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1spg45 | How come my belly expands right after eating food, even though the food I've eaten won't have reached all the way down there yet? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Well your stomach when empty is fairly small and sits just below your rib cage. When you eat it fills with food and stretches out. It will displace some of your intestines to make room. That could be causing your stomach to stick out. \n\nAlso when you eat food it opens up the floodgates downstream, if you know what I mean, so it may push some stuff from the small intestine to the large intestine, which is closer to the skin (more anterior)."
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} | train_eli5 | How come my belly expands right after eating food, even though the food I've eaten won't have reached all the way down there yet?
| [
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3uzb0a | Why Do Reddit Points Fluctuate Over Time? | I'm not being naive -- I know points operate through up and down votes. Are there other factors at play though? Do posts gain or lose points according to responses below or above them? And, most importantly, how do you game them? > :) | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The fluctuations are a bot prevention mechanism. Shadow bans were created in order to get rid of malicious bots, but that could be easily tested if their upvote did not count toward a thread if the page was refreshed a minute later. Thus, Reddit came up with the idea that they should create vote fluctuations. The vote fluctuates up and down randomly to make it difficult for malicious bots to operate"
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} | train_eli5 | Why Do Reddit Points Fluctuate Over Time?
I'm not being naive -- I know points operate through up and down votes. Are there other factors at play though? Do posts gain or lose points according to responses below or above them? And, most importantly, how do you game them? > :) | [
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2v9re4 | A recent YSN post said that cell phone companies can't prevent me from unlocking my phone. What does that mean? | _URL_0_
Can I now uninstall the bloatware that my provider put on my phone? Are there other things I'm missing out on | explainlikeimfive | {
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"You're mixing up unlocking and rooting.\n\nUnlocking is taking off a restriction that prevents you from putting a SIM Card (which is a little card that says who you are) into your GSM (t-mobile and at & t in the US) phone. When the phone is unlocked, it will let you just take your phone to the other network and have it worked.\n\nTo remove something like bloatware, you need to *root* your phone. Rooting isn't illegal, though it may void your carriers warranty. What rooting does is allow you to install custom software and remove carrier bloatware. If you have an Apple phone, the process is called *jailbreaking*. I am not sure if anything similar exists on Windows phones."
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} | train_eli5 | A recent YSN post said that cell phone companies can't prevent me from unlocking my phone. What does that mean?
_URL_0_ Can I now uninstall the bloatware that my provider put on my phone? Are there other things I'm missing out on | [
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4mhl2o | how does a mere bit of suncream/sunblock protect the skin from the suns rays? | [removed] | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Sunblock and sun cream contain very small particles of silver (in sun cream) and zinc oxide (in sunblock) which reflects the rays of light off rather than letting them hit your skin, the particles are fine and plenty enough so as long as you have a layer covering your skin, they will reflect most of the rays off, but some will still get through depending on its factor and how much you apply."
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} | train_eli5 | how does a mere bit of suncream/sunblock protect the skin from the suns rays?
[removed] | [
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2r7tb7 | Why can't I hear myself snoring, or anything else for that matter, when I'm half-awake/half-asleep? | I'm talking about being in that state of limbo where you can still feel yourself awake but you know you're also on the verge of falling asleep. I've always thought about this but never gave it serious consideration. | explainlikeimfive | {
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"As you move from a waking state to a sleeping state, your senses get (mostly) turned off. This last summer, I was running a box fan in my bedroom to stay cool. In addition to providing airflow, it also make a pleasant low drone. One night, I noticed my hearing turn off because I was listening to the fan's noise. I was startled and the change woke me up, turning my hearing back on.\n\nI say mostly turned off because there does seem to be some kind of watchdog that listens for unusual and important noises, such as your name being called and so on. But snoring falls into the \"usual\" category, so your brain blanks it out."
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} | train_eli5 | Why can't I hear myself snoring, or anything else for that matter, when I'm half-awake/half-asleep?
I'm talking about being in that state of limbo where you can still feel yourself awake but you know you're also on the verge of falling asleep. I've always thought about this but never gave it serious consideration. | [
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5mr87n | What is Obama Care? | Why would it be a bad idea to repeal it without another 'care' plan in place? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Obama care refers to the Affordable care act, which changed a few things about American healthcare. The whole act was extremely long, and covered many aspects, which is why it took a long time to draft and pass and take effect, and is beyond the scope for a single Eli5 thread.\n\n\nOf significance (from my perspective), some key provisions protected those with existing conditions from being unable to find insurance at a reasonable rate, and guaranteeing certain individuals coverage without a extreme financial burden, and extending the maximum age that some younger individuals could stay under a parent's plan.\n\nA repeal without a new plan in place would impact many people, and could leave many without insurance when they need it most. Without the Act's provisions, companies could alter rates or drop coverage to individuals, who may no longer receive the subsidies that allowed them to have access to healthcare in the first place.",
"Obamacare is a name for the Affordable Care Act (or ACA). The ACA, among other things, makes it mandatory for American citizens to have health insurance. If you do not have health insurance, you must pay a fine.\n\nIt also forces insurance companies to do some very basic things, like not cancel a customer's health insurance when they get sick, or refuse their service to someone who has a preexisting condition.\n\nIt has been under attack by the Republican Congress for multiple years., because:\n\n1. It forces people to buy insurance\n2. Recently, it has raised insurance prices\n3. It was passed by a Democratic president\n\nIf Obamacare is repealed without a replacement, health providers and insurance companies could repeal a customer's service immediately after they get sick, and discriminate because of preexisting conditions. However, prices would fall (maybe)."
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} | train_eli5 | What is Obama Care?
Why would it be a bad idea to repeal it without another 'care' plan in place? | [
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5l2nii | Why is riding an elephant deemed inhumane while riding a horse is not? | [removed] | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Horses are domesticated by humans for the purpose of cohabitation with humans. They have been selectively bred over thousands of years to be suited to a type of work, such as pulling a cart, carrying a rider, etc. Moreover the equipment used, and the veterinary knowledge of their body mechanics have been extensive studied and improved. \n\nPsychological changes, as well as physical changes, attend to the process of domestication. Domestic animals are not stressed by the company of humans and consider them part of their natural herd. As long as they are kept according to their needs (food, water, company, space to move), they are in their most natural state in company of humans. For humans have made them exactly what they are; mentally and physically unlike their wild forbears. \n\nAn elephant is a wild animal, there has never been any domestication of elephants, only taming, and taming is not the same thing, there are no biological changes in the animal, it retains all of its wild instincts. Selective breeding for domestic traits has proved impossible in elephants. \n\nTl;dr the difference between a dog and a wolf."
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} | train_eli5 | Why is riding an elephant deemed inhumane while riding a horse is not?
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563hb0 | Why does air feel cooler when it's moving when energy/movement creates heat? | Like when I'm sitting in front of a fan it feels cooler. | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Our bodies are constantly radiating heat. Air, being a good insulator, forms a hot-bubble around us, like a blanket. When the wind blows, it brings cooler air against our skin and removes the air we've already heated. Also, you have to know that our skin doesn't sense temperature, but the relative flow of heat in or out of our body. As the cool wind blows, it saps energy from us, which feels cool."
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} | train_eli5 | Why does air feel cooler when it's moving when energy/movement creates heat?
Like when I'm sitting in front of a fan it feels cooler. | [
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1ivalg | Boxsprings. Is there an actual purpose to them? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Just asked this at the mattress store!\n\nTheir only function is to keep the mattress flat so it wears more evenly. If you don't have a bed frame and leave your mattress on the floor you don't need one. If you have frame with a solid bottom that keeps your mattress flat, you don't need one. You only need them if your frame has plank supports, because the mattress is too soft to hold up its own shape for many years and will start to sing down in some places between the slats."
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} | train_eli5 | Boxsprings. Is there an actual purpose to them?
| [
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1q98ac | Why do different alcoholic drinks have different effects on a person? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"There is a theory that this purely psychological. Sort of like the placebo effect (you feel better bc you expect to feel better). For example, we associate whisky with sadness (or, just listen to country for 5 minutes and you will) so we expect it to make us sad/mournful drunk. Usually, that's what happens.\n\nEDIT: for clarity-- what I meant by \"usually, that's what happens\" is that because we expect to feel sad/mournful when we drink whisky… we make ourselves feel that way. Purely psychological."
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} | train_eli5 | Why do different alcoholic drinks have different effects on a person?
| [
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5srk3m | How can Pi never repeat if it never ends? | [removed] | explainlikeimfive | {
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"What they mean with never repeating is that it won't act like normal fractions like 1/7 = 0.142857142857142857142857142857... which repeats the sequence 142857 forever over and over again.\n\nThe same sequence \"142857\" occurs in pi too. Apparently it occurs 210 time in the first 2 million digits of pi.\n\nSo you have lots of parts that get repeated in pi, but never anything that gets repeated endlessly.\n\nYou can describe 1/7 by given the first couple of digits and then saying that the last six repeat endlessly. You can't have a simple description like that of numbers like pi.\n\nIf you look long enough you will find every possible sequence you might look for in pi, including an ASCII representation of the collected works of Shakespeare.",
"It doesn't mean that it contains no repetitions whatsoever, it means that it's not a repeating decimal. For example, 1/7 = 0.142857142857142857... is a repeating decimal because the \"142857\" part repeats over and over.\n\nPi is an irrational number. One property of irrational numbers is that they when written as decimal fractions, they form a non-repeating decimal."
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} | train_eli5 | How can Pi never repeat if it never ends?
[removed] | [
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1kedmw | What is the difference between pirating a game/movie and buying a used copy? Why are "re-sales" legal but pirating isn't? | I don't understand how resale of items like videogames and movies is allowed but pirating is illegal, or why publishers and developers aren't pushing to end used sales.
In both situations, the publisher/developer makes no money. They only make money off of the initial sale of the new item. The concept of "used" items isn't exactly fair. | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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"> why publishers and developers aren't pushing to end used sales.\n\nThey are, but it's a delicate issue, just ask Microsoft's PR department. The concept of the first-sale doctrine in copyright law dictates that once the holder of a copyright has sold on a good to a consumer, that consumer has the right to pass on the good to whomever they see fit. They can't legally reproduce it (piracy) but they can sell their purchased copy.\n\nThis law was written in 1976 and so there are issues when it's applied to digital media which lacks the degradation characteristics of a physical good. \n\nPoints in favor of used sales:\n\n* Many gamer's look at used sales as a way to subsidize the price of games. It costs $60, but they'll sell it back for $20 so the net price is $40. This increases initial sales of some titles at launch.\n* Lower prices of used games can encourage some gamer's to try titles they might not have otherwise purchased, and if they enjoy the game, they might be more likely to purchase a sequel upon release.\n* It is the correct option under the letter of the law if the copyright owners are selling a copy of the good.\n\nPoints against used sales:\n\n* Used sales shift money away from the developers who created the game and towards the middleman. The less money developers have the less they can spend on development of new games.\n* The range of genre's available to consumers is narrowed because publishers force development teams to focus on features, like multiplayer, they hope will delay gamers from selling the games back to stores. \n* First sale doesn't technically apply if the purchasers is buying a license to view the content, not the content itself. This is a squishy argument, but the legal justification for forbidding sales of software.\n\nTL/DR Part1: Copyright law protects used sales, not unlicensed reproduction (piracy)\n\nTL/DR Part2: Used sales have benefits and detriments to the game industry"
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} | train_eli5 | What is the difference between pirating a game/movie and buying a used copy? Why are "re-sales" legal but pirating isn't?
I don't understand how resale of items like videogames and movies is allowed but pirating is illegal, or why publishers and developers aren't pushing to end used sales. In both situations, the publisher/developer makes no money. They only make money off of the initial sale of the new item. The concept of "used" items isn't exactly fair. | [
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1jq2wd | How come I can focus my eyes on the floaters on my cornea, but not my finger when it's almost touching it? | I was lying on a trampoline looking at the sky today and I could focus my eyes to pretty clearly see a couple floaters and I just wondered. | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Your eye isn't really focusing on the floater, as it's behind the cornea. It's more like having dust on the film, it gets sent directly to the brain as is.\n\nYour finger you actually do need to focus on."
],
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} | train_eli5 | How come I can focus my eyes on the floaters on my cornea, but not my finger when it's almost touching it?
I was lying on a trampoline looking at the sky today and I could focus my eyes to pretty clearly see a couple floaters and I just wondered. | [
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2cfn3i | How does Global Blue make money? | Global Blue is a great thing for shopping. You go to a shop, you buy some stuff, request a global blue form, send the form to Global Blue and they will send you money which equals to the country's taxed.
e.g. I go to GAP, buy jeans for 50€ (jeans are 40€+tax), fill out the form, send it to Global Blue, they will send me 10€.
Where does this money come from? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"> Global Blue operates a wide and trusted Tax Free Shopping network, allowing travellers to save money on purchases they make in any one of our 270,000 partner stores around the world\n\nAbove description if from their website. You only get tax refunded if you shop in one of their partner stores. Think of it as a discount membership card, where you shop in the partner stores and get discount. But here they refund you the taxes instead of giving any discount. When you shop from their partner stores, you bring business to them, more business you bring to them, more will be the commission earned by Global Blue. This is how Global Blue earn money. And from that money they refund you the taxes. Moreover, I am pretty sure that those stores get some tax benefits from their local governments to bring in the foreign currency."
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"url": []
} | train_eli5 | How does Global Blue make money?
Global Blue is a great thing for shopping. You go to a shop, you buy some stuff, request a global blue form, send the form to Global Blue and they will send you money which equals to the country's taxed. e.g. I go to GAP, buy jeans for 50€ (jeans are 40€+tax), fill out the form, send it to Global Blue, they will send me 10€. Where does this money come from? | [
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19jpzd | In the course of history, why have people exiled others as opposed to killing them? | I was wondering specifically about Napoleon, and why he was exiled from France as opposed to being executed. | explainlikeimfive | {
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"If Napoleon was killed, it would have made a great deal of french people angry that their leader was killed, and turn him into a symbol another french army could rally around. \"Our leader was killed, let's avenge him!\"\n\nInstead, by exiling him, no one is angry that he's killed, and it's hard to rally around a leader when he's just sitting around growing old. There's no symbol or cause for people to rally to.\n\n---\n\nIn general, there are many different reasons why people are exiled instead of being executed, but avoiding making martyrs is usually a big factor.",
"A lot of times, a leader goes into exile to save his own ass. The government of another country will offer him protection and sanctuary. The government also promises not to extradite the leader back to his home country to face trial/execution. \n\nIn the case of Idi Amin of Uganda, he was offered protection by Muammar Gaddafi of Libya. He lived in Libya for about a year. He later settled in Saudi Arabia, where the Saudi royal family allowed him sanctuary and paid him a generous subsidy in return for his staying out of politics. \n\nHere's a list of other [exiled heads of state](_URL_0_)."
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} | train_eli5 | In the course of history, why have people exiled others as opposed to killing them?
I was wondering specifically about Napoleon, and why he was exiled from France as opposed to being executed. | [
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5yh3rv | Why was prohibition less successful than the war on drugs? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The war on drugs was a failure in the exact same way that prohibition of alcohol was. We just keep doing it anyway.",
"The percentage of people who use alcohol is higher than the amount that use drugs. The more people that flaunt the law, the harder it is to enforce.",
"It depends on how you define success. Context is super important. People often have different definitions, especially the ones who support or oppose it. \n\n[Here's a great chart on how the spending on enforcing the war on drugs has ballooned, yet we still have the same number of people addicted to drugs.](_URL_0_)\n\nIt always baffles me how a handful of people try to control the decisions of legal adults - especially because using drugs is a victimless crime. One things for certain - we now have several gigantic industries who are utterly dependent on ILLEGAL drugs to keep profits up.\n\n- Prison industry. 30 million people have been incarcerated on drug-related crimes. In the mid 2000's as much as 50% (well over a million people) of the prison population was in for drugs. One must also ask themselves... how successful are people at getting jobs after they get out of prison with a felony drug charge? [The private prison industry made $3.3 Billion in 2015](_URL_2_). In addition, [Of the 1,488,707 arrests for drug law violations in 2015, 83.9% (1,249,025) were for possession of a controlled substance. Only 16.1% (239,682) were for the sale or manufacturing of a drug.](_URL_3_)\n\n- Police Forces. [Between 2002-2012, over 1 million police hours were spent in New York City alone for simple marijuana possession.](_URL_1_) That's 50 full-time police officers for 10 years. Doing some simple math, about 1/40 people live in NYC - 50x40 = 2,000 officers over 10 years in the United States. That's just VERY SIMPLE marijuana charges. Add in crack, cocaine, heroine, etc and you can see where this goes.\n\nI stopped doing work to research this so I'm just going to summarize some other stuff...\n\n- Weapons manufacturers. The police force has been militarized / DEA.\n\n- Alcohol industry. Stands to lose A TON from legal marijuana if marijuana/alcohol are replacements.\n\n- Sheer number of probation officers and corrections officers.",
"Alcohol use had broad, mainstream support, especially among middle class whites.\n\nWith other drugs, it was easier to marginalize users as poor and criminal, especially if they were not white.\n\nThat said, by any reasonable assessment, the war on drugs has been an abject failure."
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} | {
"url": []
} | {
"url": [
"https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/10/chart-says-war-drugs-isnt-working/322592/",
"http://www.drugpolicy.org/sites/default/files/One_Million_Police_Hours.pdf",
"https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/04/28/how-for-profit-prisons-have-become-the-biggest-lobby-no-one-is-talking-about/?utm_term=.b20f23d627f0",
"http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/Crime#sthash.H1lG7UCG.dpuf"
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} | train_eli5 | Why was prohibition less successful than the war on drugs?
| [
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1tc465 | Who was actually (not philosophically) affected by the NSA spying. | I'm not asking for an answer like "Everyone was effected because it violated your civil rights." I would like to know who were the actual concrete victims of their violations that actually manifested into a tangible wrong doing that resulted in an arrest or some type of harassment. | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Closest I could think of would be Lavabit, if we're talking about provable damage and effects.\n\nLavabit was an encrypted email service located in the US, they offered high-end email security. That was their market, their gimmick, Email that is very hard to crack into.\n\nThe NSA needed the emails of a few individuals on lavabit and asked for the encryption keys. To put it another way, if lavabit was a storage facility, the NSA asked for the master key to the entire building and lockers but promised not to abuse it, copy it, or leak any of the things they found there to anybody else. \"scouts honor\"\n\nThis really doesn't fly for a company that promises the utmost security. Giving keys to a shady organization with no recordable track record is risky. So they had to shut down their company or else they could not keep their promise of security to their users.\n\nThis is now starting to have repercussions with companies that don't have as much of an emphasis on security. If you heard that leaders of Canada had the master keys to all of your Google history, all of your Gmail account emails, and all of your Google wallet transactions, Yahoo might start looking a little more appealling wouldn't it? Now imagine if it was Russia, or Mexico. The US has a reputation (and also a history) of pulling strings behind the scenes of the world, this kind of data and power is scary in our hands.\n\nThe US has a HUGE corner of the internet, and now these NSA allegations are causing countries that use US resources and companies to seriously reconsider the entire structure of the internet and who they use for email and communication. Which could have huge ramifications on the economy.",
"We don't have any way to know.\n\nThe NSA has channeled information to domestic law enforcement agencies such as the DEA, which then uses that information to build a case which appears to stand on its own in court; then, the prosecutors lie in court to both the defense attorneys and the judges, stating that the case was developed through normal channels and failing to offer any mention of the NSA data which actually started things.\n\nSo there's no public information about how many people have been harmed by illegal failure to disclose information during discovery, and we may never have all the details.\n\nFor more info google \"parallel construction nsa\".",
"> I would like to know who were the actual concrete victims of their violations that actually manifested into a tangible wrong doing that resulted in an arrest or some type of harassment. \n\nThere's no way of knowing that. Do you think they'd arrest someone and then throw a press conference mentioning how their arguably illegal, super secret spy program helped make the arrest?",
"All the stockholders and employees of Boeing, who just lost a multi-billion-dollar sale because Brazil is angry about being spied on. And that's only the first snowflake of what is likely to be an avalanche of economic repercussions on the global stage.",
"Taxpayers for sure. The NSA's budget is classified but estimated at more than $10 billion."
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} | {
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} | {
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} | {
"url": []
} | train_eli5 | Who was actually (not philosophically) affected by the NSA spying.
I'm not asking for an answer like "Everyone was effected because it violated your civil rights." I would like to know who were the actual concrete victims of their violations that actually manifested into a tangible wrong doing that resulted in an arrest or some type of harassment. | [
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6o6tot | Chicken used in KFC zinger? | [removed] | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"KFC claims it is a chicken breast filet, double breaded and deep fried. There's really no reason to doubt the claim, either."
],
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3
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} | {
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} | train_eli5 | Chicken used in KFC zinger?
[removed] | [
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2006yp | The practical everyday uses we gain from the American high school courses English, Math, Science, and history. | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Adding a quick note to the good material already here: One major problem for many students in school is they firmly believe they already know enough of these subjects to function well in society. And if they do not they think they can get the info quickly via google or other means. We all believe we know enough at those ages. But once you are out of high school you soon discover the real power of knowledge and communication. The skills used to navigate life in your teens does not map well onto the skills needed in your later years. If you develop very solid skill sets early on, when it is relatively easy to learn them, you will be a lot more capable in managing what life throws at you. Being adaptable, a good critical thinker, a good reader/writer, being someone who has a good grasp on how the natural world works on a basic level, and basically a good generalist can take you a long way.",
"English allows you to communicate your thoughts and ideas clearly. While it might be easy to dismiss correct spelling as unnecessary, it makes it a lot easier for others to understand you, especially when their own English might not be so good (non-native speaker).\n\nIt's quite difficult to shop without math. For more advanced math, think about your tax returns, working out a budget, your paycheck, etc.\n\nFor science, it gives us an understanding of the world around us. Perhaps more importantly, it gives us an understanding of the fundamentals of science itself--thinking critically, testing hypothesis, etc.\n\nHistory is important because understanding your own history can help avoid mistakes. You can see patterns over time, and how they came to be. History can explain the dangers of war, what happens when disease outbreaks happen, etc.",
"English: how to construct an argument and engage in thoughtful discussion\n\nMath: How to solve problems analytically and logically\n\nScience: Using the skills of mathematics and applying them to real world situations\n\nHistory: Learning about the past to make informed decisions about the future, especially politically."
],
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3,
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} | {
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} | {
"url": []
} | train_eli5 | The practical everyday uses we gain from the American high school courses English, Math, Science, and history.
| [
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5067zi | Why do we bite our teeths together when we doing something exhausting? (Like when you're in the gym and doing a hard workout) | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I'm not sure there is an exact known answer but the theory is: to make it easier on your brain.\n\nTensing muscles together takes less effort for your brain than trying to keep multiple muscles doing different things. Kind of like the old trick of patting your head and rubbing your stomach, your mind will eventually cause both actions to mimic each other.\n\nIt's also easier for your brain to know that the jaw is clenched than try to keep track of the exact position of your jaw."
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} | train_eli5 | Why do we bite our teeths together when we doing something exhausting? (Like when you're in the gym and doing a hard workout)
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8kwas7 | Why do radio stations announce the next songs and then play them in the reverse order? | For example: "Coming up right after the break we got Ed Sheeran, Drake and Rihanna, stay tuned". Then after the commercials they go on to play Rihanna, Drake then Ed Sheeran. Every time it's always the reverse of when they announced the songs. Is there a reason for this? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"They announce the most popular songs first so that it grabs your attention and more people keep listening for that song to play, then go to commercial (it's called a teaser so you wait through commercials) then play them in reverse order so you wait for your song to come up.\n\nThe radio world is all about getting you to listen just a little bit longer.\n\nedit: Added aside, they almost always say the name of the artist BEFORE it plays and then the name of the song after; this is so that if you're hoping to hear a new song from X artist, you won't flip channels when you know it's the same damn song you've heard 12 times today already."
