exercise makes your heart stronger. That seems obvious. That strength makes it more efficient. Again, a \"duh\" statement. When some of the arteries and veins are getting clogged, that extra strength and efficiency helps keep the *correct* amount of blood flowing, even though the lines are a little clogged. \n\nGetting it clogged without increasing the ability of the heart makes the heart work harder without giving it the strength it needs to do so. Heart healthy folks generally have a slightly lower heart rate, while the overweight and unhealthy have faster heart rates because they are trying to do the same amount of work with less ability.",
"It is actually a simple process. Blood is a solvent and LDL (bad cholesterol) is a solvent. Oversaturating your blood will cause the cholesterol to deposit inside your arteries. \n\nConversely, having low LDL means your blood can hold more cholesterol, so plaques already deposited can be reabsorbed.\n\nEating foods low in cholesterol can achieve this, as can taking cholesterol medicine. In any case, there is no known negative side effect to having a very low LDL."
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"https://www.reddit.com/r/oddlysatisfying/comments/9s0qcp/unclogging_an_artery/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1wxv56/eli5\\_does\\_exercise\\_and\\_eating\\_healthy\\_unclog\\_our/",
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1hu6yu | what has the hacker group anonymous actually accomplished? | I always hear them making threats but never hear about what they've actually done. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1hu6yu/eli5_what_has_the_hacker_group_anonymous_actually/ | {
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"they take down sites periodically, actually 'hacked' a couple people (westboro baptist church for example) in canada they released a bunch of personal information about our minister for public safety in protest over his support for a controversial crime bill.",
"They've also hacked and released thousands of North Korean government usernames and passwords for their accounts and web services and threatened to wipe out all of their data.\n\nThough people have said that Anonymous \"have done bad things to good people\", we can thank them for some things we have right now because of their protesting.",
"Anonymous does not refer to any specific group. That's why it's called anonymous. Any one person can be anonymous, so therefore anonymous has done plenty of things. What I remember anonymous for is closing the pool"
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3w89xa | why does cell standby use up so much battery? | _URL_0_ this is my note 5 not sure if it is the same for other phones | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3w89xa/eli5_why_does_cell_standby_use_up_so_much_battery/ | {
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"You're reaching the wrong conclusion. It's not that cell standby uses so much battery, it's that you don't use your phone, so your other apps will use next to no battery, and thus the percentage of power used by standby goes up. You're looking at percentages.\n\nCell standby is just a bunch of housekeeping that your phone does. You can reduce its power drain by switching off wifi, data connections, properly kill all background apps (the standby function still has to keep track of and schedule their processing, so it uses more, plus the apps themselves use power as well).\n\nBut no matter how much you reduce your power usage, cell standby will always have the highest % of battery used if you leave your phone unused. It makes sense if you think about it - what else is using your battery? Your battery will still last longer.\n\nEDIT: I was wrong there, Cell standby is not the housekeeping. Android System is the housekeeping as tied to the OS. Apply that to my above text. Cell standby is just the power drain caused by having an active cell connection. It constantly uses power for the antenna. The only way to stop it is to kill your network connection.\n\nIt uses more power than anything else in a standby system because the phone has very good low-power states when in standby, but one thing you really can't reduce is the power drain on the antenna needed to talk to the network.\n\nA high percentage of Cell Standby use usually just means that the rest of your phone is very power-efficient. Some phones however do have excessive power used by Standby where the network signal is low. If you find your battery draining faster than it should, that might be the case.\n\nI usually disconnect the network operator when I go in areas that don't have network coverage, just to prevent useless battery drain, and still keep my phone working for taking photos, or connecting to wifi or something."
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edhjnd | what happens when you try to burn something in an environment that doesn't have oxygen? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/edhjnd/eli5_what_happens_when_you_try_to_burn_something/ | {
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"Combustion requires an oxidizer. That doesn't necessarily have to be oxygen though. Without an oxidizer present nothing can combust.",
"Without going into detail (other Redditors can do a better job than I would ever be able to), there are things besides oxygen that will cause the \"burning\" you are talking about.\n\nI want to point out, however, that there is one common case where this is just the thing--charcoal. It is produced by taking wood or other combustibles and putting them into an environment without oxygen. Traditionally, this was done by stacking up wood and covering it with dirt and mud, leaving an opening. You light what it inside through the opening then cover it up. What happens is that the amount of oxygen in there get used up. When you have an environment now deprived of oxygen, the carbon in the wood no longer burns. Instead, all of the other stuff gets used up--water, resins, etc, leaving behind what is essentially a sponge of carbon.\n\nWhen you later take that charcoal and put it in your barbecue and light it, it now has access to oxygen, and that nice carbon sponge burns away, leaving minimal ashes behind.",
"You burn things by making them hot around oxygen. If you do that without oxygen, you just make the the thing hot. What happens depends on what the thing is.\n\nUsually, when things get hot enough they start glowing. Incandescent light bulbs make light this way.\n\nSome things break apart when they are made really hot. You can break organic molecules into carbon and hydrogen. You can break rust and a lot of minerals into their constituent elements. You can harden clays into pottery this way too.\n\nYou can separate oils and things that normally burn by heating them really hot without oxygen. Oil refineries do this a lot.\n\nSo there is a lot of cool things you can do when you heat things up without oxygen."
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7efd40 | why does cannibalism cause kuru...but not when you eat other species unless they're infected cows? | So from my elementary research I think I got this down.
Partake in Cannibalism = Kuru, mad cow disease, etc. you go crazy because unraveled prions from eating the cannibalized meat will cause your own brain's cells to unravel, and so on
Eat other species = yum
Eat a cow who has mad cow disease (because they were forced into cannibalism) = you get the mad cow disease...presumably because their unraveled prions also got to your brain and did it's magic?
So how come there is such a strong connection to eating your own species causing kuru, but not so with other species unless they're also mad? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7efd40/eli5_why_does_cannibalism_cause_kurubut_not_when/ | {
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"Cannibalism doesn't cause kuru. it was transmitted among a very small group of people, because they somehow got it and their unusual funerals led to it being passed along. No one has gotten this disease in decades. There are many similar diseases, generally all referred to as \"Transmissible spongiform encephalopathy.\" The proteins involved are not unravelled, they are misfolded.\n\nCannibalism does not cause these things, it only spreads them. They are caused by proteins becoming misfolded. This would normally only affect the organism it happened to, but through cannibalism it spreads to others.\n\nThe type that spread to humans from cows was a variant, and one which most people were immune to. ONly some people with a genetic defect affecting some amino acids could contract it. But because so many people ate it for so long, it was bound to happen eventually.\n\nThe reason eating your own species matters is because unlike mad cow disease, which affected only a very small number of people, if the prion exists in a member of your species that means it can easily adapt to you without any special changes needed and is spread without effort. From any other species it would require a mutation that allowed the prion to grab on to part of you, and thats not very likely.",
"The leading theory for BSE (mad cow disease) was that it emerged due to sheep infected with scrapie (another prion illness) being used for the bone meal fed to cows. \n\nSo, sheep with scrapie get eaten by cows = > BSE, and when those cows are fed to humans = > nvCJD.\n\nThe subsequent use of BSE infected cattle as feedstock (via bonemeal) led to a spread of the infection. I believe this is the case with Kuru too - Kuru didn't emerge from cannibalism, but rather spread via cannibalism.\n\nNot all prion illnesses are spread via ingestion. In fact most are primarily familial. It has also been spread in labs across other species. Perhaps most notable was a French lab that managed to infect \"humanized\" lab mice with scrapie (indicating that scrapie too can be transferred to humans). And there was also an instance of CJD being transferred from one person to another due to a corneal transplant.\n\nPrion diseases are weird and not yet properly understood.\n\n"
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7cevi8 | how does birth control pills work and how can they prevent pregnancy? | I've always wondered how these pills work, and how can they possibly prevent a pregnancy?
EDIT: Thank you to everyone for taking time out to answer! I am still a noob at Reddit so I didn't get (or notice) all the notifications. But at least I understand how the science behind birth control pills work now :D | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7cevi8/eli5_how_does_birth_control_pills_work_and_how/ | {
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"The hormones in the pill stop ovulation. No ovulation means there’s no egg hanging around for sperm to fertilize, so pregnancy can’t happen.\n\nThe pill’s hormones also thicken the mucus on the cervix. Thicker cervical mucus makes it hard for the sperm to swim to an egg — kind of like a sticky security guard.\n\nSource: _URL_0_",
"Birth control pills are doses of hormones, specifically estrogen and progesterone. \n\nThe relatively large dose of estrogen prevents the pituitary gland from noticing the \"natural\" spike of estrogen that signals the pituitary to secrete the hormones that cause an egg to be released from the ovaries. It's like turning up your music really loud so you don't notice your phone ringing. \n\nThe progesterone also affects the hormone signals for egg release (albeit through a different mechanism) as well as makes the uterus inhospitable for both egg implantation (in case one is released and fertilized) and sperm motility (by thickening the mucus in the cervix to make it harder to swim through).",
"Also interesting/important to remember that women on birth control don't actually get periods. They bleed once a month because the pills contain a pack of super pills with no hormones, and the sudden change from loads of hormones to none. causes the uterus to bleed. But it's not a real period, where the uterine lining has been preparing for a fertilised egg and then shedding. ",
"Typically, there are two ways the pill can work: based on estrogens, or based on progesterone-like substances. In general, both those strategies work by sending false signals to the reproductive system, using substances it uses to know when it should stop trying to reproduce.\n\nLet's start with estrogen-based therapies.\n\nFor that, we first need to understand how ovulation works. During ovulation, different eggs all over the ovaries start a \"race\", like an election race, in which they rally other non-egg ovary cells around them. Those cells secrete estrogens to the outside, which are a signal to other eggs to stop trying to mature. Eventually, one egg has so many cells around it, that the amount of estrogen they are secreting is so large that prevents any other egg from trying to mature. That egg has won ovulation that month.\n\"The pill\" is just a large dose of estrogens, which send the signal to eggs that there is already a winner, so they don't try to mature and be secreted into the uterus where it could be reached by sperm.\n\nThen, there are progesterone-based therapies.\nProgesterone is secreted in large quantities when a fertilized egg is implanted in the uterus to grow into a baby. In a very simplified way, progesterone-based therapies, are just telling the ovaries and uterus that there is already a baby in the making, so we don't need another one.\n\nMost contraceptive pills use a combination of both strategies.",
"In the simplest terms, some pills are hormone doses that emulate levels of a pregnant woman. This essentially tricks the body into thinking it is pregnant and it will therefore not release an egg to the possibility of fertilization (in a pseudo pregnant state the body would have no reason to release an egg because it thinks it is already pregnant)\n\nConsequently this is also why some girls experience symptoms on the pill that are the same as that of a pregnant person. Things like clear skin, tenderness of certain regions, weight fluctuation etc",
"How does the copper IUD work? It's non-hormonal.",
"Is it possible to have a birth control of men? If yes, how so?",
"Is there a secondary effect to this pills?"
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60e52q | why don't blood vessels sort of kink when we fold our knees/elbows? | Kind of like a hose | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/60e52q/eli5_why_dont_blood_vessels_sort_of_kink_when_we/ | {
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"1. The outside of each blood vessel is made of a material that has the right blend of firmness and flexibility.\n\n2. Most blood vessels are surrounded by soft tissue that will yield first, or hard things (like bones) that will protect them from some of the pressure.\n\n3. The interior of blood vessels is pressurized by the action of the heart.",
"They do actually. Every time you sit/kneel/lie in a bad position and an extremity \"goes to sleep\", it's because you've kinked a few too many veins/arteries. ",
"They actually can get kinked off from bending but you probably wouldn't notice it that's to collateral circulation. Your body is designed in such a way that major vessels are in areas that don't bend enough to get kinked off (femoral, carotid) and at the places they could get kinked off there are alternative paths that most likely would not be kind at the same time. "
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bigeqh | whats the difference between a gas giant planets and a tiny sun? | Is it just size, or does something need to happen with the gases for it to be classified as a sun? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bigeqh/eli5_whats_the_difference_between_a_gas_giant/ | {
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"As far as we know it's only a matter of mass.\n\nAfter a gas giant reaches a certain point it has enough mass to create the gravity needed to cause nuclear fusion.",
"The difference is there is fusion in the core of them. A gas giant have not fusion and a main sequence star have hydrogen1 fusion. There is also Brown dwarf in between the have some fusion but not hydrogen1\n\nYou need enough pressure and temperature in the core for fusion to start. That depend on the mass of the object so is is the mass that determine if it become a gas gigant a brown dwarf or a main sequence star. If you had approximate 13 Jupiter and put them together they would form become a brown dwarf and if you had 80 they become a star.\n\nSo is is if fission happen that is important but that directly depend on there size\n\nA gas gigant can have a size to 13x Jupiter and there is not fusion in them. Jupiter have a mass of 1/1047 of the sun so \\~0.1%\n\nThen you get a brown dwarf with a mass off approximate 13 juptiers to 75-80 Jupiter that is nor really a planet or a star but something in between. They have enough mass to fusion Deuterium(hydrogen2) and litium7 but not Hydrogen1.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nThey you have a red dwarfs that start at 75-80 Jupiter masses or 0.074-0,08 solar masses and they stop at about 0.5 solar masses. The have fusion of Hydrogen1 but are a lot colder on the surface then our sun and we can see any of them with a naked eye on the sky",
"The mass needs to be large enough to fuse hydrogen atoms, without the fusion taking place there is no heat being generated which is what classifies a star."
