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Outside of rent, why are things more expensive in cities with high costs of living like NYC, SF etc.?
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[
" A pretty standard answer to any \"why does x item cost so much\" is that the price of an item is more strongly related to how much people are willing to pay for it, than how much the item costs to produce.\n\nIn the NYC example, while higher overhead costs are definitely a contributing factor (rent/wages/taxes/regulatory compliance etc) it's very likely that items are expensive because New Yorkers earn more than their rural counterparts and therefore have more money to spend.\n\nAlternatively, New Yorkers may have a greater urgency for these products, paying a premium for convenience. Either they do not have the free time during their week to spend time hunting out the best bargain (perhaps instead dedicating the time to increase their income for a net gain), or they need the items more immediately. After all New Yorkers have the opportunity to have their shampoo shipped from a cheaper location so if they aren't doing it there's probably a rational reason.",
" Because the store you're buying it in is on land that is more expensive, the workers have to live in NYC so they have to be paid more and so on."
] |
[
" Part of the reason New York is so expensive is because of it's unique economic position. It's the home of the New York Stock Exchange, which causes it to be a central location for all kinds of financial and trade corporations. The people that work in those industries make a lot of money, and people with lots of money drive up the price of real estate. If you look at the other extremely expensive places to live in the US you'll notice they have some unique draw as well:\n\n- San Francisco - Tech Industry\n- Los Angeles - Movie Industry\n- Washington D.C. - Politicians and Lobbyists\n\nNew York is also significantly older than any of those cities, and Manhattan being an island, it has more limited land to grow into, which increases housing costs.",
" High crime and low rent/property value go hand in hand. People live there because they can't afford to live anywhere else."
] |
Given a question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit forum
|
eli5
|
How can one coding language be more "powerful" than another on the same computer?
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[
" Some languages are like power windows in your car. Its easier for the user, but in the background is complex and uses more energy. While others are like the manual window crank, which is harder to use but vastly more simple and efficient. In this analogy the user is the person writing code.",
" A lot of it is how close to the hardware the code is. \n\nSome languages (like C) are close to the hardware, let you micromanage what the computer is doing (sometimes they require you to do so). This means that it takes more effort to code in these languages, since sometimes you literally need to tell the computer to do every little thing; but it also means you can get the computer to do more because you are micromanaging everything.\n\nOther languages (like Java) are farther away from the hardware, and do a lot for you. In these languages, you can skip over a lot of steps because the language handles things for you. This often results in code that runs slower, and can't do as much; but is a lot easier to write, read, and edit.\n\nOther languages fall elsewhere on the continuum: C++ is between Java and C; Ruby is farther out (less powerful) than Java is; and so on.\n\n\nThink of it like moving. Using machine language (the most powerful language possible: speaking directly to the computer) is personally moving everything by hand from your old place to your new one. C is getting a truck to move it all. C++ is working with a moving company; Java is hiring a moving company; and Ruby is telling someone else to take care of hiring a moving company. The closer you are to the job, the more control you have over everything, but the more work it takes from you; the farther out you are, the less it takes from you, but you also have less control over everything.\n\n\"Powerful\" languages are the ones with more control."
] |
[
" There are more than 1 kind of computer out there. Your desktop / laptop with an Intel chip is one kind. Your phone / tablet with an ARM chip is another kind. Your wireless router at home most likely has some kind of MIPS chip in it. All of these chips speak different languages. \n\nWay back in the day, if you wanted to write software that would run on all 3, you would have to manually write the whole program in each chips native language.\n\nThis sucked, so they came up with a better way - they came up with a thing called a *compiler*, which would take your 'high-level' code like C or C++, and translate it into the chip-specific language of the chip you wanted to run it on. This made your code more portable - you could write it once, and then compile it 3 times. Since you're compiling down to the machines native language, you can control pretty much every aspect of the computer with this kind of program. But because you had such low-level access, your programs still had to include some code that was specific to each chip, and even specific to each operating system the program is going to run on even when those OS's are on the same chip, and let the compiler sort it out. This can be tricksy.\n\nPython is an even-higher level language called a scripting language. Somebody has written & compiled an *interpreter* that takes your code, and line-by-line translates that into the chip-specific operation. This interpreter was written in a language like C, and specifically compiled for that OS & chip. The upside is that you can take your script to any computer where someone has compiled a python interpreter. The down-side is that interpreted languages like python do not have the same low-level access to the computers hardware like C does, so there are some limitations on what they can do. It's also a lot slower than a compiled program - the interpreter has to completely interpret your script every time it's run.\n\nJava is somewhere in between the a 'compiled language' and an 'interpreted' language. There's a thing called the 'java virtual machine' that acts very much like a computer-within-your-computer, which was written in C and compiled for your specific OS & chip. The programer writes their java code and compiles into 'bytecode', and in theory you can take that bytecode to any system where there is a JVM - the JVM translates the instructions of the 'virtual machine' into the instructions your chip will understand & passes the result back to your program.\n\nC is like the grand-daddy of them all, and C++ is like the daddy of them all. Computer operating systems are typically written in C or C++, as are the most performance-intensive games.\n\nApplications that are designed to be passed around between different operating systems are written in Java. These can be business applications, games that don't have as strict performance requirements, pretty much anything. \n\nPython scripts (and other scripts) are great for automating certain tasks or working with relatively simpler tasks than games & full blown UIs - although there are a lot of add-ons for python which make these possible. \n\nThe lines between them & the reasons for choosing one over another are not always clear. Hence, it's great for a programmer to know a bit about all of them",
" Computer languages have different levels. \n\nThere are high level languages such as C#, Java, and Visual Basic. There are medium level languages such as C, and low level languages like assembly and machine code. \n\nThe higher the level of the language, the more generic the programming and in general the language is easier to read by a human being.\n\nThe lower the level, the more specific it is to a specific computer instructions. \n\nFor instance, in basic, you might have the line:\nX=X+1\n\nIn this case, X is a programming variable that represents an area in memory but the user doesn't particularly care because the language handles it. \n\nIn assembly language, you might have something like:\nPull value from memory location 25 and put it into register A\nIncrement the value in register A\nPush value from register A back to memory location 25.\n\nA register is an internal part of the CPU (processor) where it can do manipulation of data values. Different CPUS have different numbers of registries. For instance, an I7 processor has 8 registers in 32 bit mode and 16 registers in 64 bit mode.\n\nThe assembly language has actual binary code translations for each of the commands. Lets assume that the move from memory is command 1, move to memory is command 2, and incrementing a register is command 3. The program would then look something like (in an 8 bit computer):\n\n01 25 0A (move memory address 25 to register A\n03 0A (increment register)\n02 0A 25 (move register A back to address 25)\n\nThe program would then look like:\n01\n25 \n0A \n03 \n0A \n02 \n0A \n25 \n\nTo enter this into a primitive computer, you would have one set of switches for the address, and another set of switches for what the memory will be set to, and a write button. \n\nSo you would set the memory switches to the current address you are programming, say 00 at the beginning, then you would set the next switches to the 01, and hit the 'write' button. Then you set the address switch to 01, data switch to 25, hit 'write', and continue through the program. \n\nThe two digit numbers represent hex numbers from 0-15 which are represented as 0-9 and then A-F. 25 would represent 00100101 in binary. A 0 would be a down switch and a 1 would be an up switch. \n\nOnce you got the program entered, you would then switch to run mode, and you would set the address pointer to 00 (or 00000000 on the switches) and press the execute button. \n\nThe assembly language/machine language code is written into the CPU itself and is called Microcode. The microcode then controls the sections of transistors within the computer are used for each individual instruction. \n\nFor instance, to pull the data value out of location 25, the CPU will need to know to send a data request out to the memory circuits, and the response will be the data in that memory address. Then it will take that data and direct it to the register location, which is memory inside the CPU. The cycles from the clock are what keeps everything in sych so the CPU will know that if it puts out a memory request on clock cycle 1 it may expect the response in clock cycle 3 and then push the data into the register on clock cycle 4. The increment may take a clock cycle, then another clock cycle to tell the memory to expect data going to location 25 in clock cycle 5, the data being presented to the memory in clock cycle 6, and then it is complete."
] |
Given a question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit forum
|
eli5
|
How do defendants/plaintiffs pay judgements when appearing on television court (Judge Judy, People's Court, etc.). Do "blanket" appearance fees assist when a person loses?
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[
" Actually, part of the deal (for Judge Judy at least) is that the show will pay any of the fees incurred for the loser. When Judge Judy says \"I find for the plaintiff in the amount of $1,000,\" the defendant pockets their appearance fee, watches themselves on TV, and pays nothing. \n\nI assume that other court TV shows mostly do the same."
] |
[
" OOO, I'm excited because I had a distant 'friend of a friend' who went on it.\n\nFirst- It's not real court.\n\nSecond- The producers of the show scour small claims court records from across the country. When a particular case caught their eye, the producers will call both parties involved.\n\nThe offer they make is this, both plaintiff and defendant will settle out of court in arbitration. The producers agree to pay both sides (usually a few thousand, not that much, and transportation costs to the studio). The parties agree to drop their suit, take the money, and sign a legal contract to go the the Judge Judy studio and then 'act out' the case they were previously doing.\n\nIt's all acting at that point, though the producers provide a lot of guidance and tips to create a realistic-ish, case.\n\nMy friend was being sued for crashing a friend's car while making a beer run at a party (he wasn't drinking). Minor damage, I think the amount was $600 for repairs and what not. The time between the settlement and the filming of the episode was about 6 months, in which my friend and the guy whose car he crashed became good friends again, though both managed to act like they hated each other for the camera. \n\nTL:DR Its all fake, but based off real (formerly) cases.",
" Participants agree to arbitration and the \"judge\" acts as an arbiter. \n\nThis isn't super uncommon even outside of TV. Most of the time when you sign a contract with a major service, like internet or cell phone services, you agree to go through arbitration instead of filing a lawsuit. \n\nOn Judge Judy specifically, there's a set sum of money from which the judgement is paid and the remaining amount is split between the participants. I think the amount is $5k. \n\nSo, say I use you for $2000 and win. I get that $2000, then the remaining $3000 is split between the two of us. It's a pretty big incentive to get people on the show, since you'll get paid either way. \n\nAs /u/shadowmant said, it's also really nice for people who are suing others who can't or won't pay the money that is owed."
] |
Given a question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit forum
|
eli5
|
Why can apps like dominoes/UBER find your cell's location precicely but police/fire/ambulance cant?
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[
" Because when you download the Uber app you agree to share your location with them. The police don't have an app on your phone to open up and look to see where you are. There are more steps required for the police.",
" Apps like Uber can find your location because your phone is actively telling the app your GPS position. A voice call does not have any protocols that could transmit your GPS position automatically, and let the receiver automatically get your coordinates.\n\nEmergency services can find your approximate location even if your phone is not transmitting it by checking which cell towers are near you. This does however take some time, and requires your cell service provider's cooperation (which they'll usually get). It is also less accurate the fewer cell towers are near you. If there is only one in range, they can't find a more accurate position than an approximate distance from the tower in any direction. Even with several towers in range, the accuracy is still much worse than GPS would be.\n\nSome areas now have emergency call helper apps that you can install on your phone. These would actively transmit your location to the emergency services when you call them. Your positional data would be transmitted using your data connection, not the voice call."
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[
" There are three ways.\n\nThe first way is not too far away from what you see in the movies. When calling certain numbers (such as 999), the phone companies have a legal obligation to send the phone number to the receiver - even if its set as blocked. If they need to get your address (for example, you dial 999 and then dont speak as the smoke of a fire has overcome you) the operator can request the phone company to instantly release the name and address of the account holder. They now have the address and can send out the emergency services to you. Therefore, if you call 999 as a joke or whatever, you can expect a knock on the door from a police officer.\n\nThe second way of doing it is much more boring and never features on the TV. This is the case for trying to find the location of someone calling some other random number (eg, kidnapper calling victims home from a mobile phone). The person being called needs to contact the police, therefore its after the event. The police then need to go to a judge to get a warrant to force the phone company to give up the logs of that call. They will then hand over to the police (often a week+ after the event) what the dialling number was, what cell phone tower it was connected from (giving an approximation of where it was made to a few miles accuracy) and what the billing information is for the account holder (which will be blank if its a pay as you go number). The police then have to backtrack and investigate that rough area. If they are lucky, the phone logs will show its connection strength to multiple cell towers - if so, they can use triangulation to home in from a few miles accuracy to tens of meters. It takes weeks or months in reality.\n\nThere is another take on this. Which is someone has been kidnapped for example and the police know that the criminal is calling the victims home phone. If they know in advance, they can get the warrant from the judge in advance to have it so that as soon as the person calls, the number is shown up on caller ID even if its blocked... the phone companies basically register the number the same way as they do 999. In this scenario, as soon as it rings, the police contact the phone company instantly and get the source info. But again, if its a pay as you go phone with no account holder, they can only narrow it down to a few miles unless the logs show signal strength to multiple towers and they can triangulate in more detail.\n\nThen we have the final way which is the illegal way but as Mr Snowdons leaks clearly told us, we know this is going on. This is more akin to James Bond / 24. They get the number in one of the above ways, and then use their spyware installed onto the phone to get the exact GPS co-ordinates and can then go back through their logs of all calls for that number to work out instantly who the phone is used to call and use that intelligence to pinpoint them. But that is totally illegal as it bypasses the judge and warrant stage. It would only be allowed (officially at least) in cases of extreme and immediate threats to national security.",
" I assume you mean cell phones, since land lines are easy to identify the location.\n\nIts based on the cell phone tower you are connected to. When you call 911, the tower connects you to the dispatcher. Since the tower knows where it is physically located, it can connect you to the closest dispatch center.\n\nIn addition to this, you cell phone is often in contact with multiple towers. By sending which towers those are, along with the signal strenght from those towers, 911 can often determine you location using triangulation."
] |
Given a question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit forum
|
eli5
|
please explain the negative health aspects of trans fats.