],
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} | {
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} | train_eli5 | Why do radio stations announce the next songs and then play them in the reverse order?
For example: "Coming up right after the break we got Ed Sheeran, Drake and Rihanna, stay tuned". Then after the commercials they go on to play Rihanna, Drake then Ed Sheeran. Every time it's always the reverse of when they announced the songs. Is there a reason for this? | [
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5bpyb0 | What real power does the American president have? | What can he/she do all on their own? What takes cooperation between other government entities? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"The power to veto (or shoot down, if you will) any bill or law that Congress passes. Once a piece of legislation is vetoed, it takes two-thirds vote for congress to pass it, instead of the normal majority vote."
],
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} | train_eli5 | What real power does the American president have?
What can he/she do all on their own? What takes cooperation between other government entities? | [
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4kwitg | What are the most noticeable differences between genuine American-made Fender Stratocasters and Gibson Les Pauls, compared to cheaper counterparts like Epiphone or Squier made in Indonesia, Mexico, etc.? | Are the differences subtle? or is the quality vastly better on the American-made models? | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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"For current guitars, the Made In USA badge adds a lot to the cost, but it's hard to generalise beyond the obvious factors: differences in quality of wood and parts. \n\nHistorically, it's been a moving target: for example, I heard only good things about first Squiers made in Japan, some arguing that the quality exceeded that of early Fenders. I think this is *generally* true - today's cheap guitars have more consistent quality compared to 1950s models. (Famous guitarists didn't just get the perfect guitar first time, it could take trial and error and some work. Jimmy Page's favourite Les Paul was basically rebuilt from the bare wood up, resprayed and most of its parts replaced ([link] (_URL_0_)) ).",
"A lot of the time it's lower-quality materials as well as lower manufacturing standards, to the degree that sometimes you'll get like plywood-level stuff rather than solid wood, or some kind of wood pulp stuff. Obviously it's not always that bad, but they save the really high-end component for the, well, high-end instruments. So you'll get better materials and manufacturing, as well as better tuners, better bridges, better pickups, etc."
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} | {
"url": [
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} | train_eli5 | What are the most noticeable differences between genuine American-made Fender Stratocasters and Gibson Les Pauls, compared to cheaper counterparts like Epiphone or Squier made in Indonesia, Mexico, etc.?
Are the differences subtle? or is the quality vastly better on the American-made models? | [
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2o87h1 | What makes someone professionally good at fishing? | I assume that there are rankings in professional fishing. What qualities makes one person consistently better than another? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Probably experience and perception. I'm sure a good fisherman can tell where the fish will likely be in the lake, or how deep to go to get certain fish and what patterns they follow",
"A big portion of professional fishing is simply dedicating plenty of time to the sport and attending events. Nobody can make the fish bite and pros will be unlucky somedays. Statistically attending several events a month will earn you a few big wins over the season.\n\nFishing is also a very political sport involving who you know in the upper-divisions and having the money to cover airfare and other expenses (rental fees, licensing, equipment, etc.) Fishing is a sport where once you've \"made it\" you are pretty set in the sport. Often times this includes sponsorships to cover every type of equipment you can imagine and waived entry fees from past qualifications/notoriety. \n\nThis sport also has the benefit of being low-injury so aged players in the industry still remain competitive."
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} | train_eli5 | What makes someone professionally good at fishing?
I assume that there are rankings in professional fishing. What qualities makes one person consistently better than another? | [
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7lh35f | How can many cultures have so many similar myths? | [removed] | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Angels are not very similar across cultures, except those that came into contact with one another.\n\nGhosts are just a discussion of \"what happens after you die,\" a universal human concern. \n\nDragons differ hugely across cultures; it's a stretch that we call them all one thing.\n\nMonsters aren't similar at all across cultures, beyond the reality of dangerous predatory animals.\n\nThat pretty much leaves crossing the river -- a myth that most cultures don't have, but a real experience that used to be typical human experience in the days before big bridges.",
"Humans had the same lifestyle all over the world for tens of thousands of years, and dealt with a common set of experiences and emotions.\n\nThey lived mostly on river deltas, because that's where the food was. The river was therefore Life. Sometimes the river flooded, so the Giver of Life was also a capricious thing that could take it away. And on rare occasions the river flooded *so much* that it seemed \"everything\" (that the storyteller knew) was being washed away in some great cataclysm of cosmic anger.\n\nAs something so intimately tied to Life and Death, it was common to dispose of bodies in the river - ergo Styx et al. Naturally as with the body, so the \"spirit\" - the water joins the Great Sea, therefore the \"soul\" or \"essence\" of the person would join somehow with the cosmos.\n\nWith the same experiences and emotions, storytellers and philosophers were drawn to the same metaphors.",
"Because people are the same everywhere, they have the same fears and insecurities, so they sometimes come up with the same kind of explanations for the unexplainable.\n\nRiver I think is just another way of saying \"one way street\", meaning no one can come back after they've died, just like a river can't flow uphill.",
"Many cultures were not actually isolated from one another. Take europe and asia for example. There is a trade route called the silk road that went from italy to china and was travelled by the famous Marco Polo. even before, they found amber from the northern part of germany in ancient egypt, roman gold coins in scandinavia, and all sorts of indian and chinese wares in the arabic region etc. There usually was trade and migration, and also many cities that were basically the ancient equivalents of cultural melting pots. \nThis also is why so many languages influenced each other or have spread so far (in english, many word stem from latin roots, for example). \n\nSo one part is cultural exchange. \n\nThe other part is what you still notice today. Its story tropes, like in movies or novels, you find the same stories all the time: it's good bloke versus bad bloke, love, friendship, revenge and somewhere, a deeper moral such as \"don't be a dick\". This is the same that works in myths. No one will continue telling a boring story, and there are only some tropes that work well, in ancient communities as well as today. \n\nThat some particular stories may have emerged on various parts of the world independently is very possible. One example is the dragons/monsters thing, as humans may have found fossils or fossil prints all over the globe, and their myths spread. Another good one is the \"woman impregnated by god giving birth as a virgin\" - a thing that is found in so many myth collections all over the world. Well guess what: is it really so hard to imagine that there might have been that case when a woman got pregnant and didn't want to admit that she slept with some other doode? It's a brilliant story - that works especially well if you have gods capable of metamorphoses (also a trope that works well. its the god who descends and wanders the world in human or animal form)."
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} | train_eli5 | How can many cultures have so many similar myths?
[removed] | [
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5hx689 | What makes lithium ion batteries so combustible? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Lots of chemical energy separated by super thin insulators made of an easy to melt plastic. The fire produced in a tiny spot heats the insulator enough to melt it in the adjacent area, which generates more heat, ... . It's a chain reaction.",
"Chemical batteries rely on a chemical process called a redox reaction. \"Redox\" is a contracted form of \"**Red**uction/**Ox**idation.\" Without going too far into the chemistry and physics of how and why redox reactions occur, it has to do mainly with moving electrons from one source to another. A really good battery has 2 main parts, a reducing agent and an oxidizing agent. The bigger the gap in reaction energy between the two, the more power you get. \n\nYou might recall that combustion is a form of oxidation; so when a battery is breached or used incorrectly, the oxidation reaction that's normally happening in a controlled manner in the battery can get out of control and create those fun [fireball videos.](_URL_0_)",
"All commercial lithium-ion batteries use organic electrolytes, i.e. they're composed of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, so they're highly combustible. Internal short circuits in the battery between the positive and negative electrodes, which can happen for a number of different reasons (like physical damage to the battery, cheap materials, or dangerous operating conditions), can create sudden temperature spikes inside the battery. As the temperature rises, the pressure inside also rises, and this can eventually cause the battery casing to fail. The superheated combustible electrolyte begins venting, which ignites in contact with air.\n\nSource: my master's thesis in college involved thermal safety for lithium-ion batteries."
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} | {
"url": [
"https://youtu.be/GEo0RhEhFYc?t=11"
]
} | train_eli5 | What makes lithium ion batteries so combustible?
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212q92 | After a terror attack, why do certain groups claim responsibility? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"So, a lot of terrorist groups have some kind of agenda, normally they think that there is something wrong with a group of people, and they are the enlightened few who will \"purge the world\". If we look at them like ransomers, they have a set of demands (which are in line with their agenda) so all they need is a hostage. When there is a terror attack and a group claims responsibility for it, that victim population works kind of like their hostage. So basically claiming responsibility is their way of saying, \"This is what we are capable of, pay attention/ give in to our agenda or we will do more.\""
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} | train_eli5 | After a terror attack, why do certain groups claim responsibility?
| [
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3eaf2a | How exactly is money transferred to athletes and celebrities when they sign those 1+ million dollar deals? Do they write cheques? Or email transfer 6 million dollars? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Pretty sure they just get checks like anyone else would. Last year Thomas Vanek got investigated by the NHL because he was gambling and signed over one of his paychecks to cover a bet to his bookie. He ended up being clear of any wrong doing but how stupid do you have to be to sign over a paycheck to a bookie.",
"There is a great story about Donald Trump and Mike Tyson (At least I think it was donald trump and mike tyson - I can't find a link which makes me question my sanity). Tyson did a fight in New York that Trump had hired him for. The pay was something like ten million dollars for Tyson. After the fight Trump gave Tyson the check which Tyson tucked into the breast pocket of his tux.\n\nSix months later Trump's accountant knocks on the door of his office. The ten million dollar cheque had never been cashed and just went stale dated (couldn't be cashed anymore). The accountant asked why Tyson hadn't deposited the cheque. Trump called Tyson and asked what was up. Tyson had forgotten about the cheque and it was still in the breast pocket of his tux.\n\nLife is weird."
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} | train_eli5 | How exactly is money transferred to athletes and celebrities when they sign those 1+ million dollar deals? Do they write cheques? Or email transfer 6 million dollars?
| [
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2jclbi | Why does it seem like there are way more conspiracy theorists in the USA now than 20 years ago? | I grew up in the 90s. Occasionally you'd meet someone who thought Bill Clinton was lying about some major issue (other than the beej issue) but overall people who distrusted the government on every issue were viewed as tinfoil hat lunatics. After 9/11, I remember some people thinking it was an inside job, and I think there was a huge increase of conspiracy theorists due to that, but even then, people who said that GWB "did 9/11" were laughed at.
Now, it seems like no matter what article I read, MOST of the comments are conspiracy related, blaming Obama for something as weird as flu season or ebola. Whenever any national shooting/tragedy happens, I'm inundated with blog posts about how it was a false flag. It's gotten to the point where I feel like believing most of what the government/CDC says (or at least trusting that if they withhold information it's for good reason) actually puts me in the minority. Even when I read an article on a major site like CNN, FOX, MSNBC, etc...most of the comments are badly-spelled rantings about how Obama is infecting Americans with ebola on purpose through the Mexican border (??)
I belong to another forum that is comprised of mostly well-educated women. Most believe ebola is already airborne, the CDC is covering it up, and about half believe that flu shots are more dangerous than the flu. Tons of Americans choose not to get the flu shot even though the flu is proven to be way more likely to kill you.
So where are all these people coming from? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Probably has a lot to do with the fact far more people have gotten on the internet in the past 10 years. Sure, internet wasn't rare in 2004 but more people than you might imagine weren't really using it until the last ~5 years. Additionally people tend to group up so that you'll get concentrations of people likely to be conspiracy theorists.\n\nThings like Bush getting elected with < 50% of the popular vote, the whole 9/11 and related invasions, wikileaks and of course recent releases around the NSA have given a whole lot of fertile ground for paranoia and distrust.",
"1) Because the internet has gotten the conspiracy-minded in contact with theorists, so they jump on theories they'd never have heard of in years gone by. \n\n2) Because all these loons are on the internet, where they have the same soapbox as sane people. As such, we hear a lot more from them, so they seem more common. Nobody would have printed letters to the editor saying we didn't land on the moon in 1994, but in 2014, you can find it anywhere, because there's no editors between people and an audience any more.",
"Because information is so widespread now that people who live out in the middle of nowhere can now make public their thoughts.\n\nI don't have the numbers on number of conspiracy theorists.\n\nHowever, the fact that the internet is so widespread this allows people to spread information to more people and also allows you to become more aware of it in such a casual manner.",
"On top of the fact that they're more easily visible now that everyone else has covered.\n\nIt is actually entirely possible the actual number of conspiracy theorists has gone up. Due primarily to the very human habit of conformation bias.\n\nNow with a massive influx of information via the internet, intuitively we would think that would make the average person more well informed. However, due to the unreliable nature of the information available, on top of conformation bias, *people generally seek out opinions that agree with theirs, however ridiculous they may be*. \n\nSo if 20 years ago some nut thinks lizards have replaced the royal family, he'd mostly be ridiculed by those around him and likely no one will agree with him and he'd either continue and be branded a nut or, reasonably often, just forget about it.\n\nNow however, that same nutjob can go on the internet and find the 2 other people on the planet who agree with him, and so the circlejerk continues until they become so much more convinced of the idea that they are much less likely to be dissuaded of the idea.",
"Also, Snowden released some information indicating there are counter conspiracy theorists. For instance, they get online and pose as anti government theorists and make up insane very crazy stories to make all conspiracy theorists seem crazy.",
"The internet, more people have access to these theories. \nAlso, it is incredibly easy nowadays, to create fake video 'evidence' for something."
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} | train_eli5 | Why does it seem like there are way more conspiracy theorists in the USA now than 20 years ago?
I grew up in the 90s. Occasionally you'd meet someone who thought Bill Clinton was lying about some major issue (other than the beej issue) but overall people who distrusted the government on every issue were viewed as tinfoil hat lunatics. After 9/11, I remember some people thinking it was an inside job, and I think there was a huge increase of conspiracy theorists due to that, but even then, people who said that GWB "did 9/11" were laughed at. Now, it seems like no matter what article I read, MOST of the comments are conspiracy related, blaming Obama for something as weird as flu season or ebola. Whenever any national shooting/tragedy happens, I'm inundated with blog posts about how it was a false flag. It's gotten to the point where I feel like believing most of what the government/CDC says (or at least trusting that if they withhold information it's for good reason) actually puts me in the minority. Even when I read an article on a major site like CNN, FOX, MSNBC, etc...most of the comments are badly-spelled rantings about how Obama is infecting Americans with ebola on purpose through the Mexican border (??) I belong to another forum that is comprised of mostly well-educated women. Most believe ebola is already airborne, the CDC is covering it up, and about half believe that flu shots are more dangerous than the flu. Tons of Americans choose not to get the flu shot even though the flu is proven to be way more likely to kill you. So where are all these people coming from? | [
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8quocm | Unsupervised Learning/Machine Learning and how data is relevant | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Unsupervised learning isn't generally used to make predictions - for that task a supervised learner is typically used. You hinted at why in your question - if we *do* have a way to evaluate whether our predictions are accurate, then we should be able to frame the task as a classification problem and train a supervised learner to make predictions.\n\nUnsupervised learning is used when we don't have a way to separate old instances (students in your example) into labeled \"classes\" that we care about predicting for new instances. Depending on what model you use, an unsupervised learner might find groups of students who are similar in some way, or it might find which feature values are linked together in some predictable way, or it might point out students that are abnormal (in some way) with respect to the general population.\n\nSometimes you can go in after-the-fact and see that your unsupervised learner has separated students into groups that you can make sense of, or that you can tell why anomalous students are anomalous. But that's not guaranteed.\n\n & nbsp;\n\nIf you have *some* labeled data but not much (say you have data about some past students who have performed well), you could run an unsupervised learner (say a clustering algorithm) on all the students and see if those labeled students fall in a single cluster, but there's no guarantee. A more popular approach here is probably *semi-supervised* learning, which uses unsupervised techniques along with some labeled data to build a predictive model."
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} | train_eli5 | Unsupervised Learning/Machine Learning and how data is relevant
[deleted] | [
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1kdh36 | Why should you not stir long-grained rice (such as basmati) when cooking, but should stir short-grain rice (like sushi or risotto rice)? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Simply put:\n\n1 - Some types of grain break more easily than others, keep overcooking after the fire is off and/or are covered in the gran flour that makes it sticky and even a paste sometimes. Which takes me to point 2;\n\n2 - That's the way that specific receipt is cooked, whether is because make more sense for the type of grain and the result you want to achieve, or because it's the traditional way of cooking that rice in its country of origin.\n\nIn Spain we use short fat gran and is neither stirred nor moved around when cooked."
],
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} | train_eli5 | Why should you not stir long-grained rice (such as basmati) when cooking, but should stir short-grain rice (like sushi or risotto rice)?
| [
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2ac6mf | Why do we sometimes get fleeting pains at random parts of our body? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The phenomenon is called \"referred pain\". It occurs when sensory information comes to the spinal cord as coming from one location, but is interpreted by the brain as coming from another location. \n\nSource: Gray's Anatomy for Students, 2nd edition. Page 76 under \"In the clinic\". \n\nEdit: Btw I'm disappointed by all the shitposts in this thread. \nEdit 2: /u/ionizedreactor gave some plausible alternatives as well.",
"Sometimes its a momentary cramp which can be because of dehydration or water retention. Other times it may be a spasm from nerves randomly firing. You could be pinching a nerve or something is not resting well. Or you could be dying some diarrhea death soon.",
"\"Stress - Your muscles get tense and cause pain. Chronic stress can cause ulcers in the stomach. Ulcers will make your stomach hurt.\"\n\nWrong. Stress does not cause ulcers. Ulcers are caused by Helicobacter pylori. Google it.",
"In addition to what's been written, I'll throw out a couple of other things I haven't seen yet. Two common skin bacteria, group A strep and staph aureus, secrete exotoxins that cause burning sensations. If these happened to get into a microabrasion, they could cause a seemingly random burning or stinging sensation without a visible cause. \n\nCertain immune cells can also degranulate, which means to release small packets of noxious chemicals, when they come in contact with triggers that can cause a similar sensation as mentioned above.\n\nSome diseases sensitize nerves so that they respond to normal sensations as if they're painful, and sometimes things which can cause pain, like ovulation, will do so at random, either at the site of the organ, or referred to odd places like your shoulder, as another poster mentioned. \n\nLastly, there are things, like gas, which you don't think of as being arbitrarily severely painful which can be, given the right set of circumstances, and that can pinch at odd spots in the abdomen, or even put pressure upwards against the diaphragm, and once again, refer up into the shoulders through the phrenic nerves.",
"Sometimes (rarely - once a week, if not even less) I get a random sharp but not intense pain then semi-involuntarily move my leg/arm where-ever I got the pain. The rarity combined with just being a mild annoyance means it's not a big deal, but does anyone else get something similar? Probably one of those things everyone gets but no-one talks about.",
"In our anatomy class we talked about referred pain. This is when your visceral sensory nerves (or nerves of the organs,smooth muscle,and basically your involuntary body) meet with your somatic nerves or voluntary sensory nerves at the spinal cord and the visceral organs experience pain, sometimes that pain overlaps and is sent to the brain as somatic pain ...holy run on sentence",
"what about that weird pain for guys in the taint area (in between your bunghole and your weiner.. that blank space) I usually get it randomly out of nowhere or when I jump off of something and land pretty hard on my feet.",
"Stings in the lungs and heart area, anyone else felt these?"
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} | train_eli5 | Why do we sometimes get fleeting pains at random parts of our body?
| [
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88vi8o | What causes the involuntary scowl when we eat something unexpectedly bitter? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I think it was Steven Pinker who said that it's probably an evolutionary defense mechanism. When you taste something unexpectedly bitter you tend to make a face and stick your tongue out (children start doing this very early). This is probably a mechanism to eject any of the substance still in your mouth. Not really any evidence though so it's just conjecture.",
"Seems like a form of primitive communication to others not to eat it because it's dangerous.\n\nEdit: A combination of forcefully removing something from the mouth that's preceived as dangerous and warning others seems to be the reason, but this is all speculation."
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} | train_eli5 | What causes the involuntary scowl when we eat something unexpectedly bitter?
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290826 | If I, for example, pop a zit on my left shoulder, why do I sometimes feel a sharp sting in my lower back? | Or in my sides, hips, thighs etc. Completely other place than my shoulder. | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I would guess nerve endings. My SO at the time poked me in my belly button one time and I felt a sharp pain in my anus area. No joke.",
"I thought I was the only one! when I scratch a part of my body sometimes I feel a sharp sting on another random part of my body too."
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} | train_eli5 | If I, for example, pop a zit on my left shoulder, why do I sometimes feel a sharp sting in my lower back?
Or in my sides, hips, thighs etc. Completely other place than my shoulder. | [
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4ufp8u | What's the story behind the Enron scandal? | I'm watching Mr. Robot and the show uses Enron's old logo as Evil Corp's current symbol. This got me wondering what exactly happened during the situation and what caused Enron's demise in the end? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It's a very complicated situation - I've only watched the documentary *Smartest Guys in the Room*. Long story short, the leading executives made a lot of moves that put a lot of money in their pockets at the expense of their company, and the livelihood of thousands of employees",
"They were caught using fraudulent accounting practices. Executives were involved in securities fraud and insider trading. Company was forced into bankruptcy. \n\nThey were later shown to be involved with just general shady business practices, the most notorious being exploiting energy deregulation and stability issues in California"
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} | train_eli5 | What's the story behind the Enron scandal?
I'm watching Mr. Robot and the show uses Enron's old logo as Evil Corp's current symbol. This got me wondering what exactly happened during the situation and what caused Enron's demise in the end? | [
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22hg5k | how hard would it be for someone to go off the grid | explainlikeimfive | {
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"If nobody is looking for you, its not hard. The hard part is staying off the grid. You need to be able to sustain yourself long-term, and needing a trip to a hospital if you start vomiting blood could mean an end to the whole thing.\n\nBut if you are wanted by the police in any serious way, the odds of managing to stay free aren't great. If you were in the military, they have your finger prints on file. And if a cop detains you ever, you can refuse to say who you are, but those fingerprints will eventually give you up."
],
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} | train_eli5 | how hard would it be for someone to go off the grid
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2dihs5 | Why are some TV shows recorded in front of a live studio audience? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"First off those type of shows are called Multi Camera Setups. And they play out more or less live like any other performance, they don't have to record one actor, then the other, then back and forth like single camera shows. Those are done on closed sets and are considered higher production value because there is more room for directing, multiple takes, and cinematography.\n\nThey are really like plays and have an audience as a throwback to the days when it was done that way for lack of knowing how to do different. Television was live, variety and talk shows and the stage which is suited for this and might as well have an audience.",
"They get money from the people watching and they get natural laughter."
],
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} | train_eli5 | Why are some TV shows recorded in front of a live studio audience?
| [
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1si544 | What is that grainy stuff around resized low resolution pictures? | Example: _URL_0_ and _URL_1_
I keep seeing it on Instagram and shitty clip art I tried to make larger in Microsoft Word. | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"It's impossible to truly scale up an image. You can't just stretch things; the computer needs to know what pixels are going where. There's typically an interpolation algorithm that tries to guess where the pixels should be when scaling, but there are limits to how accurate it is. Mistakes are made and you can get an end result like that.\n\nYou need an interpolation algorithm or the pixel ratio just increases. Without the algorithm, if you were to scale up a picture by a factor of three in height and width, every pixel just becomes 9 pixel square and everything would look blocky.\n\ntl;dr: the computer can't just stretch an image. It has to guess where it thinks everything should go and it makes mistakes if the scaling is too big.\n\nIt wasn't very ELI5, but there's your answer."
],
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} | {
"url": [
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} | {
"url": []
} | train_eli5 | What is that grainy stuff around resized low resolution pictures?