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6ffvnr | it makes sense from a biological point of view that we find sugary, fatty, or meaty foods delicious as they are rich in energy or proteins. why do we like spices in our food? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6ffvnr/eli5_it_makes_sense_from_a_biological_point_of/ | {
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"In terms of hot spices, chilies and such, it's a mild form of masochism. The tingling or burning is them stimulating your pain receptors. Human brains are wired a little oddly and our pain/pleasure centers can get mixed up, which is why we have masochism in the first place.\n\nThis is that.",
"One reason for heavily spiced food (like indian) is that traditionally spicing was used as a means of conservation. It kills off bacteria and fungae. So there's one biological advantage.",
"I have a speculation on what might be an evolutionary advantage...\n\nWe know that your body can function pretty well with a surprisingly narrow diet^1, but getting the *minimum* required amounts of vitamins & minerals isn't optimal, so a wider diet than that is certainly desirable.\n\nAdditionally to that, if you don't have modern knowledge of micronutrients, essential amino acids etc. and what sources contain which, the chances of any random narrow diet not having significant gaps is pretty small, and there's also the risk of *too* *much* of something. For these reasons, it's very desirable (especially in evolutionary history where knowledge was far less and variety was harder to get without extra effort) to have as wide a variety of foods as possible, though hopefully moderated by social knowledge of poisonous berries etc.\n\nJust having a strong desire for variety in flavours would make a huge difference to this, as you'd tend to seize any new source of food gleefully, increasing the chances of not dying from beriberi or scurvy or whatever.\n\nColours also particularly helpful from this point of view is that foods with different colours are more likely to contain somewhat different nutritional benefits (especially in terms of micronutrients, but also macronutrients).\n\nMy speculation is essentially that different \"spices\" also correlate fairly strongly with micronutrient diversity, so evolution makes them desirable.\n\n^1 I heard somebody say recently the human body can get all it needs from potatoes, butter, and broccoli, but that might be an exaggeration...",
"I can't speak to the other spices, but hot spices might have been used to mask the taste of spoiled food. Many historians believe that this is the reason why civilizations in hotter climates (India, Middle East, Mexico) incorporate lots of spices in their foods, because it spoils much more easily in warm weather."
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54bmm6 | how are salaries distributed and justified on big hollywood films with massive effects? like what would a cgi specialist get compared to big name actor? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/54bmm6/eli5_how_are_salaries_distributed_and_justified/ | {
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"Actors salaries are negotiated, and the price is mostly based on the audience draw vs another actor that'll do it for cheaper. \n \nFor VFX/CGI, most movies outsource, meaning they hire a VFX studio like ILM. I believe a VFX/CGI artist gets ~$70,000/yr on average (CGI for a blockbuster usually takes 3-6 months, so 2-4 movies a year), where supervisors and above of course get more."
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3naydk | what is hyperventilating mean and why does blowing into a paper bag always recommended? | Seems to always be the go to when someone is. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3naydk/eli5what_is_hyperventilating_mean_and_why_does/ | {
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"Hyperventilation occurs when the rate and quantity of alveolar ventilation (the volume of gas per unit time that reaches the alveoli, the respiratory portions of the lungs where gas exchange occurs) of carbon dioxide exceeds the body's production of carbon dioxide. Hyperventilation can be voluntary or involuntary.\nBreathing into a paper bag is recommended because one of the treatments for mild hyperventilation is recycling the carbon dioxide your body produces.\n\nSource: wikipedia\nEdit: typo"
]
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[]
] | |
5swfpp | the difference between polarized and non-polarized lenses in sunglasses. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5swfpp/eli5_the_difference_between_polarized_and/ | {
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"ELI13:\n\nLight travels in two [directions](_URL_0_) towards our eyes. The vertically polarized light is helpful in our sight; the horizontal polarized light is what we consider 'glare'. It actually interferes with our perceptions of images.\n\nNon-polzarized sunglasses filter out ~50% of both vertical and horizontal light, whereas polarized lenses filter out only the horizontally polarized light. \n\nEDIT: so many people correcting this 5-sentence explanation for \"accuracy\"....it's explain like I'm FIVE not explain like I have a good working knowledge of photon mechanics....I understand how light travels but let's make the assumption that OP does not. Check my post history for more technical answers about light. ",
"Light is both a wave and a particle. The wave function of light can be in different dimensions: up and down, left and right, etc. As /u/stoned_fox said, basically in different directions. However, it's not just two directions, it's *any* orientation - up/down, left/right, diagonally one way, the other way, slightly less diagonal, etc. As well, light can have chirality, which is rotational polarization and it can be left-handed or right-handed.\n\nThat can all be hard to visualize, but the point is that light waves move in different directions. Polarized glass only allows light of a certain orientation to pass through it. So imagine you have a mix of *every* orientation: up/down, left/right, everything in between. Imagine your glass has a bunch of vertical slots, so only up/down oriented light can get through. That's *basically* how polarized lenses work: they prevent light from going through if it's the wrong orientation.\n\nLight coming from the Sun has waves of all orientations. It's *non-polarized light*. When it hits the ground and reflects off, though, the ground can polarize it, reorienting most of the light to similar directions. Your sunglasses, since they're polarized, block all the light that's polarized from the ground. So you still get a lot of useful light to see around you, but it blocks out a lot of the glare coming off the ground. This is especially useful at the beach or when skiing/snowboarding, since the water and snow can cause a blinding glare.\n\n3D movie glasses work in a similar way. There's a left-eye image and a right-eye image. The images are polarized with different orientations, and then the 3D glasses are polarized so the left-eye lens blocks the right-eye picture, and vice versa.\n\n[Here's a visualization](_URL_0_)."
]
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40sshf | if opposite sides of magnets attract, why does the north side of a magnet point to the north pole? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/40sshf/eli5_if_opposite_sides_of_magnets_attract_why/ | {
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"Naming conventions. The north end (magnetic naming convention) of the magnet points towards the north end (direction) of the planet, which means that our north (direction) pole is a magnetic south pole.\n\nEDIT: I don't understand why people seem to be getting upset by this answer. It's accurate. The \"north\" and \"south\" poles on a magnet can be more accurately described as \"north oriented\" and \"south oriented.\" The north oriented pole is the pole that points north, which means that the north pole must be the magnetic opposite. This means that if we label one end of a magnet the north (north oriented), then the north pole in terms of direction is a magnetic south pole, and vice-versa.",
"Quite simply, you're looking at the names backwards\n\nThe planet's poles were named because direction the magnet points, not the other way round :-)\n\nNorth on Earth is the direction the North end of a magnet points. The North pole is actually the \"south\" magnetic pole of the Earth's magnetic field."
]
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1j3z9f | colored light | Why the heck does red and green produce yellow light? Also, why would red and blue create purple? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1j3z9f/eli5colored_light/ | {
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" > Why the heck does red and green produce yellow light? \n\nSo this really comes down to how you perceive colors.\n\nIn the back of your eyes are your retinas, which contain light-sensing cells. Specifically, it contains three different kinds of color-sensing cone cells (they're referred to as S,M, and L cells). Each type of cone cell is sensitive to a different range of wavelengths of light, but theyall overlap to some extent (see [here](_URL_0_)).\n\nIt turns out that a combination of red and green wavelengths can stimulate the M and L cones exactly the same way as yellow wavelengths, so we perceive the combination of red and green as yellow. The red and green light is still separate. They don't combine to make yellow light. We just *perceive* them the same way. That is, our eyes can't tell the difference between red+green, and yellow.\n\nYou want an even more bizarre fact? Purple isn't a real color. We see purple when our S and L cones are stimulated by blue and red light, but there is no single wavelength of light that can accomplish that. Thus there is no such thing as purple light."
]
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cones_SMJ2_E.svg"
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20h66t | are "perfectly straight teeth" (like after braces) better for eating than more uneven teeth (in general)? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/20h66t/eli5_are_perfectly_straight_teeth_like_after/ | {
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"No, there's nothing wrong with teeth that aren't straight. There are many factors that are important, including how the top jaw and the bottom jaw relate to one another... but the straightness of the front teeth is not one of them. [Source, and more information, here](_URL_0_).",
"If you're comparing movie star teeth to teeth with a few gaps or slight misalignment issues, there isn't really a difference.\n\nMany people get orthodontic work because they have more serious problems. Major overbites, underbites and crooked jaws can cause problems chewing, make teeth wear unevenly a nd, in extreme cases, actually cause them to fall out prematurely. My grandmother had a full set of dentures in her early 20s because poor alignment caused her teeth to wiggle loose, mine probably would have done the same without braces.",
"It has to do more with the alignment of your bite.\n\nWith perfectly straight teeth, each of your top teeth is aligned with your bottom teeth so that the flat surfaces of your molars directly contact with each other when you bite down. This means that the force of your bite is evenly distributed among all the teeth.\n\nWith an unaligned bite which can be caused by uneven teeth, your teeth are not aligned when you bite down. This means that the force of your bite is unevenly distributed. You could be forcing all that bite force on a single tooth or at an angle that isn't flat. This increases wear on that tooth so that the enamel wears down, causing sensitivity and possibly other issues."
]
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"http://www.octagonorthodontics.com/braces-and-smile-design/orthodontic-essentials/straight-teeth-what-should-they-look-like.html"
],
[],
[]
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977sxk | why do credit cards have a verification code? why not just make them 3-4 figures longer and treat the last few digits as a verification code with the rest of the card number? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/977sxk/eli5_why_do_credit_cards_have_a_verification_code/ | {
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"If someone managed to get your entire CC number, they'd be able to make all kinds of online purchases.\n\nWith the current system, even if they knew your CC number, they wouldn't be able to make purchases without the CVV as well.\n\nIt's like a very light form of 2 step verification.\n\nAlso online vendors cannot save any data about the CVV, so it prevents like an employee of Amazon from looking at your card info and making fraudulent purchases.\n",
"The vast majority of transactions don't involve the security code. The magnetic strip of the card doesn't have it and if you imprint the card you won't get a copy of it\n\nThis makes the security code actually somewhat secure since it's less likely to get picked up during everyday transactions. It's only used in transactions where the card isn't present\n\nIt's not great but it's good enough. No point trying to make a perfect security system, none exist",
"There actually at least two verification codes. There's the one you see, for phone/online orders (CVV2). The magnetic stripe contains another one for swipe purchases (CVV1].\n\nMerchants aren't supposed to store these numbers. So if their db gets hacked, the credit card numbers wouldn't necessarily be usable.\n\nBut it's a pretty weak security system, which is why there's a push to switch to chip cards. But that only protects card present purchases.",
"The most effective anti-fraud systems now are more about monitoring someone's spending habits than using complex systems to safeguard them. The little code as others have said is not passed along when scanning the card, and is only used online. That means that say, if you are a victim of a scam where they steal credit card numbers, they cannot use those numbers. It means each card must be targeted specifically in most cases, with some kind of physical access to the card.\n\nMost financial crimes are cyber now, so making something need physical access is a big deal. \n\nBut even then, the biggest protection is computer programs that note when you spend money in a way that doesn't seem like you, which is most credit card fraud. So you don't need to go too crazy, you can just have some fairly simple protection on the card. ",
"the verification code is only printed on the card nowhere else, so the assumption is that if you have the code it because you have the card\n\na security tip is to memorize the code and put a sticker over the verification code on the card so someone handling you card can't see it",
"Why dont credit cards have pin numbers? Wouldn't that stop a ton of fraud? Nobody had ever stolen cash from my lost ATM card without the pin",
"I read a year or two ago that somewhere in Europe (France I think) they invented cards where the verification code on the back changes every hour, so even if someone takes a picture of the card info or writes it down, they can't use it for long.",
"The reason the code is located on the back of the card is to combat card theft via photo or video.\n\nIf it was on the front a simple photo would be enough"
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6ct6c3 | how do sink holes happen and how do they work? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6ct6c3/eli5_how_do_sink_holes_happen_and_how_do_they_work/ | {
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"Sinkholes are mostly the cause of limestone structures being eroded by water, leading to the upper ground to cave in."
]
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[]
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5vlzyo | why is nasa's dicovery of those 7 earth-like planets so important? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5vlzyo/eli5_why_is_nasas_dicovery_of_those_7_earthlike/ | {
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"Because it's a major step in the search for life in the Universe. This many planets in a single place means they can focus less resources for more gain, aiming everything at a single star. Also, three of the planets are in the habitable zone, making this a seriously exciting find, because if they are there then there is a possibility of liquid water on at least one of them. Liquid water isn't proof of life but it's a good indicator that we're looking in the right place."
]
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29ts6l | why do we have fear over something even though we know it is not real? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/29ts6l/eli5why_do_we_have_fear_over_something_even/ | {
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"The older part of your brain doesn't know it's not real.\n\nThe part of your brain responsible for fear, the amygdala, is very ancient. It's part of what people often refer to as the \"reptile brain,\" and it evolved to help you avoid things that could hurt you. Even if the conscious part of your brain fully knows something is harmless (like a horror movie you are watching), the response by the amygdala, which is hard-wired, can often be powerful enough to override that.",
"Ladybugs are definitely real.",
"I always thought it was because although you know certain things are real and certain things aren't, the primitive part of your brain doesn't. I imagine what makes you scared has to react quicker than the logical part of your brain which tells you it isn't real. ",
"I'm just going to leave this here -- it may be a little bit beyond five year old explanation level, but it's worth a read and may shed some light on this: _URL_0_"
]
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[],
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_fiction"
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2w7wuj | why do your fingers get wrinkled when they get cold? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2w7wuj/eli5_why_do_your_fingers_get_wrinkled_when_they/ | {
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"I don't think my fingers have ever once become wrinkled in the cold. Is this really a thing? I had no idea this was a thing."