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[
" Basically, the body takes the fats you eat and either adds it to your body, incorporates part of it into things the body needs and breaks down the rest for energy.\n\nHere is the problem....you can't break down trans fat molecular bonds as easily (and in some cases not at all) as you can cis fat molecules. Your body is designed to break down cis fat molecular bonds, not trans fat molecular bonds. The cis vs. trans thing has to do with how the fats are set up at a molecular level. It is like trying to use a Philips screw driver on a flat-head screw....you can't do it.\n\nSo, you incorporate fat into your body that you can't break down. You incorporate these molecules into temporary cardiovascular repairs that become stuck that way because your body can't deal with them.\n\nThe end result is cardiovascular disease in people who would have otherwise not had it."
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[
" Okay so Naturally occurring trans-fats are produced in the guts of some animals and therefore naturally occurring trans-fats can be found in some meats and milk.\n\nArtificially created trans-fats change the direction of a bond in the fat to allow it to be solid at room temperature. Trans-fats accumulate in your arteries and cause clots which can restrict blood flow or even become detached from the artery wall which causes heart disease and stroke. So they are bad in large amounts and can be found in almost any fried product and some baked products like cakes, pie and pizza crusts.\n\nRight now you probably eat more trans-fats than you realize as manufacturers do not have to label trans fats on the nutrition information label if there is less than 0.5 grams per serving.\n\nWhen this rule was implemented many manufacturers altered their serving sizes to make it look like trans-fats were not in their products although the words partially hydrogenated oil still appears in the ingredients list. \n\nThe optimistic part of me hopes that the new ban will actually stop manufacturers from using partially hydrogenated oils which may cause slight taste changes to the foods that use them (our tongues really like the taste of trans-fats, and any fat really).\n\nHowever many of the companies will likely resist the change, apply for the special permit, and try really hard to repeal the ban because of the costs associated with altering their recipe and production procedures.\n\nhere is a pretty good source of information on trans-fats: _URL_0_",
" The two main types of fat in your diet are saturated fats and unsaturated fats. Saturated fats are just chains of carbon with each possible bond to the carbon being hydrogen. The chain is fully “saturated” with hydrogen bonds. Unsaturated fats are also chains of carbon but have at least one double bond between two of the carbons in the chain. The difference between monounsaturated fats and polyunsaturated fats are the number of double bonds in the chain. This double bond makes a “kink” in the chain that makes it harder to clump together compared to saturated fat. Because of this, foods with a lot of saturated fat are usually solid at room temperature like butter while food with unsaturated fat are liquid like olive oil. \n\nTypically saturated fats are considered less healthy than unsaturated fats because they raise cholesterol and more likely to suffer from heart disease. Some types of unsaturated fats can lower cholesterol and reduce the risk of heart disease which is why unsaturated fats are considered more healthy. \n\nHowever, not all unsaturated fats are good for you. The double bond in the “good” unsaturated fats are configured in what is called “cis” position, which means the hydrogens on the double-bonded carbons are on the same side. When they are on the opposite side of the double bond, it is in a “trans” position. Trans fats have been found to cause a ton of problems like increasing inflammation and the risk of diabetes/heart disease. In fact, trans fats are so bad for you that they have been banned in many countries and will be soon banned in the United States as well."
] |
Given a question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit forum
|
eli5
|
Do speakers of languages like Chinese have an equivalent of spelling a word to keep young children from understanding it?
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[
" yes, in taiwan, kids are taught \"zhuyin\", different from roman pinyin.\n\nit is to teach them pronunciation. also, the chinese characters have \"bu shou\" or radicals made of different letters to teach kids the writing.\nexample: a surname chen 陈 is made of two words, 耳 (er) and 东(dong) and the 耳 is changed into the \"bu shou\". so when you explain the surname, you say \"chen, er dong chen\".\n\nsource: i'm a chinese speaker",
" Having grown up in Taiwan, we use traditional Chinese as primary written language, which is more complex than the simplified version used in China. So, to facilitate our learning as we were learning to read, we had a system called zhu yin, which is kind of like \"spelling out\" the pronunciation of each word, except instead of using Roman alphabets, we had different simple characters to denote different kinds of sounds that can be combined into the sound of a word. So, for example, we had a character for the \"beh\" sound, a different one for the \"ah\" sound, which we can combine to \"spell\" the word \"ba.\" This zhu yin system is way easier to learn than the actual characters - once we mastered it, we start to pair these \"spellings\" with actual Chinese words, and then we eventually can just read the words.\n\nIn China, they use pinyin, which is Romanized (like alphabets), to help with pronunciation. I don't know whether they teach children pinyin as a bridge to learning the more difficult characters like we do in Taiwan with zhu yin."
] |
[
" It's actually pronounced \"Bo SHE-LIE,\" and that particular way of spelling (I.E Bo Xilai) it uses the [pinyin](_URL_0_) system of romanization developed by the Chinese government in the 1950s and which started to replace the [Wade-Giles](_URL_2_) system as the international standard during the 80s and 90s. \n\nAnyhow to answer your question (from the Wiki on pinyin) \"When a foreign writing system with one set of sounds and coding/decoding system is taken to write one's own language, certain compromises must be made. The result is that the decoding systems used in some foreign languages will enable non-native speakers to produce sounds more closely resembling the target language than will the coding/decoding system used by other foreign languages. Native speakers of English will decode pinyin spellings to fairly close approximations of Mandarin except in the case of certain speech sounds that are not ordinarily produced by most native speakers of English: j, q, x, z, c, s, zh, ch, sh, and r exhibiting the greatest discrepancies. (When Chinese speakers call out these letters, they read them as: ji, qi, xi, zi, ci, si, zhi, chi, shi, and ri. The i in the last four sounds more like r and the use of i is purely a matter of convention.) \"\n\nBasically, what that says it that it's very hard to accurately reproduce the natural phonetics of the Chinese language by \"sounding it out\" in English. For example, the \"c\" in pinyin has a sound that, in English, might be spelled out as something like \"ts\" or \"t-ss\" or \"tz,\" but none of those are really right. Instead, when you learn Chinese and pinyin, you learn that a \"pinyin c\" is the sound of the beginning consonant of characters like 才， 草， 餐， etc...\n\nEDIT: To further elaborate, the Roman alphabet fails in many ways to take into account many of the phonological features (how things sound) of non IE languages. Another example from pinyin would be the 's' and 'x' sounds or the 'j' and 'zh' sounds. Both the 'sh' and 'x' sounds would best be transliterated into English a 'sh,' but there is a subtle difference between them that is hard to romanize (it really has to do with the shape of your mouth and the way it affects sounds that follow, but there's no way to \"spell that out\" using roman letters). \nEDIT 2: Apparently there's a lot of controversy about how to pronounce the 'x' sound in Chinese. I stand by my [original]( _URL_1_) statement, though I do recognize that accents vary throughout China and Asia, particularly in southern regions (Hong Kong, Shanghai) and among the Chinese diaspora.",
" Mainly because the pronunciations are somewhere between the multiple spellings. If you hear a native Chinese speaker say Beijing, you'll hear a subtle mixed 'p' / 'b' sound at the beginning, and a subtle mixed 'k' / 'j' sound at the second syllable.\n\nChinese isn't the only language to suffer this. For example, there are at least 112 ways to spell [Muammar Gaddafi's name](_URL_4_)."
] |
Given a question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit forum
|
eli5
|
Why do fireworks look so bad on film/video, yet look good irl?
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[
" Fireworks can look great on video if you have a good enough camera. Cheap cameras, like the ones in our phones, can't handle low light conditions very well and have a hard time focusing on the rapid flashes coming from a firework. The camera is constantly trying to auto focus but can't, resulting in a blurry image.",
" Fireworks [can look amazing ](_URL_1_) on video. You just need the right equipment."
] |
[
" I have seen footage of special effects people mounting a camera facing upwards, and then setting off sparkling fireworks directly above the lens, which looks an awful lot like the planets exploding in the original star wars from 1977. The sparks, as they were pulled down by gravity, grew bigger and moved outward from the center from the camera's point of view. I have to imagine they could get the same kind of effect by moving the camera off to the side, turning it sideways and then filming the sparks as they fell. \n\nThat's just an educated guess, though. I make the assumption based upon the other explosion footage I saw being made and just thought it possibly could have other uses. And to get a continuous effect, rather than an instance that you'd get from an explosion, you could use a grinding wheel on a block of metal for a 'rain' of sparks.",
" Because it looks better on camera. Lights reflect in the surface and it just gives it a better look on screen.\n\nThe movie crews generally wet down the street before rolling."
] |
Given a question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit forum
|
eli5
|
why do I randomly hear a very loud, high pitched sound in one ear that only lasts 5-8 seconds?
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[
" Your inner ear has about 16,000 hair cells that you use to turn sound-waves / vibrations into sensory information your brain can interpret as sound (they're called hair cells because they are long and thin and they stand up like little hairs).\n\nWhen you are exposed to a very loud sound or a loud sound over a long time, the hair cells can bend over and the tips of the hair cells can break off causing potassium to rush into the cell and signal to your brain that there is a sound (i.e. the high-pitched noise) when, in fact, there is none. \n\nWith repeated exposure to very loud sounds (or loud sounds over long periods of time), you can do permanent damage to these hair cells and they will eventually die. As a result, you will experience hearing loss. This is why it's strongly advised to set headphones to a low volume level and to wear ear protection when operating or standing next to loud machinery or firearms.\n\nAnyway, it's normal to experience these high pitched noises occasionally and hair cells die naturally over time (with age). If you experience frequent or constant ringing of the ears, however, this could very well indicate some degree of permanent hearing loss related to a traumatic event (e.g. music concert). Frequent or constant ringing of the ears is also referred to as Tinnitus (as /u/indubinfo mentioned).\n\n[ [Image of hair cells before and after loud sound](\n_URL_0_) ]"
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[
" Audio Engineer here:\n\n & #x200B;\n\nIt doesn't always. Sometimes it's low end frequencies feeding back from a subwoofer into a mic stand or similar.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nThe reason that *most of the time* it's high pitched is because:\n\n* The speakers are better at reproducing high pitches\n* The mics are better at picking up high pitches\n* High pitched sound waves don't need as munch energy to get from point A to point B as lower frequencies do, so they don't die out as fast as lower frequencies.\n\nWhen I tune a sound system to prevent feedback, there are usually at least 3 or 4 frequencies I have to filter and they are pretty well spread across the audio spectrum.",
" The 5 year old answer is that your ear doesnt naturally pick up that sound so your brain goes looking for it. And it creates the exact frequency you have a loss at. Or you have an electronic device giving off a soft high pitched noise."
] |
Given a question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit forum
|
eli5
|
Why is software/computer science the only STEM field that doesn't require formal education?
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[
" Most compsci jobs seem to tend towards one of two extremes; jobs that require little formal training (sysadmin stuff) that essentially just requires knowledge of programming and hands-on experience, and *really* high end jobs that are essentially just applied mathematics, and require knowledge of all sorts of advanced mathematical knowledge (particularly generalized linear algebra) in order to actually do the work. Those advanced math topics can be functionally very difficult to learn outside of a university setting (hell, they're hard to pick up *inside* a university).\n\nA lot of the mid-level stuff (particularly computational work) that CompSci people used to do has transitioned over to the engineers and physicists. Instead of trying to teach the compsci guy to understand the physics or thermodynamics or whatever of the problem we're studying, we just teach ourselves the programming knowledge to solve it ourselves. Furthermore, because we already have some knowledge in the shallow end of the more advanced mathematical fields anyway (particularly, ODE's, PDE's, linear algebra, and numerial methods), we can basically get by without having to rely on compsci people at all for optimization.\n\nAlso; a lot of the other STEM fields (particularly engineering) require university education entirely because it's the best way to ensure that the ethical and professional standards of engineering are upheld, and as a result the only way to become a licensed engineer is to have a university degree. From a technical perspective, only a PE is an *actual* engineer; everyone else just has engineer in their job title, but doesn't qualify as a \"true\" engineer as far as many organizations (and some legal and ethical bodies) are concerned.\n\nCompSci degree holders don't have to worry as much about the professional standards of engineers, entirely because unlike engineers, when you screw up people don't tend to die in large groups and in a very quick and gory fashion.",
" I work in IT, and one theory I have for this is that it's very easy to get a hands-on education in computer science and other IT-related fields at home. Emulators and virtual machines make it easy to use exactly the same tools that are used in professional environments, SDK's are often free and available to anyone, and you can buy used servers and switches for relatively cheap. That's why I think certifications matter more in IT than college degrees. You study and practice on your own time and then get a certification to prove that you can do that thing you've been practicing."
] |
[
" Went to school for CS. \n\nWish I would have gone to school for CIS. I did not know the difference. I don't have the interest in or dedication to math that it took to make it into Calculus 4 and differential equations. \n\nOf course, the real secret is you don't need a degree to do what the pros do in this specific field. No other STEM field has such a lack of academic requirements for the pay we receive, and that's because there's an incredibly high demand for us. I didn't graduate and am making top tier salary as an SRE in silicon valley. What matters is what you can demonstrate. Certifications and code reviews weigh a lot more than a degree in this particular occupational field. And we tend to get lots of office perks too.",
" Factually I don't disagree with the answers already given, but they all seem to assume that women are making these different life \"choices\" for reasons that have nothing to do with institutional sexism, and that's hard to credit. For instance, there's the claim that men \"tend\" to pursue STEM while women don't. But there's research that women in STEM are just as successful academically as men. Moreover, preadolescent girls are as likely to be interested in STEM as boys and as good (or better, in some research) at math above grade level. Then around middle school the number of girls interested in pursuing technical study drops way down within just a period of a couple years. We don't know precisely why, but it sure seems like girls are getting messages somewhere that this is a boys' field or that it's geeky to be interested in it.\n\nThe poster also mentions that women don't tend to take on work in the skilled trades, but might that be because sexual harassment is prevalent? Or because women are socialized to not as my for or demand opportunities but to wait to be asked?\n\nFinally, parenting. We just assume it's \"natural\" that the mother in a couple with a new baby will be the primary caregiver. But that doesn't have to be the case. Most women do not have to take extended absences while pregnant, and after a natural childbirth most women could return physically to most jobs within a week or less. (C-sections require more recovery, but it's not *that* long.) Women usually take much more time away from work than their partners. But there's no physical reason it has to be that way. \n\nThe thing about these \"sophisticated\" pay gap analyses that make them, in my view, fundamentally flawed is that they identify some of the *factors* that lead women to make less money over the course of their careers. And tgats where the analysis tends to end. But these factors are the ways in which institutionalized sexism *operates*. It's not for no reason that we have a work system that just happened to be designed exclusively for the convenience of men."