Example: _URL_0_ and _URL_1_ I keep seeing it on Instagram and shitty clip art I tried to make larger in Microsoft Word. | [
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6ttzf9 | What happens when one of the wings of an airplane break off? | [removed] | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The plane is faced with an option: either generate lift with the remaining wing and face a massive rolling force, or don't generate lift and fall out of the sky. In either case the plane likely crashes. \n\nOne thing the pilot could attempt is to roll the plane 90 degrees to have the remaining wing pointing up or down, then use the rudder to angle the nose up. If the plane is light enough and has enough thrust then they can generate some lift from the tail and some from their engines pushing down. They can also get a little bit if lift from the body of the plane being angled up. \n\nMost planes would be hopeless in a detached wing scenario. I've seen the above maneiver performed in video using a model RC aircraft, but it would be impossible in a passenger jet.",
"The plan would begin to spiral in the direction of the missing wing and plummet towards the ground. If there was significant damage to the fuselage, it's possible it could break apart before impact. \n\nI don't recommend trying it."
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} | train_eli5 | What happens when one of the wings of an airplane break off?
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63tlu3 | Why would Assad’s regime use chemical weapons, as opposed to conventional ones, which don't generate anywhere near the same international uproar and are presumably equally lethal, albeit less horrifically so? | [removed] | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Every town exists for a reason. Some enterprise is producing something of value to someone outside the borders of the community, bringing in cash to support the town's local economy. \n\nIf you flatten the town, your country loses it's largest producer of widgets. Generations of experience, tools and machinery evaporated. You still need widgets, but now someone has to kick out millions to rebuild the factory and the town around it to produce them within the country again, and even then it'll be a year before you're in production. \n\nUntil you're producing again you'll have to pay double the price for imported widgets, which is made even more complicated when the US has [1000ft of freedom](_URL_0_) parked off your coast, enforcing a trade embargo. \n\nHowever, if you hit them with chemical weapons the property damage is trivial. Sure you lose the people, but they were lost anyway. With them out of the way more... cooperative people can be shipped in and widget production can begin as soon as they figure out where the light switches are. For experience, you can recruit cash-motivated foreigners like fabrication-mercenaries to train the new folks.",
"> presumably equally lethal\n\nThis is pretty much why. Chemical weapons tend to have very high human casualties while being able to minimise damage to infrastructure. \n\nTo achieve the same effect with conventional armaments you would incur far greater collateral damages in terms of infrastructure.",
"Why would Assad, who is currently winning with the help of Russia, carry out a chemical attack knowing it will harm even more of his image and risk destroying Russain support? It makes no logical sense so there is something deeper going on with the attack.\n\nAssad is in no way clean, nor do I support him but during times of war, you can't trust anything you hear, see or read in the media. The conflict in Syria is far more a complex issue than what it appears to be.\n\nEDIT: look at it from an objective point of view, who would benefit most from such an attack? Sure as hell aint Assad.",
"Would you say that currently in the 6 year Syrian Civil War, that conventional weapons are winning it for the Government? I would say not, that in fact conventional weapons clearly aren't strong enough to dislodge any kind of rebel. Chemical weapons are extremely powerful, both physically and psychologically. \n\nDropping Sarin gas on a village and killing everyone indiscriminately is a terrifying move. Both sides have guns, both sides have rockets, etc, but only one side has the means to 100% kill everyone in an area. \n\nSo, there are tactical reasons why, to dislodge an enemy they have been unable to dislodge using conventional weapons. There are psychological reasons, to scare your enemy into surrender. Sending a message, we won't just bomb you, we will poison the air so even your kids just die, and then if you survived, we'll bomb the clinic too - and most importantly Trump won't do shit. Putin won't allow his boy Trump to do anything, so why not use it? What's gonna happen if you do?\n\nThe last reason is that Syrian Command and Control structure ain't exactly top of the line. The US spends billions and billions in training and technology to enforce a command structure in which orders are always followed - and it still doesn't stop some humans being human and doing what *they* want. The US armed forces are still rife with violations of the geneva convention, still struggles with the problem of soldiers and commanders doing things based on their own personal desires rather than the desire of their commander.\n\nSo the Syrian army definitely has men in it capable of ignoring the prospect of outrage and uproar and just using sarin gas because he is an evil bastard. Or he's angry, or...whatever reason.\n\nMy best guess is that this was not authorised by Assad, nor Russia. A commander just decided, he didn't want to deal with bullshit, send in the gas.",
"That's the thing, they wouldn't. Assad has the whole situation essentially where he wants it. The rebels, Al Qaeda, and ISIS are all on the run, he has Russia's support, and the US and the west are starting to step back. He has zero incentive to use chemical weapons, as it would do what it's doing now, earn international attention and exacerbate the conflict again. I don't think Assad is a good guy, but he's also not a moron. Besides the fact that he hasn't actually used chemical weapons before. The gas attacks that started this whole thing up were found by the UN to be rebel false flags with US support.",
"There are multiple reports that it was actually a rebel weapons cache that was hit by a Syrian bomb. Al Jazeera for one. The rebels have EVERYTHING to gain by using chemical weapons and making it look like Syria did it. That's their entire lives and cause that desperately need support.",
"Because Assad didn't, and because the US has been arming and funding The Caliph and Al Nusra since Benghazi, first by Rodham, then by McCain (now there's some duplicity!), when these terrorists were lumped together as 'ISIS' (it's a crISIS, it's a crISIS!), so that US-UK-IL-KSA could overthrow Assad and plow a Qatari gas pipeline up through Syria into EU, and defeat the Russian gas pipeline currently supplying EU, (but not Ukraine, now an Israeli colony), that way Ukraine, one of the largest arms and havy rocket motor industries in the world (hence the Israeli coup), could ramp up production for global arms and missile shipments, which is the only growth industry left for the Vampire Squid, now that QE4 has fizzled.",
"Because they are well, much worse for humans. In conventional weapons your destroy structures which you might want to take over later. Sarin especially will kill you after instant paralalis, which ensures that it's properly done, positions you for a quiet takeover of the enemy area.\nIt also send out a message to the enemy that you will torture them if they don't surrender.",
"Cost. Bullets are between 19 cents and 2 dollars per round for small arms depending on the system used. A can of bug spray (nerve agent) is about 100 dollars for a 55 gallon drum. 8 ozs. In spray form will cover about 1/4 square mile...",
"Two GENERAL reasons for chemical weapons based on the persistence (staying power) of the weapon.\n\n Low persistence was used in WWI and WWII eliminate the enemy or town and in 24 hours move in unopposed. \n\nHigh persistence (more modern) scorched earth policy nobody sets foot in the town for weeks/months (trivial)\n\nEdit: resaonable persistence times"
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} | train_eli5 | Why would Assad’s regime use chemical weapons, as opposed to conventional ones, which don't generate anywhere near the same international uproar and are presumably equally lethal, albeit less horrifically so?
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170cz0 | why am i, and other men, attracted to breasts? | they're just meat sacks basically but they're fucking beautiful and awesome! Why? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"One theory is that larger breasts can indicate the female will be better able to feed her young, so men have evolved to prefer larger breasts because those genes have a better chance of being passed on to later generations.\n\nThere are some arguments against this theory, though. First is that it's generally the female of the species that is choosy about her mate, because to reproduce she has to expend huge amounts of energy compared to the male (because she has to create/lay eggs or go through pregnancy). Males expend almost no energy impregnating a female. Since evolution is driven by genes propagating to future generations, this means that the best \"strategy\" for males is to be promiscuous and impregnate as many females as possible, since from the males point of view failed offspring aren't a problem since not much energy was invested. They just want to have as many offspring as possible, maximizing the number of successful ones.\n\nFemales, on the other hand, have to be choosy about their mates because wasting all that time and energy to create a failed offspring would be fairly detrimental in the grand scheme of passing genes to future generations. So the idea that males like breasts because they indicate the female will produce successful offspring doesn't quite fit with this idea of the promiscuous male and choosy female, but I suppose even if you're promiscuous, you can still take advantage of cues that might indicate better mates.\n\nAnother thing to keep in mind is that because evolution is only concerned with genes being passed on to future generations, this has led to some things that don't have any practical advantage. The showy displays that birds use, especially tropical birds, to attract females is thought to not have much practical use. It's just that at some point some gene mutated in females that caused them to want to mate with more colorful birds. Because they were then choosing more colorful birds, colorful birds won out to blander ones. Not because of any survival of the fittest reasoning, in fact you could argue being more colorful makes it easier for predators to find you, but if you're colorful and can mate with a few birds before your eaten, that wins out to living twice as long as colorful birds but being forever alone. Perhaps the same type of thing happened with attraction to breasts.",
"There is also a theory that they mimic the female butt.",
"In the words of the \"kloons\". We're biologically programmed to stare at boobs. It's in our DNA to stem for life giving breast, and it's not a personal thing, it's not about me (us), it's about our potential future offspring. If all that isn't enough, some of us spent the best 18 months of our lives sucking on those things. So, may be in the recesses of our mind, when we look at breast, we think of safe haven, objects of love and caring, representing a time in our lives when days were easy.....",
"Evolution. Humans have evolved over millions of years and throughout this time it has been embedded into our brain that a partner with nice breasts will be a good sexual partner who will be able to properly nurse our children."
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} | train_eli5 | why am i, and other men, attracted to breasts?
they're just meat sacks basically but they're fucking beautiful and awesome! Why? | [
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6lkjan | What is an IPO and at what point do you have one? | I couldn't fully comprehend the idea of why one would bother to IPO when they already have investors. I was also wondering when a company IPOs. Like can you IPO immediately after the conception of a company instead of attracting Angel investors. Thanks! | explainlikeimfive | {
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"An IPO is an Initial Public Offering for a company's stock. It's when a company starts selling their stock on a stock exchange like the New York Stock Exchange or NASDAQ.\n\nThe reason for one is to take on more investment capital, and also to allow the initial investors and company founders take (some of) their investment off the table.\n\nA company might take on a few million in investment from venture capital firms, but to really fuel expansion they might need hundreds of millions and can gain this through an IPO. Additionally, the VC firms typically want to see a return on their investment in 3-5 years, so that often means an IPO or acquisition.\n\nAlso, the company's founders and early employees have tons of net worth tied into the company that can't easily be spent so an IPO allows them to cash out some of their stakes and have money to buy houses, cars, diversify their investment portfolio.\n\nCompanies can IPO sooner now than they used to decades ago, but they can't do so initially upon conception. There isn't enough of a track record to attract non-professional investors and the costs/requirements for government filings, earnings reporting, etc. would be to steep for a small start-up. Without some sort of early investment from angel investors, venture capital and the like there wouldn't be enough of a product to make the company viable enough to go public."
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} | train_eli5 | What is an IPO and at what point do you have one?
I couldn't fully comprehend the idea of why one would bother to IPO when they already have investors. I was also wondering when a company IPOs. Like can you IPO immediately after the conception of a company instead of attracting Angel investors. Thanks! | [
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2r1jas | Why am I able to tilt my head back and pour a drink down my mouth without it immediately traveling down into my body? Shouldn't it automatically slide down my esophagus? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"You have a set of sphincter muscles in your throat which manually pushes food down, this is what allows you to eat and drink when upside down, or in a zero gravity environment, It's also why you have to swallow food, instead of letting it slide down your throat. You'd end up choking every time you tried to eat or drink if you didn't have them."
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} | train_eli5 | Why am I able to tilt my head back and pour a drink down my mouth without it immediately traveling down into my body? Shouldn't it automatically slide down my esophagus?
| [
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3593ss | Why do humans live to be so old, but animals like dogs only live a few decades at most? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The short answer is that no one knows for certain. The most probable reason is the evolutionary strategy our species has, while some other animals focus on having lots and lots of offspring with the hope that at least some will survive humans have comparatively few but we spend more time nurturing and protecting them to ensure that they have the best chance of survival. Our intelligence and capacity for emotional ties may also help, grandparents are often as protective and caring of their grandchildren as parents are of their children; the more parents and grandparents available to help raise the child the better its odd of survival. It's evolutionarily beneficial for you to live long enough to protect and care for your grandchildren for them in turn to pass on yours and their genes."
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} | train_eli5 | Why do humans live to be so old, but animals like dogs only live a few decades at most?
| [
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2oj78z | Why do so many gaming web sites demand to know your date of birth (with annoying drop-down menus), but porn sites never do? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Porn websites can't be blamed for school shootings, so gaming websites have more reason to cover their asses.",
"Porn sites are doing the minimum it takes for legal compliance.\n\nThe game industry, OTOH, holds themselves to higher standards. The ESRB (the people that rate games) requires more stringent restrictions on mature content.",
"Probably because everything on a porn site is assumed to be 18+, while game sites might show both the latest Pokemon and the latest GTA on the front page at the same time.",
"Nothing shouts \"School shooter!\" like a quick round of Peggle."
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} | train_eli5 | Why do so many gaming web sites demand to know your date of birth (with annoying drop-down menus), but porn sites never do?
| [
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4rzmsg | The theory of parallel worlds/universes | explainlikeimfive | {
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"You know how some people say \"anything is possible\"? Well, they're right. Every single decision you make in your day can have an effect on the next or later ones. And every decision the people around you make can affect your choices as well, and the people around *them* affects *their* choices, and so on. When you consider how many people there are in the world and how many people there's *been*, and you'll very quickly lose track of the number of possible outcomes history could have taken, from the smallest detail in an innocuous, irrelevant event to a critical moment on one of the most important days in history.\n\nLet's try a small example. You have a choice: shower tonight so you can catch an extra half hour's sleep in the morning, or shower in the morning and get in an extra half hour of binge watching media content tonight. You choose to shower in the morning. While you're in the shower, your roommate gets to the kitchen before you and uses the last of the sugar in his coffee. This forces you to make a pitstop at Starbucks on your way to work, where you might run into an old friend from high school who invites you to a party that weekend. While you're at this party your roommate might have his girlfriend over, and accidentally break your favourite coffee mug while having sex in the kitchen. So you'll have to buy a new coffee mug now.\n\nHad you chosen to shower tonight, however, you might have gotten the last of the sugar. So you wouldn't have had to go to Starbucks, wouldn't have run into that friend, nor been invited to that party. Because you're home that night hanging with your roommate, he doesn't have recklessly unhygienic sex in the kitchen, and your coffee mug remains intact.\n\nNow imagine the impact the decisions of your next door neighbour might have as well. And the decisions of their spouse, and their spouse's parents, and their spouse's parents lazy housekeeper who's probably stealing from them but they just can't catch them in the act.\n\nThe idea is that \"somewhere\" in the universe, every single possible decision that anyone has made, they *did* make, and events played out differently. There are bound to be some realities out there so similar to our own that they're indistinguishable. And there are some where you spent a year as a drug mule to a Columbian drug cartel to wipe out the debt of your (now ex) girlfriend's idiot brother.\n\nScience fiction shows *loves* playing with this idea, and some of them have done it really well. Star Trek comes to mind."
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} | train_eli5 | The theory of parallel worlds/universes
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57wrbu | How come the adverse effects on the leaflet of every drug include almost any possible effect you might think of? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"If you tracked all of your high school classmates for 5 years, would some of them get into car accidents? get killed? get cancer? Odds are pretty good of that. Did that occur because of life happens? Or was that because they all attended the same high school? \n\nIn a large scale drug study, same thing occurs, people get all kinds of side effects, some might be coincidence, some might be drug related, some might be a mixture of lifestyle, genetics, disease and the medication. \n\nSo drug companies have to report that in their study, these side effects occurred. This way they've done the reporting of what the study discovered, then it's up to you as the patient and your doctor to determine if those risks are acceptable to you."
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} | train_eli5 | How come the adverse effects on the leaflet of every drug include almost any possible effect you might think of?
| [
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5velnf | What is a Neoliberal? | I keep seeing this term again and again but I had never heard of it before the end of the last US election. | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Neoliberals are open border capitalist, which breaks from traditional positions liberals held as this favors corporations over labor. Labor used to be the bread and butter of liberal policy.",
"Neoliberal means that you are generally in favor of their being minimal government interference within the economy. Particularly with regards to international/global trade."
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} | train_eli5 | What is a Neoliberal?
I keep seeing this term again and again but I had never heard of it before the end of the last US election. | [
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371o1l | Why does reinstalling a program fix problems that it had Before? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Because reinstalling overwrites certain parts of a program.\n\nIt fixes problems cause by file/registry corruption, and update errors.\n\nWhen you reinstall a program, registry entries are (re)made for the new install, and new versions of the program's files are installed into the program directory. Finally, if there was a bad update, this will effectively revert to another version.\n\nThe biggest example of this is reinstalling the OS, but it works with any program for the same reasons.\n\nIt does not repair user or procedurally generated files that do not exist as part of the base install (including some config files,) nor does it fix problems not directly caused by the files and registry entries overwritten."
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} | train_eli5 | Why does reinstalling a program fix problems that it had Before?
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1du47c | How does eviction work? | I understand, you don't pay rent - > you get thrown out. BUT, what rent did you miss? This months, or last months? And if you dont pay and move out, do you still have to pay them if you leave?
So, say you get a 5 day notice and in 5 days, you move out and into somewhere new...do you still need to pay on top of that? AND if you pay are you allowed to stay? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"varies from place to place, in NY it takes a court order from a judge before the police can evict you. It is a long, expensive and tedious process.",
"That should all be formally laid out in your lease. That's why everyone should read leases *very carefully* before signing. It varies from state to state and landlord to landlord. But if you pay up before the eviction date, I think you're fine."
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} | train_eli5 | How does eviction work?
I understand, you don't pay rent - > you get thrown out. BUT, what rent did you miss? This months, or last months? And if you dont pay and move out, do you still have to pay them if you leave? So, say you get a 5 day notice and in 5 days, you move out and into somewhere new...do you still need to pay on top of that? AND if you pay are you allowed to stay? | [
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3yts7a | How dose bacteria stay alive in places like my shower curtain or in my wash rag, where dose it get its nutrition from? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The bacteria ( and more likely fungus like mildew) in your shower curtain is actually living on the soap scum which includes oils for its nourishment. The wash rag offers even more diverse fare-- some soap as well as skin particles or food particles if a dish rag and the fiber material of the rag itself. Single celled organisms don't require very large amounts of food to sustain them, so either of these \"habitats\" can support hundreds of thousands of bacteria per square inch."
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} | train_eli5 | How dose bacteria stay alive in places like my shower curtain or in my wash rag, where dose it get its nutrition from?
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1sluge | I have a hard time making my customers understand device subsidies in America and I believe 90% of them have the mind of a child so someone please help me put the american device subsidy in words I can use to tell my customers. | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I work in a call center for a carrier in Canada and I explain device subsidies to customers every day. The best way to explain it to them is that they're financing a device. Let them know that they pay a portion of the phone upfront and the rest is charged to them through their bill. Compare it to putting a down payment on a car and then paying the rest of it in monthly installments.\n\nA lot of people will understand if you explain it plainly like that, but to be honest with you, about 60% of people are morons and won't get it. There's simple things that some people are just too dumb to understand no matter how well you explain it. \n\nThe worst where I work is having to explain to someone the prorated charges on their first bill due to them being charged from the day they signed up leading up to their bill date and then from their bill date to the next. Even after you explain it plainly some still don't get it and get angry because they think it's some kind of extra charge.",
"Do you mean mobile phones?\n\nIt's simple. Too many of my fellow Americans are mathematically-impaired cheapskates. They would rather pay $199 for a smartphone plus perhaps $70 per month for service than $649 for the phone and $35 per month for service because either A) they think they're saving money or B) they lack sufficient discipline in their finances to be able to hand over $649 in one shot.\n\nFor those of us who can do math and do have more than $0.35 in our checking account, paying a total of $1489 over the course of two years beats the hell out of paying $1879. But we're screwed, most carriers will still charge you the $70 per month even if you paid $649 for the phone. So this dipshit state of affairs continues to persist."
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} | train_eli5 | I have a hard time making my customers understand device subsidies in America and I believe 90% of them have the mind of a child so someone please help me put the american device subsidy in words I can use to tell my customers.
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1sbl47 | Why does England have so many different dialects of English but America doesn't have as much even though its a much bigger country | Maybe Im missing something in America but in England every single town has a different accent even though its loads smaller than the USA
I was wondering if there was a reason and what it is | explainlikeimfive | {
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"According to [this Wikipedia article](_URL_0_), England has 27 accents, and the United States has 40 accents (I'm only counting \"leaf nodes\" on the hierarchy, so if an accent lists sub-accents, I only count the subs). So it looks like your assumption is mistake, and the US has more accents than England. However, if you substitute \"UK\" for \"England\" you end up with 50 for the UK, putting it slightly ahead of the US.",
"I'm not sure I agree with your premise-- how much have you traveled around the US? Texas itself has six or 8 different regional dialects, and that's one state...",
"I'd be very interested to find out where the people who are claiming America has so little dialectical diversity are actually from."
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} | train_eli5 | Why does England have so many different dialects of English but America doesn't have as much even though its a much bigger country
Maybe Im missing something in America but in England every single town has a different accent even though its loads smaller than the USA I was wondering if there was a reason and what it is | [
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ri18f | What's the deal with the Trayvon Martin case? | I've heard a lot about how Trayvon Martin was shot and a bunch of people have been angry, but why is this gaining national attention? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"**The Incident:** A month ago in Florida, 17-year-old Martin went to a convenience store. Afterward, as he was walking back he was seen by Zimmerman, the head of the neighborhood watch program for the community. Zimmerman had a history of being relatively strict, as evidenced by his total of 46 calls to report incidents to 911 since 2011. On the date in question, Zimmerman called 911 to alert the local police about an individual walking through the neighborhood exhibiting suspicious behavior. The 911 operator inofrmed Zimmerman that he should not follow the suspicious person. Sometime after this call, Zimmerman and Martin had some sort of interaction with one another, during which Martin was shot and killed. Martin was unarmed. When the police arrived, Zimmerman admitted to shooting Martin, but claimed he was acting in self-defense. The police concluded that Zimmerman had been acting in self-defense, so they did not arrest him.\n\n**The Media Attention:** I can only guess why this case is so famous, and it's probably for a variety of reasons, but here are some possible explanations.\n\n1) It brings attention to a problem which can definitely be fixed. Specifically, this case brings attention to Florida's Stand Your Ground Law. In many states, in order to shoot someone in self-defense, you must first make an effort to retreat or avoid resorting to violence. The Florida law allows for firearm use in a larger variety of circumstances. Some people think this makes it too easy for people to legally shoot others, so the controversial Stand Your Ground Law is subject to new debate.\n\n2) Again relating to the Stand Your Ground Law, there is an interesting legal question at stake. Specifically, under the current rule of law, when is it actually appropriate to use deadly force for self-defense? Can you use deadly force even if you intentionally confront the other person first?\n\n3) There seems to have been misconduct on the part of the police. People love to hear stories about people who would normally be expected to be great citizens turn out to have done something wrong. On top of that, as anyone who's ever gotten arrested, pulled over, or ticketed by the cops can tell you it's easy to view cops as people who make bad choices. This makes for a more appealing story.\n\n4) There seems to be a clear good guy and bad guy. It's easy to view this as a story about a perfectly innocent nice, young man who was killed by a violence-prone vigilante who thought he was above the law. \n\n5) Issues become more powerful when race is involved. The victim was black. The shooter is Hispanic. There have been accusations that Zimmerman, prior to the Martin incident, had a history of viewing black people as particularly suspicious. Furthermore, people like Al Sharpton have gotten involved and gotten race issues involved in the discussion about this case.",
"Essentially it boils down to this. Guy sees someone he thinks is suspicious. He follows for about a minute, and then Trayvon runs. Zimmerman gets out of his car and follows. Loses sight of Trayvon for two minutes. Shortly after he hangs up with police Trayvon approaches Zimmerman as he is returning to his truck. Trayvon then sucker punches Zimmerman to the ground and starts to beating his head against the curb. Zimmerman pulls his 9 mm and shoots trayvon. All this is witnessed by two separate eye witnesses. \n\nCops find no physical/ reliable evidence to the contrary. Prosecuting attorney decides there is no crime to charge Zimmerman with. They let him go. \n\n[This post summarizes Zimmerman's account.](_URL_1_) \n\n[This interview is the general contrary theory.](_URL_0_)"
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} | train_eli5 | What's the deal with the Trayvon Martin case?