]
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3yn0wr | why don't more women breastfeed? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3yn0wr/eli5_why_dont_more_women_breastfeed/ | {
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"Sometimes it hurts to breast feed, sometimes the milk isn't as forthcoming as it should be, sometimes mother is busy, sometimes in public a bottle can be more comfortable that whipping out a tit. \nEdit- I should add that while in the past powdered baby milk was not available wet nurses were far more common, especially for the upper class, sometimes a child was sent to live with the wet nurse's family until milk feeding was over (Winston Churchill was fed by a wet nurse for example). ",
"Breastfeeding is hard, it can be painful (especially at the start or when the baby is unable to get the right latch), it is exhausting and it is often incompatible with many jobs. Yes, there is pumping, but many women cannot pump effectively and introducing bottles of pumped milk early into the breastfeeding relationship can sabotage further breastfeeding (drinking from a bottle is easier for an infant, so with some young babies, if they are given a bottle before they have really gotten the hang of feeding from the breast, they will start preferring that.) \n\nAnd because it can be such a hard thing (it is one of those things with a huge learning curve before it levels off), it is also one of those things that can end up damaged by very well-meaning actions. As in, you have a young couple, first baby, mom's exhausted, baby is screaming with hunger, hell everybody is exhausted, and it becomes to *easy* to reach for those free formula samples you got at the hospital (Formula companies don't give you these out of goodwill, they are banking on these kind of situations) and make the kid a bottle. And then two bottles. And then, because the less the kid feeds at the breast, the less milk the woman produces even more bottles and so on. Not for all women and babies, mind you! Plenty of people do end up using a mix of both formula and breastmilk, but for some women, introducing formula can really start messing with their supply until it becomes a downward spiral. \n\nAnd that is not even going into social attitudes that make it much harder. Breast milk is best, but there are still plenty of people that believe formula is just as good. And you get the more out there, unsupportive attitudes like 'you are selfish because now the dad can't feed the kid and they cannot bond'. ",
"\nBreastfeeding can be incredibly painful and difficult in the early stages. \nSome mothers do not produce enough milk so baby always wants to feed which is incredibly tiring.\nBreastfeeding mothers tend to get less sleep compared to mothers who formula feed.\n\nBelieve me, breastfeeding is not that easy so when a simple solution is available it's not hard to see why mothers opt for it.\n",
"Women need more support. It can take several weeks for feeding to become truly established. If they're struggling, how long will they persevere if they can't find help? It can physically hurt, I've seen women yell in pain, or be unable to talk while the baby feeds, but I've also seen these women go on to feed successfully once they were helped. Depends on the woman, the baby, her care and her circumstances. Here is Australia women are seen by midwives at home for ~2 weeks after birth, and then see nurses and have access to support groups.",
"First, to clarify, the vast majority of women *do* breastfeed. Formula is usually a supplement rather than a replacement. This is especially helpful for mothers who cannot produce enough milk on their own (some women produce lots, others very little). \n\nAlso, one very key reason that hasn't been mentioned is as a way to avoid transmitting diseases and medications that may be present in breast milk. Women undergoing any kind of treatment (say chemo for cancer or even just steroids for a cold) cannot breastfeed their children, so they use formula until the medication passes through their system. \n\n"
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2s6qdt | why can't i suck as hard as i blow? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2s6qdt/eli5_why_cant_i_suck_as_hard_as_i_blow/ | {
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"I think it's due to [hysteresis](_URL_0_). Essentially the process proceeds differently forward than it does backwards. When you in inhale it requires more pressure to fill your lungs for the same volume than you would produce if you exhaled. I.e. if your lungs are half full (e.g. 3L) and you blow out then you will produce less force than if you inhaled instead.\n\nThe underlying reason is that your lungs have these tiny vesicles which collapse under low pressure: they require extra effort to expand when you breathe in and provide extra push when you breathe out.",
"I thought about something else when I read the title. \n\n"
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68frqt | why increased atmospheric co2 levels don't just mean healthier more lush plant life which in turn offset that co2. | . | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/68frqt/eli5_why_increased_atmospheric_co2_levels_dont/ | {
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"Photosynthesis = H20 + CO2 + Light (particularly UV/V/B light) made into O2 (oxygen gas) + C6H12O6 (Sugar).... Let's keep that simplification in mind for now.\n\nWhen we think about plants making O2 to offset the CO2 production, you run into two key limitations: water and rate of photosynthesis. When there is no water (particularly clean, harmless water), it prevents the process of photosynthesis from occurring. That is why a drought can be devastating in that regard. This usually isn't an issue as rain forests contribute much of the plant-based global-O2 generation and these environments are not insanely water deprived (but global warming and deforesting have still affected this cycle in some regards).\n\nThe biggest issue is rate of photosynthesis. Just because more CO2 is present, that does not mean the plant will engage in photosynthesis much quicker. Think of it like this: let's say your car tops out at 100mph. Does adding more gas in your tank make your car faster? The answer - no. Your car (plant) is still limited by its internals (plant chlorophylls) regardless of how much gas (CO2) is in the tank (atmosphere).\n\nAlso, the Ocean makes about 70% of oxygen. Phytoplankton and the sorts, and they are also in danger due to the dropping quality of ocean water in some regions.\n\nEDIT: Phone auto corrected \"in danger\" to \"endangered.\" ",
"Because plants aren't CO2 starved. They have all the CO2 that they need for photosynthesis so there isn't room for improvement among them. Everything they don't need just piles up, which is what we have now."
]
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54nt9w | how breakers work and what they do. | I'm majoring in graphic communications and do a lot of stuff with AutoCad. A company I want to work for does the layout for power distribution plants and while I was interviewing with them they were trying to explain to me all about how they distribute power and a lot about breakers. So I was wondering if someone could break it down for me so I'm more prepared for any follow up interviews. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/54nt9w/eli5how_breakers_work_and_what_they_do/ | {
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"Normally the ones in your house use a bimetalic strip (two different metals stuck together) that the current runs through, when the current is high it heats the strip causing one side to expand faster than the other bending it and tripping the breaker, it looks like [this](_URL_1_).\n\nDC breakers can use an electro magnetic to pull the switch into the off position (which is what you see when you google it, but doesn't actually work in a home power panel).\n\nThen you have simple fuses (just a wire that burns and breaks when it has too much current and [polyfuses](_URL_0_) in many electronic devices which function just like breakers, but without the switch."
]
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resettable_fuse",
"http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/electric/imgele/bre3.gif"
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2wdwxr | with all the water problems in poor countries why dont they just use solar stills to clean water. | I watched this video on youtube about this guy who goes to haiti and they drill water wells. The video said the land is so close to sea level its hard to find fresh water and when they do it is filled with parasites. My question is, why dont they use sea water solar stills in mass? They have enough flat land and they are in direct sunlight 11 hours a day almost 12 months a year. This would also create jobs for the poor locals by having them emtpy cleaned water and refill with pumped sea water. This would give clean parasite free drinkable water and be good for their economy while using 3 abundant resources, poor people looking for work, sea water, and the sun. Am i missing something? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2wdwxr/eli5_with_all_the_water_problems_in_poor/ | {
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"They could, but solar distillation, which takes time and is very weather dependent, doesn't necessarily produce enough water outside of a survival level. You need a huge amount of space to do it on large scale, and you have to have severe water discipline because you can't necessarily create enough to maintain the inefficient agricultural needs, sanitation, drinking water, industrial needs, to get the culture to ramp up.\n\nIt isn't that it can't be done, it's that it would require an education, knowledgeable population that were all on the same page.\n\nAlso, the kind of places with this problem, are usually with highly unstable cultures and governments, inter-group rivalries and tribalism, and conflict. They would need to solve all those problems to actually get to a point of creating such an infrastructure. You can create something like that at a small scale in first world countries, with governments that might sanction it, a business where you could manage it, people that won't destroy your passive distillation system because they offend the water God, Splashamesh, and such things.",
"Corruption. It's so severe that we can barely get [food aid](_URL_0_) into Haiti. Ship millions or billions of dollars in a non-perishable item to any undeveloped or under-developed nation and you'll most likely see most of it \"missing\" in no time. And beyond that, any massive project is going to rely on the potentially corrupt government for oversight, if nothing else. Unless, of course, the organizations involved stay there forever. That's not to say we shouldn't try, but there's more pervasive issues than just a lack of food or clean water in these countries."
]
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[],
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"http://www.nbcnews.com/id/23507559/ns/world_news-americas/t/haiti-goes-hungry-tons-food-rot-ports/"
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6qgq0o | why does bottled mineral water not go stale? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6qgq0o/eli5_why_does_bottled_mineral_water_not_go_stale/ | {
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"Water does not go stale, because there is nothing for bacteria or fungi to eat and chemically change. Minerals do not go stale because they are rocks. Water can taste stale because of its collection of carbon dioxide from the air. A bottle is sealed, so no extra CO2 gets in. This results in a product that won't go stale until the bottle starts to degrade. "
]
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[]
] | |
64eqvj | why wet sand is darker? | Same question goes for other wet surfaces. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/64eqvj/eli5_why_wet_sand_is_darker/ | {
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"Good question...wet sand is darker because it is denser and water affects light penetration. For the latter part, think about looking 3ft in front of you in air, and then in 3ft of water. ",
"I think it's because grains of sand have a flat but rough surface that scatters light evenly in all directions. When the surface becomes wet, it becomes more 'mirror like', reflecting light in one direction only, thereby appearing darker unless viewed at the right angle. "
]
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5fstgb | why does slurping a hot beverage make it feel less hot when drinking it? | I'm drinking tea right now and it's piping hot to drink normally but when I slurp it (yes that noise) I'm talking in the same amount I would be drinking normally but it's a lot easier to drink. What's going on? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5fstgb/eli5_why_does_slurping_a_hot_beverage_make_it/ | {
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"Not an expert, but I assume when you're slurping you cover all the liquid surface area going into your mouth with air, so it's being cooled down as it goes into your mouth from the container. Hope I'm of some assistance! ",
"When you slurp you cause the drink to be atomized into a fine mist (or smaller globs). These all have a small mass when compared to the rest of the drink in the container. There is a scientific term, specific heat, which defines the technical explanation of 'why' mass matters. \n\nThat said, the simple way to think of it is that your cup of hot tea is like a battery. The battery is full of energy and if you touch it the shock WILL hurt, but if you slurp it, you break the battery off into lots of little batteries. Each smaller battery has less energy than the whole did, and so it both discharges quickly (cools when it touches your mouth) and also doesn't have a lot of energy to begin with (think of this like a 5lb dumbell being removed from a pallet of 5lb dumbells. It's still 5lbs, but now it's *only* 5lbs, instead of together all of the dumbbells weighing several tons).",
"You're also using your mouth like a carburetor of sorts. Adjusting the ratio of air rushing past the surface of the liquid also changes the temperature of it while providing cooling to the tongue and inner surface of the mouth."
]
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[],
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2sl7g2 | how can we see so much of the universe, but still have found no other signs of organic life? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2sl7g2/eli5_how_can_we_see_so_much_of_the_universe_but/ | {
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"We've only seen an itty bitty tiny little slice of even our own solar system, which only has a few other places that could even support organic life. We've never seen the surface of venus, or any of the moons of Saturn and Jupiter. \n\nOrganic life is also very tiny. Looking at Earth from space during the day, it would be nearly impossible to tell that Humans live here, let alone a little colony of bacteria under a rock somewhere.",
"Mankind has been looking to the stars since the dawn of time. You could say it's roughly 200,000 years ago when \"modern\" humans came about.\n\nWe weren't able to even see the moons of Jupiter until 1610.\n\nIt's only in the last 20 years or so that we've actually been able to discover planets outside our solar system.\n\nIf there's life on any of them, it might take us a few more years to figure out if it's there. Proving it's there will be nearly impossible, since they're all much too far away for us to travel to and actually examine up close.",
"We can only see a small portion of the Universe. Also, by the time light reaches us from distant stars it is often millions of years old. However to \"see\" or detect aliens they'd probably have to technologically advanced enough to use a form of communication that we could pick up. Even if there is a intelligent bronze age civilization on a planet in say Alpha Centauri (our nearest neighboring star system) there's no way of detecting them save sending a probe to the planet. There's the Fermi paradox to think of too."
]
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49pqvd | why do we sometimes wake up to be highly irritable, and sometimes just happy? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/49pqvd/eli5_why_do_we_sometimes_wake_up_to_be_highly/ | {
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"I've read many theories and ideas about this, but all have said \"we don't really know\". The two that resonated with me are:\n\n1. when we first wake up we are our pretty raw-selves. Our intellect hasn't taken over and our mood is more closely bound to our biology - hunger, pain, discomfort, tiredness etc. are more likely to be form our surface feelings than our mind. AKA - we're like babies.\n\n2. dreams. dreams are emotional experiences and emotional experiences \"linger\" - thats kinda what mood is.\n\n"
]
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[]
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e7mkle | how do you breed an animal? | Moreso, how do you create breeds of animals without that breed being taxonomically different? Also, if a person has a family history off specific traits, does that mean they're a breed of H. Sapiens? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/e7mkle/eli5_how_do_you_breed_an_animal/ | {
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"Many of these seemed to miss the ELI5 of this.\n\nLet’s say you find a dog really good at catching small mice. You take that dog and let him mate. You discover that two out of the 6 puppies are also really good at catching small mice. Maybe something about the size or the agility of the dogs make them good at it. You focus on those two puppies, and let them breed as well. You keep doing this process, and soon, If the mice catching is passed on from the parents to the puppies, you have lots of dogs really good at catching things. \n\n“Breeds” typically apply to domesticated animals where people have done this selection process. I would not say that people have “breeds” even if locally adapted to their environments but it would certainly be possible to do so. Much longer process since it takes a lot longer for people to reproduce compared to most domestic animals."
]
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[]
] | |
9eqdel | why do litters of animals have a runt? why is there always one offspring that happens to be weaker than the rest? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9eqdel/eli5_why_do_litters_of_animals_have_a_runt_why_is/ | {
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"Multiple reasons birth defect or opportunity.\n\nlets say a mother has 6 nips but had 7 babies, if that extra baby can't get in cause of the first feeding you can assume the others are strong enough to push him out of the way and continue feeding.",
"Historically, I think the runt just referred to the smallest or weakest of the litter. That's bound to happen when you have multiple offspring, however small or large the difference is.",
"I bred cats for around 10 years. We had literally dozens of litters during this time and only one could have been said to have a runt. In my experience, and the experience of our cat breeding friends, runts aren't really common, and I believe they are typically the result of placental insufficiency. ",
"Because especially for litters of several animals, the chances of all of the animals being the exact same size and strength, and holding that equalness throughout childhood is just about nothing. As with everything else, there's small things, medium things, and large things."
]
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aoal8b | what are the differences psychology between reading a book and reading posts on social media? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/aoal8b/eli5_what_are_the_differences_psychology_between/ | {
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"Psychology student here. When you read a book you usually have to use more cognitivie resources to understand it and social media posts have a purpose: make things go viral. So it has to be easier to read and understand.\nAlso, context matters. For example, if you're on a philosophy subreddit, you're prone to find really intellectual discussions so you're going to use more cognitive resources; like when you read a book. The opposite happening when you read a kid's tale, for example.\n\nWhat's really important is the content of what you're reading and how it defies you. The thing is, books are commonly harder to read than social media posts.\n",
"Though there has been little research on this particular question, It likely depends more on the *content* and authorship of what you’re reading than the medium (book vs app). That said, social media posts tend to be shorter and are surrounded by other posts with widely varying topics / effects on emotions. A book is slow to change focus, so it’s unlikely to have the same variety of effects within the same amount of time. \n\nBooks require a longer attention span and time investment and in the case of fiction, can cause a greater emotional connection to the characters and therefor a more long-lasting effect. \n\nLike the difference between an endless roller coaster and meandering afternoon drive to who knows where. "
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2rt1bh | why obama's term is considered as unsuccessful? | From my point of view, he is trying to fix every single problematic area such as healthcare, immigration and most recently education. He is investing newer greener technologies and promoting STEM fields and able to talk about more contemporary topics like net neutrality (which I believe most of the leaders would be just laughing at).