] |
Given a question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit forum
|
eli5
|
Why are directors considered the "owners" of a movie and not considered a team effort?
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[
" Production companies and studios actually own the films and all the original characters included in them.\n\nThe director, if he did his job, coordinated all elements of the film. In some cases, the director gets complete control. This is known as final cut.",
" Creative disputes are inevitable on any creative project. When a project is directed by a group of people, it's called \"design by committee\" and the results have historically been very bad. The artwork usually becomes a mushy, bland mess of compromises.\n\nSo the movie industry has seen a lot of success establishing a single person as the \"vision holder\" of the film, who can resolve all the rest of the team's creative disputes and bring all the parts together into a single, strong, unified work.\n\nBecause it's the director's job to have final say over the movie, they get the most praise for the movie's overall success, and the most blame for the movie's failure. \n\nIt gets a little dicey when movie studio executives meddle with the movie against the wishes of the director, but the public doesn't really get to know how much of that is going on."
] |
[
" A producer oversees the entire project of making a film or show. The director is only technically responsible for the actual filming of scenes; it is the producer who organises the production as a whole. For major productions, this is usually too much for just one person, which is why you often see several executive producers and the like being credited.",
" The director makes nearly all of the creative decisions. The crew just executes those decisions. \n\nIf you took two different directors and each gave them the same script and the same crew, you would still get two very different movies.\n\nHowever if you took that same script and gave it to one director and told that director to make the exact same movie twice, each time with a different crew, you'd get an almost identical movie. \n\nDon't get me wrong I think movie crews deserve a lot of credit. They do very good work, but the director has creative input and that's why they get more recognition especially for well received movies."
] |
Given a question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit forum
|
eli5
|
South Korean here. I read that in US, People cannot choose their children's school, but government chooses via districts. What is the reason behind such weird law? Can you explain ?
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[
" Firstly, let's get clear about your statement about s. korea. The \"based on your merit\" does not mean \"can attend any school they want\".\n\nYou're right about how public schools, with many exceptions like magnet and charter schools, work in the U.S. The principle is very american - equal opportunity for education for all. You'll find that in S. Korea those who \"choose\" to attend a great school are those from the wealthy class. In America this doesn't sound much like \"merit\". The idea here doing anything with public resources that is not done independent of class is contrary to the idea of fairness and of equal government driven opportunity and protection. \n\nIt does have the impact you're suggesting however, which is that if you're poor you're likely in an area that also has shitty schools. Some places - e.g. san franciso or new york - does this by converting to a \"lottery\" - where you'll go to school based on luck. The goal is \"equality of education\", and it's very imperfect. But, that is a very different goal than the s. korean system which is \"appropriate education based on intelligence and aptitude\".",
" Please keep in mind that the US is 100x as large as South Korea and has 6x the population. So there's a lot of things that will work in South Korea that won't scale well to work in the United States. In addition, school systems are done at the state and county level, not at the federal level (because of the aforementioned size and population scaling issues) so different cities and different states do things differently. \n\nIn rural areas, you'll typically only have the choice of going to one public school, simply because there's only one school within an hour or so drive of your house. You can go to any private school that will admit you, including boarding schools where you live at the school- those don't follow district boundaries- but you only have one choice of public school. \n\nIn larger cities, there will be a number of schools within reach, so there you get the ability to make some choices. A lot of times, the school system works on sort of a combination of local and magnet (which can \"pull in\" from anywhere in the area) schools. So average students will just go to their district school, while the top students can apply to specialized programs at magnet schools. Many of the specialized programs are academic in nature, but not all of them. The school I went to, for example, had specialized programs in STEM (mostly focusing on the sciences, and was the top program academically in the district), journalism, art, theater, and music. Other schools in my district had focuses on architecture, manufacture, health care, and so on."
] |
[
" I think its sort of a gross misunderstanding in America of what a school system does. I've been to and seen quite a few different schools from private schools to very low income are schools.\n\nAnd while a lot of the lower income people say that money is the problem because it's easy to blame your problems on evil mr moneybags, I can tell you that from what I've seen, hardly any parents in the lower income schools give more than a fleeting fuck about their kids education. They think school is some sort of daycare where they can just send their kids for the day until they're 18 and they won't have to worry about it/them. I've seen quite a few teachers or administration contact a parent about a child's misbehavior, only to get the response of: \n\n\"It happened while he's at school didn't it? That means it's your problem.\" Sometimes adding the dishearteningly misinformed, \"That's why I pay your salary!\"\n\nWhich kind of fucks the teachers because all of the teachers power and authority derives from the parents authority, and ability to discipline. So when the parents won't discipline, kids don't give a fuck. This *does not* happen in private schools. And it's not because of the money, it's because the parents do something.\n\nI can't speak very confidently about drop-out rates but from personal experience, I haven't seen any kids drop out because their family needed immediate financial help or they were stuck in a jam, but I've seen over a dozen kids drop out to go live with their girl/boyfriend, or because they just didn't like school or think its important.\n\nI'm sure there's a lot of other contributing factors but I'm only speaking of the problems and causes I've personally seen. And it seems as though there's just this culture in some sections of lower-income America to think that you have no role in your child's education. \n\nSorry for the wall if text, if you've read all this thank you, it's just frustrating to see a lot of your friends set themselves up for failure and know its because their parents are too busy getting high to care.",
" Basically there's less oversight and control from the government. Funding works a little differently as well in that certain things the private organization pays for. The school still has to adhere to the state regulations when it comes to how a child is educated and what is considered educated, but a lot of the behind the scenes shit is up to the individual or organization. \n\nAn analogy could be made to car insurance. You have to have it by law or you can't drive, but there's options and each insurance provider gives you different prices and perks. The privately ran schools might have a dress code, might have a pool, or a lot of computers. Their fees might be different from one to the next. The idea is to turn them into businesses that compete with one another for the betterment of your child, but as with anything, people exploit it and find a way to profit from it at the cost of the children. \n\nWhere it works, it works really well and it saves places where the local government has failed to fund the schools properly, relieving pressure on them and allowing funding to flow elsewhere while children get above average education specifically tuned for the community. \n\nWhen it doesn't work as intended, it's awful. But that's neither here nor there."
] |
Given a question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit forum
|
eli5
|
How do tech startups typically secure funding without giving up too much control of their business or patents?
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[
" For companies that have been through a series A with an established firm, the founders do not typically have controlling share in the business and those with strong positions in the company will set up a board of directors with control over the founders. Even those individuals or firms who frequently do angel investing will typically demand a very high level of control. \n\nTech startup founders are sometimes treated like rock stars, but until you've been part of a funded company from early stage to exit you're either doing it the old fashioned bootstrappy way or you're giving up a fair amount of control to whoever is giving up the dollar bills. It's important to find venture partners with shared vision and way of doing things--too many startups just take the first firm that offers them solid funding or the most funding.\n\nPatents are almost always held by the corporation and not the individual. I don't think any serious venture firm would allow it be any other way if the patent was part of how the tech company was doing business."
] |
[
" They enter rounds of funding where they basically agree to sell a percentage of their company to one or several venture capitalists (VC) for a certain price. There may be several rounds, called series A, series B etc. \n\nThe money they raise from these rounds is used to pay their staff and to expand business. The bigger their business grows, the more they are worth, and the more they can get for the next series of funding. \n\nObviously the start up has to provide some benefit to the VCs, which means they have to convince them that if they grow big enough, they will be able to pay the VC their money back several times. \n\nIt is possible for a company to go from its first round to exit without earning any money. For example, Instagram managed to get itself bought by Facebook without having actually generated a profit. The VCs though, got paid out by whatever fb paid for Instagram, and fb gets the photography expertise and user base from Instagram which it presumably will either shut down to eliminate competition for its own photo product, or use to generate profit in the future.",
" Sometimes they operate the same way as tech startup companies that take years to build their product: they get investor money. Typically such a company would be founded by people who are very experienced, and they'd be able to convince investors that they have a high probability of success after their product ages."
] |
Given a question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit forum
|
eli5
|
What's holding us back from utilizing a breathalyzer-like test for THC?
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[
" > A test like this, assuming the legalization of marijuana, is crucial in order to allow a person the freedom to smoke at home but not at or before work, just as they can and can not with alcohol (legally, that is). What's holding us back from utilizing a breathalyzer-like test for THC?\n\nI think it's misguided to concentrate on a test specific to THC. The only thing that *should* matter is the ability to drive safely. It doesn't matter *why* a person can't drive safely. Requiring that the specific drug be identified is never-ending, since there will always be another drug. We only have a test for alcohol at the moment, but there are dozens, if not hundreds of drugs that could render a person incapable of safely operating a motor vehicle, but there's no great outcry for a Cocaine test, an ampetamine test, LSD test....\n\nFor that matter, there are plenty of reasons a person might be incapable of safe driving: legal prescription drugs, too much coffee, too tired, to upset about work, too old, etc, etc.\n\nWhat is really needed is an ***impairment*** test. A test that determines if the driver is capable of driving safely. I think some work on this was done perhaps 10 years ago; I seem to recall a Palm Pilot app was being developed that would test things like reaction time.\n\nI don't support driving while intoxicated. I want impaired drivers off the road, regardless of why they're impaired.",
" The current roadside test for THC will detect marijuana taken at any time within the last ~40 days. Useful if you want to catch marijuana *users*. Not so useful if you want to catch someone currently driving under the influence of marijuana. It probably wouldn't hold up in traffic court as proof of DUI"
] |
[
" Yes. [You are not obligated to take a field sobriety test](_URL_0_), *however*, that means you are consenting to be taken to the station and held until such time as your lawyer is present - if they have enough probable cause to pull you over, they probably have enough to arrest you.. You may be obligated to take a breathalizer test at the station, though. In any case, if you show enough signs of being drunk without the field sobriety test, *they don't need it to arrest you*. It's just a way for them to get more and clearer evidence to make the case in court way easier.\n\nTL;DR: You don't have to take a field sobriety test, but exercising that right is not likely to get you out of a DUI. Don't drink and drive.",
" The sobriety test are actually more accurate. It tests things your body can not hide. Field breathalyzer readings are also not admissible in court. \n\nSource: A Las Vegas Metropolitan Police department officer... several."
] |
Given a question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit forum
|
eli5
|
How do fans obtain dust if they are spinning 24/7?
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[
" Fans create a small vacuum like force to pull air through them. Some of this air hits the blades themselves and some of this air carries dust particles. These particles are then continually forced into the fan blades by the pressure of the air behind it continually pushing against it.\n\nEventually these particles collect to the point of visible dust that cakes the blades",
" Well there are a few things at work. For one, there is a very interesting effect on fluid motion that says that fluids that are moving over or around a surface always have a velocity of zero on the surface. So in reality, the air moving directly on the surface of the fan blades is actually very still relative to the surface, so the dust doesn't get blown off. This is also the reason why bugs can crawl on the windshield of a car even when you're driving. \n\nHowever another effect is also at play. When the blades move through the air, they can generate a static charge. This static charge can pull dust right out of the air like a magnet, which is why the blades on fans always seem to be so much more dusty than let objects in the same room."
] |
[
" It takes a fair amount of power to get a fan spinning from a full stop. Motors can be damaged if they're running but unable to get the axle to spin. By starting on the highest power setting, they ensure that the motor has enough power when it's turned on to start the fan spinning, and thus avoid damaging the motor.",
" A spinning fan is essentially rubbing the air at high speeds. This, much like rubbing a balloon on your hair, generates a static charge on the edge of the fan. Dust is attracted to the charge and sticks to the fan.\n\nAnother method is if there are any vaporized oil or residue from smoking. Since the fan is spinning, it \"hits\" those vapors more often and gets coated in it. The coating offers a sticky surface for dust to attach to."
] |
Given a question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit forum
|
eli5
|
I have every symptom for ovarian cancer, but other ailments have the exact same list of symptoms. How does a doctor differentiate between ailments that share identical symptoms?
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[
" First of all, the symptoms of ovarian cancer equally well describe far more common ailments. So that's what they'll look for, first. They'll also take a family history to see if it runs in your family, and your own history to see about risk factors. Then they might do a transvaginal ultrasound to see if there are any signs of tumors. If they find anything suspicious, they might do an MRI. If they find nothing suspicious, they might treat you for what they think it might be--like ovarian cysts or endometriosis or uterine fibroids. Or do further tests. Last resort is exploratory surgery. They're very unlikely to do that.",
" They understand the symptoms in much greater detail that can be described in such a list, and can make a much better judgement of whether or not it's likely you have cancer than a layman can. However, an MRI or other method will be necessary to confirm."
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[
" You start experiencing symptoms that lead to a diagnosis of cancer. Any organ palpable from the outside is easier to feel abnormalities. The real problem comes from organs on the inside, which is why cancers of the lung, esophagus, pancreas, and others are often fatal by the time they are detected.\n\nFor example, with lung cancer, the symptoms are typically a cough that won't go away. Ignore that long enough...and you'll go away.",
" 1) no symptoms until late\n2) ignore symptoms\n3) very little time passing from stage 1 to stage 4 in some cases. Others have explained #1 and #2 so I’ll address #3. There’s no orderly progression from stage 1 to 4. Sometimes a tumor can go from small to *everywhere* in very little time. So there was just no way to know, earlier. In most cases, there is a slow progression from stage 1 to stage 4, but not always. I know someone who had some abdominal issues and they did an exploratory of her abdomen and saw nothing out of the ordinary. One month later they looked again and she had ovarian cancer *everywhere*."