I've heard a lot about how Trayvon Martin was shot and a bunch of people have been angry, but why is this gaining national attention? | [
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14lc1t | What exactly happens when a music producer "masters" a song/album? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"When most people hear the term 'mastering', they are think of the mixing process, aka balancing volumes and adding effects, etc. Mastering is actually a specialized subset of mixing that is a form of audio quality control or quality assurance. Only a relative handful of people and studios are capable of mastering, compared to the thousands of mix studios out there. The goal of mastering is to get every track sounding as good as possible across multiple systems, meaning that the end product should sound great through your car, stereo, headphones and laptop speakers. Along with this, many artists' songs are recorded and mixed in multiple locations, and it's the mastering engineer's job to get them to sound like they all are polished to the same standard. Lastly, mastering produces the final CD or vinyl format for distribution and archives the tracks (often separated into clean lyrics versions, a capellas and instrumentals) for the publishing company.",
"Mastering adds that final layer of polish to the track before it's sent for pressing and/or distribution. The engineer mastering the audio may also take in to account where the track will be played, so in the case of a pop single she'll make sure it will sound good when broadcast over FM radio.\n\nWhen a track is ready for mastering typically nothing is changed structurally. The focus is on how it sounds. The engineer will not add elements to the track, such as instruments, verses, choruses, they will not necessarily boost or lower the levels of particular instruments, and will not necessarily decide on fade-ins and fade-outs.\n\nThe engineer may want to make the track sound broader, brighter, or heavier, for example. To do this they use a bunch of tools, such as compressors and equalisers. We'll take a quick look at those two.\n\nA compressor can be used in lots of different ways but for mastering one technique is levelling out some of the dynamics of the track, this means the loud bits won't be too loud compared to the quiet bits. This could be useful for radio play, for example. (I have just vastly simplified and skipped over compression but this could be a whole ELI5)\n\nAn equaliser lets you target and boost, diminish, or even cut frequencies. High frequency sounds are things that have a sharp, cold, tingle to them (this is subjective but I'm trying my best), so the drummer's hi-hats are a great example. Low frequency sounds are things that are deep, warm, and have bass, so the drummer's kick would be a good example.\n\nRemember how I mentioned that the engineer might want to make the track a little brighter? She could use an equaliser to boost some of the higher frequencies in the track. If she'd like a little more bass, she could boost the lows. She's basically turning the volume up or down on very specific frequencies of the track, rather than the whole track.\n\nOur analogy could perhaps be that mastering is like adding salt, or pepper, to a dish once it has been prepared. You can vastly change the flavour but you cannot add or remove any ingredients. You could sprinkle salt on a particular area of the dish though. Ideally by adding salt and pepper you are enhancing the flavour of the entire dish.\n\nSource: I make music, signed to a record label, have been trained in engineering, just sent my latest track to be mastered two days ago.",
"As its already been explained, if anyone is interested i can post a premaster/postmaster of a track of mine to show you the difference?",
"Whee! This is an interesting topic indeed.\n\nMastering is the 'black box' of the audio world. The tracks are recorded, processed, mixed, and then sent to the mastering engineer.. and then when they come back.. they're just better. And completely ready for release. Nobody knows how. (There was a rumor that mastering engineers are trained in yoga and the Dark Arts).\n\nKidding apart, ideally mastering fulfills these goals:\n\n* Songs across an album/release are processed to sound similar in loudness and frequency;\n* Raw edges are polished,(noise and other strange stuff is removed) and the song is given that professional 'sheen' using good quality tools and a good system and room. This includes making sure the whole work sounds somewhat uniform in volume(even within a song), and emphasizing the right pitches to make it sound good with EQ.\n* The audio is also worked on to ensure that it sounds the same through as many music systems as possible. It'll be bad if your beautiful orchestral piece is too soft to appreciate on your daughter's iPhone 'buds right? And your vocalist will hate it if his vocals are inaudible for some weird reason(phase alignment?) when played in the nightclub. The mastering engineer sees to it that you don't get no unwanted surprises.\n* Special versions(a capella etc) are worked out\n\n* The audio is then converted to a format suitable to send to the CD factory guys or iTunes(or wherever), with the necessary information too: \ntrack name(s) embedded, artwork added etc.\n\nThat's it folks! \n\nWell, there's another thing I'd like to add: too many people think that mastering simply means making a song louder. That is absurd. Your music system has a big fat shiny volume knob for that. The mastering engineer WILL smoothen out sudden volume changes and overly soft parts, and maybe push up the softest parts sometimes. But that's all part of the mastering and volume is not really the ME's primary goal.",
"There are a lot of solid but complex answers. Here is a simple eli5\n\nMixing is how it sounds. Take all your available sounds that you want to use and mix them together. This process is where all the instruments and vocals are balanced. This is where they do a lot of finer tweaking, like adding effects to individual instruments and vocals.\n\nMastering is where they make each track sound like one cohesive professional album.\n\nHave you ever heard a song where you thought \"those drums are louder than the vocals\"? That is a mixing issue.\nHave you ever had a mixed cd where each of the songs were at a different volume? That is a mastering issue.\n\nFor more in depth analysis, read the other high quality responses.",
"Mastering has two parts. Firstly is taking the individual stereo tracks for an album and making them sound consistent with each other and with other music of the same genre. The simplest thing here is to make sure the tracks are the the correct level. You don't want a quiet ballad to be louder than your heavy metal track. There are other things to make consistent as well, like making sure one track has about the same amount of bass as the other tracks.\n\nThe second part is the technical stuff of making a the master recording that will get duplicated. This includes things like setting the correct gaps between tracks on a CD (and maybe making hidden tracks), or making sure there is not two much bass for a vinyl record (that could make the needle pop out of the groove).",
"This will explain the LIMITING aspect of Mastering (How they make things louder), it also clears up the difference between this compression and limiting people are talking about. \n\nHey little Jimmy! \n\nOk, compression and limiting are two different things buddy. They are done using the same tool but there is a difference! \n\nCompression - is like the limbo. Someone holds a pole 3m away from you at a certain height (Compressor Threshold), when you get close to the pole, you are taller than it, as you get closer to it, you start to duck lower. The speed at which you do this is called the 'attack', (a common setting of compressors). After you have gone under the pole you start to stand up again, the speed at which you do this is called the 'release', (another common setting of a compressor.)\n\nSo the compressor reduces tall people (loud sounds) in height (volume) by a certain amount (threshold) for a period of time controlled by your approach and stand up speed. (attack and release) This motion is rhythmic and flowing and makes drums sounds explosive and controls vocals among other uses.\n\nLimiter - This is a compressor which has a threshold (pole height) set at hip level over 10m (or a 4 minute song). Except your not using a pole, you're limbo-ing through a low tunnel. Your body length (dynamic range) is now smaller and closer/squished together as you go through the tunnel for a longer period of time than when it was just a quick duck under a pole.\n\nHow it makes things louder - During your 10m limbo through the tunnel, your body is now only 1m high. Imagine that the roof of the cave holding the tunnel your in, is 2 meters high (0dB). I can make your body seem really big overall (loudness), by making the tunnel you're in, as big as the cave! (turning up the volume to reach 0dB) Now your legs/head/shoulders etc are all double as big. \n\nUnfortunately, this now means your body is, out of proportion, unnatural and not as pleasant to listen to. However, every kid on the block is reeeeeaaaally big so you gotta compete with them, even though you're all just out of proportion kids that were fine to begin with! (Loudness War)",
"Meator's explanation covers a lot of it but that's not all.\n\nHe/she is correct in saying that most people confuse mastering with mixing.\n\nFor people who don't know: when music is recorded, many different things are often recorded at the same time. Drums are usually recorded with a minimum of six microphones (though there are exceptions). All of these different microphones are recorded at the same time and are saved to separate files so that they can be balanced during mixing. This is true for other instruments as well. A typical rock song might have fifteen or twenty 'tracks' or so.\n\nWhen you finally get all of those separate tracks sounding like you want them to, you mix them down to a single file, somewhat like something you could play on your iPod.\n\nThen we get to mastering. The mastering engineer basically polishes the whole thing up and makes sure the average track volumes are the same, along with the other edits mentioned by Meateor.\n\nVinyl is a whole different deal and it has to be mastered separately (you sometimes hear people refer to a 'vinyl master'). To understand why this is the case, you need to think of how a turntable works: a needle runs through a groove and one side of the needle picks up the sound headed for the left speaker and the other picks up the sound for the right speaker. This sound is represented on the record by tiny little ridges. Bass frequencies make larger ridges than high frequencies. So when doing the vinyl master they make sure that all of the sound that is lower (below a certain frequency) is mono (that is, it is equally loud in both speakers). Otherwise, when the listener plays the record, it could actually cause the needle to jump out of the groove resulting in a party fail.\n\nAnyway. Hope that was helpful.\n\nEDIT: TL;DR: It makes things sound a little shinier and it's a tad different for vinyl.",
"Audio guy here. I'll try to explain it really simple. Music producers don't master the album. \"Mastering Engineers\" do it.\n\nProducers oversee the entire album. I mean they used to. Now everybody \"does\" everything, so they call themselves producers. The producers' job is to make sure the album is the best that the artist or band they're working with can deliver. \nThe producer, depending on his/her skills can call the shots even on the song forms, the riffs, melodies or just sit back and wait around until the band finally comes up with something that sounds *usable*...\n\n\"Nowadays producers\" are people who can find their way around ableton live, or logic pro or whatever digital audio workstation you may need, and some kind of keyboard skills so that they can play their ideas in the studio and make a beat. Then hope for a singer to come up with a nice vocal line or whatever.\n\na mastering engineer does the final touches to the tracks in the album so you don't need to turn them up, or make additional EQ in your car or in your i tunes, or whatever.\n\nTo hear the difference on the mastering fashion, compare a Tim Buckley song to a Jeff Buckley song. Try to hear the difference on the sound levels.\nThen play a Katy Perry song. It'll be even louder. This is some other debate called the \"loudness wars\" if you're still interested google that and read the wikipedia article."
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5u5gr3 | What is the idea behind being able to post bail for short term freedom before a trial? | I don't see how having money should have anything to do with having freedom. How are people "less dangerous" after posting a certain amount of money? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Getting arrested with a crime is just an *accusation*. You are not a criminal until you're actually convinced in court.\n\nSince you're not a criminal, there's not reason to hold you in jail as *punishment*. The only logical argument for keeping somebody in jail is to ensure that they don't try to escape justice.\n\nTo ensure people stick around and actually show up, people are asked to put down a \"security deposit\". Bail is this deposit. The amount of bail required depends on a number of factors but the idea is to set it at an appropriate level to make sure the accused shows up at trial.\n\n...and if you think this is the only way our legal system gives advantages to those with more money, you're going to be really disappointed when you hear about the workloads that public defenders are saddled with.",
"Being released on bail is conditional. If you break these conditions (skip town, commit another crime), you lose that money. I you keep them, you get it back. If you're broke and get busted for shoplifting you might get a $500 bail. You're probably gonna keep your nose clean til the court date because you had to get your mom to cash in a life insurance policy to post the bail money, and she's gonna whip your ass if she doesn't get it back. Now I you get arrested for say, being suspected of murdering a bunch of kids, or you're super rich and have the ways and means to leave the country, then your bail will probably be a lot higher or they may not even give you the option. \n\nTL:DR Basically bail is a way for the cops to not have to keep you in jail, but to give you a monetary incentive to show up for the trial.",
"It costs the government money to hold people in jail, so they'd rather not if they don't have to (the same reason probation exists). When a judge sets bail, they're determining an amount of money that they think you can't afford to leave behind. If a judge thinks you're violent or a flight risk, they don't have to allow bail.\n\nBail bonds let you reduce the cost of bail (I believe the standard is you pay 10%, up front), but the bondsman is now responsible for getting you to show up, and they can hire bounty hunters to make sure of that.",
"because you're innocent until proven guilty. putting you in jail costs the government money. it ensures you are around to be subject to the trial. putting bail money as a security deposit means if you don't show up for trial, they can send bail bondsmen to find you and force you to come to trial.",
"Posting money doesn't make you \"less dangerous\" but gives the defendant an incentive to show back up for their court date.\n\nFor situations where the crime is bad enough for the person is still a risk not to show up to court, the option of bail is not offered"
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} | train_eli5 | What is the idea behind being able to post bail for short term freedom before a trial?
I don't see how having money should have anything to do with having freedom. How are people "less dangerous" after posting a certain amount of money? | [
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6nup1j | why do condoms expire | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Rubber oxidized and can become more brittle, and the lubricant can slowly evaporate over time, both of these lead to a higher rate of failure which is generally considered bad.\n\nThe expiration date is just a date before which the manufacturers are confidant that their product will perform as advertised. After it becomes statistically more likely to not (and that's a legal liability for them).",
"Condoms are made of some kind of rubber, for example latex, and if you ever come across an old material made of rubber (like, for example, an old rubber band the kind you use in the office) you can see the material degrades, and in the end you can end up with a band that is not elastic any more, or becomes brittle and breaks when stretched, it also can degrade until some components start to separate, and stain where it was located, and so on.\n\nWell, condoms serve a very important function, and thus you don't ever want to use a degraded condom, so manufacturers test approximately what's their shelf life, and they inform you after what date the condom can't be trusted to perform according to the required parameters. While it may be true that a condom might be perfectly usable well after the expiration date, the manufacturer takes no risk. This, assuming the condom is stored in suitable conditions. If you expose a condom to heat, sunlight, extreme cold, etc, it can degrade before the expiration date.\n\nTL;DR: Condoms like any other rubber objects are prone to degrading, so they estimate a date after you shouldn't use them.\n\nSorry for any mistakes, English is not my main language.",
"Latex is a plant derived polymer which degrades over time...even in the little sealed packages. The expiration date is intended to reduce the risk of breakage which increases over time as the material naturally deteriorates."
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} | train_eli5 | why do condoms expire
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74lo23 | How come after you hurt a body part touching it/applying pressure makes it feel better? | [removed] | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Irritate nerves → blood rushes in → push blood/water out from irritated nerves → hurts less."
],
"score": [
2
]
} | {
"url": []
} | {
"url": []
} | {
"url": []
} | train_eli5 | How come after you hurt a body part touching it/applying pressure makes it feel better?
[removed] | [
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3yfqpv | How can a football team take a knee and end the game with a minute left (like in the Panthers v. Falcons game that just ended)? | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"cyd2kkg",
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"text": [
"He took two knees. The team with the ball is given 30 seconds to start a play, otherwise they face a \"delay of game\" penalty. Taking a knee is the same outcome as a running play or pass play that ends in a tackle without getting out of bounds. The play is over but the game clock keeps going and the play clock resets to 30.\n\nSo at 1:00, they take a knee, wait until the game clock hits 30 and take another knee. The game clock will reach 0 at or before the same time that the play clock reaches 0 so there's no need to wait around for the game clock to run down to 0. The guys just say \"good game\" and head off the field during the last 30 seconds.",
"In the NFL, the clock only stops in the event of an incomplete pass, the player goes out of bounds, or there's a change of possession (turnover). When the QB takes a knee, they are running a play, so the winds, and they have 40 seconds to run the next play.\n\nSince it was first and 10 and the panthers didn't have any timeouts, the falcons probably did run that last knee play, but they didn't bother showing it, and instead were focused on highlights and players reactions."
],
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} | {
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"url": []
} | {
"url": []
} | train_eli5 | How can a football team take a knee and end the game with a minute left (like in the Panthers v. Falcons game that just ended)?
| [
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597cqa | Why isn't it light out when it's night time? With all the trillions of stars blanketing the night sky, where does all that light hitting earth go? | explainlikeimfive | {
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],
"text": [
"There are large dust clouds within the milky way galaxy which block light from many of the stars. Apart from that, though there are many stars, they are also very far away.\n\nIt used to be considered a paradox that, if there were an infinite number of stars, why wasn't the sky bright due to being filled with them. The square-cube law says that the sky should be brighter even due to very distant stars, assuming they're evenly distributed. The answer turns out to be that the stars are clustered into groupings of ever increasing size: galaxies, galaxy clusters, super-clusters, ..."
],
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} | {
"url": []
} | {
"url": []
} | {
"url": []
} | train_eli5 | Why isn't it light out when it's night time? With all the trillions of stars blanketing the night sky, where does all that light hitting earth go?
| [
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41mhkt | why the ratings on Netflix are so different from imbd or rotten tomatoes. | A movie or show will get 5 stars on Netflix, but only a 20% on RT!? Or it will get one star on Netflix and a 90% on RT 😠 | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"cz3hhxo"
],
"text": [
"As I understand it, the ratings on Netflix aren't so much ratings as a guess of how much you would like it based on your viewing history."
],
"score": [
8
]
} | {
"url": []
} | {
"url": []
} | {
"url": []
} | train_eli5 | why the ratings on Netflix are so different from imbd or rotten tomatoes.
A movie or show will get 5 stars on Netflix, but only a 20% on RT!? Or it will get one star on Netflix and a 90% on RT 😠 | [
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1jh06c | Why can we feel when someone is looking at us? | It's happened to us all. We get a weird feeling, turn around, and see someone was staring at us. Any explanations? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"cbekm77"
],
"text": [
"1) Confirmation bias.\n\n2) Sensing subconciously through odor, sound, vision."
],
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3
]
} | {
"url": []
} | {
"url": []
} | {
"url": []
} | train_eli5 | Why can we feel when someone is looking at us?
It's happened to us all. We get a weird feeling, turn around, and see someone was staring at us. Any explanations? | [
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16hit7 | What's the difference between different types of liquor? | I've drank it all and I can say it all messes me up just the same but I hear so many people say rum makes me ____ or vodka makes me _____. I can't comprehend this, I mean they all have 40% alcohol, what's the difference. It's all the same drug, right? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"There are what are known as fusel oils in the various types of booze. They're thought, at least by some, to affect how you feel afterwards.\n\n _URL_0_\n\n\nThere's also psychosomatic effects. Where people just /think/ it.",
"Some have 40%, some have 35%, some have 70%, etc.\n\nThat being said, it's an issue of the differences between people's body chemistry and behavior. \n\nFor example, getting drunk on spiced rum vs. whisky. For myself and others, the rum will end up with a worse hangover and a lot more puking.\n\nTwo reasons: spiced rum goes down quicker and easier, so you're likely to drink more of it, more quickly. Two, all the flavoring and sugar in rum can contribute to an upset stomach, plus the mental reminder of it's smell and taste.\n\nMostly it's a mental thing. Tequila fucks me up worse than vodka, because I say it does, and my behavior makes it true.",
"Differences between what was used to make the liquor (i.e. sugarcane, agave, wheat, etc...), how the liquor was fermented, the filtration process, and what other ingredients are present. Generally, liquors like rum and whiskey are much sweeter because they contain more sugar than say vodka or gin. More often than not, more sugar in the drink means a worse hangover the following day. \n \nThe differences in the liquor interact in various ways with a person's body chemistry, which is why certain people have different reactions to the same liquor than others. Personally, I find that whiskey makes me somewhat aggressive."
],
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} | {
"url": []
} | {
"url": []
} | {
"url": [
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusel_alcohol"
]
} | train_eli5 | What's the difference between different types of liquor?
I've drank it all and I can say it all messes me up just the same but I hear so many people say rum makes me ____ or vodka makes me _____. I can't comprehend this, I mean they all have 40% alcohol, what's the difference. It's all the same drug, right? | [
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5kg0ft | The significance of Fast Fourier Transforms in smartphones | [This BBC article](_URL_0_) lists the Fast Fourier Transform as one of the 12 key technologies that make smartphones work.
I understand that the FFS is an algorithm to process analogue signals - but how exactly is it used in smartphones, and why is it so significant that it's made it onto this list? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Think of an orchestra piece. The violins make their own unique sound, the trombones make their own unique sound, and every other instrument produces its own unique sound. Adding all these instrumental sounds together, you end up with a song, a single sound made up of many other sounds. \n\n\nOne way of representing the song is the Analogue Signal: \n\n > 0:00 Nothing playing\n\n > 0:01 Violins play\n\n > 0:02 Violins, timpani play\n\n > 0:03 Violins, trombones play\n\n > 0:04 Violins, trombones, timpani play\n\n > 0:05 Trombones play\n\n > (If the piece is 8 minutes long, than we have 8*60=480 individual data points)\n\n\nA simpler and shorter way of representing the song would be like this, the \"Fourier Transform\" of the Analogue Signal:\n\n > Violins play from 0:01-0:04, 4:30-5:80\n\n > Trombones play from 0:03-2:22, 5:15-7:33\n\n > Timpani plays every even second starting with 0:02\n\n > (Etc. for each of the ~20 instruments, giving us ~20 data points)\n\n\nThink of every signal a smartphone has to deal with: cellular signals, bluetooth, picture files, music files, displaying a signal in the form of the screen, etc. If a smartphone had to remember and decode each of these using analogue signals, it would take up large amounts of processing power and memory--far too much to function well at all. Thus, it's desirable to use the Fourier Transform of the signals whenever possible. That's the basics of why the Fourier Transform itself is important.\n\n\nHowever, there's a slight problem. Most signals naturally come in an analogue form. Let's say you're recording that orchestra piece on your smartphone; it has to record each second of sound individually until the piece is over (analogue). Then, the smartphone would have to analyze each second for instruments playing, then would have to look for the patterns in each instrument throughout the entire piece (this is the Discrete Fourier Transform, or DFT, process/algorithm). Analyzing each second and then finding the patterns for each instrument takes a while, and we're really not saving much time and processing power since we're analyzing each second and each instrument individually. \n\n\nThere are many different processes/algorithms that find the Fourier Transform using less processor intensive methods, and each one is considered a Fast Fourier Transform. They're also each fairly complicated. The basic premise behind each one is that we can split the signal into smaller parts that are easier to DFT on their own. For the recorded orchestra piece, we could check each second for whether a brass, woodwind, string, and/or percussion instrument is playing, then check each second with brass to see which of the ~5 brass instruments is playing, check each second of woodwind to see which of the ~5 woodwinds is playing, and so on. Then, we can add the four Fourier transforms at the end to make the same final Fourier transform we would have using the DFT method.",
"IMO the FFT is one of the most breakthrough algorithms of all, but why do they consider it so important for smartphones in particular, I don't know.\nAlso, unlike what you write FFT is not about analogue signals but is rather used for digital signals (though these very often come from digitalization of an originally analogue one); it transforms its representation as the classical \"intensity as a function of time\" to \"amount of frequency component, per frequency\".\n\nThat being said, onto the ELI5 part. FFT is a way of looking at things (signals) from a different perspective, allowing for \"thinking out of the box\" solutions. You will not come up with solutions like [burning money to stay warm](_URL_1_) if you don't realize that dollars, aside from being a currency, are also paper. \n\nSignals are often seen as being made from \"impulses\", that last some very short time and you can align them in patterns to create sounds. 1/100th second of sound at 10dB, then 1/100th at 13dB, etc. In the Fourier domain your building blocks are instead everlasting sinusoids of fixed amplitude - it is not immediately obvious but by careful alignment you can create arbitrary signals out of them (more on [wikipedia](_URL_2_) ). This is the different point of view.\n\nAn example: you're recording your daughter playing a violin, but in the midst of this you are caught in a fit of coughing. Now your recording is spoiled and you want to fix it. You can see that at times when you cough, there are high noisy spikes (lots od dB in a short time period) that you may want to cut out, but this would mean cutting the violin as well. The Fourier solution here is to realize, that your voice is probably way lower pitch than the violin. You can cut out the low frequencies from the recording and retrieve basically an ideal sound. In smartphones this obviously applies to reducing the noise in your voice calls.\n\nBeing able to perform such tricks in the frequency domain is a requirement for multiple algorithms that are way out of scope of ELI5 posts, but I can list: automatic stabilization of camera, blur/sharpen edges/other filters in your phone, voice recognition (Siri), improving quality of phone calls, GPS, adjusting images to display without (aliasing)[_URL_0_] on smartphone screens\n\nEDIT: improved the example a bit",
"Despite sometimes being called digital, the signals that travel over the air to and from your mobile phone are actually analog. The digital information they carry is encoded by altering a plain, pure-sine carrier wave in various ways that represent the bits of data that make up the signal. This process is called _modulation_.\n\nOne of the simplest of the digital modulation schemes is called _frequency shift keyng_, or _FSK_, where the frequency of the carrier is moved up or down down a certain amount to represent binary zeros and ones. So, for example, if a signal conveying no information is at 100 MHz, it might shift to 99.99 MHz to represent a zero and 100.01 MHz to represent a one. _Demodulating_ that signal, or extracting the digital information it carries, requires something that can tell you when the signal is at 99.99, 100 or 100.01 MHz. The way that's done these days is to take a stream of samples of the signal's amplitude, and feed it through the Fast Fourier Transform or one of its close relatives. The FFT converts the samples from _time domain_, or what you might see looking at it on an oscilloscope, into the _frequency domain_. The frequency domain data is a histogram that represents the amount of energy seen around a set of frequencies based on what was in the last _n_ samples. Each bar on the histogram is called a _bin_. If you arrange the bins so there's one each around 99.99, 100 and 100.01 MHz (from the example above), it becomes easy to tell which symbol (0, nothing or 1) is being carried at any given moment by observing which one of the bins has something in it and which two are empty.\n\nThere are other, more-complex modulation schemes than FSK that were designed to represent more data in the same space, but they're almost always converted back into digital form using an FFT or some variation on it. Conversely, transmitting digital data is done by arranging what the frequency-domain should look like and putting it through an inverse FFT to create time-domain data used to create the analog signal.\n\nWhat makes that relevant to your mobile phone? Everything your handset does to communicate with the outside world (CDMA or GSM signals that carry your calls and texts, WiFi, Bluetooth and NFC) is via signals decoded with a FFT. Without it, none of that would be possible.",
"FFT transforms data from time domain to frequency domain. Instead of sending bits all in a row one at a time, it takes a chunk of them and spreads it across multiple frequencies. This means more data can be sent at once."