He seems to me as a very smart guy who listens to people's concerns, understands the country's major problems and tries to fix them in a systematic and plausible way. (That's just my opinion and I'm no expert however.)
Disclaimer: I'm not from the states. However, I just moved to California as a student and I'm loving the weather here :) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2rt1bh/eli5_why_obamas_term_is_considered_as_unsuccessful/ | {
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"It takes decades to really say if a presidency is a success/failure. It is nearly impossible in the immediacy of a presidency to make any sort of claim. Historians are still looking at the presidencies of Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford to judge if they were successes or failures. Recent evaluations of Taft and Roosevelt (Teddy) are still being published.\n\nIt will be some time before Obama's term in office met its goals or accomplished anything worthwhile... the same with Bush Jr., Clinton, Bush Sr, etc...",
"I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that by the time a president is in office 6 years, people on all sides of the political spectrum have plenty of things to be critical of. I think this is true of any president. Conservatives have been ultra critical of him from the start and liberals think he has made too many compromises."
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5wgr5o | what role does pricewaterhousecoopers, an accounting firm, have in the oscars? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5wgr5o/eli5what_role_does_pricewaterhousecoopers_an/ | {
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"PricewaterhouseCoopers is more than just your average accounting firm - they provide a lot of other services like auditing, business management, etc, etc\n\nIncluding for the last 83 years being the company that overseas the counting of the votes for the Academy Awards. They are the ones that count the votes, print the envelopes and hand them to the presenters. They got this gig by having the best reputation and having a supposedly foolproof system.\n\n**supposedly foolproof** ",
"They've been responsible for counting the ballots and preparing the result envelopes for decades. \n\nHistorically, the ballots were on paper and mailed in. So they had to be individually verified and counted. Nowadays, it's a mixture of online and paper, since there are still people who prefer to avoid computer entry. Because of the value of the awards, both for gamblers and for studios that can exploit the results (entirely properly, if done after the announcements), it's important to keep them secret. Hiring an accounting firm lends tomthe credibility of the award results, since they're used to the ethical constraints of impartiality and privacy. \n\n[This Forbes article]( _URL_0_) gives more details of the process and names the names of the two people whose heads may be on the chopping block. \n\n"
]
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[],
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"https://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2017/02/26/only-two-people-already-know-who-won-the-oscars-but-theyre-not-telling/#41a3e4c0551a"
]
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40id9l | how they separate the egg whites from the yolks for sale in those small containers. also what do they do with the yolks? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/40id9l/eli5_how_they_separate_the_egg_whites_from_the/ | {
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"Separating an egg is easy. You can even do it with your hands. They just have machines that crack eggs and slide the eggs down a chute. Theres a crack in the chute where the whites fall through but the yolk is too big to fall through. They probably use the yolk in another product they sell or they sell it to another company"
]
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afef1s | could i live forever with brain transplants? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/afef1s/eli5_could_i_live_forever_with_brain_transplants/ | {
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"text": [
"Unlikely because your brain is an organ too. The organ failures which would kill your original body will eventually kill your brain as well. You might get a while from avoiding the shorter lived organs dying on you but you can't last forever.",
"I think the only way to \"live forever\" would be to somehow upload your consciousness to the internet. Or into an \"android\" even then... Are you really even you anymore at that point? I think time travel would be more worth the money and research cause then you can see if the futures even worth living forever for. \n\nYes.. Im very high. "
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3pvq56 | why do we get the urge to jump off of high places or act impulsively on things we know would be harmful to us or those around us? | Why do we get that "call of the void" feeling? What causes it when we know truly that if we were to act on it, it would be detrimental to our lives? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3pvq56/eli5_why_do_we_get_the_urge_to_jump_off_of_high/ | {
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"Do you get the urge to jump off of high places? I personally get the urge to crawl and get the fuck out of the ledge.\n\nOther than that I can only guess adrenaline is some what adictive, so some people might try to do extreme or dangerous things to get this upper felling that adrenaline gives."
]
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1vo17x | how the chinese water drop torture was such a cream and effective form of torture | Does it just get really anooying or something?
Edit: Cruel... Cruel form of torture | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1vo17x/eli5_how_the_chinese_water_drop_torture_was_such/ | {
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"Think of it like an itch you can't scratch. It starts off annoying, then slowly you can't stop thinking about it. I can barely go 30 seconds with an inch before I give in and scratch. Its the same with the water torture, except you have no control, you can't relieve the \"itch,\" and it could go on for hours or days. Eventually it would likely drive you mad.",
"Have you ever had the experience of getting fixated on a repeated pattern? Maybe you've watched a light blink every 2 seconds, or listened to a beep that goes off at regular intervals.\n\nThat's kind of what Chinese water torture is. You get fixated on that drop of water, always anticipating the next one. The problem is, you can't look away when you get bored. Soon it becomes hard to concentrate on anything else, your body always anticipating the next drop. You may shake, or scream, or do anything to break the monotony of it, but you can't do anything about the constant dripping. This is why it's so effective, because it simply drives people mad without risking their death before getting information like other forms of torture.\n\nHere's a [Mythbusters Segment](_URL_0_) on it.",
"I can't answer the question, and quite a few people have really good answers here, but I have a question about it. Would it be less 'effective' against someone who is monotonous, like someone with Autism? sorry if my question is mundane.",
"The Chinese water torture is ingenious in its simplicity, yet it combines multiple forms of torture into one, making it more effective at breaking down people.\n\n- Immobility: Victim is strapped down for an extend amount of time, you can't even move your head. Got that itch on your buttcrack or the one behind your neck? Too bad, you can't scratch it.\n- Isolation: The victim is left isolated, so all he can think about is that damn drop of water.\n- Audio torture: You know how you want to strangle that moron in class that's always tapping that damn pencil on the desk? Now imagine that tapping on your fucking forehead, nonstop, at a constant rate.\n- Temperature torture: CWT uses cold water so you can feel every single drop. Pretty soon you will have a headache, follow by hypothermia.\n",
"Ever have a leaky faucet or tub? And the drip drip drip drip sound is unbearable? Well picture that, but it's dripping on your head."
]
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1pkvnh | why are precious metals, uh, precious, within the context of a world economic collapse? what good would having gold and silver without rule of law? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1pkvnh/why_are_precious_metals_uh_precious_within_the/ | {
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"Precious metals are a commodity. They are a highly portable one and they can be shaped into coins/bars for transfer. This has made them useful as a medium of exchange. They are also aesthetically pleasing, which is almost entirely where they derive their value outside of electronics and fine dining.\n\nIn a lawless society where you would need to defend your property having a high-value commodity with little practical application would likely be a liability. Though you're working in a barter economy, so anyone who likes gold and has something you want would be keen to exchange.",
"Because people would believe they were valuable. \n\nThroughout history, people have figured out that barter is a pain, so they have taken some arbitrary, largely valueless item, and giving it artificial value. It has to be rare enough people don't just dig it up, but not so rare there isn't enough of it to go around. It has to be portable, and hard to counterfeit, but not something people need to consume. \n\nGold has fit that bill pretty well, so people think it would continue to in a post apocalyptic world. Me, I'm saving up my bottle caps.",
"Anything is only worth as much as someone is willing to pay you for it.\n\nSo in short - people see scarcer minerals as more valuable and are willing to barter with/for it.\n\nSalt used to be like this too.",
"in order for gold to have value you need to have someone in a position of wealth who wants it. If you are a peasant with a shiny gold coin, but your only trading partner is just another peasant you won't be able to trade it for much. If there is a nearby king with many fat hogs, and you know he likes gold you may trade with the king for one of his fat hogs; or you may trade with the other peasant for his daughter because he knows he can get a pig with the coin.\n\nNow why does the king want the gold? Firstly because it's pretty, and he won't go hungry by trading the pig. Secondly the gold won't rot, but the pig will; so it allows him to save his wealth, but only if he can find someone else to trade with. Over time such trades allow him to buy other stuff, like weapons and armor, and higher people to use them. Then you have the rule of law, to some extent."
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1o8hp4 | why do colleges and universities charge (often high) application fees? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1o8hp4/eli5_why_do_colleges_and_universities_charge/ | {
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"The cynical answer is 'because they can.' Universities have so much demand for their services that they can charge a fee for pretty much anything. Students will pay it, because what other choice do they have?\n\nFor a more helpful answer, most Universities already receive more applications than they can accept. Thus, they need to discourage as many unqualified applicants as they can in order to handle applications processing in a manageable way. Charging a nominal fee will prevent unqualified applicants from even considering it, and even though it's expensive, the fee is tiny compared to the cost of the overall education. As well, many universities will waive the application fee for a qualified applicant who demonstrates financial need.\n\nFinally, without fees, students would (did, and still do if they're rich enough) 'shotgun' their applications, applying to every University they could think of in hopes that they'd get into their preferred one, but have a slew of options in case that one doesn't work out. Since that student is only going to attend one University, the time spent reviewing their application at every other University they applied to is wasted.\n\n ",
"The application fees for post-secondary schools are primarily intended to reduce the number of applications they recieve and secondarily to account for the cost of reviewing applications. Without fees, it would be even easier for people to apply to as many schools as possible and then pick from any offers they receive. This would mean schools have to spend resources reviewing applications for students who clearly don't qualify and a larger portion of the students they select would reject their acceptance because they choose to go to another school. By having a fee, they reduce this amount of waste.\n\nMany schools have a method to apply for application fee waivers or reductions for needy students.",
"To discourage people from applying if they're not really interested in attending. They don't want to process applications if there's no point.",
"Officially, it's to reduce the number of unsuccessful applications. People are less likely to send an application to Harvard when they have no chance of getting in if there is a steep fee to pay in order to apply. It's also to help cover the cost of the temporary staff required to sort through all of the paper applications. I know back when I was applying to college around 1999, it was common to drop the fee for an online application.\n\nUnofficially, it is an easy way to raise cash, particularly if you are a prestigious college or university whom everyone wants to apply to. You raise the cost and just rake in money.",
"In the U.S. application fees for prestigious private universities are like $75 and nearly all have a waiver you can fill out if that's a hardship for you.\n\nIf you can't foot a handful of $75 fees, and can't be bothered to fill out fee waivers, then you certainly shouldn't be applying for student loans and entering into that kind of commitment. ",
"TIL that US universities charge application fees. That's... I.... there are no words."
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5orfc3 | why are hawaiians and other pacific islanders so much more prone to obesity than other people? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5orfc3/eli5why_are_hawaiians_and_other_pacific_islanders/ | {
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"It's a recent change, mostly attributed to a shift from traditional diet to high-calorie processed food. Many islands don't have enough workable land to sustain the current population with fresh food. Some have also suggested cultural support for being large plays a role."
]
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2piq7l | how do homeless people always seem to end up with a dog? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2piq7l/eli5_how_do_homeless_people_always_seem_to_end_up/ | {
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"homeless dogs? Both require companionship. Literally your answer is that simple. ",
"Birds of a feather flock together. Either they had one when they became homeless or dog/human adopted a stray. Humans can getminto the big dumpsters",
"Companionship, warmth on cold nights and first line of defense. Homeless people are quite often set upon at night, a dog serves as early warning and protection.",
"They also keep the rodents away while the people are asleep.",
"Most homeless shelters don't allow pets. Thus homeless people with dogs spend more time outdoors. You just see them more often.",
"I don't want to come off completely cynical here, but I have seen homeless people begging for change with cute puppies and it makes me think of Slumdog millionaire and how they exploited children to gain better donations. I'd like to think that they have that puppy and will do their best to raise it but I just find it hard to believe that once it grows older that will be it and on for a new puppy",
"cynically, they're not homeless, just scammers begging for easy money.....follow one sometime, see f they don't walk to a car and drive home...we have them in our city...see \"the Shaky Lady\" in Toronto......"
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3n9i84 | what do free email providors benefit from providing the service | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3n9i84/eli5what_do_free_email_providors_benefit_from/ | {
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"gmail uses a bot to read your emails and sells your personal information to advertisers. I guess you didn't^read^thesmallprint\n",
"They get advertisement revenue. You just don't realize it. The big free services all get it, so that takes care of their money.\n\nAlso, many email clients are apart of a commercial package like an ISP. Yahoo has a rather large small business setup that they sell packages of, as does Google have business solutions and sells those."