] |
Given a question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit forum
|
eli5
|
Is the wage gap real and why is there so much disagreement about it?
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[
" Yes, the gender pay gap is real, but it is more complicated than either side usually makes it out to be. [Here](_URL_0_) is a well made, well sourced video breaking down the claims with data to see how much of it is attributable to various sources, ranging from life choices to sexism.",
" I'll assume you're talking about the gender wage gap. In absolute terms, it's definitely 'real' - men make more money than women on average.\n\nHowever, the reason women make less money is due to their life choices: they pursue lower-paying careers and they invest less time in those careers. Moreover, the nature of heterosexual mating patterns - where women strongly value their partner's income but men do not - indicates that this gap is the product of intrinsic human nature.\n\nThe disagreement is largely a result of partisanship trumping facts. If you're strongly invested in an idea, evidence contrary to that idea tends to be discarded. Even worse, if a significant number of people are strongly invested in a certain idea - even if that idea is factually incorrect - it becomes useful for public figures to cater to the falsehood to gain the support of those people."
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[
" The question is based on two logical errors. First, the pay gap between women and men is 77 cents for the same job, and second that this is part of some organized policy.\n\nFirst, the 77/75% percent gap between men and women tends to reflect that women and men seek out different types of employment. Women have a tendency towards fields like social work, human resources, psychology and such. Men are more likely to go into fields like computer science and finance. Indeed even when women and men are in similar fields, women tend to dominate the lower paying branches of those fields. Women are more likely to pursue advanced degrees in chemistry and biology as opposed to physics or engineering. \n\nNow when you factor that in, the pay gap shrinks from about 25-30% between men and women to between 5%-10% and some of that reflects the time it takes for attitudes to change. For example, 30 and 40 years ago there were very, very few female engineers, so today there are very, very few senior female engineers. Hopefully that begins to change over time, and it is still worth questioning *why* women go into certain fields and men go into others, and why we value some fields the way we do.\n\nAnd indeed some of the pay gap is a legitimate issue, but it is the result of a subtle bias that seems to exist to value men's work more than women's. Companies do not have a chart somewhere saying men need to be paid X and women need to be paid 0.9X \"cuz they're girls\". And indeed most companies *want* to hire the better candidate, be they male or female, not just because they are afraid of lawsuits, but mainly because better employees make a better company. \n\nSo why is there a pay gap at all? Well pay in most companies is based on band of how much they think is a reasonable salary. People with better credentials or more relevant experience given offers at the higher end of the band.\n\nHere's where the problem comes in. The value of these qualities is often quite subjective, and studies (like this one _URL_6_) show that a resume with a man's name on it will be seen as more impressive *than the exact same resume* with a woman's name. Interestingly, it's not just men who value women's work less. Women also tend to regard a man's work as more substantive. Why this is can be complicated and (no surprise) controversial. \n\nSo, **TL:DR**: Men and women pursue different careers in different fields which is responsible for a good chunk of the pay gap, but men and women still value women's work less than a man's for reasons that are complicated. Thus a man's work is seen as more valuable and he is paid more, not because someone somewhere is thinking they only have to pay a woman 3/4 what they would a man.",
" I do think this is a viable business plan in some countries. But like people mentioned, there are two things about the wage gap:\n\n 1. How much does it cost to have an employee (not just their wages)\n\n 2. How does gender affect the choice of promotions, both from and employer or employee point of view. \n\nMany people say the wage gap is because you only look at average monthly salary. This is not true. Wage gap is measures in equal hours of similar jobs, and women still come out below."
] |
Given a question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit forum
|
eli5
|
Baking Soda and Baking Powder. The difference between them and what they both do.
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[
" Baking soda and baking powder are both leavening agents - they make your baking rise through an acid/base chemical reaction (like the baking soda/vinegar volcano in every show/movie involving a science fair). Baking soda is pure sodium bicarbonate (a base), and baking powder is sodium bicarbonate with cream of tartar (an acid). Which one you use depends on the other ingredients in your baking - if there's no acid to activate the baking soda, then the recipe will call for baking powder."
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[
" Gonna just use the internet for this one. [Differences](_URL_0_)\n\nBaking soda is sodium bicarbonate only and it acts as a weak base. Baking powder is a mixture of baking soda, an acid that's usually cream of tartar and a little cornstarch.\n\n > Aka bicarbonate of soda or sodium bicarbonate. Let’s start with baking soda because it’s the most confusing. I’m going to geek out for a sec. First, baking soda is a BASE. Do you remember the science experiment we all did in school? Mixing baking soda with vinegar and watching an eruption of bubbles? Usually we did this in some sort of model volcano contraption. I know you know. When you mix baking soda (BASE) with vinegar (ACID) you get a chemical reaction (an eruption of bubbles!). A product of this reaction is carbon dioxide.\n\n > Baking powder contains baking soda. It is a mixture of baking soda, cream of tartar (a dry acid), and sometimes cornstarch. These days, most baking powder sold is double acting. This means that the first leavening occurs when baking powder gets wet– like when you combine the dry and wet ingredients in the recipe. (This is why you cannot prepare some batters ahead of time to bake later– because the baking powder has already been activated.) The second leavening occurs when the baking powder is heated.\n\n > Since baking powder already contains an acid to neutralize its baking soda, it is most often used when a recipe does not call for an additional acidic ingredient. Like my sugar cookies. However, this isn’t always the case. You can still use baking powder as the leavening agent in recipes calling for an acidic ingredient. Like my lemon cake. In my recipe development, I based my lemon cake recipe off of my vanilla cake recipe. I used buttermilk (acid) instead of regular milk for added moisture and a little tang and subbed a little brown sugar (acid) for granulated sugar– again, for added moisture. I was pleased with the rise and taste of the cake, so I did not experiment with using baking soda.",
" Baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) (IUPAC name: sodium hydrogen carbonate, *if you're a pedant*😉) has several chemical properties which are generally useful, and relatively few disadvantages.\n\n* Shortest Answer: It's cheap to produce and very chemically reactive, but won't melt your skin off or poison you.\n* The obvious one: It reacts strongly with acids, giving off CO₂ and water in the process. This is useful to turn certain baked goods from a solid mass of baked flavoured flour to a fluffy porous network filled with gas bubbles that you can actually bite through.\n* Although it's mildly alkali (\"base\" or \"anti-acid\") in solution, and reacts strongly with acids, it's actually an *amphoteric salt*, meaning it can react with alkalies as well as acids (though not quite as strongly).\n* Many (but not all) common chemicals associated with \"bad smells\" are volatile acids. When they react with baking soda, they are turned into less-volatile salts - they'll tend to stay solid instead of becoming a gas, and what little does evaporate is less \"smellable\" by human noses (it binds more weakly or not at all to scent receptors).\n* It's non-toxic (in quantities needed for functional results), so it can safely be used in food and on food-contact surfaces.\n* Despite being non-toxic in normal quantities, it can cause gastrointestinal distress in humans from released CO₂ if consumed in large quantities. Yet, for some insects (particularly cockroaches), this gas release can cause their internal organs to *explode*, if you mix baking soda with suitable bait.\n* It dissolves in *enough* water, but if there's not enough, it'll just get wet without fully dissolving. This makes it a mild fine-textured abrasive that can be used for scrubbing, which can still be rinsed away fully.\n* When it gets very hot, it starts to break down into simpler compounds and carbon dioxide. This reaction absorbs quite a bit of heat - so throwing it on a fire will *both* cool down the fire *and* drive away oxygen with CO₂.\n* The alkalinity breaks down pectins and hemicelluloses in plant cell walls - compounds which give plants rigid structure. Adding it to cooking water helps soften vegetables faster - particularly beans and pulses, which require longer cooking times to be edible. This used to be much more common for cooked vegetables in general, but too-mushy vegetables have fallen out of fashion, and baking soda has been found to accelerate the breakdown of vitamin C (an acid) and some other nutrients in cooking.\n* It interferes with protein coagulation - the ability of proteins to stick together and form a semi-rigid network. Gluten in flour is formed by is formed by two proteins, glutenin and gliadin, which stick together and form a stretchy network when hydrated and kneaded. Disrupting gluten network formation helps the texture of less-leavened or unleavened baked goods, as they won't be held together by so much gluten - they'll be more tender or even crumbly, depending on the amount used. (Also, this works on meat proteins, by making it harder for the protein to bind into a tough matrix while cooking.)\n* As an alkali, it can steal hydrogen ions from the amino acids in proteins, making them more chemically reactive. These \"deprotonated\" amino acids and proteins can then more easily react with reducing sugars, speeding up the \"Maillard Reaction\" - the tasty browning that happens on cooked meats and baked goods.\n* Many microoganisms and fungi can only survive in a limited range of pH. Baking soda works as a mild disinfectant/antifungal agent, by raising the pH beyond what the microbes/fungi can survive.\n* It's (currently) made out of carbon dioxide, common salt, and ammonia - three *very* common compounds. The process (Solvay) is relatively easy and inexpensive, as far as industrial chemical synthesis goes. If there was a \"baking soda cartel\" that conspired to raise the price of baking soda, they'd be easily outcompeted by any other manufacturer that charged even a little less. (Unlike, say, diamonds, which can be monopolized by controlling diamond-rich regions and investing in expensive processing equipment.) Eventually, the price would fall to the point of just barely covering production, distribution, wages/salaries, and factory maintenance.\n\n\n^(*Edit: Cockroaches won't explode as dramatically as I had previously ~~hoped~~ described. Still messes 'em up but good, though.*)"
] |
Given a question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit forum
|
eli5
|
The "science" behind the paranormal.
|
[
" Now for a more constructive answer. A lot of the \"equipment\" they use is not actually wjat a scientist might recognise as true measuring apparatus. Often the real thing is far too expensive and not portable.\n\nThe names are, strictly linguistically speaking, in a sense correct. \"Manifesting as energy\" is so insanely vague it could be considered true. However, a lot of those theatrics are useless. It is like calling a pencil a 'graphite based communication device'. Only serves to confuse but technically true.\n\nThere are two main reasons scientists are so bias against these kinds of programs/people.\n\n1) they do not follow acknowledged scientific method. One of your paranormal people will see a flash of light once and claim it to he truth. \"Real\"science makes you reproduce the same thing over and over under all kinds of different circumstances.\n\n2) the escessive unnecesary use of \"scientific\" terms makes the general public associate paranormal investigators with \"real\" scientists, who are not too happy with this because: see (1).\n\nI am neither confirming or debunking here, just stating rational facts. Keep this in mind when you read the replies to these kinds of questions.",
" So far there has been [zero](_URL_0_) scientific proof of anything remotely paranormal actually existing. \n\nTime after time the so-called paranormal events could be traced to special requirements, like the paranormal medium had to be there, he had to control the situation, etc. the tv programs about haunted houses are what they are: tv shows. You get some ghostbuster equipment, act like you see or hear something and call some interference a 'ghost'. \n\nFormer magician James Randi is famous for debunking these frauds, by setting up experiments where the medium could not control every part of the situation and then the experiments failed 'because cosmic powers weren't there'. It even went so far that a religious healer who walked to 'random' people in the audience and asked their name suddenly knew all about their lost siblings or medical problems. Turned out the wife of the healer had a list of all audience members with their info and read it out over a radio signal to the healer's earpiece to help him 'know' his patients."
] |
[
" The magic of the singularity is that our understanding of physics breaks down in those unimaginably hot and dense conditions. Perhaps cutting-edge quantum physics and general relativity would predict what you say (I am not an expert in those fields), but as we know that is not what happened. The desire to explain the events of the singularity is what drives scientists in that field every day.",
" Before science, religious held the belief that a sneeze was your body expelling demons. So blessing you was the solution for the demon being able to find its way back in."
] |
Given a question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit forum
|
eli5
|
why does google allow terrible to mediocre content farms to rank highly in search results?
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[
" Those sites for whatever reason are ranked highly by the google page rank algorithm. The only time Google will interfere with the search results is when the website is doing something illegal or spreading malware.\n\nAt present it is very difficult for a computer to differentiate human generated content from that generated by a robot. Furthermore the computer generated content may actually have value. So even if you could differentiate between the two you still wouldn't be able to judge its value. \n\nIf you can't judge the value of the content how do you know when obfuscation occurs?\n\nIt's a hard problem to solve. I don't think we'll ever find a perfect solution."