],
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} | {
"url": []
} | {
"url": [
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} | {
"url": [
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"http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1224904/Colombian-druglord-Pablo-Escobar-burned-1million-cash-daughter-warm-single-night-run.html",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourier_transform"
]
} | train_eli5 | The significance of Fast Fourier Transforms in smartphones
[This BBC article](_URL_0_) lists the Fast Fourier Transform as one of the 12 key technologies that make smartphones work. I understand that the FFS is an algorithm to process analogue signals - but how exactly is it used in smartphones, and why is it so significant that it's made it onto this list? | [
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3li2ev | If a 5 year old were to fall into a coma and wake up 20 years later, how would they act? | Would they still act like a child?
| explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Probably like a two year old.\n\nYou don't spend 15 years in a coma and come back without some severe mental deficits."
],
"score": [
36
]
} | {
"url": []
} | {
"url": []
} | {
"url": []
} | train_eli5 | If a 5 year old were to fall into a coma and wake up 20 years later, how would they act?
Would they still act like a child? | [
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7ka8nw | How is it that when you blow air out of your nose, you can still smell the scent you are trying to avoid by blowing air out of your nose? | [removed] | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"Because the same air is coming out of your lungs and back out of your nose. \n\nLike asking why you taste food when throwing up.",
"When you smell something, it's actually just tiny particles of whatever it is in your nose. So blowing air out wouldn't necessarily get these particles out."
],
"score": [
5,
2
]
} | {
"url": []
} | {
"url": []
} | {
"url": []
} | train_eli5 | How is it that when you blow air out of your nose, you can still smell the scent you are trying to avoid by blowing air out of your nose?
[removed] | [
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4tljy2 | Does wind effect soundwaves? | [removed] | explainlikeimfive | {
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],
"text": [
"Sound waves are vibrations in air like ripples on water\n\nWind is the bulk movement of air like currents in water.\n\nIf you were trying to signal to someone across a river you could drop a stone in the water by the bank you stand on, and hope they see or feel the ripples that reach the other side.\n\nIf there is a strong current in the river it would carry the ripples downstream.\n\nYes, wind can also blow away sound.\n\n----\n\nSometimes a current of water hits an obstruction, collides with another current or is just turbulent because fluids do that kind of thing. When this happens ripples can be created that get mixed up with your ripples.\n\nYes, wind makes noise (sound waves) that mixes with other sounds and obscures them."
],
"score": [
3
]
} | {
"url": []
} | {
"url": []
} | {
"url": []
} | train_eli5 | Does wind effect soundwaves?
[removed] | [
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4orn8i | Why are video games still sold as CDs while USB drives can be so much smaller, more durable and hold so much more. | [removed] | explainlikeimfive | {
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"A disc costs considerably less to make than a USB drive. Digital media will usurp discs, not USB drives.",
"Manufacturers have moved to using DVDs, since they hold more, but not to USB, because it costs much more.\n\nFor example, you can buy 10x 4GB USB sticks for $24.69 ($2.47/stick) on [Amazon](_URL_0_).\n\nYou can buy 100x 4.7GB DVDs for $36.99 ($0.37/disc) on [Amazon](_URL_1_).\n\nCompanies aren't going to pay nearly 10x as much for USB drives.",
"I worked at a company that had large software releases often and we talked about putting them out on USB drives instead of discs. Eventually it didn't work out just because the automated machines to create discs were just more plentiful and easy to use. Burning thousands of images on USB drives would have been totally by hand, plugging and unplugging them.",
"*clears throat* anyone heard the rumors about the Nintendo NX? Pretty much addresses the main issues with discs",
"It is much cheaper to create a CD, DVD, or bluray master and then press discs than it would be to copy data to them over USB. Disk writers do not make disks the way that manufacturing does, it writes onto an ink layer one stripe at a time but disc pressing is similar to how records are made. A master die is created of the disc image and it's physically impressed on the disc so they can pump discs out as quickly as they can be pressed, much like injection molding of plastic. \n\nEven a very fast thumb drive would take several minutes to load gigabytes of data for a game and it would increase the cost of the media which they would need to pass on to the consumer, who wouldn't want to pay more for the game, or they would have to eat the difference and lose profits.",
"When was the last time you bought a game on a CD?"
],
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} | {
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} | {
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} | {
"url": [
"https://www.amazon.com/JOIOT-10pcs-Thumb-Memory-Storage/dp/B0191T7Y68/ref=sr_1_4?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1466305977&sr=1-4&keywords=bulk&refinements=p_n_size_browse-bin%3A1259713011",
"https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000B02B92/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_S_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=30ODBP7JF1R4R&coliid=I17L8HC4S4HSK1&psc=1"
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} | train_eli5 | Why are video games still sold as CDs while USB drives can be so much smaller, more durable and hold so much more.
[removed] | [
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50klbg | Why do firefighters "make it rain" on a fire instead of pointing the hose at the ground or directly into the fire? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"What they are trying to do is prevent the area immediately next to where the fire is from catching fire. By doing this (in theory) the fire will have nowhere to go and eventually use up the fuel that is currently on fire and extinguish itself.\n\nThe \"make it rain\" approach is common because it starves the fire of both heat and oxygen (the water vapour displaces the oxygen in the air)",
"For a fire, you need\n\n* fuel\n* oxygen\n* heat\n\n**To extinguish a fire, you need to take away at least one of these.** With a burning structure like a house, you can't take away the fuel, and taking away the air is even less possible.\n\nThat leaves the heat. That is exactly why you use water to extinguish fires: water is *great* at absorbing heat; in fact, there are very few subtances which can absorb more heat, and turning water into steam absorbes even *more* heat!\n\nBut heat absorption happens only at the surface of the water, so a massive jet of water isn't ideal for the purpose because its surface is relatively small, and the water will just drain away before it has absorbed much heat.\n\nThat's why you ideally spray the water into a fine mist of small droplets: it maximizes the surface so that the water can absorb as much of the fire's heat as possible, cooling it down to the point where the fuel can't ignite.\n\n**Note:** the above is slightly misleading in that the actual fuel of an ongoing house fire is not the solid structure but the combustible fumes emanating from it due to the fire's own heat. The water mist won't cool down the solid structure all that much, but it will cool down the fumes so they can't ignite, which takes away the source of heat and allows the solids to cool down until they don't produce fumes anymore.",
"This is a forest fire technique. They are trying to contain it, because it's too powerful to put out. In a small fire that has a reasonable chance of being stopped while the building could still be salvaged, your local fire dept won't do this.",
"A couple of reasons.\n\nThe most important thing when you're fighting a fire is to stop the fire from spreading, or at least help contain it. If there's a fire, that means some *thing* is burning. If you fire a hard liquid stream of water directly at something that is on fire, the most likely outcome is that you move that thing around, rather than stop it from being on fire.\n\nThe other big thing is the need to continue to fight the fire. For extended firefighting efforts (more than about the first few minutes of immediate response), the area will get *very* hot. Firefighters wear highly insulating suits to help combat this, but you can also keep the immediate area cool by spraying a mist above and in front on the team. It helps to push away the hotter air and give an insulating bubble, improving physical conditions as well as thermal visibility.\n\nUsually a steady stream of water isn't used until the fire has visibly stopped. This will break up the charred leftovers and show any hotspots that could possibly reflash into another fire.",
"There are multiple different fire fighting tactics from the use of a stream, or fog pattern, direct and indirect attack, the use of foam, and even the volume and pressure level of the water. It all depends on the type of fire, material on fire and availability of water, equipment and personal, and the fire fighting goal (search & rescue, heat management, extinguish, or contain) \n\nI think this might be a better question for /r/Firefighting/",
"I'm not a firefighter, but vaporized water/mist/steam can absorb more energy (fire=energy for simplicity sake) than liquid water.\n\nThe vaporized water has more free rotation and stretching (chemical bonds can rotate, stretch and bend) so it can take up more energy and potentially quell the fire faster. \n\nThat's me just thinking from a chemistry standpoint.",
"One way to think of it is that the bit that is burning is lost already. What is important is not letting anything else burn. Another reason as described to me by a local fire fighter during fire warden training is that if you have a small burning area and hit it with high pressure water or other extinguisher, unless it can immediately put out that fire, what you end up doing is blowing burning stuff around and potential spreading the fire.",
"more water droplets mean more heat removal, more heat removal mean faster extinguishment. Yes, I made a new word."
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} | train_eli5 | Why do firefighters "make it rain" on a fire instead of pointing the hose at the ground or directly into the fire?
| [
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25qbrb | why does Arkansas, a very culturally southern state, elect so many Democrats? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"There are a large amount of black people still in the south, and they tend to vote democrat on everything except abortion and gay rights. Rural latinos tend to vote republican on everything except immigration. White people in rural areas tend to vote republican on all issues.",
"They don't, anymore. Currently all 4 congressman from Arkansas are Republicans, and one senator is a democrat (who is projected to keep his seat in 2014, only because he is an incumbent)"
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} | train_eli5 | why does Arkansas, a very culturally southern state, elect so many Democrats?
| [
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7fqi8o | What is exposure in photography? | [removed] | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Exposure is the chosen combination of iso, aperture and shutter speed to take a picture. This means that there's no such thing as an objectively good exposure.\n\nThese variables have more effects than only lighting though, but we'll ignore that for now.\n\nFor snapshots of general shots of city skylines, panorama's you want to have a balanced exposure, meaning you'd set the three variables to a level that doesn't overexpose (lost details in the highlights) or underexpose (lost details in the shadows).\n\nFor more creative effects such as shooting a silhouette of someone you might want to deliberately lose details in the shadows, so underexpose, for other effects you might want to deliberately overexpose.",
"Exposure refers to the amount of light being collected. High or over exposed photos end up very bright or white-washed due to too much light being collected. Under exposed photos end up dark and difficult to see because not enough light was collected to show the images being captured on film. \n\nThe end goal is to manipulate your ISO, aperture, and shutter speed to find the 'sweet spot' of exposure to get the intended effects."
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} | train_eli5 | What is exposure in photography?
[removed] | [
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4bxfmg | What makes our lungs absorb Oxygen and not Nitrogen when we breath? I think our blood cells bind to the oxygen molecules and that is why we take in oxygen, but what makes it so nitrogen can't bind to our blood cells too? | Aren't nitrogen molecules smaller than oxygen molecules, so wouldn't they fit into whatever the oxygen molecules would fit into as well? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Our blood DOES absorb nitrogen. It just has no biological function so it just goes for a ride in our blood not doing a whole lot. \n\nIt matters a ton when you go diving though because under pressure our blood absorbs different amounts of nitrogen and it is real unfun to absorb a bunch of nitrogen then have it all turn to bubbles as you rise to the surface."
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} | train_eli5 | What makes our lungs absorb Oxygen and not Nitrogen when we breath? I think our blood cells bind to the oxygen molecules and that is why we take in oxygen, but what makes it so nitrogen can't bind to our blood cells too?
Aren't nitrogen molecules smaller than oxygen molecules, so wouldn't they fit into whatever the oxygen molecules would fit into as well? | [
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2mugw5 | Why do humans have hair on the interior of their posterior? | In cruder terms, why do people have hair in their asscrack? Does it serve some sort of evolutionary or bodily purpose? Or is it just a remnant of our hairier days? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"[There are a whole lot of issues in play here, but let’s focus on just a pair: the difference between trends or preferences and actual selection pressures, and the ability of animals and us to cheat those pressures.](_URL_0_)\n\nBecause hairy butts are pretty pervasive throughout the seven billion-strong pool of human genes, and because there isn’t any distinct pressure against hairy butts, they’re never going away, barring some horrific world dictator’s anti-asshair regime.\n\nYet interestingly, even given a global hatred for wiry derrieres, they won’t go away because those so endowed can still fake smooth bottoms. Being able to cheat the system, to avoid selection pressure by shaving your butt, works in the same way people haven’t evolved to have natural face makeup. Even if a certain makeup look was the only look considered desirable, the world’s population won’t evolve towards that look because even those who don’t have those genes can still fake it.\n\nIt’s the reason fake boobs work. There’s no major ‘only natural boobs’ lobby; a large number of dudes and dudettes simply like big boobs and don’t care a lick whether or not a woman’s (or man’s) giant rack is cheating or not. This type of cheating and scamming is massively popular throughout the animal world, and there is a wealth of social animal behavior research studying just how populations police against those cheats.\n\nBut in the very end, that type of policing, or self-regulation, doesn’t really affect butt hair. I mean, as you’re deep in the throes of passion with someone you love or simply want to get frisky with, are you really going to say “Wait! Is that some ass stubble? Are you an ass shaver?” and kick them out of your bed? Hell no. Just as most people don’t find beards, red hair, brown eyes or differing heights an impediment to getting busy, rump fuzz isn’t preventing any pregnancies. And that’s why, year after year, ass hair abides.",
"It keeps your butt cheeks from chafing together and the mat of hair prevents the area from getting soggy and uncomfortable with sweat and butt leakage.",
"Why, as a dingleberry catcher, of course. Duh!",
"So that you can tell the difference between people who make an effort and filthy, contrarian hippies.",
"And if there's a purpose, why do men have significantly more of it?"
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} | train_eli5 | Why do humans have hair on the interior of their posterior?
In cruder terms, why do people have hair in their asscrack? Does it serve some sort of evolutionary or bodily purpose? Or is it just a remnant of our hairier days? | [
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8i57tw | why does the radar on big boats spin? | A lot of big boats have some spinning thing at the top. I believe it’s the radar, but why is it spinning? Only seen them on boats.
| explainlikeimfive | {
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"A radar not omni-directional. Just like a satellite TV dish it must be pointed in the direction of the signal in order to receive it. So in order for the ship to know what's going on around it it has to point in all directions. It spins 360° and scans all the signals around it.",
"You'll see them at airports too, often on the top of control towers. Some military installations hide them in big white golf ball like structures so enemies can't tell where the dish is pointing."
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} | train_eli5 | why does the radar on big boats spin?
A lot of big boats have some spinning thing at the top. I believe it’s the radar, but why is it spinning? Only seen them on boats. | [
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kk8v7 | Hashing - | what it is in computers/programming and why it's useful | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Lets say that you have this number: '1274891476127846129461892469182649124689124'.\n\nYou have to tell this number to a friend over the phone. You say each digit of the number and your friend writes them down. Now how can you be sure he didn't mishear you and get one wrong?\n\nIf you add all the digits together you get:\n\n1+2+7+4+8+9+1+4+7+6+1+2+7+8+4+6+1+2+9+4+6+1+8+9+2+4+6+9+1+8+2+6+4+9+1+2+4+6+8+9+1+2+4 = 205\n\nNow you can just ask your friend to do the same thing, if he also gets 205 you'll know that he didn't get any digits wrong, but if he got another number then he misheard something.\n\nYou could have just repeated all the digits again and have him compare to see if he had the same thing, or had him read it back to you, but let's say that you're both really fast at doing math and could calculate the sum in a second, but you're really slow at talking and can only say one digit per minute. Then you save a lot of time by calculating the sum and saying each digit of the sum instead of having to repeat every single digit.\n\nThis is basically what hashing is. The big number in this case is the data, and the small sum is the hash. Computers are much faster at doing math than they are at moving data around, either internally or across the internet to other computers. The data needs to be verified, and sending a hash along with the data is faster than having to send the data twice. It can also be useful when storing data to also store a hash if you want a way to check if it has been modified at a future date without having to store two copies of the data, which would take up twice as much space.",
"Oh, and another common use for hashes is for storing passwords on a computer. Say that the password to get into the secret bat cave is 12345. But there are 20 persons who has access to the bat cave, and they all have different passwords. The doorkeeper has a list of all the passwords on a piece of paper, so he lets people in when they say their own password.\n\nBut lets say that you also use the same password when withdrawing money from the bank. Then if someone stole the lists of password to enter the bat cave, they could go to the bank and try the passwords to see if they get any money.\n\nWhat you do instead is on the piece of paper write down the sum of 1+2+3+4+5 which is 15, and whenever you want to enter the bat cave. the doorkeeper calculates this when you give your password and compares it to his list.\n\nNow when someone steals the list they don't know if your password was 12345 or 915 (9+1+5 =15) so they can't get your money. And the bank doesn't use 1+2+3+4+5 as the way to calculate the sum (or the hash) on their piece of paper, instead they use 12+34+5 (= 51), so if you gave the password 915 to the bank it wouldn't work since 91+5 is 96 and not 51. So stealing the list of passwords doesn't help the robbers, since they still have to know the actual password to get the money.\n\nThe same thing applies for websites and various other services when storing passwords you use to log in to the website.",
"So, lets say you're in charge of an army. You need to be able to easily talk about individual soldiers without confusing them for other ones. You could use their first names, but what if you have more than one person named John? Last names? Same problem (lots of Smiths for example). Well, we could call them by their name and rank. That narrows it down, but we still may have a hard time telling people apart.\n\nSo, to solve this, we assign everyone a serial number. We make sure this is unique to them. This way we know exactly who we're talking about at any given time in our written orders. And, since we know they're unique, we don't have to worry about sending the wrong Pvt. Ryan into combat!\n\nHashing does the same thing. We make a hash for data in computers by doing some special math on it. This way, we have a standard way to refer to things. To tell things apart though, we need to make sure they have a unique hash. For instance, if we wanted to generate a serial number for Private Ryan, we could figure out a way to turn his name into a number. Then, we could add his birthday to that number. That still has some ambiguity though, so we may also want to turn his birthplace into a number, and add that too. Then, we have a pretty unique serial number for him. It'd be extremely unlikely that you would have two Privates First Class James Frances Ryan born on Nov 11 1926 in Beloxi, Mississippi. (Which could turn into a serial # of say 12398403)"
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} | train_eli5 | Hashing -
what it is in computers/programming and why it's useful | [
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q7j7i | How can the oscars preview something that will be on after a commercial when it is a live show? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Just because it is a live show doesn't mean each segment isn't meticulously planned weeks in advance.\n\nThe show's producers know well in advance which segments are coming up and what is scheduled to happen in those segments, so they can create previews to highlight those segments.",
"There is always a delay of at least 5 minutes. Radio, for example, has a 3-5 second delay which is why they tell people to turn down the radio when you're on a cell phone speaking on air.\n\nTV also has \"teasers\" which are filmed ahead of time and played to preview a future event."
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} | train_eli5 | How can the oscars preview something that will be on after a commercial when it is a live show?
| [
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7g1cci | why do younger people start off enjoying very sweet food, but as we age, very bitter, tangy foods become more preferable? | [removed] | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Your tastebuds naturally change over time, along with a bunch of other things which determine what's better or worse. When you're growing you need more vitamins, minerals, and more importantly glucose to power your body and it's growth. So things like sugar are more attractive. \n\nAs well, kids don't go \"sugar makes me feel bad if I eat too much\" or \"this is going right to my thighs\" when they eat sugar, a sensible adult, however, does. So you get a type of psychological aversion from sweets and certain foods due to their nutritional content.\n\nFinally, another commenter touched on it, there's a normal flora in your intestines and stomach. This is a sum of a load of different bacteria (the bacteria in your intestines outnumber all of the cells in your body 10 to 1). They help with digestion, killing bad bacteria, and a bunch of other things, but the thing that's important in this case is that certain bacteria thrive in certain environments. Some bacteria may REALLY like cauliflower, because they can break it down and it gives them a bunch of energy, so in turn they secrete chemicals which tells your body to eat more cauliflower. Thus by eating different foods, you'll program your body and normal flora to prefer those foods, and in turn those foods will become more pleasurable.",
"Taste buds numb over time. You'll notice grandma salts the shit out of her food. Kids' tastebuds are over sensitive so acidic and spicy foods are like loud music for their tongues.",
"I don't know where I read it.. but it was like..\nYour stomach will tell you to eat greens if over a period of time you give it majorly greens.. same goes for anything..\nIf you eat sweets your stomach will subconsciously want you to eat sweets..\n\nAnd what I can speculate... At some point of time you started eating bitter and tangy flavour stuff that's why your tummy demands more of it.."
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} | train_eli5 | why do younger people start off enjoying very sweet food, but as we age, very bitter, tangy foods become more preferable?
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1ooa92 | What is Fibromyalgia and why can it hurt so bad? | How does it get so bad it leaves people bedridden or unable to function well?
What exactly is it? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"\" Fibromyalgia is a common syndrome in which a person has long-term, body-wide pain and tenderness in the joints, muscles, tendons, and other soft tissues. Fibromyalgia has also been linked to fatigue, sleep problems, headaches, depression, and anxiety. \" Yes I know a copy/paste. \n\n\nBasically your nerves are WAY too sensitive, and it just makes you fucking HURT all the time, really bad, no matter what. The slightest touch can feel like you just got punched in the balls. Both my brother, and my mother have it, and i've seen the reprecussions it has. I'm probably due for it eventually. \n\nMy brother takes lots of pills, mainly relaxers, to just make him..calm down. If he forgets it, he just simply can't do anything, he's just in far too much pain. \n\nMy mother takes way too many pills, relaxers and pain relievers, and sometimes, that doesn't even help!"
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} | train_eli5 | What is Fibromyalgia and why can it hurt so bad?