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9ncqlf | how are braces able to move teeth without loosening them or making their roots weak? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9ncqlf/eli5_how_are_braces_able_to_move_teeth_without/ | {
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"I don't have braces, but I would imagine it's because the changes they induce are so gradual that your teeth/roots/gums have a chance to get used to the changes, and grow back in around the teeth... (?) ",
"Braces reposistion your teeth slowly and over time.\n\nI hade my braces for 2 years, before that 1 year of a retainer, and before that I had 2 teeth pulled from up as well as down to make room to reposition them \n\nSince the adjusting is done very slowly your body is abled to keep your teeth fixed during the ordeal. \n\nI guess you could maybe compare it to the \"trick\" with the iron string through a block of ice. What happens here is that the pressure of the string, weighed down with two weights on either side, causes the ice under the string (think a fraction of a mm) to melt and the string sinks through it. Once it sunk the small distance, the ice reforms above the string and the pressure melts the next fraction underneath. After anwhile the string will have cut through the ice entirely but the ice will not be cut in half!\n\nI suppose you could see your jaw doing the same. Giving in a little under pressure and letting your teeth move a fraction, while closing the fraction of the hole that is now created. After two painstaking long aganozing years your teeth have moved and your jaw still holds on to them.",
"The same way a tree can slowly grow around or through a metal gate. The constant pressure exerted against your teeth and jaws forces the teeth to \"grow\" in a certain direction. The growing part is in your jaw, bone and gum cells constantly being replaced in normal regenerative processes.",
"My orthodontist had a brochure that explained how it worked with a diagram. I can make an analogy that is almost there since I can't draw a diagram for you, then we can connect that to how teeth work.\n\nThink about a fence post in the ground, only it's crooked, not straight. Imagine you push against it to straighten it. It won't stay unless you hold it up, because now there's a gap between the post and the dirt on which it used to rest. Now imagine you fill in that gap with more dirt and pack it solid. If you let go of the post, it will stay straight.\n\nThat's what braces do. They pull on your teeth and move them slightly. Your body's gum tissue grows to fill in the teeny gaps this creates. That has the effect of permanently changing the position of the tooth. \n\nOr my orthodontist was a liar, or this is an oversimplification.",
"Bracework does reduce the length of your roots , that's one of the reasons they do x-rays to determine if you're a good fit for braces. If your roots are already short you're better off keeping your crooked teeth rather than shelling out for straight teeth that will then fall out in a couple years time.",
" My dentist told me she could see bone loss (lower jaw) on my X-Ray and said it probably was from wearing braces.",
"The teeth do become weaker and looser, but not nearly enough for them to fall out. When I wore Invisalign it became hard for me to bite into apples and my teeth hurt constantly. Eventually the roots adjust and become more stable again.",
"Osteoclasts are bone disolving cells.\n\nOsteoblasts are bone building cells. \n\nPressure from your teeth moving will stimulate osteoclasts to break down the socket in the direction the tooth wants to move.\n\nMeanwhile osteoblasts are building up bone where the tooth had previously stood\n"
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91nc1h | why do propane canisters for camping stoves/lanterns get colder when used? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/91nc1h/eli5_why_do_propane_canisters_for_camping/ | {
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"A basic principle about gases is that when compressed gases heat up and when decompressed gases cool down.\n\nThe propane gas in the canister is compressed and when you let it out it decompresses thus cooling down.",
"Because liquid propane is evaporating and turning into propane vapor, just like when liquid water evaporates, it carries away heat with it. ",
"Yeah compressed gasses get really cold. \n\nWhen I used to drive a forklift and had to change the tank, you had to wear gloves.\n\nBecause if you made a mistake you could get frostbite ",
"There are three gas laws, that explain how gases will react when changed. When you combine them you get PV = nRT, all you really need to know is Pressure, Volume, and Temperature all have the same letters and are the ones that matter for this.\n\nThe volume of the container is constant, so P has a direct relationship to T, If P goes down, so does T. This is only acting on the gas though.\n\nHeat always moves to equilibrium, so the container’s heat gets sucked into the gas, and the same happens with the atmosphere around, manifesting as condensed water vapor.\n\nnote- n is the amount of mols of the gas there are and R is the gas constant.\n\nEdit- There is also gas change from liquid to vapor, which does absorb some heat. ",
"Temperature basically means “amount/speed of movement” of the particles in the gas.\n\nWhen every part of the gas just bounces off other parts of the gas which bounce of other parts of the container, overall speed/energy doesn’t change.\n\nWhen every part of the gas bounces off other gas or the container which are **moving towards it on average**, those collisions are harder/faster and transfer more energy into the gas.\n\nThis of this like car crashes with other cars moving towards you. Bigger crash.\n\nWhen every part of the gas bounces off other gas or the container which are **moving away from it on average**, those collisions are lighter/slower and transfer less energy into the gas. \n\nThink of this like car crashes with other cars driving away from you. Smaller crash.\n\nThere is a lot of randomness and complicated math involved in the actual situations, but this illustrates why gas moving into or out of a chamber will increase or decrease temperature. "
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17p3an | what valuable data or discovery has the international space station produced so far? | As far as I know among other things the ISS is a giant lab. So what are the results? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/17p3an/eli5_what_valuable_data_or_discovery_has_the/ | {
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"You are correct, the ISS is a laboratory; there is no one experiment, and it itself is not an experiment. It's a research facility just like any other research facility, it's key difference of course is being situated in microgravity.\n\n\nThat basically means, it does many of the same tests and experiments on board, that we do here on Earth. That doesn't sound so fancy, but that's what science mostly is, re-testing what we already know, just to make sure that we actually know it :D And if our predictions work up there in space as we assumed it would, then we can solidify our knowledge.\n\nOf course, it's when our expectations differ and we have to re-evaluate our understanding of nature, that is the real interesting part.\n\n---\n\nNASA is a pretty open (and becoming even more open each year) organization, their website posts articles all the time. Discoveries happen constantly, too numerous to mention.\n\n\n[Here's a quick highlight of 2012 alone.](_URL_0_)\n\n\nSome of the experiments I've been following include, the development of animal skeletons in zero g, the structure of plasmas (they tend towards helix shapes in zero gravity, and may show evidence of DNA originating from space.), lotsa robots, Ion engines, Colloidal suspension (suspending nano particles in oil like material, to create a solid, gas and liquid material at the same time), and a bunch more fluid physics experiments.",
"Before we leave this at \"very little\" with your friend _KAS_\n\nThe space station gives us the ability to test anything in microgravity.\n\nBy microgravity, we're testing how fire spreads, how physics works. We're testing time theories, propellant design. We're seeing how space effects humans. \n\nFor example. In space, with no gravity, your bones and muscles weaken. You don't have to hold your own weight. There are also other changes in how the body functions and how things are handled.\n\nSimply living day to day life on board will give us further and deeper glimpses into what space travel will be like, and what we will need to survive when we eventually need to.\n\n\nImagine warping into space without a replenish-able oxygen/food/water supply. Without the advancements we make here, on this space station, we will not be ready or prepared to handle the more tasking situations later. Plants grow differently, fire burns differently, people grow and act differently. TIME ITSELF changes without gravity.\n\nWe are learning and mastering the basics. You can't do the cool warp speed jump and awesome stuff yet.\n\n**You have to learn to stand up, before you can run.**"
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2fpjte | when a criminal offence becomes legal, what happens to the prisoners who were convicted of it? | Example: What would happen to all those people who were imprisoned for drug possession/sale if/when weed becomes legal? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2fpjte/eli5when_a_criminal_offence_becomes_legal_what/ | {
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"They stay incarcerated. Only if the change in the law is specifically retroactive, would people be freed.",
"Unless the law specifically says something about people who were formerly convicted of this offence - nothing, since what they did was illegal when they were convicted.",
"In most jurisdictions, they would continue to serve out their sentence unless the executive branch decided to explicitly offer pardons. The idea that *changes in law don't take effect backwards in time* (i.e. changes are not retroactive) is generally an important principle of law and is a constitutional requirement in some places. This also means that you can't be charged with a crime if the act wasn't a crime at the time you committed it. ",
"They stay in prison, BUT:\n\n-the head of state (Governor, President) might be more sympathetic to granting a pardon, since the public no longer considers what they did an illegal act.\n\n-A parole board might also be more likely to grant parole / early release for an offense that is no longer an offense.",
"The same btw is true in the opposite direction. Let's say cigarettes became illegal, no one would be charged for smoking before the law went into effect, only if they were caught doing it after",
"Usually nothing!1 They have to complete their sentences. \n\nToo many people treat the constitution like the ONLY thing that matters is the Bill of Rights or the first 10 amendments. \n\nthere is a provision in the main body of the Constitution the Constitution, Section 9 that forbids Congress from certain things, one is \"Ex post Facto\" laws. \n\nThe new law only affects events AFTER it passed. As a result most kids who grew up in the 1950s through 1970s cant haul their parents up NOW for child abuse because what they did was not illegal THEN!!",
"They still committed the crime whilst it was illegal. They have to serve their sentence. Although I'd imagine more leniency to occur, earlier parole or something since the crime is no longer a crime.",
"Assuming you are talking about the USA, then nothing changes. They broke the law and however unreasonable the punishment has been decided to be or how unjust the law they still must serve the full sentence. \n\nIn most of the world then the person would be released. Of course it can be complicated that if an act is illegal additional illegal activity might be required to carry it out. E.g. one might legalise consuming drugs obtained from licensed premise, but still make purchasing it from a \"drug dealer\" illegal. \n\nAs for why America goes this way, not sure but America is one of the toughest on crimes jailing more per capita than any other country, possibly even more than any country ever. So it should be no surprise that America leans towards the stricter approach.",
"The short answer is you would most likely continue serving your sentence because it was illegal when you did it.",
"Although the question has already been answered by others, I'd like to add that this same idea works in reverse: If you do something, and then that action is declared illegal, there is a clause of the United States Constitution (Article 1, Section 9, I *think*) that says you cannot be punished for it.\n\nSo if, for example, I were to own a brewery when prohibition went into effect, I would still be allowed to close it down and get rid of the excess alcohol.\n\nWhen a law punishes you for actions that were not illegal at the time, it is called an *Ex Post Facto law\" (\"After the facts\")",
"All these sorts of questions about the legal system can be answered by thinking of \"What is the logical/fair thing to do?\" The answer will be the opposite.",
"nothing, when you committed the crime it was against the law so that person will continue to serve out the sentence.",
"They usually stay in prison for the remainder of their sentence.",
"Currently in the US, not much would happen. That's because there is a federal statute that drug arrests can fall under. So while a state may say it's legal to possess and use marijuana, if you step outside those state guidelines, you're fucked sideways three ways. For example, you are allowed to have up to an ounce in your possession that you got from a pot shop. If you are found to have more than that or you did not get it from the pot shop, the state will go after you and the feds have a chance to go after you to. However, the feds rarely go after minor offenses. They've got bigger fish to fry. \n\nAs for people already in jail for those drug crimes, they stay where they are. Most first and second time criminals don't have a very long sentence, and are ok with their 3 squares a day. They may petition for their record to be expunged. For the more \"hardened\" drug criminals that have longer sentences, they can totally petition for a reduced sentence or push for release. But you need to remember: of they are in jail for more than 5 years, they did something that was so wrong in the eyes of the law that they are not going to be released because of a law change. These people are the ones that will usually be facing federal charges.",
"Josh Gordon plays",
"The privately owned prison system continues to get \"Cash For Life\".",
"They broke the law. Just because it's no longer illegal doesn't change the fact it was illegal when committed ",
"OP you should just wait for pot to become legal in your state before you start to grow it. That is the best thing for you to do unless you want to go to jail for awhile and then be releases in a weed friendly US.",
"At the time, they were willfully breaking the law. It being a legally acceptable action now does not change the fact that it wasn't legally acceptable behavior then. The person's intent was criminal at the time, and subject to all laws governing punishment for said action.\n\nA more simple examination of the situation:\n\nImagine you get a ticket for doing 75mph in a 60mph. Now imagine the state changes the speed limit to 75mph a month later. Do you deserve to have your money refunded? No, because you broke the law at the time.",
"In the eyes of the state, your true crime wasn't doing drugs, it was defying State Commands.\n\nEven if they change the commands, your true crime still stands.",
"I feel situation should dictate. Just because something is illegal don't make it wrong. Just because something is legal don't make it right. ",
"Nothing happens.\nIt was illegal when you committed the crime, so you're still in prison.\nUnless the president decides to give you a pardon.\n\nexample: If you smuggled beer during the prohibition, you'd still be in jail for smuggling alcohol.",
"It depends on whether it becomes legal simply because the legislature changes its mind, or it becomes legal because the courts finds that the statute was unconstitutional. In the latter, those convicted under the statute would have their convictions overturned. In the former, nothing changes, unless they are pardoned or something else happens.\n\nExample 1: Let's say a state has a statute making homosexual sodomy a crime. The Supreme Court says, \"WTF that's unconstitutional\" (*Lawrence v. Texas*). Those who had ever been convicted under that statute have their convictions overturned.\n\nExample 2: Let's say a state decides to change its mind and make weed legal. Those convicted of weed offenses prior to that time are shit out of luck, unless the government takes some kind of action to pardon them or relax their sentences.",
"Only had to read the title to know you were talking about weed.",
"Crime isn't a moral judgment, it's a legal one. If you break the law, you're a criminal, even if the law is changed after you are sentenced. Similarly, we don't retroactively apply the law to past behavior which was legal at the time. That said, there could be reasons to exonerate or reduce prison sentences for people who were arrested under a defunct law, and a state would have the authority to do that. ",
"If they don't make it retroactive not a helluva lot. If someone has been sent to jail for life for a joint but it was their third strike, don't count on them being set free. That third strike law was created to throw people away down a hole, and you don't go through the trouble to create such a law just to let them out again. ",
"In Brazil we do have retroactivity of the law in the criminal sphere ONLY when it benefits the defendants.\n\nMeaning, if you are in prison for a crime that then is no longer a crime, you will automatically be released.\n\nIf you are serving a sentence for a crime you've been convicted of, and the maximum amount of prison time for the crime is lowered, if you had already served more time than the new maximum, you'll also be released.\n\nIf you've done something in the past before it became a crime, you are not guilty of anything because at the time of your doing, it wasn't a crime.\n\nIf you are in the process of being trailed and your crime stops\nBeing a crime, the proceedings will be dropped. If the penalties for your crime become harsher, you are still only on the hook for what it was like at the time of the crime.\n\nBasically, whatever is best for the person.",
"There's actually a quite interesting case that deals with an issue similar to this. Alan Turing, a British guy who basically invented the first computer, and created a decryption device that won the WW2, was castrated for homosexual activity in 1952. Because of this he later ended up killing himself. In 2009, I believe, there was a whole movement trying to get him pardoned, but the government ignored this saying that at the time he knew well that his actions were illegal, and knowingly he broke the law, and therefore he does not deserve to be pardoned. This is basically the same approach that the judicial system takes against the cases you mentioned. It's not necessarily for doing something wrong, but for knowingly doing something illegal.\n\nAlso, couple of months ago Alan Turing was actually pardoned by the Queen of England. The new movie called The Imitation Game is about this whole story; I would recommend watching it once it comes out.",
"The offender committed a crime at the time, just because it's legal now doesn't mean it wasn't a crime when they committed it. So they serve out their sentence regardless. ",
"Germany: the mildest law counts, i.e. they would be released.\n\nEdit: might have been wrong - the mildest law counts if the change happens between crime and judgment, not sure what happens when it changes afterwards.",
"Generally speaking: Nothing\n\nSome circumstances: A separate bill would allow for retroactivley enforcing the new law and allow for people already convicted to have their sentences changed, but this is very rare.",
"I get the example, but most people aren't going to prison for being in possession of a dime bag. \n\nAnd the one who are in for possession of weed probably had a whole bunch and/or other felony charges. ",