] |
[
" When we search something, Google tries to present us the most important websites first. This is currently done taking into account a number of parameters such as the number of incoming links or keyword density on the page. The problem is that this method mainly relies on how popular a website is and doesn't check if the facts presented are actually correct.\n\nNow Google has announced that they want to include a new factor in their ranking: the sites' truthfulness.\n\nTo do this, they need to find out how correct the facts that are presented on the site actually are. For this they extract the information from the text on the site and store this info in triples of (subject, predicate, object).\n\ne.g.: (Schwarzenegger, place of birth, Austria)\n\nSo they compare such a triple with triples from other pages. If subject and predicate is a match, they try to find the 'true value' for the object (the most frequent value). This works because information is so redundant on the web.\n\nAfter they have created a library of true triples, they can then assess the truthfulness of a website by comparing the values of its triples with the ones in the library.\n\nThe problem I can see with this is that \"popular facts\" become true while \"unpopular facts\" are neglected. \nFor example, radical thinkers like Darwin and Einstein would have had their information buried deep in the web.\n\n\nA big question is also how they are going to distinguish between the different types of information:\n\n objective facts (Apples are fruits.)\n\nsubjective/multi-faceted facts (Apples are sweet fruits.)\n\ndynamic facts (Apples are on demand.)\n\nopinions (Apples are stupid.)",
" Google search has two parts: crawling to build the index, and the ranking algorithm to get a searcher their results.\n\nThe index is just a big database built by 'bots' or 'spiders'. A bot is just a piece of software that starts with a web page and examines it. The bot notes its content, and any links on the page. This is called crawling, or scraping. The bot stores the content in the index, and then works its way through the links on the page, visiting each in turn and repeating the process. \n\nSo, the index is a huge database of content and links. It stores where the content can be found, and what it's about. It also stores all the links it found, and for each piece of content, it stores all the links that point to it.\n\nThe ranking algorithm is what gets triggered when you google for 'kitten wrapped in bacon'. It looks through the index looking for all the bacon-wrapped, baby cat content that it's got stored and then sorts it to try and show you the most useful results.\n\nIt does that by sorting the results based on a lot of different things, including: how closely it thinks the pages match your search; which pages other people chose when doing the same search; where in the world you're searching from; the language your browser is set to; etc. There are supposed to be over 200 different things that Google considers when ordering the results. \n\nSo Google *doesn't* search the entire internet in seconds. It has a huge number of bots (an different types as well, which look, and index, for different things) which build a massive database. The algorithm searches the massive database in seconds and lists the results it finds depending on a whole bunch of things.\n\nEdit: punctuation"
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Given a question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit forum
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eli5
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entropy, enthalpy, and Hess's law
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[
" **Entropy** is the amount of energy in a system that is not available to do work - that is, it is \"waste heat\" that isn't useful. We know from thermodynamics that entropy is a measure of how likely a particular process will happen. Because a process that produces more randomness in the system is statistically favored, we say it has higher entropy. And while it is possible to increase the amount of order in the system (think of water freezing), we can only do this by using another process that produces even more entropy than you lose. This is the Second Law of Thermodynamics: the amount of entropy in the universe will always increase (ΔS_universe > 0).\n\nFor your class, just imagine that each substance in your chemical equation has a temperature-dependent amount of \"randomness\", which we track as the variable \"S\". A change in entropy is written as \"ΔS\". Entropy is a \"state variable\" - practically, this means that the value of S doesn't depend on how the substance arrived in that state (the path didn't matter, just the destination).\n\nEntropy is measured in units of energy/temperature (i.e. Joules/Kelvin).\n***\n**Enthalpy** is a measure of the total energy of a system. For your class, you can just visualize it as the amount of \"useful work\" a system can do. We track it as the variable \"H\", which we can't directly measure. Because of this, we are ever only interested in \"ΔH\", the change in the energy of the substance. Enthalpy has units of energy, usually expressed per mole of material (Joules/mol). Like entropy, it's also a state variable, which will be important when we get to Hess' Law.\n\nEvery chemical equation has a \"ΔH_rxn\", which is the amount of heat absorbed or released by the reaction. If the system has less energy than before, ΔH is negative, and heat has gone from the system to the surroundings (\"exothermic\"). If it has more energy, ΔH is positive, and heat has gone from the surroundings into the system (\"endothermic\"). We can measure ΔH directly by using a calorimeter (you've probably used one in your class experiments).\n\nEvery substance has a \"ΔH_formation\", which is the ΔH of the reaction used to form it from its elemental parts. For example, ΔH_f of methane (CH4) comes from the reaction C + 4H -- > CH4 (notice we're using elemental hydrogen, not hydrogen gas). You can think of ΔH_f as \"the amount of energy in this particular compound\".\n***\n**Hess' Law** is what makes that last paragraph useful. Remember how I said enthalpy is a state variable? That means that it doesn't matter what reaction path we take to form a particular compound - ΔH will be the same no matter what. This allows us to use ΔH_f's to compute the ΔH of any reaction we want!\n\nImagine the combustion of methane: CH4 + 2 O2 -- > CO2 + 2 H2. We want to know how much energy is released or absorbed (ΔH_rxn). We could use a bomb calorimeter to measure it directly, but your school was forced to sell all its lab equipment due to budget cuts. But it's okay! Visualize all the atoms of the reactants breaking apart into all their separate C's, H's, and O's. Because this is the opposite of a formation reaction, we can write ΔH = -[sum of ΔH_f_reactants]. Now imagine all those letters recombining to form the compounds on the other side of the equation; this is a formation reaction with ΔH = [sum of ΔH_f_products].\n\nNow for the big finish - since enthalpy is a state variable, it didn't matter that we took two steps instead of one! So just add the enthalpy changes of the two steps together:\n > ΔH_rxn = [sum of ΔH_f_products] - [sum of ΔH_f_reactants]\n\nSo using Hess' Law is really just playing accountant. First, use the table in the back of your textbook to find ΔH_f for each of the compounds in your reaction. Then, sum together all the heats from the products and subtract those of the reactants. Don't forget to multiply each term by its stoichiometric coefficient (two moles have twice as much heat as one).\n\nHope all that helps!"
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[
" Entropy is a measure of how much of a system's thermal energy can be utilized to do mechanical work, with a higher entropy corresponding to a lower amount of available thermal energy than a lower entropy. So, in the second law of thermodynamics, which states that the entropy of a closed system is non-decreasing, what this means is, for a closed system, as time goes on less thermal energy can be used to do mechanical work.",
" ummm I always think about it like this Enthalpy is the amount of energy that can do work, and Entropy is the amount of energy that can no longer do work\n\nIts not perfect but its kinda how i think about it"
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Given a question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit forum
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eli5
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What are daily activities of a Systems Engineer? Examples of System Engineers?
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[
" What kind of a systems engineer? The job exists across many different industries, and it probably looks quite different depending on the industry.\n\nI work in the world of software and I don't work with any systems engineers very closely, but here's my understanding.\n\nThink of it like a team-based video game. You typically have your primary classes - eg a soldier or a footman - who do the main work that's needed to get things done. They charge the front, take down enemy troops, and overall, do the heavy lifting. Those are the software engineers. Alongside them, you have the support classes, like healers or magic-wielders, who fight alongside the primary class. They stay off to the side, heal the troops, provide supplies, and overall, play a support role. Those are the systems engineers. Together, their skills complement each other and they make a kickass team. \n\nSoftware engineers write the code for making the software do what they're supposed to do, ie features. Working on banking software that needs to show how much money you've spent this month? Software engineers will do that. Need to throw in functionality for detecting credit card fraud? Software engineers will do that too. \n\nIn contrast, systems engineers build things to make sure software engineers can effectively do their jobs. Systems engineers will create and run tests, to make sure the software is bulletproof in security, runs efficiently, and won't crash. They'll create development environments where software engineers can work easily. They'll also create environments that emulate real world scenarios, to make sure the software will run as expected once it reaches the user's hands. Overall, they build everything that sits around the piece of software itself, to make sure development is going smoothly. \n\nIn the world of software development, this practice is also commonly known as \"Development Operations\", or DevOps. \n\nDepending on the software team, there might not even be a systems engineer, or a devops person. That job might be split across everyone else on the team, to ensure that they're not only building out their product, but also building a sustainable development environment and safety net around that product. But if the product grows big enough, there might be a need for a person whose sole job is to build out those systems.",
" thats like the broadest job description ever.\n\nsystems engineers can be found in every industry, aerospace to automative, oil and gas to consumer electronics.\n\nbasically they help integrate systems together. for example, a systems engineer would design simulate test verify certify the weapons to an aircraft platform. there are lots of systems engineers working in this video, and im sure one of them is the test coordinator _URL_0_"
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[
" Among many other reasons, if you are working every waking hour of the day just to feed your family, you don't have a lot of free time to brainstorm new inventions, much less any means to actually build them. Prior to the Industrial Revolution that was the way most of humanity worked.\n\nIf you're interested in the topic, you should read \"How we Got to Now\" by Steven Johnson (there is also a show on PBS that just finished). He covers a lot of questions similar to this.",
" I am a mechanical engineer. Retired. I designed assembly line jigs and fixtures(explosive items). I designed and built computer networks. Developed computer models to calculate reliability of missiles and bombs. I designed tests for reliability testing of hardware and electronics. \nMy whole career was based on my Bachelor of Science Degree in Mechanical Engineering. (ODU)\nI was hired because of my success in college. I progressed because of the other engineers I worked with on the variety of projects assigned. Sharing and Learning was a career long process."
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Given a question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit forum
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eli5
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Does the aftermath of sex between a man/woman smell the same as woman/woman or man/man?
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[
" I'd imagine a woman/woman aftermath doesn't smell like jizz, but I'm no expert. When they release porn with a smell-a-tron, THEN I'll be an expert.",
" The 'sex smell' is probably mostly from sweat. And since everyone's sweat is going to smell slightly different and yet the same, I think the smell is pretty much the same for anyone.\n\nThat being said, as a gay man the sex smell with men I'd say can be really, really strong. Also there can be... accidents. That's a very identifiable smell."
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[
" As a sort of side-note, the smell of our sweat (not necessarily BO) is useful in choosing a mate. There was a [study](_URL_0_) that got women to smell a series of sweaty shirts, and rate them in order of how good they smelled. The women, depending on their hormones, rated the sweat the best if they had more different immune system genes. This way, the woman is most pleasantly attracted to the smell of the man that would produce the child with the best immune system (broadest spectrum of defense). There were also implications in the study that this isn't simply old patterns, but still affects us today. Not really LI5, but I'll give a stab at slinging it down a notch if you'd like me to.",
" Men's smells more husky or spicy. Whereas woman's are more flowery/fruity and subtle."
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Given a question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit forum
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eli5
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Can you explain the #nobillnobreak sit-in in the House of Representatives?
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[
" Democrats are staging a sit-in before the July 4th recess in protest of the lack of gun control bills on the docket. 4 gun control bills, 2 by Democrats and 2 by Republicans, were brought up in the Senate a few days ago and they all failed due to party lines. The gun control legislation the Democrats want to vote on involves the no fly list (No Fly, No Buy). The ACLU opposes the use of the No Fly list (as well as the terrorism watchlist and selectee list) because it denies due process. In fact, a federal judge ruled the list unconstitutional.\n\nRepublicans actually staged a sit-on during a 5 week recess back in 2008 over energy spending bills. The House is majority rule and the Democrats are the minority right now.\n\nNow this is where it depends on how you feel about either party: Democrats want to force a vote on gun control legislation. However, the legislation they want to vote on uses an unconstitutional list. Now, why did the Democrats not pass any gun legislation a few years ago when they controlled both Houses? They even had a supermajority at one time. If you're cynical you could say that Democrats are doing this as a publicity stunt. In fact, the DCCC sent out 8 emails, many related to fundraising, last night.\n\nOn the Republican side, you could say that 1) Senate Rs already voted on gun control and they don't want to vote on gun control that is unconstitutional and denies due process. Or 2) They're bought and paid for and are shills of the NRA."
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[
" No child left behind was a bush era law that set up a new mandate. All students should be proficient in areas of reading writing and math. This is a good thing since it makes the basic skills very important to obtain. However it was up to the states to define proficiency. States set different levels and had different ways of seeing if you could do math reading and writing at the appropriate level. \n\nNow this isn't necessarily a bad thing either, but it compounded on other educational issues. For a long time the number of students in the classroom has been increasing steadily. 30, 40, 50 kids to one teacher is very hard to manage. Teachers have to sacrifice innovative ways of teaching to make sure the most kids possible passed the test. That meant that kids that could do the material if they were given a different way of looking at the problem never get that help.\n\nNo child left behind had an explicit goal, all children should be proficient. If a school failed to be proficient they were sanctioned. They had three strikes. Strike one: the school lost funding. Strike two: the staff of the school was reorganized. Strike three the school was closed and the school district had to bus those kids to anew school. \n\nNow schools that succeeded saw increased funding and so on, but the teachers were also put under more stress. They had to teach to what was on the test rather than to the interests of their kids. This lowers moral and the students see it. Already at risk students started falling through the cracks or were put in programs they really had no business being in.\n\nIf someone wants to add some positive accounts of nclb i'd appreciate it. Also I'm posting from my phone.",
" The House is in recess right now (could be wrong though) so the representatives there are basically sitting in protest and to draw attention to their cause. The House can go ahead and try to put a bill to vote or they could convene in another location if the Speak of the House decides to. That is in the procedural rules I believe"
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Given a question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit forum
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eli5
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What can a presidential candidate do with their campaign money?
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[
" If you are talking about PAC money there is pretty much nothing they can't do with that money. It goes towards they candidate not necessarily towards the campaign."
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[
" Most of it will go to pay the debts of the campaign. Often all of it.\n\nIf there are funds left over after all the bills are paid, federal election law is very specific about where that money can go. It's usually donated to another political campaign fund, like a house or senate fund or their political party.",
" The law limits how much money someone can give you when you run for office. \n\nBut your a smart politician, there is no law limiting how much money people can give to your buddy, who wants you to win. So he forms a committee and files with he FCC as a \"Political Action Committee\". Your buddy can now take UNLIMITED amount of ANYONE'S money and spend it on TV ads, mail ads, dinners, door to door, polls, and what not.\n\nNow your buddy can't been seen helping you directly, or put another way, you can't officially 'collaborate' on work, but this works out in your advantage. Your campaign can run all the positive ads saying how great you are, and your buddy's PAC can run negative ads attacking your opponents. If some one accuses you of running a negative campaign, you can shrug and say \"I don't work with that group, a PAC can say anything they want\".\n\nAlso there are A LOT of restrictions of what you can do with leftover campaign money after you win/loose and election, but there are almost no limits on PAC money, so you take your leftover campaign chest and turn it into a PAC, which you can then pay yourself a salary from. Herman Cain is doing this right now. \n\nEdit: Grammar"
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Given a question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit forum
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eli5
|
What does dynamic volumetric lighting mean?
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[
" Volumetric lighting is [like this](_URL_1_), light which cast rays and beams in some material like fog, dust and water.\n\nDynamic means the visible beams of light interact with with their surroundings. Like objects that get into those light beams [cast shadows](_URL_0_) themselves, instead of the light beam remaining uniform and the objects not casting shadows."