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1y590n | Are honeybees in danger? If so, how much danger are they in, and why should I care? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Yes. A *lot*, they're dying off at a rate of around 33% per year and we can't figure out how to stop it or even fully what's causing it. You should care because bees don't just make delicious honey, they also act as pollinators for pretty much every fruit and vegetable you enjoy eating. If they disappear out of the web, then so do much more central things like *corn*."
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} | train_eli5 | Are honeybees in danger? If so, how much danger are they in, and why should I care?
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3i2a0k | Why nails grow faster at summer when you are at sea | I noticed at these summer holidays the weeks that I swim in the sea the nails grows faster. Does it have to do with the exposure to more sunlight or the exposure to sea water?? or something else? Thanks in advance. | explainlikeimfive | {
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"An explanation that was once given to me is that your nails are just being cleaned more often. Any dirt that may be accumulated under your nails is removed by being in the water so often, giving the whites of the nails a longer appearance.",
"They don't.\n\nYou are experiencing [confirmation bias](_URL_0_).\n\nYour nails are growing at the same rate as always, you just are less busy and have more time to notice them."
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} | train_eli5 | Why nails grow faster at summer when you are at sea
I noticed at these summer holidays the weeks that I swim in the sea the nails grows faster. Does it have to do with the exposure to more sunlight or the exposure to sea water?? or something else? Thanks in advance. | [
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1jwtk7 | Why doesn't the US Constitution grant rights to everyone in the country instead of just Citizens? | I keep hearing things like the NSA is only monitoring non-citizens in the US but why don't these people have the same rights as citizens? Also why can the NSA spy on non-citizens outside the US? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Because they didn't want to give those rights to non-citizens, because then people could just walk across the border and demand things without having to be born here or go through a process to make them american.\n\n > Also why can the NSA spy on non-citizens outside the US?\n\nBecause everyone does it, and no one really wants to do anything to stop it.",
"It does in a lot of respects. You can't be murdered without punishment just because you're not a citizen, but there's good reason why you can't just vote in elections because you happen to be in the country.",
"Most non-citizens inside the US enjoy most of the same constitutional rights as the average US citizen. So far, most of the answers in this post have been fairly dim-witted, even for a five year old.\n\nAlso, the NSA is lying. They're recording pretty much everything non-discriminately on citizens and in-country foreigners alike, and it's blatantly unconstitutional in both cases. The fourth amendment is crystal clear that no search or seizure may take place without a warrant, and it applies to anyone standing on US soil."
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I keep hearing things like the NSA is only monitoring non-citizens in the US but why don't these people have the same rights as citizens? Also why can the NSA spy on non-citizens outside the US? | [
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5p4xe6 | Why do humans sleep and why does the stuff that happens during sleep not happen when awake? | I don't get sleep, in my head it seems like it achieves nothing. You don't actually gain energy (since energy comes from food) and I don't get why you couldn't just grow, as for memory that happens during sleep, while you are awake.
We could be so damn productive without it. | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Sleep is about shutting down and then using that time to repair your body and reorganize the stuff in your head. \n\n\nImagine you're a librarian and you have to organize a bunch of books back onto the shelf. If you had a hundred people constantly taking out books and delivering new books which pile up on your desk. Your job is really hard. Especially since people are also looking for those same books and some of them are waaaay in the back. \n\n\nSo you get fed up. You close the library. You put away all the new books. You move popular books where they are more accessible and less important ones to the back. Now you're ready to open and everyone finds books faster and you have room for new books to be delivered. \n\n\nSimilarly, say you're a car mechanic. You need to change a wheel. How hard is that if the cars constantly driving all over the place? Better to tell them to stop and give you time to do the repair. You can't fix the machines you're using.",
"Sleep is the brain's \"flush\" cycle. It's a cleaning process.\n\nEvery cell in your body has a metabolism: they absorb nutrients and expel waste. For most cells, this is handled by the blood. The blood picks up the metabolic waste from each cell and carries it away; this waste then gets filtered out by the kidneys and turned into urine.\n\nBut the brain is different. The blood doesn't have direct access to brain cells; it's separated by a thing called the *blood-brain barrier*. This is a protective mechanism that prevents (most) chemicals that might happen to be floating around in the blood from affecting your brain cells. You don't want to have a different personality based on what you had for lunch, after all.\n\nSince the blood doesn't have direct access to brain cells, the brain needs its own way of getting nutrients and getting rid of waste. This is the *cerebrospinal fluid* (CSF), which is a special fluid that surrounds and cushions the brain, flowing very slowly. The CSF pulls nutrients through the blood-brain barrier and lets them diffuse around the brain. Your brain cells end up basically floating in a slow-moving nutrient soup. But what about their metabolic waste? The CSF doesn't flow fast enough to carry it away. So as the day goes by, the brain cells spit out more and more waste into the CSF around them. By the day's end, the nutrient soup is grimy and nasty, full of waste.\n\nThat's where sleep comes in. When you sleep, certain brain cells change size, opening up channels into/out of the brain. The CSF, so slow-moving during the day, starts getting pumped out of the brain and replaced by fresh CSF. The body basically \"flushes\" the old, nasty CSF down the drain, giving you a nice and clean brain to start tomorrow with.",
"Stuff *does* happen when you're asleep that doesn't happen while you're awake, as has been noted in the other responses. \n\nHowever, as to *why*, from an evolutionary point, creatures didn't evolve out of sleep - we just don't know. Evolution *is* random, so possibly that trait just never randomly happened, or possibly it didn't provide enough of an advantage. \n\nThe way you phrase your question, though, indicates you think there's some sort of plan nature has where everything makes sense. This is not the case. Nature (and evolution) is random. Sometimes cool stuff happens, sometimes not. There's nobody you can submit a feature request to."
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I don't get sleep, in my head it seems like it achieves nothing. You don't actually gain energy (since energy comes from food) and I don't get why you couldn't just grow, as for memory that happens during sleep, while you are awake. We could be so damn productive without it. | [
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6ncz4x | What are the differences between Advil, Aleve, Aspirin, and Tylenol, and what problems does each one treat best? | [removed] | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Advil is Ibuprofen. Aleve is Naproxen Sodium. Tylenol is acetaminophen. Aspirin is... Aspirin.\n\nAcetaminophen is used for mild pain and fever, and is easily mixed with cold medication (by the manufacturer). It does not work for inflammation and overdose or abuse can lead to liver failure.\n\nNaproxen is a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID), and can reduce pain, fever, swelling, and stiffness. Abuse can lead to stomach ulcers.\n\nIbuprofen is also an NSAID, of similar class as Naproxen. Specifically, if is a go-to for menstrual cramping and migraines. As with Naproxen, it runs a risk of ulcers, but also has increased risk of heart failure and other problems.\n\nAspirin is an NSAID, but also an antiplatelet. It is used in specific inflammation conditions, like Kawasaki disease, as well as in low-dosage heart regimens. It has a larger risk of ulcers.\n\nNSAIDs generally should not be taken together, if it can be avoided because of the bleeding risks. If you take a full dose of Aleve, wait for the full time for it to wear off before switching to Ibuprofen.",
"Advil works well with muscle aches and, especially, toothaches. It can relax muscles. It can irritate your stomach.\n\nAspirin is an anti inflammatory. It works with general pain and it is also a mild anticoagulant. As such it's good with any pain but it's also good to take a small dose regularly when older to reduce heart attack risk. It can irritate your stomach and cause ulcers potentially. If you are having s heart attack, chew an aspirin while you wait for an ambulance. It can reduce risk of damage to heart. You don't want to take it if you're at risk of stroke, though, because it can increase brain bleed chance. Don't give to babies and young children, usually\n\nTylenol can help with general pain. It doesn't irritate your stomach. Can also reduce fever. It can damage your liver if you take too much or even if you've been drinking many alcoholic drinks before you take it. So if you're a drinker, don't use. If you have an irritated stomach or intestines, this is better to take.\n\nI'm not too familiar with Aleve."
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swnb4 | PSA: stop posting politically charged questions about CISPA. | [this](_URL_2_) is the only post that actually belongs here. there are two other questions asking exactly the same thing on the second page, which is unnecessary. **use the search function.** it works.
however, more important than duplicate questions is the fact that redditors think eli5 (and sometimes r/askreddit) is a sub for political debate and soapboxing. it's not. exhibit a: [this.](_URL_1_) don't do this. it's speculation, it's biased, and it doesn't encourage meaningful discussion - it encourages people to pick up their pitchforks.
eli5 isn't a political forum. to make a post like that, inviting people to think along the same lines as you and asking a question that obviously [projects an opinion](_URL_0_) onto the reader, is more than i can deal with. do your research, draw logical conclusions, and take your debate over to [/r/politics](/r/politics) (or better yet, [/r/politicsdebate](/r/politicsdebate), a delightful little lesser-known sub for people who'd rather debate something than learn about it, cough cough)
on a side note: cispa and sopa are **NOT THE SAME THING**. if you're going to get mad about something, at least find out what it *is* first. the post i linked to above has a great explanation of what cispa actually is, go read that.
edit: another side note, this doesn't just apply to cispa. eli5 isn't a soapbox for *any* political issue. this cispa shit has just gotten out of hand. | explainlikeimfive | {
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} | train_eli5 | PSA: stop posting politically charged questions about CISPA.
[this](_URL_2_) is the only post that actually belongs here. there are two other questions asking exactly the same thing on the second page, which is unnecessary. **use the search function.** it works. however, more important than duplicate questions is the fact that redditors think eli5 (and sometimes r/askreddit) is a sub for political debate and soapboxing. it's not. exhibit a: [this.](_URL_1_) don't do this. it's speculation, it's biased, and it doesn't encourage meaningful discussion - it encourages people to pick up their pitchforks. eli5 isn't a political forum. to make a post like that, inviting people to think along the same lines as you and asking a question that obviously [projects an opinion](_URL_0_) onto the reader, is more than i can deal with. do your research, draw logical conclusions, and take your debate over to [/r/politics](/r/politics) (or better yet, [/r/politicsdebate](/r/politicsdebate), a delightful little lesser-known sub for people who'd rather debate something than learn about it, cough cough) on a side note: cispa and sopa are **NOT THE SAME THING**. if you're going to get mad about something, at least find out what it *is* first. the post i linked to above has a great explanation of what cispa actually is, go read that. edit: another side note, this doesn't just apply to cispa. eli5 isn't a soapbox for *any* political issue. this cispa shit has just gotten out of hand. | [
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5yf3pu | Why is it when the police lose a lawsuit it comes from tax payer money instead of something like the police pension fund? | [removed] | explainlikeimfive | {
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"When a person sues because a police officer violated their civil rights, the lawsuit is almost always against the officer. Sometimes you can sue the local government if it has an unconstitutional policy (like a secret racial profiling policy you could somehow prove existed), but if there's no specific policy then the suit is against the individual officer.\n\nHowever, individual officers rarely pay any significant portion of a judgment against them. The reason is that governments typically indemnify them. Indemnifying someone means you pay for their legal defense and the judgment against them. For example, your auto insurance company has an indemnification agreement with you for any motor vehicle accidents you cause. \n\nSometimes the indemnification is required by state law, sometimes it's required by county ordinance, and sometimes city officials decide whether to indemnify or not on an individual basis. Regardless of the exact method, almost every police officer gets indemnified for these types of suits.\n\nThere are a couple reasons a city may want to indemnify an officer. First, it helps make sure that your officers aren't afraid to police to the extent you want them to. If you want officers to be \"tough on crime\" but they have to worry about personally getting sued for being \"too tough\" then they won't carry out the orders vigorously. On the other hand, if the city is on the hook then it has an incentive to make sure it doesn't make its officers go too overboard because then it will be paying out a lot in judgments.\n\nFrom the perspective of the person suing, it's good to have indemnification because if you win a $1 million judgment, most police officers wouldn't be able to pay that while a city could. Of course it also takes money from government funds that could be used for public services.\n\nIt's worth noting that officers sometimes do have to contribute to judgments against them, but in practice it's usually a small amount of officers and they only have to contribute a small amount.\n\nThe reason the money doesn't come from the police pension fund is that the fund is either (1) a contractual obligation the city will have to pay no matter what or (2) privately held by the officers/their union and not accessible in a judgment against an individual officer. You also probably don't want to rob an entire police department of its retirement because one person did one really crappy thing once.",
"For the same reason that your employer has to pay you worker's comp if you're injured on the job, even if the injury was your own fault: because you're doing a job that introduces you to risk (be it physical or legal) and it would be unreasonable for them to not help with the fallout. No one is perfect. \n\nAs well, having the employer (in this case the government) be on the hook for misconduct means that they are forced to take an active role in *preventing* it. If you don't believe me, check out workplace injuries during the early 1900's in the US. It wasn't until laws were in place that required employers to pay out to injured employees that things like safety harnesses and guard rails were implemented en mass.",
"Where do you think a police pensions fund comes from?",
"Would you work for a place where everytime one of your Co workers fucked up they took money out of your pension? You would think it would encourage people not to fuck up but I promise so long as there are police, there will be people suing them. If you get busted doing something and you are facing 30 years in prison what's to stop you from suing the police to try to get money? Even if you have to make things up you are losing nothing by trying.\n \nI'm not saying all lawsuits are fabricated, but you have to know some people are winning settlements with absolutely no wrong doing. \n \nOn top of that I'm fairly confident taking money out of pensions is theft and even if you get fired by a place they can't take money from you.",
"Because Organizations are responsible for the actions and behavior of their employees while on the job,. Ideally - this prevents systemic issues, and encourages rooting out of large scale problems, but still an individual can misbehave and somewhat unfairly the organization must pay.",
"Simplified answer?\n\nIf you do something bad to someone, and you're unable to compensate for it, it's immoral to have the person the harm was done to be penalized (Not receive compensation), or penalize those who had nothing to do with it (other members of the said fund/group). As such, especially when this said harm was done as a part of assigned duties of a person, it's the organization behind this assignment, that caused this harm, that should be paying.",
"Does anyone think police should have liability insurance like doctors?",
"A lot of police agencies have special insurance I believe that pays for things like lawsuits.",
"But the pension fund comes from taxpayers in the first place anyway?",
"In addition to the other good root-level responses, typically we sue police officers individually and then the police department (and others, typically even the supervisors and chief) for policies of training, etc. \n\nAs these cases progress, typically we receive a very quick response to dismiss the individual officer and proceed against the city or police department. By the time of trial or settlement, most of these cases will no longer contain the individual officer as a defendant - depending on the circumstances. \n\nTo the rest of your question, the payment will never come out of the police pension fund - that's just not how it works (others have explained why). The police department pays out exactly how Walmart or any other private firm would - from their operating fund or from insurance coverage (depending).",
"There's a general assumption that any funds you take away from police (or military, as it may be) will lead to less or lower quality protection, the thought of which is unacceptable for many people.\n\nI know that pensions are not part of the same pool of money as operating budgets, but don't ask people to think too hard.",
"What I love is when these cities pay out 6 and 7 figures and the cop goes back to work. Other than government where can you work and that happen? If someone coats a company that kind of money due to a screw-up, they lose their job. Period."
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} | train_eli5 | Why is it when the police lose a lawsuit it comes from tax payer money instead of something like the police pension fund?
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5yyns6 | - Why do boxers and other top sports stars have, and listen intently to, trainers and coaches that NEVER reached their level? | I'm talking Tiger Woods, Mike Tyson, Messi, many others - listen intently and obeying trainers who, if you look at THEIR careers, did WORSE than the person they're training! Simply, why are the stars even bothering? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"There are multiple things that go into being a superstar in any field. The superstar is someone who can combine all these things. Their trainers will often have specific skills in one particular area but not the whole package. Moreover they will have skills that make them a good trainer that is not necessary for being a superstar. \n\nI'll give you an example from MMA. Even though they have a primary skill A MMA fighter needs to have training in a wide variety of disciplines to compete. Moreover, the MMA fighter doesn't need to be the best in the world at any one particular thing. They may have a boxing trainer, a judo trainer, a jiu jitsu trainer in addition to a strength and consitioning trainer. Each of these people may have never been in a MMA fight but they understand that component very well. \n\nA trainer may also be someone who understood one part of a game very well but didn't have other gifts that allowed them to compete. Maybe they got injured or didn't have the requisite size or athleticism. Example: Kevin Long is the Mets hitting coach even though never played in the major leagues. He was by all accounts a good hitter in the minor leagues but he injured his wrist and decided to retire. Of people good at hitting he seems to be really good at coaching other players. People who work with him seem to all praise his coaching ability. Often people who were superstars make horrible managers because they had all the natural talents and don't know how to connect with any player or competitor who didn't. \n\nI'll give you one last example from my life. I taught myself computer programming and computer science and I'm a software engineer for a living. I studied math in college (for reasons) and I was decent at it but decided not to go to grad school for math. I would never ever be a superstar in either field. It I'm waaaay better at computer programming than I am at math. I'm a bunch better teacher at math than computer science. I couldn't even tell you how I learned how to code, i just got a book and did it at 9 years old. I can absolutely guide you through learning calculus, set theory, linear algebra and a few other fields of math. If you need someone to teach Calculus I'm not a bad choice because it didn't come naturally to me at 9 the way programming did. On the other hand I know plenty of peofessors who studied way more math than I did who can't teach for shit. They are brilliant, they know the material but they don't know what to do when someone doesn't get something as simple as Calculus without trying. \n\nThe only superstar I would reliably say should teach Calculus (though I imagine there are others) is a superstar in physics, Richard Feynman.",
"Being good a coaching usually does not correlate with being the best at the sport. It is usually harder for someone naturally gifted at the sport to teach someone that sport. Allot of really talented players don't like to be told what to do but most of them don't reach the top due to this.\n\nAllot of times when your naturally skilled at something you don't need to use proper technique since your raw skill is so much better then your average persons skill. When you are the average person you are forced to learn the techniques at a much higher level to compensate for your lack of ability compared to more skilled competitors. This lets you have a much more advanced understanding of the technique. The talented person who relied on raw skill to win at lower levels of competition may start to struggle as the competition reaches higher levels as the competitors now all either have better techniques or also have more raw talent. \nThis is where a good coach can really help make a star with allot of raw talent into one of the best in the world by helping him improve with his more advanced understanding and knowledge. \n\nLets take for example Mike Tyson in boxing. Some good qualities to have in boxing include Punching power Stamina Speed Resilience. The trainers job is not to be better then Mike at those thing but to teach him how to use those qualities better and get even better at the things he excels like teaching him better footwork to allow him to use his power and speed more often.\nThe trainer will also analyze and try to correct holes in his game. For example maybe Tyson always circles to the right after throwing a jab which leaves him open to counters. The coach correct that making him get hit less often.\nThe trainer can also show him subtle things like foot position or slight deviation in hand movement that will make him punch even harder and faster.\nAnother aspect the trainer can help the athlete with is to keep him focused on his training diet lifestyle etc.\n\nOnce the athlete realizes how many times the trainer is right and the benefits the trainer has to his game and how much better he is performing after following their advice they will put their trust into them and start obeying listening to them.",
"Because the ability to coach is different than the ability to perform at a high athletic level. \n\nBeing a top athlete, first and foremost, requires you to win the genetic lottery and have natural athletic talent. There are plenty of people who were just as good as top stars and worked just as hard, but they were a few inches too short, a few steps too slow, or got hurt at the wrong time. They fact they didn't make it as big doesn't mean they know less.\n\nIn fact, superstars have a pretty poor track record as coaches. When you solved most of your problems by being bigger and stronger and faster than everyone else, you don't have much to offer the average player. It is the player who had to make the most of their lesser talents who understand the game well enough to be coaches. If you look at the NFL, there aren't many great QBs in the coaching ranks...there are a whole lot of backups, though.",
"Just because they didn't have the ability doesn't mean they didn't have the mind for it. It's the same reason many MLB managers were backup catchers and NFL head coaches were backup QBs. They learned the sport but never had the skill set to match their mind.",
"Understanding and execution are two different things. I for instance understand and can teach you how to use music production software. I've had friends take my knowledge and produce things I could only dream of.",
"Being good at something doesn't mean you understand why you are good at it or what you can do to get better at it. That's what coaches and trainers are for. They don't personally need to be able to perform at a high level to have knowledge of what is required to do so.\n\nTo give a sports example, let's say you can suddenly throw a baseball 90 mph. That's great but how do you do it in a way that you can control where the ball goes? How do you throw even faster? You need coaches and trainers to tell you and they can obtain that knowledge independent of actually throwing a ball themselves.\n\nNow certainly some athletes are more self-aware than others of what they are doing or knowledgeable about biomechanics and physiology but even then there are going to be specialists (coaches and trainers) who know more or can provide a different perspective (since there is more than one way to be successful at an athletic activity).",
"Athletes have to train/practice. In the case of team sports, they also have to play with teammates and run schemes/plans/plays. A gifted player is not necessarily a great designer of plays. In individual sports, a trainer can help with specific issues in a player's game (like Tiger's swing messing with his back) and with strategies. Again, even if a player is a better athlete, they do not necessarily have as much knowledge or experience as the coach/trainer. Also, it is easier to work at your craft if you have someone to hold you accountable.",
"Being knowledgeable about something and being able to do something are distinct things. Ever hear \"those who can do, and those who can't teach?\" While that's unnecessarily dismissive of teachers, there's an element of truth. \n\nA coach may have excellent knowledge, and great training routines, but perhaps not so physically gifted to be a successful athlete. The athlete doesn't care about the coaches success or lack thereof as an athlete. Only the knowledge matters.\n\nThere are a lot of things in this world I can understand, and even teach, but not do myself. Heck, for many things no experience whatsoever is necessary. A coach need never even be an athlete to be successful. Just good at making athletes perform better.\n\nPlus, lots of great athletes are crap teachers. The reverse is true too: just because someone is good at doing something doesn't mean they'd make a good teacher.",
"Teaching/training others is a skill on its own.\nExperience is a great way to gain knowledge on a subject but there are other ways as well.",
"Coaching is about imparting knowledge and observing behavior and correcting errors/giving improvements to it. It is not about transferring personal experience that someone has had.",
"Do you think Einstein never had a science teacher?",
"I'm a current performance manager for a very reputable sports team, where the competition is renowned world wide.\n\nMy role covers a vast majority of areas, working with athletes from as young as 16 through to full-time international quality professionals. At the risk of sounding very arrogant, I work with the elite in the professional game.\n\nI have played rugby union to a reasonable level, where I was paid a very small amount (beer money whilst at university). I am by far a professional player or coach and I do not even work on the sport I was once paid a small amount.\n\nMy job is centred around sports science, medicine, psychology and technology. My role is focused on the strategic development of athletes from junior level through to senior. I have developed performance frameworks for long term athletic development (LTAD), systems for athlete physical development, predictive analytics for risk of injury, predictive analytics of match outcome and how to improve performance by informing coach decision making plus more.\n\nNow that all the above is out of the way I'll explain why top level athletes listen to people like myself.\n\nThey are the product. Without them we have no sport. However, talent only gets you so far and only keeps you in an elite level for a short amount of time. Everybody has areas that they can improve upon and some of which may be something as simple as making changes to their sleep habits to improve their sleep hygiene, so that they have improved sleep duration and sleep quality. This one area would have a huge impact on recovery from training and also for the ability to improve cognitive development. This minor change will have a positive impact on their training levels, ability to be receptive to feedback, process new techniques and also to recover.\n\nThe way you receive athlete buy in is by explaining the techniques you will use, how it will improve them and then show the progress whilst they are performing the technique. Athlete (the best ones especially) have a growth mindset and will want to continually develop. If you engage them with this information and make them part of the ongoing process they will buy into the need for you to be around.\n\nThis is a very basic example, but I would be willing to share more if people would like.",
"A lot of things are necessary to be a good coach. Here's a short excerpt: \n\n1) Have a great understanding of tactics. A coach has to look on a match \"from above\", not from the point of view of a single player.\n\n2) Be a motivating factor. Some people just have some kind of aura, which inspires people. They find the right words for every situation. Are you on the loosing side in the first half of a soccer-match? \n\nA good coach will find the right words during the break to inspire the players. \n\n3) Have some game experience. \n\nWhile point 3 is definetely an important aspect, it's not the deciding factor. Point 2 & 3 are far more important. Some good coaches just aren't as mechanically gifted as Messi, thus they're not able to play in the first league. Furthermore, a coach has to keep an eye on the **entire team**. It's not about knowing the movements of a single player, he's got to build a cohesive unit. \n\nIn the end, I want to present two highly successful coaches, who never played in \"top-teams\" and played in the second league of soccer for the majority of their active career. \n\n**[Joachim Löw](_URL_1_):** He played some seasons in the first league of german soccer, but for the most part he played for SC Freiburg in the second league. He's among the most successful coaches in the game. During his time coaching the german national team, he was always at least in the semi finals of the big events from 2008-2016, once winning the world cup. ( Eurocups & Worldcups )\n\n**[Jürgen Klopp](_URL_1_):** As active player, Jürgen Klopp never played in the first league of german soccer. He was playing for teams in the second league for the most part. Despite his \"subpar\" playing experience, he became a very good coach. As trainer, he managed to win the german cup, the german league and reached [the final of the Championsleague Season 12/13](_URL_0_). It's the most prestigious cup in europe.\n\nA mechanically gifted human will make a good player, a tactician will make a good coach. \n\nSome soldiers of Napoleon were probably better in wielding a gun than the french emperor, yet Napoleon was the best at guiding his troops to victory.",
"It's alot about time; once you've been around a sport for 20+ years you begin to understand that sport to a new heightened level even if you were only active for 10 of those years. For instance, Larry Bird can most definitely train Russell Westbrook. Even though Russ is far superior to Bird; Bird has just been around the sport for so long that he knows more about it and it's inner workings.",
"Simple answer: It isn't all physical. Any naturally gifted athlete can fall very short if not even actualize thier potential completely without mental toughness, motivation, and discipline that only a serious trainer or workout buddy can provide. \n\nPractice sucks and it's easy to quit."