"They stay in prison.\n\nAlthough this is a horrible thing. When society decides something is no longer wrong then nobody should be punished for doing it whether they did it before it was legal or not. Spirit of the law not letter of the law.",
"You're getting a lot of responses assuming a legislative reversal of the policy, but just to give you another perspective on it, say for instance that (and this may be particular to the United States) the law was overturned on judicial review because it was found, for some reason, to be unconstitutional.\n\nIn that *particular* case, not only would some prison sentences stand a decent chance of being vacated, but entire convictions might wind up getting overturned. When the Supreme Court ruled in Gideon v. Wainwright that the Constitution put a burden on the state of providing defendants of criminal trials with legal counsel in all cases, many people who were convicted of felonies at trial without a lawyer were subsequently retried. According to the feel-good made-for-TV version of events, the eponymous Gideon was exonerated this way.",
"It depends on how the law was changed. As others have said, if the legislative body changes a law, it generally isn't retroactive unless the executive (governor, president) overturns the sentences.\n\nBut it's also possible for a state court of last resort (highest appeals court) or the supreme court to change laws. In that case, it depends on their ruling. Sometimes, all sentences are overturned retroactively (in 1973, the death penalty was ruled illegal, and all sentences had to be retried). Sometimes, they allow sentences to be carried out. ",
"In the same way you can't be arrested for doing something that is now illegal when it was legal, they still were violating the law and will serve out their sentence unless officially pardoned.",
"They convicts would remain in prison. Changing laws can't nullify the verdict of a jury.",
"They would continue their sentence. The reason being the offense was illegal at the time it was committed.",
"They serve the rest of their time. Unless its something so weird that the president offers pardons. Not very cool, but these people broke the law. They shouldn't not be punished.",
"They broke a law knowing it was illegal. It's like if you got a ticket for going 55 in a 45, then they change the speed limit to 60. You still drove through there knowing you were breaking a law. The sign was right there and said 45. ",
"They still serve their sentence because what they did at the time illegal. Being said, the parole board will take note of the fact that the offense is now legal and be more willing to provide parole to the convicted.",
"Weed. He's asking about weed.",
"They are \"Grandfathered in\". They would continue to serve their sentence because they are serving time for breaking a law/committing a crime. A change in law may open them up to early release (with help of an attorney or public pressure) give them more of a chance to be paroled (since the crime has been decriminalized and if that is their only criminal past) or lobby for a pardon based on the new change in law. \nTL/DR - They have to serve their time but may be able to get an early release/parole easier. ",
"I'm fairly certain that the private prison industry would fight mass pardons with every resource they have. Of course, those judges who accept bribes for keeping those prisons full, would fight for them as well. ",
"I know in Canada they would most likely continue their sentence. Also if someone committed a crime in say 1980 but it was only brought forth in 2014, the courts would have to treat the matter as though it were 1980 if the laws were changed. ",
"A change in the law doesn't affect anyone convicted of violating what was the law when they got into trouble. Although it is possible - though unlikely - that a pardon could be extended \n\nSimilarly, if legislative changes make an act illegal that was until then not against the law, a person could not be convicted of previous acts.",
"You should have made it more clear cut and something people are currently very passionate about.\n\nFor example: Shouldn't we have kept Rosa Parks in jail? She clearly violated the law.\n\nAnd then asked about the legalization of drugs.",
"At the end of the day, they broke the law albeit at that time. They are still criminals, disobeying the law's the government set out.",
"what if a criminal offence becomes illegal again after you were released?",
"It depends. In the US it is possible for the legislative body that reversed the law to also pardon anyone convicted of the crime, but in most jurisdictions it is not something that happens automatically.",
"the penalty applies to the period when you committed the crime. simple as that.",
"Nothing.\n\nThey're in prison for breaking the law. They'll stay there and serve the sentence.\n\nLaws changing doesn't change the fact the broke the law at the time of conviction.\n",
"TIL; Many redditors think that you should sit in prison because of the law. Not because you did something wrong. But because at the time it was considered wrong. \n\nSo for example. If some people in some countries were sentenced for political believes, skin color, sexual orientation or religion. And with time these laws would become deprecated because they were just straight forward ignorant. These convicted people should still sit out their sentence because the jury was convinced that they believed in the wrong things, were the wrong race, loved the wrong gender or chose the wrong religion.\n\nSociety is a scary place.",
"Like those millions of people rotting away in prison for selling a plant?",
"(a) the answer to this will vary by jurisdiction.\n\n(b) generally speaking in the United States, it's very rare for formerly illegal things to become legal, so there's limited precedent.\n\n(c) my sense is, though, that nothing would change. In Colorado and Washington, for example, nothing changed. The argument for this is that the punishment is not just for *the specifics of the crime* but for *violating the law* - and even if we now think the thing you did shouldn't be illegal per se, you still chose to violate the law, and you should be punished for that choice.\n",
"I don't study law or anything, so this would be a way of thinking about why the law makes sense, rather than explaining how the law works. \n\nI think of it as: They violated a law, and that's what they're serving the time for. They're not just serving time for using drugs, they're serving time for using drugs *when we told them not to*.\n",
"That doesn't really answer the question some of the other posters have mentioned:\n\nIf, for instance, a woman obtained an abortion before Roe v Wade, she was still knowingly breaking the law. Should she be punished for it / would there be a compelling state interest in keeping her (or the doctor who performed the abortion) incarcerated? \n\nUsing simple language: doesn't the fact that the law became overturned (because society/courts/legislature deemed it to be \"unjust\" by some measure, such as constitutionality) mean that it was *always* unjust?",
"Practically, many states looking at legalizing drugs like weed are looking at doing so for cost reasons. \n\nA huge cost to both the state and federal government is imprisoning people. \n\nI would not be surprised at all if, in conjunction with passage of legalization bills in some states, those states similarly enact a process to examine and potentially discharge some prisoners serving sentences for actions that would no longer be considered criminal.\n\nBy no means would this be required, however, as those people broke the law of the land at the time, and were justly (hopefully!) convicted and sentenced.",
"They committed the crime while it was illegal. They broke the law at the time and they knew they were breaking the law. They stay in jail. ",
"I have a question: Lets say a military anon got convicted for smoking weed while still active. Anon goes to military jail then gets discharge. Then weed becomes legal in the US. Will he be able to reenlist?",
"I live in Colorado so I got to see this first-hand. It depended on the county, actually. The majority of counties granted immediate pardons when amendment 64 happened and simply let the people go. Some took a little longer, and I think in the end only the uber conservative places (grand junction, Durango) saw the sentences through, but for the most part everything was cool. Some counties even expunged the offense from their record depending on the severity. ",
"Put it this way, if you were a bootlegger and caught during probation they didn't just let you go when prohibition ended"
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4gyky2 | what are "negatives" of films and what do they do in the colorization/digital remastering of old films/tv shows? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4gyky2/eli5_what_are_negatives_of_films_and_what_do_they/ | {
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"In the old days before digital cameras pictures and movies were photographed/filmed on film.\n\n A photograph was taken by exposing a small piece of plastic to light through a lens. The plastic wold have chemicals on it that would react to being exposed to light. Where there was much light it would turn dark and where there was little light it would remain more transparent. (The whole thing is a bit more involved than that, but that is the ELI5 version).\n\nYou would end up with piece of plastic that was a tiny negative image of the picture you had taken. A photo-negative.\n\nYou could create positive pictures from that negative. The positive picture would be normal sized for a photograph and have all the colors the right way around.\n\nIf you later wanted to make more copies of the picture you could make them from the developed photograph, but that would mean making a copy of a copy. Digital copies are identical but with analogue films the each copy you make is slightly worse than the original. Eventually the quality of the picture would get worse if you made a copy of a copy of a copy...\n\nThis is why if you wanted a really good quality copy you always made them from the original negatives.\n\nWith movies it was pretty much the same thing because movies are just a roll of small transparent pictures created by the same process.\n\nThe difference of course is that you holiday pictures would only have a handful of copies made from the negatives at most.\n\nWith movies they had to make a copy for each cinema that would be showing the movie. This meant that you had to be really careful which copy was a n-th generation copy of what.\n\nThe copies used in the cinemas would wear out over time getting scratched and ripped and cut and patched together. So they would be a bad choice to digitize a movie from.\n\nIf you had the original master copy which all the copies were made from you would get much better quality. But that master copy also had some work done on it. To get the real original you would have to step back to the negatives and re-create the film from there.\n"
]
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ecjo56 | how can animals tolerate stepping on ice/snow barefoot? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ecjo56/eli5_how_can_animals_tolerate_stepping_on_icesnow/ | {
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"Some of them have fur at the bottom on their feet, as many mammals like cats or bears do, besides having smaller paws than humans have feet. Some birds like ducks have a special blood circulation that kind of keeps cold blood flowing through their feet without cooling down the rest of the duck. This is how they don't freeze to death or to the ice they're standing on. I think most insects just don't really care since they have an exoskeleton, and just about all reptiles simply stop moving or hibernate."
]
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[]
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1uy5ei | what do developers at tech companies do all day once their product is successful? | What do people at reddit/youtube/snapchat etc. do all day once their product is out and has reached a large population? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1uy5ei/eli5_what_do_developers_at_tech_companies_do_all/ | {
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"cemtnz6"
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"There's plenty of criticism and things that can be fixed with youtube, facebook, and reddit. In order to maintain their position at the top they need to address these issues, otherwise another company that has addressed these issues will come by and start taking market share."
]
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[]
] | |
88tpjk | how much taxes and where do they go and what’s the reason for them if say i were to win a $100,000,000 lottery | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/88tpjk/eli5_how_much_taxes_and_where_do_they_go_and/ | {
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"ballpark, it's approx 50%. it's not a special tax. it's just treated same as regular income. but since most people have a regular wage income that's not comparable to a $100mil (like $100mil + $50k) your regular income tax is inconsequential.\n\nthey go to normal operations of the states gov. the reason is...because taxing the people is how gov's get money to spend"
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j4p5l | - can someone explain airplanes? | Specifically, how they stay up and why the tail wing is necessary. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/j4p5l/eli5_can_someone_explain_airplanes/ | {
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" > How they stay up\n\nAirplanes stay up by pushing air down. Next time you get in a car, stick your hand out the window, palm out. If you tip your hand like an airplane wing, the air will push your hand up. This is pretty much what is going on with an airplane wing.\n\n > Why the tail wing is necessary\n\nI don't really understand this well enough to simplify it, but I have an engineering-school terminology explanation for it.\n\nIf the center of force of an object is behind the center of drag, then you get instability. Suppose the force and the drag are perfectly aligned. There won't be any twisting moment applied to the airplane. Now suppose you nudge the airplane a little, so that the force and drag are out of line. If the center of drag is in front of the center of force, the moment generated by this will tend to twist the airplane further out of line. If the center of drag is behind the center of force, then the moment generated by the displacement will tend to twist the airplane back into place.\n\nThe purpose of the tail wing is to pull the center of drag back behind the engines. The tail also has some control surfaces on it IIRC, but I'm really not an expert.\n\nThe simple explanation is that the tail wing is to hold the back of the airplane in place, so that it doesn't try to go in front of the airplane."
]
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b00gpa | why do people gossip about those they do not know. specifically in a professional setting. is it cultural, or something that is a part of us as a species? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b00gpa/eli5_why_do_people_gossip_about_those_they_do_not/ | {
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"Both, kinda. Our cultures have evolved out of a biological need for survival as part of a group. We seek to create closer bonds with our group to make it stronger, and exclude people we don't consider to fit in, in order to protect the group.\n\nSo when someone talks shit, you feel the need to talk shit too in order to signal that you are part of the group by engaging in the exclusion and alienation of non group members.\n\nGossip is this concept on the micro scale, while racism and nationalism is the macro scale"
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cnb0y6 | would you refer to the country that anglo-saxons lived in as britain? | Or is that historically inaccurate?
What should you call it instead? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cnb0y6/eli5_would_you_refer_to_the_country_that/ | {
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"The tribe known as the Angles settled in Britain in an area which then became to be known as Angle land, later to become England. For Anglo-Saxon place names - _URL_0_",
"Britain wouldn't have been a country back then, but it is a name for the island they settled on.\n\nThe Romans called it Britannia, so the name was already established by then.\n\nWhen the Anglo Saxons came to Britain they founded several kingdoms such as Wessex, Mercia and Northumbria, which eventually joined together to become England.\n\nSo it would be accurate to say they lived in Britain, but calling it a country would be a bit inaccurate.",
"Like the Normans after them, the Anglo Saxons were invaders.\n\nThe tribes that lived on the island before the invasion of the Anglo Saxons (the Welsh, the Cornish and others) were collectively known as the Britons.",
"No. Strictly speaking there was no country named \"Britain\". Britain is the name of the island, not the political entity thereon. (A number of the political entities that have occupied the island have nevertheless adopted names that are derived from the word Britain).\n\nThe Angles and Saxons first arrived onto an island that was occupied by five distinct Roman provinces (Britannia Prima, Britannia Secunda, Maxima Caesariensis, Flavia Caesariensis and Valentia), and a couple of Celtic kingdoms in Scotland. The borders of these provinces and kingdoms aren't exactly known though.\n\nOf course the transition to the Anglo Saxon period didn't get into full swing until after the central administration of each of the Roman provinces had collapsed. It's unclear exactly how the day to day running of things was organized, but it seems likely that people still considered themselves as Romans living in a province of the Roman Empire (albeit one from which the Roman Army and Roman officials had been temporarily withdrawn). However, its likely that the more significant politics for the average citizen revovled around which of the local rich men was currently managing to put himself in charge of you.\n\nAs the transition period continued, the probability was (in the southeast) that the local rich man in charge was an Angle or a Saxon rather than an ethnically Celtic Roman. However the records are spotty and what we have does occasionally mention \"Anglo Saxon\" warlords with distinctly Romano British sounding names so it's probably a melting pot of local warlords in a political environment so messy and adhoc that it's hard to make broad generalizations.\n\nOver the next few hundred years, this mishmash of micro-kings gradually crystallizes into larger kingdoms. We know of at least 20 distinct Anglo Saxon kingdoms that existed by the mid 500s, this had shrunk to just 7 kingdoms by the mid 700s (Northumbria, Mercia, Wessex, Sussex, Essex, Kent and East Anglia). Of these, only Northumbria, East Anglia and Mercia were ruled by Royal families that claimed to descend from the Angles. Wessex, Essex and Sussex were ruled by dynasties claiming to be Saxons and Kent was unclear, but possibly their rulers claimed to be Jutes.\n\nHowever, these seven kingdoms weren't especially long lived, and by the start of the viking age in about 800, there were just 4 kingdoms left, Wessex, Mercia, East Anglia and Northumbria. By the middle of the 800s, the Vikings had conquered East Anglia and Northumbria and established the kingdoms of Yorvik and Danish Mercia in their place. This left just two kingdoms. These two, Mercia and Wessex came together under the king of Wessex to fight the viking invaders and after seeing off the viking threat, Mercia might have made some attempt to reassert independence, but it wasn't successful. By 900, Wessex had recovered most of the territory lost to the Vikings and now most of Anglo Saxon Britain was part of the country of Wessex. In 927 the rest of the Anglo Saxon territories were incorporated into Wessex and the name of the kingdom was changed to England. There was some back and forth over the next 50 years, but essentially most of south east Britain was the country of England fairly consistently for the next 780 years until 1707 when the independent countries of England and Scotland united into a new country called \"Great Britain\".\n\nFinally, in 1801, Ireland was absorbed and the name of the country was changed to \"The United Kingdom\"."