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[
" In order to light the indoor scene correctly, your camera needs to receive more light than if you wanted to perfectly expose the foliage outdoors. Because of this, the windows are white. In contrast, the indoor part is darker in the other picture because your camera needed to take in less light to expose the foliage correctly. \n\n *Dynamic range*, in photography, means the ratio between the least and the most light a sensor can process. Your eye has a higher *dynamic range* than the camera's sensor does, so it's able to correctly expose a scene with a larger difference in lighting than the average camera. In addition to having a higher DR, your eye can adjust these dynamically. /u/RhynoD explained it so well I don't think I need to reiterate!\n\nModern DSLR's actually have a pretty high dynamic range when shooting in RAW-file format. You can get a lot of details from over- and underexposed areas!\n\nedit: To showcase the RAW-format and its advantages, here is an image I'm working on currently in three stages, one without added exposure, one at +2 stops and one at -2\n\nregular: _URL_4_\n\n+2: _URL_3_\n\n-2: _URL_4_",
" One distinction missing in this thread so far is that Dolby Vision uses dynamic metadata whereas HDR10 uses static metadata. Metadata refers to information carried with the video stream to indicate (for example) the maximum light level of any single pixel and the maximum average light level of all 8 megapixels in a complete frame of UHD video. These values are used by the display when decoding the video stream and rendering the frame images. Dynamic metadata (Dolby Vision) means that you can have different light parameters for different scenes within the program, whereas static metadata (HDR10) means you need a single set of parameters that will be used for the entire program. You should get greater dynamic range in Dolby Vision if the program includes both dark scenes and bright scenes. But it is more difficult to decode (requires Dolby proprietary chip set) so HDR10 is more commonly available."
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Given a question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit forum
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eli5
|
Why do cartoon characters generally always wear the same clothes?
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[
" It's too much work and effort for the artists to draw a new set of clothes every episode. Plus, most cartoon characters are recognised by their clothing and have an \"iconic look\"",
" It's faster and easier, and therefore cheaper, to just draw the same character in the same clothes all the time."
] |
[
" Fun fact: the collar (without a shirt) that Yogi Bear wears helps hide the fact that his head—which moved a lot and had a lot of variations and positions—is often a different shade of brown from his body, which often was an animated walk cycle on a long loop. The collar separation was to help make that color shift less noticeable.\n\nHanna Barbera cartoons, a studio where these two tone shots frequently occurred, was reknowned for reusing a lot of animated cels and backgrounds. Matching color could be a bit of a trick. [Mark Evanier](_URL_0_), something of a cartoon historian, and who worked for Hanna Barbera when he was just starting out, could tell you a fair bit more with more accuracy.",
" To fit in with your surroundings. It's why we do a lot of things that don't make sense. Group mentality and also emulating someone you idolize or generally look up to. Ever seen a gaggle of girls all wearing the same outfit, have the same phone, talk the same way? One of them is the pack leader, the rest are emulating her to please her and fit in with the group. Guys do it to, \"jocks\" all wearing letterman jackets, skaters all wearing skinny jeans. Most people just want to fit in and be accepted."
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Given a question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit forum
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eli5
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Why has virtually every human civilisation created a religion?
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[
" Because our society has had religion in so central a role, we broadened the meaning of the term \"religion\" to encompass certain aspects of culture that are somewhat inherent in any culture.\n\nIf by \"religion\" you mean something similar to Christianity, Islam, Judaism, then no - not every civilization has created something like that. Not even close.\n\nBut if you start with the assumption that something in every civilization is their parallel to what we think of as religion, then you start using the word \"religion\" to refer to any system of rituals + beliefs that's widely shared or accepted in a culture, and you start thinking of them all as different kinds of the thing you call \"religion\". Which makes it misleading to ask why they all have religions."
] |
[
" The basic answer here is that Christianity and Islam became the official religions of empires that ended up conquering most of Europe and the Middle East. And, since they were monotheistic religions, they tended to replace rather than exist alongside the local religions in those places. \n\nJudaism is the odd man out since it survived less as a result of its own conquests, but because it is in a sense a prequel to Christianity and Islam, and so ended up being more like a \"sect\" of those two faiths in terms of how it was treated, rather than being absorbed or displaced. \n\nThere are, of course, other more specific factors as well, like the nature of the faiths, their own resistance to being co-opted, the displaced faiths being tied into political or social structures that were also outlawed, and particularities of history and culture.",
" Because each religion has their own heaven or afterlife..or maybe no concept of an after life at all."
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Given a question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit forum
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eli5
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Because electrolytes are important for cell signaling, nerve impulses, and muscle contraction in the human body, wouldn't an EMP also be dangerous humans?
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[
" No, because an EMP damages electronics by inducing a current in a long condutor. Nerves work by creating a wave of changing electrical potential (meaning that the charges move in and out of the cell, perpendicular to the direction of propagation). Plus, these waves are regulated by biochemical ion channels that only trigger under very exact circumstances and only in one direction.\n\ntl;dr nerves aren't wires and don't work like wires."
] |
[
" I don't understand your question. Are you talking about people getting electrocuted?\n\nWhen high voltages flow through your body, they cause your muscles to contract. Your muscles are controlled by your nervous system, which uses electricity to signal your muscles to open and close.\n\nSince there's so much electricity, it sets your muscles to \"close as much as possible\", and people cannot pull away. That's why if for some reason you needed to touch an electrified cable, you touch it with the back of your hand, so your arm can easily be jerked away.",
" Electricity in motion creates magnetism. Magnetism in motion creates electricity. So an EMP is a short, powerful burst of electromagnetic energy that creates short, powerful bursts of electromagnetic energy in anything that is electrical or magnetic. Some EMPs are naturally occurring, like lightning and solar magnetic flares, static-electric shocks that *zap* you, and the coil in a car that generates the energy needed for the spark plugs. A Jacob's Ladder, the sparky thing in the background of every mad scientist's lab in movies, works by emitting a series of EMPs. Lower-powered EMPs can create noise or interference in electronic devices; higher-powered EMPs might result in physical destruction.\n\nThey are generally short in duration, because the energy of a wave is proportional to its frequency, and frequency is inversely proportional to duration. A rapid spike creates a broad range of frequencies, which can in turn induce short bursts of whatever frequency nearby electronics are susceptible to. Being spread all over the spectrum means most electronics will be affected in *some* way, but again this response can be anywhere from mild noise to complete destruction, or anywhere in between.\n\nEMPs *are* capable of widespread destruction. Nuclear blasts generate EMPs as a secondary side-effect; non-nuclear bombs and missiles have been developed to create (comparatively) smaller EMPs.\n\nBut the way EMPs are portrayed in movies is *hugely* inaccurate. Most electronics would experience a little electromagnetic noise, or computers might reboot, but they would be fine after the pulse. Depending on the size of the EMP and how far away it is, electronic devices might actually short out, in which case they wouldn't come back on. As with lightning strikes, a powerful enough and/or close enough EMP might light fires or cause physical destruction. It is possible that the electrical grid could fail. Cars with electronic fuel injection or ignition might not start again, but gas-and-spark engines would be fine.\n\nThe scenario where an EMP goes off and we are immediately sent back to the Stone Age is entirely fictional. If we were to experience an EMP that could permanently destroy all electronics on the planet, it would be the least of our worries because such an EMP could only be created by ridiculously powerful events, like the sun exploding.\n\nIn movies, EMPs are always extremely selective. In \"Ocean's 11\" they used a 'pinch' - a portable EMP generator - to take out the electricity in Las Vegas. (Video clip of that scene, followed by testing of actual EMPs [here](_URL_0_).) But (non-nuclear) EMPs are created by letting electricity flow into a coil, generating a large magnetic field, and then shorting out the wire... the magnetic field rapidly dumps into the wire, creating a large surge of electricity. So back up a bit - if you create a huge magnetic field, wouldn't it be *magnetic*? A pulse large enough to take down the whole grid would have crumpled that van into a little ball or sent it out as shrapnel. And most electronics would have started right back up. The level of EMP that could take out the power grid would have hugely destructive other effects as well.\n\nEMPs big enough to cause lasting damage are accompanied by other effects or side-effects that cause damage. EMPs smaller than that have temporary effects. Delicate electronics, or anything too close to the source of the EMP, can be damaged, but everything else would be fine. The evidence for this is that there are probably a dozen EMPs near you right now. EMPs happen in your car, in neon signs, in televisions (CRTs, not digital). You can create small EMPs with a [battery](_URL_1_) and some [wire](_URL_2_). They occur naturally as lightning and static-electricity zaps. If you have a pacemaker you are probably hosed; delicate electronics might short out. But most things would be fine afterward, unless the EMP was created by something that has huge, non-electromagnetic, destructive potential."
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Given a question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit forum
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eli5
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Why is more fiber suggested as a cure for both constipation and diarrhea?
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[
" For diarrhea, the fiber will bulk up your stool because it is non-digestible. The little fibers will bond together like paper or plywood and solidify the excrement. For constipation, it's sort of the same deal. The fiber is non digestible and comprises a good part of the stool. This time it helps though because it's more slippery than whatever is blocking you up and helps your stool slide out."
] |
[
" Diarrhea is usually a result of the [Gastrocolic Reflex](_URL_10_) or the failure to properly digest something. \n\n[High fat foods induce a greater colonic motor response and increase the pressure](_URL_10_) of the muscle contractions called [Peristalsis](_URL_10_). \n\n > Furthermore, the fat meal induced a significantly higher (p < 0.05) number of simultaneous waves than the carbohydrate meal\n\nThe [Sigmoid Colon](_URL_10_) is specifically affected by the Gastrocolic reflex which may be caused by stomach distention, high fat food, spicy food, or for some people about anything. If you look at a [diagram](_URL_10_#/media/File:ColonSigmoideo.png) of the Sigmoid Colon, it is the closes section to the rectum and anus meaning the [colonic transit time](_URL_10_) is increased near your exit. \n\n > The sigmoid colon is more greatly affected than the right side of the colon\n\n[This bodily mechanism is greatest in the morning, after eating, and chemical stimulation (Caffeine, Nicotine, exercise).](_URL_10_)\n\n > What causes the burn?\n\nYou have many different [enzymes in your digestive system](_URL_10_), some of which may be irritating to the anus which is not suppose to come in contact with higher concentrations due to diarrhea. \n \nWhile many parts of your [gastrointestinal system do not have the same type of pain receptors](_URL_10_)we typically think of, your anus does. \n\n > the number of afferent nociceptive fibers in the intestine is minimal, and this accounts for the fact that large areas of the GI tract appear to be insensitive or to require considerable stimulation before pain can be elicited\n\n\n > How does this happen so fast\n\nYou already had food on the Left side and Sigmoid colon that hadn't had all of its water properly absorbed yet. The effect is strongest in the part closes to the exit, so the time it takes for transit may be only a few minutes. \n\n > Where and what is this mass amount of liquid coming from?\n\n[The mass amount of liquid is mostly digestive bile from various organs and water that is normally absorbed when food passes through your intestines at a normal transit time.](_URL_10_)\n\n > excessive amounts of solutes are retained in the intestinal lumen, water will not be absorbed and diarrhea will result\n\n > Large volumes of water are normally secreted into the small intestinal lumen\n\n > absorption of water occurs very inefficiently\n\n > accelerate transit time could decrease absorption, resulting in diarrhea even if the absorptive process per se was proceeding properly\n\nThe pathophysiology behind the gastrointestinal system is kinda amazing.",
" Two factors, really. \n\nFirst, is diet. Most modern american don't eat enough fiber because not only do we focus on meat as an entree but when we eat plants, or more accurately plant products, there's quite a bit of non-nutritious roughage that we discard. Primitive humans would have eaten more leafy stuff just because it's all over the place. There are products like metamucil you can get to supplement your fiber intake, which you really ought to do if you don't prepare your own meals that often. \n\nSecond, pooping posture. The natural position for humans to poop is on their feet, squatting. When you sit down on a toilet with your feet on the floor, your posture makes it so that there's an unnatural bend in your colon. This can make it so that trying to push out your poop is like trying to squeeze play-doh through a mold. There are products you can buy tailor-made to encourage the proper position, but really you just need something you can rest your feet on while you're doing your business. \n\nIf you do both of these, upping your fiber intake and changing your stance, you'll notice you work less at it, evacuate faster, and cleaning up is quicker and more efficient as well. If you're doing it right, you won't even have to wipe but you'll want to out of habit and just to be sure."
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Given a question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit forum
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eli5
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how do colds and flus strike with similar symptoms in geographically differing locations?
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[
" Flu works in a wave that starts from East Asia and works its way into Europe during the \"flu season\". It infects people in one town, then the next, then the next as people and animals move around. That is how it was explained to me."
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[
" As already mentioned, there are several types of viruses that can cause the common cold or flu, and within those viruses, there are several strains, all with different antigens (what our body recognizes to signal an attack on an infectious agent). If we catch a virus with antigens that our immune cells haven't seen before, it's like a new disease to our system. This is also why the flu vaccine is different every year and may not fully protect you (the CDC tries to predict which strains will be the most prevalent each year, and makes a cross-protective vaccine accordingly). In the same light, however, our immune cells more or less \"remember\" the antigens we've encountered over the years, so that is why your younger friend might catch a nasty cold while you don't feel as sick or not at all.",
" It doesn't go anywhere. It's still around, you can catch the flu in the summer, but the flu is a lot more easily transmissible in the winter.\n\nThe flu, like many diseases, is one that requires people to be quite close to one another to transmit the disease. In the winter, people will often stay inside buildings to get out of the cold, whether that building be a home or a workplace, which means there's more people in one area and they stay in there longer.\n\nThe flu is also more adapted to colder weather than warmer, which is why the same scenario doesn't have as big of an effect in the summer."
] |
Given a question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit forum
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eli5
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What's the difference between 1st, 2nd, 3rd degree murder, homicide, manslaughter, and murder?