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} | train_eli5 | - Why do boxers and other top sports stars have, and listen intently to, trainers and coaches that NEVER reached their level?
I'm talking Tiger Woods, Mike Tyson, Messi, many others - listen intently and obeying trainers who, if you look at THEIR careers, did WORSE than the person they're training! Simply, why are the stars even bothering? | [
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1t09oy | Plot/Lore from The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug (spoilers) | Hi all. I saw the new Hobbit movie last night, and while I enjoyed it, I felt like there were some lore things that I couldn't answer. I read LoTR and the Hobbit when I was younger, but still can't figure out some basic issues.
1. Necromancer
I thought I remembered reading in The Hobbit that Gandalf successfully banished the Necromancer from Dol Goldur, but in the movie he gets his ass handed to him. So like...how is he (1) not dead and (2) going to escape from this evil stronghold? If it's eagles again...
2. Gandalf and the Dwarves
The beginning of the movie shows that the tavern scene with Thorin and Gandalf. Gandalf is all gung-ho to help Thorin reclaim the Lonely Mountain. Why? Does he have a specific purpose, or is this more along the lines of "get the good guys working together in case they have to fight the bad guys again?" More clearly, why does Gandalf want the dwarves reunited?
3. What the hell is going on with Sauron at this point?
My thought process was: (1) they know the ring was lost, not destroyed, meaning (2) Sauron is not completely dead. Are they suspicious that he's still out there? They know there's this Necromancer dude, but they're just now looking into him? They know there are Ring Wraith tombs, but they're just now checking on them? Is Gandalf the only guy looking into this stuff? Is Gandalf actively looking for the One Ring or is he just traveling Middle Earth doing his best to keep watch for evil?
Those are a lot of questions, but I'm sure someone can fill me in on the lore better. Thanks. | explainlikeimfive | {
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"1) The Necromancer, in this movie's tweaked lore, is an avatar of Sauron. So obviously one of the Maiar of Valinor going against one of the most powerful evils in the universe isn't going to be an easy fight. Gandalf's escapades in the movie (starting where he leaves the group to head for Dol Guldur) were mentioned in an expanded section of Lord of the Rings in an appendix. \n\nFor more background on where Gandalf came from and who he really is, read The Silmarillion, the passage \"Valaquenta\".\n\n2) Gandalf wants to reunite the seven Dwarven families by reclaiming Erebor from Smaug before either he or Sauron could do something with the Arkenstone. By restoring the kingdom of Dwarves, major balance is brought back to Middle-Earth.\n\n3) Sauron by this point was significantly weakened several millennium ago by the Maiar, described in the events of The Silmarillion. So up until the beginning of The Hobbit, his influence was quite small upon the world. When the One Ring was put back out into the open world, by Bilbo, Sauron knew his time would come again. \n\nGandalf presumably knows about the One Ring, but he doesn't have the ability to know where it is. If you don't know, Gandalf owns Narya, the Ring of Fire. However, he knew the moment he got captured by the Orcs and Sauron that he would have to summon the White Council again and ask for their aid in banishing him from the realm.\n\nTL;DR - Gandalf can't face Sauron one-on-one, even though his body is weakened. Restoring Erebor and the kingdom of Dwarves would retain balance in Middle-Earth. Sauron left traces of himself on Middle-Earth ages ago, but the White Council knows he's trying to conquer the mortal realm again.",
"The Necromancer is Sauron. Gandalf is not allowed to directly confront Sauron. He can defend himself, he get the free people of Middle Earth to establish kingdoms and give them guidance but he can't do it directly. \n\nGandalf does not banish the sorcerer from Dol Goldor. He tries to get the White Council ie Galadrial, Elrond and Cirdin (and other elves) to do so but Suruman convinces them otherwise. Sauron leaves Dol Goldur on his own and returns to Mordor since he is no longer hidden.\n\n > More clearly, why does Gandalf want the dwarves reunited?\n\nReclaiming the Lonley Mtn will setup a strong kingdom in the northwest for the coming war. Sauron has allies all over the world particulary to the east and south. Another kingdom in that area will be a good counter to the orcs in the Misty mtns who would otherwise march south into Lorien/Rohan/Gondor. It will also provide a buffer to Saurons forces coming from the east and make him divert forces from the south to watch his flank rather than commuting them to attacking Gondor/Lorien/Rohan. Reestablishing the Dwarven kingdom also reestablishes the human one based on Long Lake. Cooperation between Men and Dwarves through trade means more likely cooperation against Suaron when the war comes. Gandalf is playing a long term strategic game looking decades into the future.\n\nSauron is hiding out in Dol Goldur as the Necromancer. \n\n > Are they suspicious that he's still out there?\n\nGandalf's infiltration of it gives the White Council good reason to believe that the Necromancer is Sauron. \n\n > but they're just now looking into him? \n\nbefore this they thought the Necromancer was just a bad guy\n\n > They know there are Ring Wraith tombs\n\nHaving not seen the movies the ring Wraith tombs make no sense. This is not from the books.\n\n > Is Gandalf the only guy looking into this stuff? \n\nNo. The Valar sent 5 Istari to Middle Earth to combat the rise of Sauron. Saruman has been corrupted but no one knows this yet. He actually knows more about the One ring at this point than Gandalf. Radagast has lost his way and gone off to commune with the animals. There are 2 blue Istari that went off to the east we know nothing about. In addition to them are the major elven powers of Galadriel, Elrond and Cirden. Assisting them is Aragorn, and his ancestors, and his people now know as the Rangers and to a lesser extent all Dunedain (like Gondor). \n\n > Is Gandalf actively looking for the One Ring or is he just traveling Middle Earth doing his best to keep watch for evil?\n\nNo he is not actively looking. Saruman has actively looked in the past and convinced the Council the ring is lost, probably washed down to the sea. Gandalf is traveling Middle Earth providing assistance in building up long term defenses against evil as well as watching. The retaking of the Lonely Mtn is one of his major accomplishments. His travels make him a known factor so when the war comes people on the side of good trust him and his counsel. Without his \"meddling\" Rohan would fall early on and even if it didn't without him it would not have come to the defense of Gondor. His defeat of the balrog (he is allowed to fight the Balrog because it is at his level and not a servant of Sauron, its ust evil) removes a major potential rival for Sauron. Had the balrog gotten the ring it would be as if Sauron got it just with a different name.",
"In the first Hobbit movie, Gandalf explains to Galadriel and Saruman why he wants Thorin to reclaim Erebor: he believes that Smaug will ally himself with the enemy. While he didn't have as much info when he met Thorin as he does now, it seems like he recognizes the strategic value of Erebor and wants to get some regime change going."
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} | train_eli5 | Plot/Lore from The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug (spoilers)
Hi all. I saw the new Hobbit movie last night, and while I enjoyed it, I felt like there were some lore things that I couldn't answer. I read LoTR and the Hobbit when I was younger, but still can't figure out some basic issues. 1. Necromancer I thought I remembered reading in The Hobbit that Gandalf successfully banished the Necromancer from Dol Goldur, but in the movie he gets his ass handed to him. So like...how is he (1) not dead and (2) going to escape from this evil stronghold? If it's eagles again... 2. Gandalf and the Dwarves The beginning of the movie shows that the tavern scene with Thorin and Gandalf. Gandalf is all gung-ho to help Thorin reclaim the Lonely Mountain. Why? Does he have a specific purpose, or is this more along the lines of "get the good guys working together in case they have to fight the bad guys again?" More clearly, why does Gandalf want the dwarves reunited? 3. What the hell is going on with Sauron at this point? My thought process was: (1) they know the ring was lost, not destroyed, meaning (2) Sauron is not completely dead. Are they suspicious that he's still out there? They know there's this Necromancer dude, but they're just now looking into him? They know there are Ring Wraith tombs, but they're just now checking on them? Is Gandalf the only guy looking into this stuff? Is Gandalf actively looking for the One Ring or is he just traveling Middle Earth doing his best to keep watch for evil? Those are a lot of questions, but I'm sure someone can fill me in on the lore better. Thanks. | [
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839q0k | How can our relatively tiny eyeballs simultaneously absorb all the photons bouncing off something as large as the moon so that we can see it as a whole? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"They're not. If *your* eyes were absorbing *all* the photons bouncing off the moon, nobody else would be able to see it... plus your eyes would probably boil. Your eyes detect the minuscule proportion of photons that reach your pupils, and no more than that. \n\nVisible things scatter reflected and retracted light in lots of directions. Luminous things emit light in lots of directions. Only a fraction of those need to get to your eyeballs for you to be able to discern something.",
"The lenses of our eyes concentrate visible light to the back of our retinas where the signal may be transduced into a meaningful image. Think about a magnifying glass concentrating the sun’s radiation onto a leaf to burn a hole into it.",
"Think about how a projector takes a small piece of film and expands it to fit a wide screen. The lenses in our eyes essentially to the opposite of this: they take a wide array of photons and concentrate them (mostly) on the retina. From there, signals travel down the optic nerves and are sorted by the brain based on certain features, and then reintegrated into a meaningful image."
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} | train_eli5 | How can our relatively tiny eyeballs simultaneously absorb all the photons bouncing off something as large as the moon so that we can see it as a whole?
| [
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4v6y4q | The difference between my voice and my recorded voice. | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Your own voice resonates in your skull, which makes it sound a little lower and deeper. Think of it like singing in a big concert hall, where your voice echoes off the walls and creates a fuller sound. The sound of your voice literally echoes through your skull, but the echoes are so fast your brain doesn't sort them as separate sounds, they get incorporated into what is perceived as the single sound of your voice. With a recording, you don't get any of that."
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} | train_eli5 | The difference between my voice and my recorded voice.
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1yrlaz | Why cruise ships don't tip over when being knocked around in the ocean? | You see these massive cruise ships that are like 10+ stories high getting knocked about in the ocean and not tipping over or capsizing. Why? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The height of the ship above the waterline doesn't matter very much. More windage (large profile acts like a sail) contributes to listing (leaning over) but not a great deal in a ship that size.\n\nAs boats get bigger, they get more stable exponentially. I'd have to look it up but istr in general displacement increases as the cube of size, and stability increases as the ^4.\n\nSo if we take a given boat, and construct another one twice as big, its displacement will be 8x the original and its stability will be 16x. In the case of something as big as a cruise ship, as long as it remains watertight and afloat, it is not going to capsize no matter what the sea is doing.\n\nThat doesn't mean its motion is always comfortable for passengers though which is why they do everything possible to keep rolling to a minimum including the foils carbonated_turtle mentions. Those do not contribute to ultimate stability, they will not keep a boat from capsizing, but they do dampen motion.\n\nEdit: math",
"Partially because of their massive size, but also thanks to the stabilizer fins pictured here, which help counteract the effects of waves and wind on the ship.\n\n_URL_0_"
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} | train_eli5 | Why cruise ships don't tip over when being knocked around in the ocean?
You see these massive cruise ships that are like 10+ stories high getting knocked about in the ocean and not tipping over or capsizing. Why? | [
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3ae0of | Why is it illegal in Kentucky to carry an ice cream cone in your back pocket? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"_URL_0_\n\nApparently people used to stuff food into their back pockets to get horses to follow them. That way if they were caught they'd have an excuse that looked like they weren't actively trying to lead the horse away.",
"It is illegal in many states to carry an ice cream cone in your back pocket.\n\nThe explanation that I was given: It's a law from a time when horses were common in the streets, and people would try and lure them away and steal them. Often, with an ice cream cone in the back pocket."
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"url": [
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} | train_eli5 | Why is it illegal in Kentucky to carry an ice cream cone in your back pocket?
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8sa9gy | Why is DNA evidence always stored in paper bags instead of plastic? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I had to look it up, but the answer is apparently moisture. Paper bags are permeable to moisture where as plastic holds in moisture. Anything that is wet goes into paper; anything dry goes into plastic. More specifically, moisture promotes bacterial and fungal growth as well as promotes enzymatic activity. Any one of these things can degrade DNA.\nThere's a paper that shows DNA evidence that was dried out compared to just stored has a massive DNA.retrihttps://_URL_0_ rate difference."
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} | train_eli5 | Why is DNA evidence always stored in paper bags instead of plastic?
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5q3u3a | Jury duty | explainlikeimfive | {
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"You are summoned to appear before the court to potentially serve on a jury to determine whether or not your fellow citizen is guilty of the crime that the State accuses them of, or to potentially serve on a jury to settle a dispute between two private citizens, or a private citizen and the government(lawsuit)"
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} | train_eli5 | Jury duty
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2xoc5f | How can deaf people who've been given Cochlear implants understand speech? | I've seen these amazing videos of people hearing for the first time after having had a cochlear implant - for example this one. In the example given, the woman has been deaf since birth and therefore has obviously never heard sound before but she understands what the person is saying to her and responds to it. So my question is, how is this possible? There are moments when she has her eyes closed and still responds to what the doctor is saying.
It may just be me misunderstanding what it's like to be deaf - of course it's difficult to comprehend for someone who is not - and vice versa I would assume that for someone who has never heard before, sound itself as a concept would be fairly incomprehensible. So I assume that when one hears for the very first time it would be just random noise?
If anyone on Reddit has experienced this or knows someone who has I would love to hear from you!
| explainlikeimfive | {
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"> the woman has been deaf since birth and therefore has obviously never heard sound before \n\nNot true. \"Deaf\" doesn't mean \"completely unable to hear anything\". Deafness is a range, and not a binary on/off description. Her hearing was just really, *really*, **really** poor. But she **had** heard before (badly), and knew what speech sounded like.\n\nSomeone getting a cochlear implant after being *completely* deaf for their entire life **can't** understand speech.",
"I'm a Deaf Ed teacher, half of my students have CIs. This is something I really don't understand about these videos! My students work hard every day to learn how to maximize their auditory potential. Auditory goals include \"Following one step directions\" and \"Identifying familiar nouns.\" \n\nKeep in mind, I do work with young kids who have lots of therapy and education ahead of them. \n\nAnyway, I imagine with years of speech therapy and developing phonemic awareness, it would be easier to decode speech sounds after having your CI turned on, but really it baffles me in these videos when people who have been profoundly deaf since birth are understanding everything those around them are saying."
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} | train_eli5 | How can deaf people who've been given Cochlear implants understand speech?
I've seen these amazing videos of people hearing for the first time after having had a cochlear implant - for example this one. In the example given, the woman has been deaf since birth and therefore has obviously never heard sound before but she understands what the person is saying to her and responds to it. So my question is, how is this possible? There are moments when she has her eyes closed and still responds to what the doctor is saying. It may just be me misunderstanding what it's like to be deaf - of course it's difficult to comprehend for someone who is not - and vice versa I would assume that for someone who has never heard before, sound itself as a concept would be fairly incomprehensible. So I assume that when one hears for the very first time it would be just random noise? If anyone on Reddit has experienced this or knows someone who has I would love to hear from you! | [
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4wyk7r | why do LED torches have multiple small LED's instead of one big one? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Some of them (the nice, expensive ones) do have a single LED, such as Mag-Lite. Low-output LEDs are much less expensive to produce, so cheap flashlights often will have 25-50 of them (a dead giveaway is their very bluish tint); their overall light output is typically less than those with a single LED. When purchasing, look for how many lumens the flashlight produces, not how many LEDs; more lumens = brighter.",
"Mostly because of heat. LEDs are _really sensitive to heat_. If you make a large LED then you can't put in heat dissipation in relation to heat generation in ways that don't lead to premature burn out. By having lots of small ones you can put room for dissipating heat between each LED.",
"A single large LED gets much hotter than several smaller LEDs. Much easier to handle the heat dissipation. \n\nTake a look at this guy. He has massive LEDs, but he attaches them to a heat sink probably 5x the size of the LED. The heat is insane _URL_0_"
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7n9m6f | Why does America send so much aid around the world when it’s own people have a massive homelessness, drug, healthcare, infrastructure problem? | [removed] | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Foreign Aid is to a large part a geopolitical tool. It also has a humanitarian aspect, but mostly it is political. This is not only about America (USA), but an answer in general. \n\nYou are making sure countries are pro-you and stabilised (edit: regarding the *government*), people from there do not move (for example as refugees to \"you\"), countries are influenced culturally as you want, you ensure economic access, ensure the geopolitical grasp in that area (which explains when the aid is taking the form of military items or money for military). All those things are \"pro you\", but you also want them to be \"contra other geopolitical and local players\". \n\nFurthermore, a lot of that money goes back into your own companies. Especially regarding infrastructure (and military) projects which are usually done by large companies - and those are not from the place you're giving the money to.",
"We send less than 1% of our budget out in aid around the world. Such an amount would not begin to address the issues we have domestically that you name, but it does generate goodwill with other nations while doing a not more to help that nation than it will do here so it is considered a good thing.",
"So first, America doesn't actually send a bunch of aid around the world. We spend about 1% of our federal budget on foreign aid. For America, that's almost a rounding error.\n\nSecond, it engenders good will in other nations and is just the right thing to do. If you have that much wealth that you can afford it, it's the right thing to contribute and get other countries to like you.\n\nLastly, and probably most importantly, it's a national security priority. People turn to things like drugs, crime, revolution, and even terrorism when they are poor and feel like they have no other alternatives. So, every dollar America sends to other countries helps to stabilize those countries. By fighting poverty, disease, and starvation overseas, we help stop people from feeling desperate enough to turn to violence and harm America and her allies.",
"1. It doesn't. The amount of foreign aid the US gives is not impressive. It's around 1% of the country's GDP, below the UN's guideline and less in absolute amounts than some other, smaller countries. (Last I checked some years ago, Japan gave more aid than the US did, despite having smaller population and economy) And of the aid America *does* give, a huge chunk goes to comparatively wealthy countries like Israel, which isn't really humanitarian aid at all.\n2. It's not one or the other. If this aid wasn't sent out, I can guarantee you that it wouldn't be spent fixing America's health care or homelessness problems. And likewise, if there was any political will towards solving these problems they could be solved without cannibalizing foreign aid. It's not like America has a fixed budget for humanitarian purposes. The budget for foreign aid is very much separate from that for domestic health care or infrastructure.\n3. the money quite simply goes farther when you help developing countries. For not a lot of money, you can feed *a lot* of people in countries with famine. Helping Americans is comparatively more expensive.\n4. it is something of an investment as well as aid. If other countries are more stable and prosperous, they can buy more American goods, for example. And with luck, they might even be grateful and become an ally of America's. And, of course, stable countries aren't a threat to world security. Imagine, for example, if a saner, more humanitarian policy towards Korea back in the day, could have prevented North Korea from becoming the problem that it is today. (Of course we don't know what would have happened then but broadly speaking, helping other countries become more stable, safe and prosperous *often* means they won't end up run by maniacal dictators)",
"Your first assumption is that money will solve the homeless, drug, or any problem. That has not been proven and there is a mountain of evidence to the contrary. \n\nYour second assumption is that 'lesser' problems shouldn't be addressed until 'greater' problems are fully solved. By this logic, police shouldn't investigate theft until all rapes and murders are solved.",
"The aid we send isn’t nearly significant enough to tackle any of those issues. But aid gets brought up because it sounds wasteful (yer helpin’ other countries that are full of foreigners), and it’s far easier for politicians to attack foreign aid and pander to xenophobic bases than it is to scrutinize defense spending.",
"I think that foreign aid is basically bribes and payoffs to get foreign leaders to do what we want them to do, or to help governments that we like stay in power.\n\nGovernments are not benevolent. They do what they think is in their own best interest, and they don't just hand out money because they are nice.",
"Homelessness isn't as big of a problem as you think. It's currently solvable with the resources we have now in a lot of areas - a big part of homelessness is mental health and addiction.\n\nAside from that, we have a drug, healthcare and infrastructure problem mostly due to one political party refusing to modernize. Our healthcare is expensive because one party is lobbied to keep it expensive - it earns private companies billions. Our drug problem is because we're conditioning addicts to be criminals and not helping them. It makes money. Also, opioids are vastly over prescribed.\n\nInfrastructure spending isn't done because we run out of money to do so by giving corporations kick backs. There is no push and the few pushes are done with kickbacks for corporations, not to improve things.\n\nBasically, half of America wants to look to the future, the other half wants to keep things as close to the 1950s as possible.\n\nForeign aid isn't a lot of money and a good chunk of it comes back to us in one way or another. We don't want nations to destabilize in the era of the nuclear bomb.",
"I'll probably get downvoted again about this, but anyone you see that is actually homeless (as in sleeping in the streets) is in one of three groups.\n\n1) Mentally ill and refusing/unable to accept treatment.\n\n2) Substance abuser refusing treatment.\n\n3) There by lifestyle choice. Crusty punk, bohemian, transient, etc.\n\nI work for a non-profit and we have very well-funded resources to help this population, they just refuse to participate for one reason or another. Living in a neighborhood impacted by \"homeless dumping\" really opened my eyes to this issue.\n\nAs others said, throwing money at the problem won't change anything. The only solution for the addicts at least is harm-reduction programs that will give them access to their drugs in exchange for living in a halfway-house. This is a political tough sell in America at the moment.\n\nRe: Healthcare and infrastructure, we have the best in the world if you can afford it. This is the unfortunate side-effect of capitalist societies.",
"It's a quandary that we believe that our own people should pull themselves up by their own bootstraps but don't have that same feeling for people in other countries. \n\nThe Marshall Plan, one of the first large-scale foreign aid efforts ($140 billion adjusted for inflation) by the US was done to keep countries from falling to the Communist ideology after WWII. The idea that throwing money at people so they don't become our enemies have had mixed results, at best.",
"Even poor countries that receive aid send aid (or try to) in order to bolster their perceived stature. With the US in particular, there's an idea that if we weren't involved in other countries' affairs it would leave a vacuum for another superpower to do so. One theory of international relations is that the world is most stable when there is only one supreme superpower. They believe the world was more stable when the United Kingdom was that superpower and when it meddled in other countries' affairs, a period they call Pax Brittanica. Essentially the superpower balances power in all other countries, not allowing any other country to gain too much influence or any to grow too weak, which would allow another country besides the superpower to exert influence over it. The US sort of filled that role, particularly the second World War and following, but it's very ambiguous now what the US's role is or should be.",
"Mostly so that country will keep buying more American wheat, corn, aircraft, pharmaceuticals, heavy machinery, industrial products, banking services, telecommunications services, energy services. America's problems with chronic underemployment and trade deficits would be far worse if we didn't in a sense pay these countries to keep doing business with us.",