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3tstg9 | why technology shows every time smaller ports but the audio jack hasn't changed at all* in a century? | *or just little changes, but not size related. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3tstg9/eli5_why_technology_shows_every_time_smaller/ | {
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"text": [
"Because audio jacks (1/4 and 1/8 inch both) are analog whereas you're probably thinking of mostly digital ports, which used to need to be bigger but now they don't. "
]
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[]
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7i72ef | why do we brace before a hit ,even though it doesn’t seem to lessen injury. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7i72ef/eli5why_do_we_brace_before_a_hit_even_though_it/ | {
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"text": [
"It does lessen injury though, and that's why we do it. When we flex our muscles in anticipation of an impact, they act as a kind of armor protecting our organs and bones and joints and stuff."
]
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[]
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5o6nl9 | how the hell is disney still selling old ass movies for like $30 ???? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5o6nl9/eli5_how_the_hell_is_disney_still_selling_old_ass/ | {
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"text": [
"Supply and demand. \n\nBasically, they \"open the vault\" and release \"deluxe\" versions of old classics, but they only make a certain amount of them every so often, so there's a smaller supply than normal, and a similar, if not higher demand, which, economically speaking, allows them to jack up the price to whatever they want, because they'll only have it around for such a limited time. "
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2cu3un | why do my dogs always act so concerned about their collar when i take it off? | They constantly sniff and nudge it and are very happy for me to put it back on. Do they think it's a part them because of the scent? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2cu3un/eli5_why_do_my_dogs_always_act_so_concerned_about/ | {
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"They know it's always there, but they never get to see it. So when they have a chance to see it, they really want to figure out what it is."
]
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2ll3p7 | if i'm lying down flat in my bed, what muscles allow me to roll in my bed while my body is still straight? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ll3p7/eli5_if_im_lying_down_flat_in_my_bed_what_muscles/ | {
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"your core which is your lower abs, butt and hips. ",
"Mostly core I believe. Your legs kind of keep your lower body anchored and you twist your upper body with your core to rotate and then your legs follow."
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2eex51 | would tv cameramen on shows like drugs inc. get in trouble with the criminal they are driving around with (or at the stash house with, drug deal, etc. | The cameramen from the show obviously aren't involved in the dealing/ selling, but they could be guilty by association. How does that all work? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2eex51/eli5_would_tv_cameramen_on_shows_like_drugs_inc/ | {
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"Probably with really good attorneys on hand."
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f5xk2t | how come armpits and feet have their own unique bad scent? (onions vs fritos chips?) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/f5xk2t/eli5_how_come_armpits_and_feet_have_their_own/ | {
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"the actual smell itself is individual based on a load of factors: your body, diet, laundry detergent, how often you wash, what you wash with, etcetc. \n\n\nthe reason why your armpits and feet smell more than other places is because they're warm, sweaty parts of your body which don't get chance to dry off(except if you're barefoot), so bacteria can grow there, which makes the smell. For the most part, the sweat itself isn't the direct cause of the smell unless you're sick or taking drugs/alcohol which can affect it.\n\n\nIt's the same reason why places around your body get labelled as sweaty and smelly(bum, balls, etc) because sweat can't evaporate away, so it just accumulates. \n\n\nand the reason why your feet will tend to smell different/worse than your armpits is because you'll probably be wearing shoes which are made from a different material to your clothes, so it affects the smell. Also, chances are you wash your shirts more often than your shoes, so they'll take on a stronger, sweatier smell, because bacteria can grow there as well as fungus, which is what causes athlete's foot and thrush.",
"The armpits have what are called apocrine glands. These are special scent/sweat glands which have a high protein output. Bacteria thrive here, breaking down this protein, creating one type of body odor. \n\nFeet do not have this type of gland, but due to wearing shoes and socks, the warm sweat sits there, and sits there, and sits there. This is also a very bacteria friendly environment, but the bacteria that thrive in this condition are feasting on a totally different diet, making a totally different smell."
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3c3xqx | how come obvious political corruption happens in america, but we never do anything about it. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3c3xqx/eli5_how_come_obvious_political_corruption/ | {
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"Apathy is a big reason. Or complacency.\n\nIn order to change things in our government there needs to be a sizable amount of the populace agreeing on what needs to be changed. This is where a real problem lies. A very large portion of the eligible population doesn't vote, whether it be apathy, or if they cannot get off work before the polls close. And those that do vote are often in disagreement over important issues, this is largely thanks to bipartisanship, poor education of our government, and general ignorance.\n\nSeveral things that would help limit political corruption are:\n*Imposing term limits on the house/senate\n*Disallowing dogearing\n*Forcing politicians to clearly elaborate third party endorsements\n*Removing bipartisanship\n*Forcing congress to drastically lower their paycheck\n\nIt would also help if voting was a two day affair, and all businesses were required to give you one of the two days off. ",
"We love our myths including the one that our government cares about us and the whole 'public service' myth.\n\n",
"Conditions in America are good enough that people aren't willing to put themselves in danger in order to change it.\n\nBread and Circuses have become fast food and netflix.",
"There are lots of orgs and groups dedicated to that. Just because 1 person isn't doing anything doesn't mean noone is doing nothing ",
"Just want to add my two cents: America does not have *the* best political situation, but it's still better than most. \n\nLike Winston Churchill said: \"Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.\"",
"One of the biggest \"Obvious political corruption\" things is lobbying's existence. Unfortunately, lobbying serves a good purpose, as well -- without lobbyists, experts from industries wouldn't be able to explain the effects of the policy -- nor would they be able to explain WHY certain policy has to be enacted.\nThe best example of this from recent times is Global Warming. Geologists and Climatologists claim that, without abrupt changes in our energy industry, we will see extinction-level changes in climate, having far reaching consequences. Agricultural capitals of the United States, for instance, would find that the temperature changes enough that wheat would not grow, anymore. Wine grapes won't have enough water. Cold places get colder dramatically, warm places get warmer dramatically, and sea levels rise.\nThe flipside to this is that you also have lobbyists from the energy industry itself, and these lobbyists have vested interest in NOT letting things change or, having things change immediately. Oil companies would lose large amounts of profit, solar and wind companies would GAIN large amounts of profit. Unfortunately, the United States has more than enough people that think that the scientists cannot be trusted. The anti-intellectual movement finds itself joining hands with anti-big government movements, making it doubly suspect to these people that the government and scientific community at large agree -- Global Warming is not a hoax, it is caused primarily by human energy consumption, but oil companies and their lobbyists spend billions every year in campaign (and campaign adjacent) actions to sway the American people into complacency.\n"
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9rleid | why is the monte carlo method useful? | I’m reading a paper about genetics in ants and it mentions using a Markov Chain Monte Carlo. I kind of understand why you would use a Markov chain, but how is the Monte Carlo method used here? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9rleid/eli5_why_is_the_monte_carlo_method_useful/ | {
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"Monte Carlo is basically a brute force statistical method where you do a bunch of random trials to learn things about the underlying reality, particularly when you can't solve it from first principles. A Markov chain is a series of nodes where you define the probability of transitioning from one node to another. Combining them, you'd set a bunch of trials where you observe where things end up after a given number of steps and draw some conclusions. Here's a [cool video](_URL_0_) of a pachinko machine where you can see the distribution of where balls end up - in this analogy, the Markov chain is where the pegs are and the Monte Carlo part is dropping a bunch of balls. You could imagine adding or removing rows of pegs to change how many steps you want to simulate.\n\nI don't know the particulars of the paper you're reading, but if it's about genetics I'll guess the Markov chain is simulating evolution or mutations in the genome or something. The Monte Carlo part then is doing simulations of evolution - you know it worked out one way in reality, but that's only one trial. Monte Carlo lets you turn back the clock and see if that result would change if you did it again.",
"The Monte Carlo method is useful, because it allows you to validate the hypothesis that a relationship exists by modeling the system based on observation of repeated randomized experimentation. In short, if you can repeat an experiment many times, the results should begin to show patterns. These patterns demonstrate how relationships exist in the system based purely on observational data. Moreover, the experiments in Monte Carlo simulations are typically easy enough to be replicated.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nThe common example of a Monte Carlo simulation is approximating pi by randomly throwing darts at a dart board. Count the number of darts that landed in the dart board, then divide that by the number of darts that landed in the square that bounds the dart board. This gives you a ratio that you can define as \"the percentage of the area of a square that is a circle.\" By plugging in this ratio into formulas for the area of a square and the area of a circle, you start to discover that you can approximate pi very accurately:\n\n ratio * (2r)^2 = pi * r^2\n\nWith a larger sample size, you get more accuracy in these observations (for this example, that is to say that you can calculate more digits of pi accurately). This dart board example is great, because you can physically do it yourself by blindfolding someone and giving them a ton of darts. However, the great part about Monte Carlo is that computers can run them quite trivially. By running this type of a simulation on a computer, you can easily increase your sample size to (m|b|tr)illions of data points.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nIn short, they are using Monte Carlo, because they are having a computer run many, many randomized experimentations and recording the results. They are likely using statistical analysis to draw conclusions based on the patterns in their observations."
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3q889n | how does an animal grow by molting | _URL_0_
Like in this video how is that new shell bigger than the old shell. I know the new shell is soft so does it just grow and then harden? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3q889n/eli5_how_does_an_animal_grow_by_molting/ | {
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"The new exoskeleton stays soft as it is formed inside the old. When the old exoskeleton splits, the animal inside wriggles out. Then it uses blood pressure inside it's soft body, to \"puff up\" the new exoskeleton. Finally, the new exoskeleton gradually hardens as it is exposed to the environment. The animal is very vulnerable while this process is occurring."