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[
" Homicide broadly refers to the act of killing a human being (it comes form the Latin for 'the act of killing a man'). It includes murder, manslaughter, justifiable homicide, etc.; some types of homicide are illegal, others are not. \n\nThe others you mentioned are criminal offences that involve taking a life (i.e. illegal forms of homicide). They're going to have different names across different jurisdictions, but the differences are typically as follows:\n\n - 1st degree murder (or wilful murder) is the taking of a life with the conscious intent to kill someone, and having planned/premeditated the act beforehand. \n - 2nd degree murder is essentially 1st degree murder without the planning/premeditation.\n - 3rd degree murder *is* voluntary manslaughter (or in some jurisdictions, just manslaughter); this is the intentional killing of a person with neither conscious intent to kill, nor planning/premeditation. 'Crimes of passion' typically fall under voluntary manslaughter.\n - Involuntary manslaughter (or negligent homicide, or criminal negligence causing death) is the killing of a person without intent to kill (the other three require intent), stemming from a negligent act. For example, a drunk driver running someone over and killing them would be this - however in some jurisdictions, this is a separate crime called vehicular manslaughter or dangerous driving occasioning death. \n\nIn addition to the above, some jurisdictions feature the following:\n\n - Felony murder (or murder by constructive malice) is where someone dies as a direct result of another person committing a felony (such as armed robbery or kidnapping). This is typically considered first degree, and does not require an intent to kill. \n - Fetal homicide is where an assault on a pregnant woman causes her to miscarry or deliver a stillborn child."
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[
" **First degree**: Killer planned the murder in advance.\n\n**Example**: X goes to a particular bar with a gun because X knows Y will be there, and X wants to shoot Y such that Y dies.\n\n**Second degree**: Killer did not plan the murder in advance, but was not provoked into murder either. Self-defense deaths apply here. Aggression is involved and death is (obviously) possible, but not the goal.\n\n**Example:** X goes to a bar intending to beat up Y. Over the course of their fight Y falls & hits his head, leading to his death.\n\n**Third degree (aka Voluntary Manslaughter)**: Killer did not plan the murder but was provoked into it. \"Heat of the moment/Blinded by passion\" deaths. Circumstances must be considered to make a normal person act like a murderer, essentially.\n\n**Example**: X walks in on Mrs. X cheating on him with Y, and thus X stabs Y to death with the pocket knife he keeps on his person. (If X leaves the area to *get* a knife to stab Y with, this adds a potential first degree murder charge.)\n\n**Fourth degree (aka Involuntary Manslaughter):** Killer was negligent (intentionally or not) and it resulted in death. DWI/DUI deaths apply here.\n\n**Example:** X is inebriated and decides it'd be funny to shove Y into a body of water. Y gets caught in something and ends up drowning.",
" Basically the difference is intent and planning.\n\n**1st Degree Murder**: Intentionally causing the death of another, with planning, also known as murder in cold blood. (You lie in wait with a gun, for your intended victim.)\n\n**2nd Degree Murder**: Intentionally causing the death of another, but with no pre-planning. (For example, stabbing someone in a knife fight.) \n\n**Voluntary Manslaughter**: Intentionally causing the death of another, again with no pre-planning, but with unusual circumstances that alter your clear thinking. (For example, discovering your SO in bed with another, then shooting one of them.)\n\n**Involuntary Manslaughter**: Unintentionally causing the death of another, through negligence. (For example, running a red light or drunk driving, which causes the death of another.) Involuntary manslaughter can involve intention to commit a violent act (such as punching someone), but no intention to kill, even if death results (for example, punching someone which results in a brain hemorrhage and death)."
] |
Given a question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit forum
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eli5
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Now that the Freedom Act has passed, what does it mean for us?
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[
" The freedom act was basically, as I understand, a relabeling of the patriot act with watered down reforms.",
" Hey America. Rest of the world here. How are you? Just a quick heads up, if you are going to keep letting the government market legislation to you as things like 'The Patriot Act' and 'The Freedom Act' please don't whine the next time you get fucked over for swallowing bleach instead of soda pop.\n\nApparently it is a backronym for \n\n*Uniting and Strengthening America by Fulfilling Rights and Ending Eavesdropping, Dragnet-collection and Online Monitoring Act*\n\nThat is high level propaganda if ever I saw it. You should think about who designed it this way and why. It's dangerous and you shouldn't stand for it."
] |
[
" \"Freedom of speech\" means that the US government can't make a law that stops you from saying something. It does not apply to private organizations like colleges and businesses, who are allowed to make their own rules (like dress codes).",
" We respect freedom, even though we may find it distasteful how others choose to express it."
] |
Given a question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit forum
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eli5
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Why is salt iodized?
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[
" It's added to salt because it is a salt itself (in the form of potassium iodide). You can get it in tablet form as well (for people with deficiencies or when there is radioactive contamination), but it's more convenient to just add it to what you are already eating.",
" Others have already answered the rest of your question but to elaborate a bit, Iodine is used by your Thyroid gland to create Thyroid hormones (T3 and T4). These exert their effects on essentially all tissue and serve to increase the metabolic rate of cells (the rate at which cells produce energy and function), increase sensitivity to (nor)adrenaline effects in the body, increase heart rate/contraction, and increase heat production.\n\nA severe enough iodine deficiency can lead to hypothyroidism, which can involve weight gain, tiredness, feelings of cold, dry skin, and a puffy face among other things. It's also crucial to brain development in children, as such, cases of untreated childhood hypothyroidism can lead to mental retardation. Goitres can occur but are also potentially present in hyperthyroidism.\n\nEDIT: if you were asking what we need salt itself for, salt is sodium chloride, which when dissolved becomes sodium and chloride ions. Both are crucial electrolytes used in electrochemical gradients, which are the things your nerves use to send impulses, among many other critical functions in basically all tissue in your body."
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[
" Because solubility. Salt water is not water with salt in it. NaCl actually gets split into Na+ and Cl- when put in water.",
" These are good questions, but they're of the sort that sound simple but require somewhat complicated answers.\n\nTo answer the first question, healthcare workers caution against it constantly because sodium (not necessarily table salt) has been used to enhance flavor and preserve many different foods. Therefore most modern humans ingest far too much of it, but our biology is such that it craves salty foods (historically salt has been rare, and was the basis of payment in the Roman armies--the Latin root word that referred to salt has become the modern word \"salary.\" I encourage you to read up on it. It's quite intriguing but tangentially related to question at hand.)\n\nIt is absolutely needed. Nearly every cell in your body regulates its contents and the body as a whole regulates its fluid levels in different compartments (blood, intracellular, extracellular) primarily through sodium through osmosis. Furthermore, sodium is a very common carrier of electric charge. Therefore, two crucial functions are 1. regulate osmolarity (this is the number of particles in a fluid; think of marbles in a bowl of jello; the sodium ions would be the marbles and the jello, the fluid in which it exists). 2. Regulates charge (this refers to whether something is positively or negatively charged.) Sodium is a positive charge.\n\nNow, enough of theory. Why on earth does this cause problems? Sodium sounds so good! \n\nWell, it turns out, the body functions within certain limits. The heart can only pump so much fluid for so long for so hard at the level of efficiency needed to run the body. The heart is a pump--think how you might damage your car (its function of driving) if you overloaded the pistons with fluid so that they could not properly compress and combust. In the body, this is generally called heart failure. The heart compensates for a while, but eventually it comes to the limits of what it can do within physical constraints, and it may stop beating at that point.\n\nThe major reason why--or, say it this way, the most common problem that salt causes--health workers advise against ingesting too much salt is that salt increases the amount of fluid your body retains, in order to dilute the salt to \"physiologic\" levels. This refers to levels in which the body can properly maintain its correct osmolarity and chargeness.\n\nNow, this causes too much volume of fluid within the arteries and veins of the body. Take a moment to think about a balloon. No, really, think about it: if you keep filling a balloon that has a certain shape, what eventually happens? The balloon (assuming it doesn't burst) will deform and and its walls will thin. In a simplified way, this happens to the blood vessels of the body when fluid is retained secondary to excessive sodium. The body has ways of compensating, one of which is by thickening the vessels (itself a problem.) \n\nLike the balloon, those vessels can survive only so much deformation before they bubble out and burst (aneurysm), get so thick blood cannot flow properly (thrombosis, embolus, claudication, varicose veins), or follow any number of pathophysiologic processes (disease processes.)\n\nNow, there are many other health problems an imbalance of sodium (and other electrolytes) can cause, but this post focused on the major ones. \n\nSo, to summarize: Salt is needed to keep the proper amount of fluid in the right spaces. As if the heart is your car's engine and proper salt levels is keeping the oil in your car at the proper level--too much or too little will cause damage."
] |
Given a question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit forum
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eli5
|
Why do we sometimes breath with our bellies and other times with our chests? What is happening internally when we do either?
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[
" If you're meditating, definitely belly breathing.\n\nWhen you use your chest, you are holding your rib cage open, which pulls air in. When you relax is presses the air out.\n\nWhen you breath with your diaphragm, *realxing* your stomach and letting it distend is what puts negative pressure in your lungs and draws air in. When you contract your diaphragm, that presses the air out.\n\nThe distinction is that with one, you \"work\" to inhale, and relax to exhale. With the other it's the opposite.\n\nBelly breathing is how we were \"meant\" to breathe, and this is a lot clearer if you were on all fours like our ancestors, and not upright. When you position yourself like that, with your torso more or less horizontal, gravity holds your ribcage open and works with your belly to inhale. It's also how you see babies breathe before they start standing up."
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[
" Breathing through your stomach:\n\nMainly by contracting your thoracic diaphragm (separates thoracic cavity and abdominal cavity), which increases the volume of your thoracic cavity and draws in air.\n\n\nBreathing through your chest:\n\nMainly by contracting the muscles between your ribs (intercostal muscles), which again increases the volume of your thoracic cavity and causes air to be drawn in.\n\n\n\"Mainly\", because most of the time, you use a mix of both, slightly contracting your diaphragm and your intercostal muscles. And even if you \"breath through your chest\" your diaphragm will contract, too.\n\nWe can do this because \n\na) sometimes our body needs ALL the air it can get. And using two different methods at once is more efficient (higher increase in volume = > more air drawn in) and \n\nb) safer, because if one fails (or partly fails, think of a broken rib) you still got the other one",
" Your organs mainly go up. \n\nBetween your tummy and your chest, there's a muscle called the diaphragm. It is normally used to breathe (by pushing down to make room for air in your chest) but you can also use it to suck your gut in (by pushing up, so that there's more room in your tummy).\n\nYou may also notice that, when you suck your gut in, not only your tummy goes in but your chest goes out, which enhances the illusion that your gut is smaller. What happens is that basically you rearranged your organs, by pushing them up a bit, so that now the tummy is smaller and the chest is bigger."
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Given a question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit forum
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eli5
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What makes someone a back sleeper, side sleeper or stomach sleeper?
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[
" I used go be a front sleeper, sleeping on my chest with my head to the side, my partner still does this because it's more comfortable with breasts apparently. I don't because a few years ago I broke my neck and got very used to sleeping on my side. \n\nAnything can cause someone to sleep in a different position, I know my partner sleeps in an array of them in just 1 night. I tend to stick to my sides though.",
" Sometimes it's anatomy. If your hips are too wide, you might not be able to sleep comfortably on your side for long. If you have a bubble butt, you might sometimes wake up with a backache from sleeping on your back."
] |
[
" Anatomy can play a part. For fat people or women with large breasts, sleeping on their side or stomach may be uncomfortable. Conversely, people trying to avoid sleep apnea and certain back problems may avoid sleeping on their back. \n\nEven though [some](_URL_0_) have tried to tie it to personality, [others](_URL_1_) are skeptical. \n\nSo basically, it's random. Whatever makes you feel comfortable. Though people's bodies aren't perfectly symmetrical so everyone favors one side over another, which I'm sure has an influence.",
" Shape of their spine. People's backs are always changing shape, especially as they get older. When you're a kid you can sleep any which way. Then you experience life and your back gets beat up and you find only one way works best. \n\nMy sister in law is a physiotherapist. I used to only sleep on my back. Now, with a bunch of exercises and stretches she has given me, I can sleep on both sides and back. \n\nThis answer is not the whole truth, and I am not a professional sleep scientist or anything."
] |
Given a question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit forum
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eli5
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Is it likely that a diet including lab grown meat will have a lower climate footprint than a fully plant-based diet?
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[
" Plants are carbon negative. That's awfully difficult to discount. \n\nThe thing is: If eating animals, ergo farming animals is %13-%18 of greenhouse gas production, is a plant-based diet significantly better than a lab-meat diet. 18 vs probably -2 vs 0-1 \n\nThe real answer is either will be a huge win, and some people will not forgo meat, so the best is for people to do either, just to stop farming animals for food."
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[
" Adding on to what others have said about nutrition, eating vegetables is also a matter of availability. In Arctic regions, there really aren't many vegetables to eat, and so people there traditionally relied on animal products for all of their nutrition, getting vitamins from organs instead of plants, for example. In places with abundant vegetation, plant-based diets are much easier to get, offsetting the lower caloric intake. If you're not running around after deer, you don't need to eat as though you are. For many societies, meat has been the exception, not the staple. Having meat available every single day is a modern phenomenon, and not everyone can even afford that today.",
" Cold climates are better for prey animals, warm climates are better for predatory animals. And while warmer climates tend to have more diverse plant life, cold climates are perfectly hospitable for many varieties of plant life as well. \n\nIcebergs form as cold water travels along the polar regions due to ocean currents, which generally leads to nutrients and oxygen being trapped inside of them. As the ice melts during the summer, nutrient rich water (oxygen) comes flowing out with the currents."
] |
Given a question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit forum
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eli5
|
What are ionic, covalent, and metallic bonds? What makes them different from each other?