"As others have said, it's actually not very much, especially considering the size of the US budget. But let's go into a bit more detail:\n\n1. The 2017 budget request included 42.4 billion USD of aid out of 4.15 trillion total budget, or 1.02%. The average person polled in a Kaiser Family Foundation study in 2015 thought aid accounts for 26% of the budget.\n\n2. 16.8B are security assistance: (i) much of this money is directly in support of US defense interests, like 3.4B to finance Afghanistan's army, 1B counter-terrorism fund, or 2B to fight drugs; (ii) the rest is 5.7B Foreign Military Financing, going to Israel, Egypt and others. This isn't really cash money, but must be used to purchase goods from US companies, so alongside defense or diplomatic interests, it's a subsidy for US companies (sometimes a highly effective one - if you buy some fighter jets, you then buy maintenance contracts lasting decades, perhaps from your own money). The US started giving aid to Egypt, and greatly enlarged the aid to Israel, after those two signed a peace accord; the money to Egypt served to bring them over to team US (Arab nations were traditionally Soviet allies, as Syria still is). Increased aid to Israel was a balance to the Egyptian aid.\n\n3. 25.6B go to economic aid and development. Much of the spending goes to health programs, which indirectly benefit the US. Much of the development money is intended to raise living standards, thereby reducing the effectiveness of terrorist recruiting (the logic being that desperately poor people are more likely to be radicalized). Economic growth can also serve to dissuade immigration. Development money often goes to US engineering firms, and the possible economic growth can result in new and larger markets for US exporters (though this is not always the case). The political goodwill (or leverage) gained by such assistance is often used to influence the local government in making decisions in line with other US interests (e.g., intelligence sharing; stopping economic partnerships with US rivals like Iran, Russia and China, upholding sanctions, preferring US firms in government contracts).\n\nTo sum up - US foreign aid is a very small part of the US federal budget. Of that, a part directly goes to support US interests; part subsidizes US firms; and the rest serves US interests in more indirect ways. Foreign aid is not charity, and is not given from the government's goodness of heart.\n\nAll data from The Washington Post's very helpful visualization of this, here: _URL_0_",
"Although it seems like problems like homelessness can be fixed with money, it's really not that simple.\n\n\nTaking homelessness: \n\n* Are people homeless simply because they have nowhere to stay and no money? Often there are issues of substance abuse and mental illness. \n* Often homeless people actually refuse help. \n* If there's a practical shortage of liveable accommodation in a given city, say San Francisco, then no matter how much money you have you can't give everyone a home. And if you could, wouldn't that distort the housing market, or tourism? And you can't force local governments to build, or allow to be built, more houses. They'd be voted out at the next election.\n* How about you force the homeless onto buses to take them somewhere else where there is accommodation? \n* You're violating their human rights, and anyway they'll just come back. \n* How will the citizens of that other place feel about this plan?\n\nJust an example off the top of my head.\n\nCompare that with \"in Africa, people die every day of a disease which you can cure with 5c of medication\".",
"Two good answers. One is that foreign aid is a tiny fraction of our budget, much less than most people think. It's about 1% of your tax bill. It's also useful, geopolitically, to have a carrot to use to try to encourage our desired policies abroad. \n\nThat's the political answer. The humanitarian answer is that foreign people often have much cheaper problems than we do. Americans, with very rare exceptions, are not dying from lack of access to food and basic medical care (think vaccines and antibiotics). Americans die at a much lower rate than people in the third world, and they die from more complicated problems that are much more expensive to fix.\n\nAs such, if you want to help people and save lives, it is much more efficient to do it in the third world. You can often save dozens or hundreds of people in grotesquely impoverished countries for the cost of saving one American life. From a humanitarian perspective, giving overseas is a no-brainer.",
"Because how we deal with other countries is supposed to be something that both parties work together on - once you cross the border, it's not GOP vs. Democrat, it's just American. And there are a lot of serious people who take global politics very seriously, and they generally agree that helping other countries is something that will help us in the long run. (Also, sometimes it's just the right thing to do.)\n\nBut how we deal with our own country is up for partisan politics, which means politicians can be mean and do mean things if it sounds like what people want to hear : blaming poor people for being poor is a big one. And paying to fix things sounds less exciting than cutting taxes, so all the politicians have been ignoring infrastructure.\n\nTL;DR - at home, politicians don't act like responsible grown-ups. They aren't nice and they don't take care of their things. Overseas, they do a better job of pretending to be grown-ups.",
"I’m all in favor of foreign aid, although I have significant reservations about the way we do it. Selling weapons to Saudi Arabia and other countries only serves to enrich our private military industrial complex, and the tax dollars become profits.\nTax money is given to Pakistan as foreign aid. Pakistan then buys weapons from American defense contractors. We may as well just give our money directly to the defense contractors and cut out the middle men. \n\nAs for why we don’t do much to help our own, it’s again a question of profit. There’s no immediate monetary gain in helping a poor person, or educating a child, so we hide behind a “pioneer” spirit and say everyone should just do for themselves and no one should get a “hand out”.",
"The same reason people who don't have enough saved for retirement sometimes put $5 into the Salvation Army jar at Christmas. \n\n$10 million won't do much good to solve America's infrastructure problem, but it might do a hell of a lot in Africa. \n\nThere is no amount of money from America's budget that will fix our structural healthcare/infrastructure issues; it's literally 10x our yearly budget to give everyone everything they want. And that's not even a dent into our national debt. \n\nSo why not use 1% of our budget to make a bigger change in some less affluent country and use it to gain political goodwill as well?",
"It protects the US. You make a friend because you help them. They in turn will help you when it comes to issues with global threats. Some of it is altruism, but much of it is also picking what gives the best advantage because even in the US resources (money, aid, military, etc.) is limited. That’s why in part the US under Clinton in the 90s was more involved in human rights issues in Somalia and the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia and barely did anything in regards to Rwanda and Burundi.",
"Because, by sending aid to other, poorer, countries it makes Americans feel superior and reinforces their Manifest Destiny and belief that America is the greatest nation in the world (because so many other nations depend on us to survive).\n\nBut, poor Americans are an affront to the American Dream. So many Americans have nothing but contempt and disdain for poor Americans, since the belief is that America is still the Land of Opportunity the only reason the poor aren't successful is their own laziness and lack of will.",
"It’s probably already been mentioned but it’s also recognized that even our very poor live better than millions of other people on the planet.\n\nEven a homeless man can get to a soup kitchen for food or shelters to survive the cold in the US. In many 3rd world countries you just die. Add in the vast political pros mentioned in other comments and it just makes sense.",
"“So much” aid? How much aid do you actually think America gives compared to its GDP? \n\nI’ll give you a hint, it embarrassing compared to the other developed countries. \n\nAmerica doesn’t have those problems because you send a piddling amount of money overseas. It’s because you spend more than half your budget on a military that is only used in wars of aggression.",
"\"Be careful of charity and kindness, lest you do more harm with open hands then a clenched fist.\"\n\n\"If you seek to aid everyone that suffers in the galaxy, you will only weaken yourself... and weaken them. It is the internal struggles, when fought and won on their own, that yield the strongest rewards.\"\n\n -Kreia, Knights of the Old Republic 2",
"because, like most politicos, they value looking good to others more than taking care of their own. face it: world politics is basically high school all over again. and it continues to amaze us because most of us just can't believe that shit matters anymore, if ever.",
"On top of the fact that it's less than 1%, and a way to grease the wheels, it gives us a bargaining chip.\n\n\"You know that 10 million we've been giving you, that you've learned to rely on? Yeah, we're going to need a favor...\"",
"Because america hates their own poor because of the \"If I can make it then you can make it too so you must be lazy scum\" attitude.\n\nThey also like to have control over nations that they aren't quite ready to bomb yet.",
"I dont know really how much money goes to the people who need it.I'd like to think\nevery collection goes to them. If you you really want to help,'get a community to help you and your local poor as well",
"A lot of the foriegn aid can only be spent on contracts with American companies as some one else mentioned. It is also not a lot in terms of percentage of GDP when compared to other countries.",
"One of the primary purposes of the government is secure the US in the world. Foreign aid generally supports this by creating allies or at least dependent countries which gives a measure of leverage over their policies.",
"Because it helps enforce our foreign policy agenda. It www give a country billions in aid every year it tends to make them more supportive of us our other diplomatic and military efforts.",
"Because corrupt people are handling the money and funneling it to their other elite friends. Notice how the world isn't really getting any better in spite of all our \"donations\"",
"Aid breeds influence and helps international issues from becoming bigger and affecting our standing and economic interest (the big picture is affected)."
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51lr1z | Why are spiders unable to crawl on another spider's web? | I noticed this while cleaning my windows. A spider fell in another spiders web and had a bad time crawling...... | explainlikeimfive | {
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"We're not *entirely* sure. There is some evidence that spiders make special sticky proteins with a particular anti-stick protein that only they know how to make, which they coat their feet and legs with. That way, they won't stick to their own web. There's also a lot of evidence that spiders build mental maps, or otherwise can tell which parts of the web are sticky and which aren't. Most of the web isn't, actually. They have a lot of support lines that only hold the web up, and even the sticky strings usually have little globs of goo placed along the line, so if you step carefully and know where to step, you can avoid getting stuck. A spider in a strange web would not know where to step, and frankly would probably be too panicked to step carefully enough. In any case, falling into a web doesn't give you a lot of opportunity to carefully avoid getting stuck: a spider would likely get stuck even in their own web if they fell into it.\n\nUnless they can make the anti-stick protein, in which case they would quickly unstick themselves. \n\nAlso keep in mind that not all spiders create web traps like that. Some go out hunting, and although they still use sticky silk to hold onto prey and to descend from high places and such, they don't build the big webs you're used to seeing. Those spiders would be poorly equipped to deal with falling into a web.",
"Spider webs are made up of both sticky silk (for catching stuff) and dry silk (for walking on). Spiders memorize where it's safe to walk and where it's not when building their webs, but a spider on a unfamiliar web won't know where the different types of silk are.",
"i guess they dont know where the gluey spots are.\n\nspider put glue in their nets that make other animals, like flies etc. stick to that net so they cant escape.\n\na spider knows where it has put the glue spots in its own net. it does not where where another spider has puts its glue spots on his web."
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lpoas | A note from your friendly, ELI5 mods: Please, no more meta, "what ELI5 is/isn't" posts or arguments. We'll be removing them. | Hey guys! Just wanted to say a few words here.
In just a few months, ELI5 has turned from a crazy, middle-of-the-night idea I had during this past summer off from teaching...into an explosively popular subreddit that's now bigger than I had ever hoped (hitting 50,000 subscribers a few weeks ago.) I'm still amazed by that -- but I'm even more amazed at what an amazing community this has become, and how much knowledge is being shared. This could not have been possible without all you amazing subscribers -- as well as our truly dedicated and fantastic mod staff. I'd dare anyone to browse around ELI5 for twenty minutes and not come away having learned something new - or been taught to think of something in a new way. That's pretty awesome.
Having said that, I want to clarify what myself and the rest of the mods believe ELI5 exactly is and is not. And while we understand that the idea and subreddit itself will continue to grow and evolve, there are some things we would like to clarify:
-- As we say in the sidebar, ELI5 is a place to receive simple explanations to complicated issues. "Simple explanations" **does NOT ALWAYS HAVE TO BE an allegory or metaphor.** (However, if this works best for the explanation, great!) Point is: *As long as the explanation is simple and as thorough as possible, it belongs in ELI5.*
-- A word about the whole "five-year-old" thing: Yes, I named this place "Explain Like I'm Five", but really, it's more of a title to be catchy. **Please, please stop arguing about what a five-year-old would understand...or would ask about.** We all know most five-year-olds wouldn't ask questions about politics, or sex, or economics -- but those are some of our best posts, and fall wholly within the spirit of ELI5. Believe me, I work on a campus where there are actual five-year-olds running around, and trust that you would NOT want this subreddit to be dominated by those kinds of questions (or answers.)
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Remember, subreddits work because they're ultimately controlled by YOU, the community. YOU ultimately decide -- via upvotes and downvotes -- what's good content and what isn't. It's not our job as mods to police you -- and you honestly don't need it. You've proven yourselves to be an incredibly intelligent community. The VAST majority of content in ELI5 is awesome, in terms of both questions and answers. This is, at its heart, a place to ask questions without fear of judgment or ridicule. That means ANY question. Think it's better suited for AskReddit, another subreddit or maybe not even Reddit at all? Cool. Downvote and move on. I say again: **If you don't like a submission, downvote and move on.** Enough infighting. Allow the system to work. It really, truly does as a whole.
On another note -- **if you LOVE a submission or answer, don't forget to submit it into our ongoing compilation**, ["The Five Year Old's Guide To The Galaxy!](_URL_0_) You can find a link to submit and view in the sidebar any time you visit ELI5.
I want to thank those of you who have contacted us recently and asked for a statement such as this to go out -- as well as those of you who've made the meta posts to begin with, too. Your mods will always be here to listen to each of you who've made this place so great, and hopefully this note lets you know that our non-interventionist stance on most posts does NOT mean we're not keeping an eye on this place. We're right here, loving this subreddit as much as the crazy day it started. We appreciate every message and every post, and will continue to strive to do our best to keep ELI5 a place of learning and discovery.
**To that end: As of today, we will be removing any meta, "what is the nature of ELI5" posts. Questions -- and the occasional "unsolicited explanation" posts -- only, please.**
I hope this note has cleared up things a little, our mission, our goals, all of that. As always, feel free to message the mods as a whole or me personally if you have any questions or comments.
**Thank you guys for being kick-ass ELI5'ers.**
With gratitude,
bossgalaga | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Thank you, those posts honestly get in the way of my enjoyment of the subreddit.",
"> A word about the whole \"five-year-old\" thing: Yes, I named this place \"Explain Like I'm Five\", but really, it's more of a title to be catchy. Please, please stop arguing about what a five-year-old would understand...or would ask about. We all know most five-year-olds wouldn't ask questions about politics, or sex, or economics -- but those are some of our best posts, and fall wholly within the spirit of ELI5. Believe me, I work on a campus where there are actual five-year-olds running around, and trust that you would NOT want this subreddit to be dominated by those kinds of questions (or answers.)\n\nTHANK YOU. \n\nI'm so tired of the 'OMG A 5yo wouldn't understand this!' posts and comments.",
"A meta post saying no more meta posts! Doesn't get more meta than that.",
"That's fine, but can you guys please start enforcing the rules as described in the sidebar? The whole \"No bias\" thing is pretty much completely ignored from my experience, and the top comments on politics/religion related questions are usually in line with the circlejerking drivel normally found on r/politics and r/atheism. It's the biggest thing ruining this subreddit, IMO.",
"Then why does the very first instruction in the sidebar say *\"A friendly place to ask questions and get **elementary school-level** answers*\"\n\nWhat was really intriguing about this subreddit is that it **wasn't** /r/askscience or /r/answers\n\nObviously there are difficult subjects asked on here -- **that** should be the challenge -- to explain even those like you were talking to a five year old! \n\nMaybe I'm biased because I have a 9-year-old and a 7-year-old and I've had a number of challenging conversations with each of them when they ask about a complicated subject. If I just gave them the grown-up answer anyway they'd get frustrated and say \"I don't get it\"\n\nWhen somebody asks about Credit Default Swaps here it's **way** funnier when somebody has to liken it promising somebody 10 pretend Oreos if their Oreo gets run over than if somebody actually explains it the way you would in /r/answers. But hey, it's your subreddit, so more power to you.",
"Thank you!\n\nLike much of reddit, these metaposts were more annoying than the thing they were kvetching about.",
"YESSSSSSSSSS\n\nI'm tired of people taking the subreddit name way too literally when people are just trying to do their best to give really sincere answers. \n\nThanks!",
"I don't like that this subreddit has turned into r/answers. If I want complex explanations which assume prior knowlegde, I turn to r/answers.\n\nThis subreddit used to be about great, simple explanations about complicated concepts, explained through analogies a 5-year old would be able to relate with.\n\nNow it just seems to be people asking questions which have straightforward answers, easily solved by a Google search, or people asking complex questions and getting complex answers.\n\nI'll just stick to r/answers to avoid duplication of effort.",
"Amen!\n\nHowever, one of the reasons I love this sub is that I actually have a 5 year old, and I like to read the answers as though I were explaining it to her, and I have a fair idea of what she'd get or not (as I'm constantly explaining things to her ANYWAY).\n\nThat being said, I enjoy giving my own renditions as to what I believe my daughter would understand, but I try my best not to chastise people for posting something obviously well over her head -- it's not hard, she's only 5!!",
"Another subreddit with bad mods that pulls a bait and switch.\n\nAnother subreddit that I leave to its own filth.\n\nSeriously, reddit is going down the tube so fast it'll soon be the new MySpace meme.",
"Thank you!!!!\n\nI was so close to unsubscribing due to having those sort of posts on my front page. Upvotes for decent mods :)",
"I don't think there is supposed to be a comma between \"friendly\" and \"ELI5\" in the title. Bothering my OCD. Too....many......commas.....must.....change."
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} | train_eli5 | A note from your friendly, ELI5 mods: Please, no more meta, "what ELI5 is/isn't" posts or arguments. We'll be removing them.
Hey guys! Just wanted to say a few words here. In just a few months, ELI5 has turned from a crazy, middle-of-the-night idea I had during this past summer off from teaching...into an explosively popular subreddit that's now bigger than I had ever hoped (hitting 50,000 subscribers a few weeks ago.) I'm still amazed by that -- but I'm even more amazed at what an amazing community this has become, and how much knowledge is being shared. This could not have been possible without all you amazing subscribers -- as well as our truly dedicated and fantastic mod staff. I'd dare anyone to browse around ELI5 for twenty minutes and not come away having learned something new - or been taught to think of something in a new way. That's pretty awesome. Having said that, I want to clarify what myself and the rest of the mods believe ELI5 exactly is and is not. And while we understand that the idea and subreddit itself will continue to grow and evolve, there are some things we would like to clarify: -- As we say in the sidebar, ELI5 is a place to receive simple explanations to complicated issues. "Simple explanations" **does NOT ALWAYS HAVE TO BE an allegory or metaphor.** (However, if this works best for the explanation, great!) Point is: *As long as the explanation is simple and as thorough as possible, it belongs in ELI5.* -- A word about the whole "five-year-old" thing: Yes, I named this place "Explain Like I'm Five", but really, it's more of a title to be catchy. **Please, please stop arguing about what a five-year-old would understand...or would ask about.** We all know most five-year-olds wouldn't ask questions about politics, or sex, or economics -- but those are some of our best posts, and fall wholly within the spirit of ELI5. Believe me, I work on a campus where there are actual five-year-olds running around, and trust that you would NOT want this subreddit to be dominated by those kinds of questions (or answers.) -- For goodness sakes, if you disagree with a submission, please use the downvote button. We don't need to continue the infighting about what belongs here and what doesn't. If you disagree with the LOGIC behind an *answer*, please feel free to reply with a rebuttal! But...we don't need to argue here and be uncivilized. It's "Explain Like I'm Five"...not Act Like I'm Five. Remember, subreddits work because they're ultimately controlled by YOU, the community. YOU ultimately decide -- via upvotes and downvotes -- what's good content and what isn't. It's not our job as mods to police you -- and you honestly don't need it. You've proven yourselves to be an incredibly intelligent community. The VAST majority of content in ELI5 is awesome, in terms of both questions and answers. This is, at its heart, a place to ask questions without fear of judgment or ridicule. That means ANY question. Think it's better suited for AskReddit, another subreddit or maybe not even Reddit at all? Cool. Downvote and move on. I say again: **If you don't like a submission, downvote and move on.** Enough infighting. Allow the system to work. It really, truly does as a whole. On another note -- **if you LOVE a submission or answer, don't forget to submit it into our ongoing compilation**, ["The Five Year Old's Guide To The Galaxy!](_URL_0_) You can find a link to submit and view in the sidebar any time you visit ELI5. I want to thank those of you who have contacted us recently and asked for a statement such as this to go out -- as well as those of you who've made the meta posts to begin with, too. Your mods will always be here to listen to each of you who've made this place so great, and hopefully this note lets you know that our non-interventionist stance on most posts does NOT mean we're not keeping an eye on this place. We're right here, loving this subreddit as much as the crazy day it started. We appreciate every message and every post, and will continue to strive to do our best to keep ELI5 a place of learning and discovery. **To that end: As of today, we will be removing any meta, "what is the nature of ELI5" posts. Questions -- and the occasional "unsolicited explanation" posts -- only, please.** I hope this note has cleared up things a little, our mission, our goals, all of that. As always, feel free to message the mods as a whole or me personally if you have any questions or comments. **Thank you guys for being kick-ass ELI5'ers.** With gratitude, bossgalaga | [
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1jqg1l | Why I see slightly different colours out of my left and my right eye | When I look out of my left eye I see slightly brighter colours whereas when I look out of my right eye I see slightly warmer colours.. Does everyone have this? And if so why does it occur? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"When you're observing the world, your brain is doing a white balance, that is changing the balance of perceived light so that whites are really white.\n\nThink of it like this: take a white sheet of paper and go outside during the day. The sun shines its yellow light on the paper, making it a bit yellow. However, your brain corrects this and still makes you see the paper as white. Now take the paper inside to a bathroom with a blue, fluorescent light. The paper, lit by blue light, turns blue, and again your brain corrects this and you see the paper as white.\n\nThis color correction is done per each eye separately. What happens in the case you have described is that there is different color of light coming to each of your eye. This happens for example when the sun is shining to one of your eyes, but your other is in a shadow. The brain has to change the perceived hue of one eye more than the other to sync them. Now if you close one and then switch to the other, you can perceive the difference.\n\nEDIT: What I described above is color correction - the reason you see different colors with each eye. Reading your question again I see you also mention exposure. This is done by each eye changing its aperture so that the light perceived is at the optimal level. Again, aperture is set independently, so if there's stronger light coming to one eye, it's closing the aperture more and you can notice/realize this when switching eyes.\n\nTL;DR: It's brain doing corrections you're not supposed to see/realize. You only do because you try closing one eye. You're not supposed to do that!\n\nEDIT2: [Here's a nice image to help understand what I said.](_URL_0_)",
"My optometrist explained it as: It has to do with the Blood, if you lay on your side, the blood will pool more into the eye closest to the ground. It visually makes the image your perceive warmer in one eye versus the other.",
"I've been wondering this too! My left eye sees more of a blue tint, and my right sees more of a brown tint."
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"url": [
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} | train_eli5 | Why I see slightly different colours out of my left and my right eye
When I look out of my left eye I see slightly brighter colours whereas when I look out of my right eye I see slightly warmer colours.. Does everyone have this? And if so why does it occur? | [
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83lek3 | why does crying and being sad make you so tired? [Psychology] | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Emotional stress and trauma is both physically and mentally draining. Being overwhelmed in some cases can lead to blackouts. Tears, for example, obviously use water and potassium-so excessive crying can lead to dehydration."
],
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} | train_eli5 | why does crying and being sad make you so tired? [Psychology]
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