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7a2cdw | what is an indictment? how is it different to a criminal charge? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7a2cdw/eli5_what_is_an_indictment_how_is_it_different_to/ | {
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"text": [
"A criminal charge is what the police present to the prosecutor, and what the prosecutor presents to the grand jury.\n\nThe police investigate a crime. When they have enough evidence to charge someone with a crime, they will bring it to a district attorney. The district attorney will decide whether there is enough evidence to convict the accused, and whether it is worth their time to do so.\n\nAfter deciding to prosecute the crime, the prosecutor will take the evidence the police have gathered and charge the alleged criminal.\n\nThis is a criminal charge. At this point the judge hearing the case will issue a warrant for the person's arrest, but they have not yet been indicted.\n\nThe person will be arrested, and a grand jury will be assembled (in the US this is usually 23-26 citizens). The grand jury will hear facts about the case, and decide whether there is enough evidence against the accused to proceed to a full trial. If the grand jury decides there is enough evidence, then they will sign the paper that charges the crimes. The actual paper which lists the crime is called the indictment.\n\nWhen the grand jury signs the indictment, the accused is then 'indicted' for the crime and the case proceeds to trial.\n\nThe whole process can take several years.\n\n**TL;DR**: An indictment is an official document describing a crime that someone is accused of. A criminal charge is what happens before the indictment. The biggest difference is that you can plead guilty or not guilty to an indictment, but not to a criminal charge."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
38isrd | is a virtual reality headset worse for my eyes than staring at a computer screen? | If the headset is so close to the eyes, is it so much more worse for the eyes? Recommended breaks every 45 minutes or more frequently? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/38isrd/eli5_is_a_virtual_reality_headset_worse_for_my/ | {
"a_id": [
"crvclc9",
"crvixfi"
],
"score": [
11,
3
],
"text": [
"A decent VR headset will actually set the focus of the screens to infinity so your eyes are relaxed.\nThe problem with screens and TV are that you are focusing quite close, and straining your eyes. A VR headset has the capability (with projection to project the image so that your focus point is quite far, thus relaxing your eyes).\nThis infinite focus is seen on Red dot/reflex weapon sights which keeps the red dot in the same place even at different angles of viewing, they also used in HUD in aircraft and cars, so that you can focus in front of you and still read the display.",
"I went to the eye doctor recently to get a prescription for glasses to help me see better in the distance. I told her my distance vision is probably getting bad because I read so much or I'm on my phone. She said no that's not how it works, and all those times your parents or whoever have told you to back away from the TV because it'll hurt your eyes is also false. The strain, I imagine, comes from not blinking enough, but does not actually damage your vision. That's what the doctor says anyway."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] | |
epud2y | how do such obvious email scams (banks netflix apple etc) make it through spam filters on emails. | Like when the emails are like @at777736.io.e how does microsoft not think to themselves "yep thats netflix all right" | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/epud2y/eli5_how_do_such_obvious_email_scams_banks/ | {
"a_id": [
"feltuo7",
"fem52so"
],
"score": [
9,
3
],
"text": [
"What's obvious to a human is not obvious to a computer. Computers don't speak English, and companies like Google pay a lot of smart people a lot of money to try to get it seeming like they do.\n\nAnti-spam is a best effort service that tries very hard but ultimately needs to be \"taught\" what is spam and what is not. Unfortunately this means that trying something new and creative has a surprisingly good success rate at getting past spam filters unless you train them more in the \"this is legit, everything else is assumed junk\" style which means a huge false positive rate.\n\nMost of the work has gone towards authenticating the sender, so you can be sure that if it says @netflix.com then it really is Netflix. But all this means for the spammer is that they can prove they are in fact @at777736.io.e (which they are) but are banking on people not checking that and just reading that the name of the email address is \"Netflix Account\" (rather than something normal like \"John Smith\") and falling for it.\n\nThere's a reason why computer nerds like to see the technical details and hate it when user interfaces try to be too \"user friendly\" and hide the technical details. They matter.",
"It's an arms race.\n\nSpammers are constantly modifying the parts of their emails that might be detected by spam filters. The ISPs learn that \"make money fast\" is spam. So the spammers change the subject to \"make m0ney fas$t\". The ISPs start looking for \"make m?ney fa?t\" and the spammers switch to \"mak3 m o n e y FAST\".\n\nOnce @at777736.io.e starts getting blocked, they switch to @gooogle._URL_9_. \"viagara\" becomes \"v!agera\". IP address 192.168.1.21 gets blocked, they convince their ISP to give them a fresh IP address. Or they buy a whole block of IP addresses and work their way through them one by one as they get blocked. (In 2008, a spammer managed to [steal a block of 64k IP addresses](_URL_6_).)\n\nMany years ago, I ran software that monitored spam seen at my site. Here is a small piece of the filter that detected it:\n\n -s 'NUDIST PICS' || -s 'C.A.B.L.E.' ||\n -s 'DOG TORTURE' || -s 'FREE DSL' || -s 'ACTUAL MURDER PHOTOS' ||\n -s 'Cumming Out Your' || -s 'Domain Hosting - No Internic' ||\n -s 'LITTLE SLUT' || -s 'Pls do not click' ||\n -s 'ROLLER GARAGE' || -s 'new parallel meta search' ||\n -s /While my PC WORKS, I MAKE MONEY/i || -s /MY JUGs FLow HUge/i ||\n -s 'World Scripture' || -s 'MAKE HUNDREDS JUST SURFING THE NET' ||\n -s 'Do you know BUKKAKE' || -s 'Rudolph The Rednose Hooters' ||\n -s 'Download Ia.n.i' & & -print Iani ||\n -s 'live fucking yes' || -s 'Jack and Jill Party' ||\n -h Path '_URL_35_.POSTED![^!]*$'\n & & -print Gig/list & & -printV Gig/listV ,\n -h Path '_URL_34_![^.]*$' & & -print Gip/list & & -printV Gip/listV ,\n -h Path '_URL_2_![^!]*$' & & -print Gx/list & & -printV Gx/listV ,\n -h Path '_URL_21_![^!]*$' & & -print Gz/list & & -printV Gz/listV ,\n -h Path '_URL_14_![0-9]' & & -print Ha/list & & -printV Ha/listV ,\n\n -h Path '_URL_12_![^!]*$' & & -print Hkn/list & & -printV Hkn/listV ,\n -h Path _URL_7_ & & -print H/list & & -printV H/listV ,\n -h Path _URL_22_!news$ & & -print Hl/list & & -printV Hl/listV ,\n -h Path _URL_11_!news & & -print H1/list & & -printV H1/listV ,\n -h Path '_URL_16_!' & & -print Hokk/list & & -printV Hokk/listV ,\n ( -h Path '_URL_18_![^!]*$' || -h Path '_URL_18_.POSTED![^!]*$' ||\n -h X-Complaints-To abuse@home.net || -h Organization '@Home Network' )\n & & -print Home/list & & -printV Home/listV ,\n -h Path '_URL_24_!not-for' & & -print Hook/list & & -printV Hook/listV ,\n ( -h Path '_URL_31_![^!]*$' || -h Path _URL_19_!usenet )\n & & -print Hk/list & & -printV Hk/listV ,\n -h Path '_URL_20_!' & & -print Hc/list & & -printV Hc/listV ,\n -h Path '_URL_5_![^!]*$' & & -print I1/list & & -printV I1/listV ,\n -h Path '_URL_0_!not-for-mail' & & -print I2/list & & -printV I2/listV ,\n -h Path '_URL_17_.POSTED' & & -print Idi/list & & -printV Idi/listV ,\n -h Path '_URL_8_![^!]*$' & & -print Ig/list & & -printV Ig/listV ,\n -h Path '_URL_37_![^!]*$' & & -print Iq/list & & -printV Iq/listV ,\n -h Path '_URL_3_![^!]*$' & & -print Isdnet/list & & -printV Isdnet/listV ,\n -h Path '_URL_32_.POSTED' & & -print Ispn/list & & -printV Ispn/listV ,\n ( -h Path 'istar![^!]*$' || -h Path '_URL_25_!not-for' ||\n -h Path '_URL_36_![^!]*$' )\n & & -print Is/list & & -printV Is/listV ,\n -h Path '_URL_26_![^!]*$' & & -print Isw/list & & -printV Isw/listV ,\n ( -h Path '_URL_4_![^!]*$' ||\n -h Path '_URL_4_![^!]*![^!]*$' & & ! -h Path '_URL_1_!news$' )\n & & -print Id/list & & -printV Id/listV ,\n -h Path '_URL_38_![^!]*$' & & -print Iadfw/list & & -printV Iadfw/listV ,\n -h Path '_URL_10_!not-for-mail' & & -print Iag/list & & -printV Iag/listV ,\n -h Path '_URL_27_![^!]*$' & & -print Ia/list & & -printV Ia/listV ,\n -h Path '_URL_30_![^!]*$' & & -print Ib/list & & -printV Ib/listV ,\n ( -h Path '_URL_15_![^!]*$' || -h Path '_URL_15_$' )\n & & -print Ibm/list & & -printV Ibm/listV ,\n -h Path '_URL_13_$' & & -print Ica/list & & -printV Ica/listV ,\n ( -h Path '_URL_28_$' || -h NNTP-Posting-Host _URL_28_ ||\n -h NNTP-Posting-Host 206.150.181 )\n & & -print Icg/list & & -printV Icg/listV ,\n -h Path _URL_33_!not-for-mail & & -print Ican/list & & -printV Ican/listV ,\n -h Path '_URL_23_![^!]*$' & & -print Ici/list & & -printV Ici/listV ,\n -h Path '_URL_29_' & & -print Icix/list & & -printV Icix/listV ,\n\nThe total filter was 805 lines long, with another 590 lines used to match the spam to the source. I had to update it every day, and even then it only caught a fraction of the spam."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"i-2000.com",
"netcom.com",
"gxn.net",
"isdnet.net",
"idt.net",
"i1.net",
"https://it.slashdot.org/story/08/04/29/2254242/spammers-hijacking-ip-space",
"hkstar.net",
"iglou.com",
"com.de",
"iag.net",
"highway1.com",
"hknet.com",
"ica.net",
"hardlin... | |
8wfs26 | how do banners used for aerial advertising stay vertical during their entire flight? won't they get ruined while the plane lands? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8wfs26/eli5_how_do_banners_used_for_aerial_advertising/ | {
"a_id": [
"e1v7lna"
],
"score": [
13
],
"text": [
"They have a metal pole at the front edge of the banner and a big heavy weight on one end of the pole.\n\nWhen they are done they do a low pass over the airport and drop the banner in the grass before coming back to land."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
1e2ycx | piers morgan hate | I'm from the U.S., and have only seen Piers Morgan on a few Britain's Got Talent clips on Youtube, and a few times on his own CNN talk show. He *seems* perfectly normal to me.
However, he seems almost universally hated on Reddit, and is frequently mentioned in threads like 'worst people', 'what celeb would you like to punch in the face', and any discussion on celeb douchebaggery.
What am I missing? what did this guy do? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1e2ycx/eli5_piers_morgan_hate/ | {
"a_id": [
"c9wb1s9",
"c9wcux5"
],
"score": [
10,
3
],
"text": [
"He used to live in Britain and got fired from a newspaper for wrongfully reporting war crimes of British soldiers in Iraq, that they did not commit. And now he has a show on CNN, which to me seems like just the quinticential definition of bad media. (mantei teo girlfriend story covered for weeks, Jodi Aris covered for weeks) and after the Sandy Hook shooting he's been very high and mighty with his views on gun control, and now does what people on Fox or MSNBC do which is has guests on his show, doesn't let them speak, and just yells at them. He called some of his guests 'idiots', and 'stupid'",
"I didn't understand until Fox Soccer invited him to comment on an Arsenal match. He spent the whole time bitching about Arsene Wenger, making bad puns about not spending money and players leaving to get fatter contracts. \"Robin van Pursestrings\" sounds pretty stupid the thirtieth time you hear it. And every last time the real commentators tried to talk to about the actual fucking football match, the twatwaffle would hijack the conversation and talk about how much he hates Arsene Wenger. He's like the British version of Keith Olberman, he ruins sports for innocent people."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] | |
1qf05v | how easy it for someone to track down your exact current location through the internet? | I ask this because I went on [this](_URL_0_) rather hilarious website. It asks for your permission to track your address, and after you accept it tracks down your exact address instantly. This is despite never even giving out my location. This is kind of shocked me... I always assumed it's quite difficult to track someone's location through the internet. It also makes me wonder if anyone could do this. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1qf05v/eli5_how_easy_it_for_someone_to_track_down_your/ | {
"a_id": [
"cdc4yjl",
"cdc5f22",
"cdc6d7o"
],
"score": [
2,
2,
3
],
"text": [
"That site asks to use your device's GPS information, not simply information provided by your connection to the website. Without this, except for people who have access to your ISP's network devices, it is very difficult to trace a person's precise location using the information provided by connecting to a server, even with a web browser.",
"You can be traced by your IP address. However, since this uses your device's GPS information, it's usually quite inaccurate, and thus, virtually impossible to be traced with your IP address, unless they were given access to your ISP's network devices. This is precisely why our household IP range typically shows a state or two away.",
"The most modern methods of GeoLocation use a multi step approach.\n\nStep 1. They look up your IP and find the company it is assigned to. This gives them a general area.\n\nStep 2. They look up the known geo-locations of several institutions that are in the same region as you. Then they compare the stats and basically triangulate in on you.\n\nSee: _URL_0_"
]
} | [] | [
"http://www.wherethefuckshouldigotoeat.com/"
] | [
[],
[],
[
"http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/04/getting-warmer-an-ip-address-can-map-you-within-half-a-mile/"
]
] | |
w1w5d | if i turn on a fan in a room that's 70 degrees fahrenheit all through it, would it get hotter since i'm adding energy to the room (the fan is)? | Edit: Good responses! Thanks for all the input, hope someone else learned something too.
Keep in mind this is a theoretical question, kinda like how in physics you disregard the air resistance of a falling object here we are disregarding any possible temperature variance as well as your own perspective on what it *feels* like. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/w1w5d/if_i_turn_on_a_fan_in_a_room_thats_70_degrees/ | {
"a_id": [
"c59iga2",
"c59iupz",
"c59m0j0",
"c59n32v",
"c59ntj1",
"c59qncs"
],
"score": [
40,
3,
3,
3,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Yes, it would. The fan doesn't actually cool off a room, it only moves the air around. The breeze you feel makes you feel like the air is getting cooler, since more air particles are hitting you; if the air is cooler than your body, the heat transfer between atoms is going from you to the air. However, if the air is hotter than your body, you'll feel like the breeze is making the room hotter.",
"Yes. The overall temperature would rise. However, for a short period of time, you might feel cooler, because the air currents would be moving stagnant air away from your body, and bringing in fresh air that your body heat hadn't increased yet.",
"Yes, both because the fan is adding energy to the air by blowing it around *and* because all electrical devices give off waste heat (because electrical current running through any kind of normal conductor produces heat).\n\nThe reason fans cool you is because you heat up the air around you, and this warmer air tends to stay pretty close to your skin. The moving air from the fan pushes this warm air off of you in a sense, and it is replaced with cooler room-temperature air, cooling you down.\n\nAs a result, always remember: fans cool people, not rooms. If a fan is on in a room with no people it's just wasting energy.",
"As an interesting side-note, in Korea many people believe that you can die from leaving a fan running in a room. It's commonly called [Fan Death](_URL_0_).",
"Somebody explain this please. A few weeks ago the ac in my house went out. My wife and I proceeded to turn on every ceiling fan in the house (there's four). Not only did the house feel noticeably cooler, the thermostat dropped by several degrees. The thermostat is in the hallway away from the fans.",
"\"It depends\"\n\nIf it is actually cooler *outside the room* and the room is not well insulated, the fan could hasten cooling of the room. \n\nIf it is warmer outside, or the room is well insulated, the room could get hotter. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_death"
],
[],
[]
] | |
4by2w5 | what is this black streak in the sky? | So I was flying to New Orleans from Denver, enjoying my movie and I glanced outside saw this.
What I saw: _URL_0_
This drifted away after a few minutes and then came back a second time, with a friend! There were 2 black streaks! Unfortunately I got only one picture, but it got close enough for me to confidently say it was not a plane. My guess is a chemtrail? Don't know, help me out! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4by2w5/eli5_what_is_this_black_streak_in_the_sky/ | {
"a_id": [
"d1demta"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"The word you're looking for is actually \"contrail\".\n\nI'd be willing to bet it is also a contrail. Normally, you're looking up into the sky at them so all the light is coming down through them. In this case, there is probably more refracted light coming from the ground - greens, blues, etc - that will affect the color."
]
} | [] | [
"https://m.imgur.com/3nRMvND"
] | [
[]
] | |
1u36fd | why is it that you have the urge to itch your eye when having an allergic reaction? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1u36fd/eli5_why_is_it_that_you_have_the_urge_to_itch/ | {
"a_id": [
"cee1rz0"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Your eyes itch because of the irritants that are causing the allergic reaction. \n\nAllergic reactions often manifest themselves by causing swelling of mucous membranes, of which the tissues around your eyes are made of. The allergens cause those membranes to swell and become irritated, which results in severe itching. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
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