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[
" An ionic bond is when two atoms trade an electron, one atom gives it up, the other gets it. The two atoms become ions because of this. Then the electric charge of the two atoms attracts them together.\n\nA covalent bond is where the two atoms share 2 electrons. Basically the electrons start orbiting around both atoms in a figure 8 pattern (not really, but it is a good ELI5 analogy). \n\nMetallic bonds happen with metals. Basically metals tend to have more than 1 or 2 missing electrons. So instead all the metal atoms share a bunch of electrons between them. The atoms form a lattice or crystal structure and the electrons flow between all the metal atoms.",
" Ionic- these are atoms held together by the differing charges between each other. They're usually found in salts, what happens is one atom rips an electron from another atom that wants to get rid of it making the one that gained an electron very negatively charged and the one that lost an electron very positively charged, and in these bonds you'll usually find alkali metals mixed with elements on the far right of the periodic tables\n\n\n\n\nCovalent- these bonds are two atoms that both want their electrons, sometimes one might have it a little more than the other but it's not quite ionic because it's shared, the electron gets passed between the atoms in the bond and that's what keeps them together. Sometimes you can can a polar covalent bond when the electron spends alot more time with one atom than the other such as with a water molecule, the hydrogens are more positively charged because they hold on to the negative electron much less than the oxygen, which in turn is negatively charged.\n\n\nMetallic- this is found in pretty much all metals and it is also what allows electricity to flow so well in metals. It's kind of a mix between covalent and ionic bonds in a way. The atoms all lose an electron, but they also share them. The atoms are in a free soup of electrons that are allowed to jump around between atoms freely, this is also why metals are pliable and bendable, the bonds are free to shift around because they aren't technically fixed in one spot"
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[
" Atoms have electrons around them, and covalent bonds are formed when atoms share said electrons, right? As you may already know, it is possible for electrons to be shared equally (non-polar covalent), unequally (polar covalent), or entirely one-sided (ionic). [The following is a good visual representation of how electrons can be shared, starting at non-polar and progressing to a polar bond.](_URL_0_)\n\nLet's talk about the left-most image of F2. What this image shows is AN AVERAGE of electron locations. Electrons are madly moving around within these \"clouds\" and at times they'll be focused a little more on one side than another, which will give rise to a very temporary and miniscule dipole (dipole = magnetic charge). Moments later, they might bounce to another location. Rinse and repeat. Occasionally one of these small dipoles will interact with another small dipole from another molecule, and that is how non-polar molecules are \"attracted\" to each other. That is essentially Van der Waals forces. Additionally, that is also why longer carbon chains will have a higher melting point (the more two molecules are attracted to each other, the more energy you need to put in to separate them.) Overall, though, because the transient dipoles are so random and small they all essentially cancel each other out (which is why we consider the molecule to be non-polar/hydrophobic). \n\nHydrophilic molecules - [such as the one on the right](_URL_0_) - are a little different. On average, more electrons will be found on one side of a molecule than another, which is how they create their permanent dipole. This allows them to function like magnets. Electron-rich areas will have a negative charge (depicted by a Delta negative sign), and electron-deficient areas will have a positive charge (depicted by a Delta positive sign). As you might expect, positive charges attract negative charges and vice versa. \n\nSo when we're talking about mixing a hydrophobic substance with a hydrophilic substance, you're essentially mixing something that has a charge versus something that is neutral. It's not that they'll repel each other, but it's just that the molecules with electrical charges will have a tendency to attract each other and \"exclude\" anything that doesn't have a charge. That's why we'll see a solid separation of oils/fats and water.",
" Biology is a nasty business. It's all about chemical reactions, and chemical reactions, especially covalent ones, are all about the ionic states of atoms and molecules. Every atom has a \"standard\" number of electrons, which is equal to its number of protons. Hydrogen for example has one electron. Atoms hate to have certain numbers of electrons, so they seek to find ways to fill in the gap. The numbers of electrons atoms like to have is standardised and arranged into \"shells\", relatively speaking. The first shell is 2 electrons - any atom with fewer than 2 electrons will try to get to having 2 electrons. The next shell can contain 8 electrons, for a total of 10 electrons. Any atom with fewer than 10 electrons but more than 2 will try to get to having 10 electrons overall. Atoms are more \"comfortable\" when they have complete shells. \n\nCovalent bonding is really important in biology, it's how a lot of things happen and it determines most of the structure of proteins and so forth. It also determines the structure of DNA. Covalent bonding works as follows: Two atoms that both have incomplete shells notice each other and say \"Hey, I have this electron and you have that electron. Wanna share them?\" This lets atoms feel like they have the right number of electrons, and atoms kinda chill next to each other and move with each other when they're sharing electrons like this. \n\nMany metals have too many electrons, but are a long way away from completing the next shell. Instead, they seek to *lose* electrons. Atoms like this engage in ionic bonding. Rather than sharing electrons so that both atoms get full shells, these ions simply try to *get rid* of electrons, so that they have fewer shells, but all their shells are stable. When an atom gives away an electron like this, it gains a net positive charge, because it has more protons than electrons. Meanwhile, the ion that accepts the spare electron to complete its shell gains a net negative charge, because it has more electrons than protons. Normally, ionic bonding like this is pretty cool. They might become a crystal lattice, they might end up in solution, the positive and negative ions all floating around happy with their complete outer shells and electrical charge.\n\nThen there's free radicals. Free radicals are kind of like cellular terrorists. These molecules have an improper number of electrons, and really want to find something to glue themselves to. Free radicals are created by natural biological processes, since a lot of these processes deal with moving around electrons and sometimes some just end up in free radicals. Sometimes these extra electrons are even a vital component of biological processes - they're often intermediary steps in important chemical reactions.\n\nFree radicals really want to complete and stabilise their shells, so they float around and bump into stuff until they find some way to deal with it - typically by bonding to something that didn't want to be bonded to. This can cause chain reactions which ultimately destabilise or damage molecules, which can do lots of different things, including changing its shape or destroying it completely. Shape is really important for function in biology, so shape changing is bad. The worst thing a free radical can typically do is damage DNA. if it passes its electron into DNA, the DNA can mutate, and that can lead to cancer. Cancer sucks, so the body likes to fight it. It likes to do this by preventing their formation. Free radicals often form as a result of a process called oxidation. Antioxidants simply prevent this oxidation from occurring."
] |
Given a question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit forum
|
eli5
|
If electrons and protons are oppositely charged, why aren't they attracted to each other in the nucleus of the atom?
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[
" They are attracted to each other in atoms. The electric attraction between electrons and protons is what keeps atoms together. Electrons can only occupy certain states, the lowest of which is the 1S orbital, which has it's maximum on top of the nucleus. Since the VOLUME of the nucleus is effectively zero (as it's essentially a point on the scale of the electron's wavefunction.) the chance of the electron actually being there is essentially zero. As you get further away from the nucleus the chance per volume decreases, but the volume / radius increases. This means the electron spends most of it's time a certain distance away from the nucleus."
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[
" All substances (matter) is made up of smaller bits (atoms). These smaller bits also are made up of even smaller bits: protons, electrons, neutrons. Protons produce a force that repels other protons, but also attracts electrons. Likewise, electrons repel other electrons but are attracted to protons. These forces are called charges, and the designation for protons' charge is positive, and electrons' charge is negative. Neutrons have a neutral charge.\n\nProtons and neutrons make of the inner portion of atoms, called the nucleus, while the electrons spin around the exterior in an electron cloud. The charges keep the atom held together, but sometimes, the electrons can get pulled away. A great example is with static electricity. If you take a glass rod and place it against a piece of paper, not much happens. Here's a simplified version of the charges:\n\nGlass rod: 10 atoms (10 protons, 10 electrons) - > net charge 0\n\nPaper: 10 atoms (10 protons, 10 electrons) - > net charge 0\n\nSome electrons may be attracted and some may be repelled, but for the most part since the net charge is 0 for both, there's not much exciting going on (yet).\n\nIf you take a glass rod and rub it against a silk cloth, the electrons in the glass rod can get passed onto the silk cloth, giving the glass rod a charge:\n\nGlass rod: 10 atoms (10 protons, 10 electrons) - > net charge 0\n\nSilk Cloth: 10 atoms (10 protons, 10 electrons) - > net charge 0\n\n < RUB CLOTH AGAINST ROD > \n\nGlass rod: 10 atoms (10 protons, 6 electrons) - > net charge +4\n\nsilk cloth: 10 atoms (10 protons, 14 electrons) - > net charge -4\n\nThe glass rod now is more positive because it lost a few electrons, and the silk rod is also more negative because it gained those electrons. \n\nIf you hold the glass rod against the paper:\n\nGlass rod: 10 atoms (10 protons, 6 electrons) - > net charge +4\n\nPaper: 10 atoms (10 protons, 10 electrons) - > net charge 0\n\nIt sticks! Even though the paper's net charge is 0, the glass rod's charge is more positive, so there's an attraction between the two. Notice that it doesn't work long though. The electrons in the glass rod will be attracted to the paper, so eventually both net charges are 0, and the paper no longer sticks.\n\nIf you rubbed the silk cloth against the glass rod again, and then [held](_URL_0_) the glass rod to a *metal* doorknob:\n\n < SPARK!! > \n\nGlass rod: (10 protons, 10 electrons) - > net charge 0\n\nDoorknob: (10 protons, 10 electrons) - > net charge 0\n\nSo what happened? Metal objects have the property that their electrons really like to flow away from them, meaning that most, but not all, metals are very good conductors of electricity. As you held the positively charged rod closer to the neutral-charged doorknob, *compared to the glass rod*, the doorknob was more negative. This caused the such a charge difference between the glass rod and the metal doorknob that the air became a conductor, and the spark appeared. The end result is both the doorknob and glass rod have neutral charges. Test this to make sure: after making a spark, place the glass rod against the paper, does it stick?",
" you already know that everything is made of atoms with a number of positively charged protons at the core and a cloud of negatively charged electrons around that. (There are also non-charged neutrons at the core, but I'll ignore those.) In general there are an equal number of protons and electrons so things have no net charge. However, there's a structure in the cloud of electrons that means it prefers to have a certain number of electrons (2, 10, 18, 36 are all preferred). Because of this there is a bit of a balancing act between and atom having the same number of electrons as protons, and having the right number of electrons in it's cloud. This balance is what allows atoms to bond to one another and form molecules. When the number of protons is the same as one of the stable electron clouds, you get the \"noble gasses\" which generally don't react with anything (this is the right hand column in the periodic table).\n\nOne of the ways that atoms can react is by making an \"ionic bond\". This means one atom takes an atom from another atom, and then the charge of the two atoms (one positive, one negative) holds the atoms together. The most common example of this is table salt, or sodium chloride. Sodium (which has a chemical symbol of \"Na\") has 11 electrons, Chlorine (\"Cl\") has 9, by transferring one electron you get Na+, and Cl- which then stick together and form a salt crystal.\n\nStatic electricity is similar. The plastic is a bit more stable if it has fewer electrons, and the wool is a bit more stable if it has more. This preference isn't so strong that either one will become charged just sitting there, but when rubbed together one is pushing and one is pulling so an electron can be transferred. Since neither plastic nor wool conducts electricity well this charge remains when they are separated. The charge will eventually go away (e.g. by being transferred to to air which will carry it away), but it takes time.\n\nThe name for this is the [Triboelectric effect](_URL_0_) and people have made [charts showing how strong the transfer of charge is](_URL_1_)."
] |
Given a question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit forum
|
eli5
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What's the function of electricity in the electric guitars, what does it exactly do?
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[
" \"Electric\" guitars don't use electricity, they make it when their metal strings vibrate within the magnetic field created by the pickups located beneath the strings. This electrical current is then sent out of the guitar to an amplifier where it is converted to a sound wave and broadcast through a speaker. Along the way, the electric signal is also often passed through a variety of \"effects\" which alter the original signal and add all sorts of new sounds like distortion, reverb, delay, compression, etc...",
" The pickups, little square magnets act as generators, making an electrical signal that is analogous to the strings movement. That signal is amplified, distorted, and otherwise to make the sounds we know. An electric guitar literally turns magnetic fields into electric"
] |
[
" Most of the power comes from the amp, which is plugged into the wall. Some electric guitars do have what's called active pickups, which will add power to the system. The ones I've had take a 9v battery every year or so.",
" They create an magnetic field and then sense the subtle changes in that field from metal objects moving above them. In this case, the metal strings of an electric guitar. This is why electric guitars only ever have metal strings (not nylon, as acoustics often do). Those subtle changes are turned into electrical signals and sent to an amplifier for making into audible sounds.\n\nNote this applies only to traditional \"humbucker\" style pickups, they look like rows of small metal circles and are situated behind/under the strings. There are also contact microphones, that are single quarter-sized round objects attached to the body of the guitar near the strings. These are fundamentally just taking the normal vibrations of the guitar strings and body and amplifying them, and don't use the same principle at all.\n\nBoth types are covered here: _URL_0_"
] |
Given a question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit forum
|
eli5
|
why do so many people hate Obama? The economy is back up and unemployment is down? What has he done wrong?
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[
" I think you can basically chalk it up to \"spin\". \n\nThe republicans and democrats are locked in a never-ending struggle for political power. Regardless of what's true or sensible, they'll both take any opportunity to make the other team look bad. \n\nFor some reason, most private citizens and media outlets also buy into this game, and will go along with the attempts to make the other team look bad. \n\nSo, (it bears mentioning that it was similar in the Bush Jr. years), party loyalists will always say the other team's president is the absolute worst, literally hitler, trying to throw people in prison camps, etc. This is regardless of the fact that the sitting president's record is usually pretty mixed, with some successes and some failures. \n\nMore specifically about the economy, the stock market is up, GDP is up, employment is up, but wages are pointedly NOT up unless you're rich. So basically people are working their asses off for the same or less money, and healthcare is getting more expensive every year. So, the vast majority people really do have a reason to be unhappy with the economy, because the upturn isn't helping them much or at all. \n\nNow, whether this is actually obama's fault, the Fed's or congress' (it's all 3 in various ways) is not important, what's important is for the GOP to shit all over Obama as often as possible, to score points in the political game. So that's basically why you see all the Obama hate. \n\nAlso, some racism, but that's probably less dominant than the other factors above. Obama being black is just one tool in the GOP toolbox of making the other team look bad. It's very effective with certain people.",
" Structural long term unemployment is still a very serious issue. So, saying that the economy is back up is not unambiguous.\n\nI think the biggest problem with the President is that he just doesn't like politics and this has hampered his ability to sell his policies. He has been very effective in getting policies enacted (his first term has a huge number of accomplishments) but hasn't quite mastered how to pull the conversation favorably in his direction. As a result, Republicans in Congress do not fear him and Democrats do not particularly love him. The result is tepid enthusiasm by those who should be enthusiastic about his policies."
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[
" Better question is if all the people hated things when George Bush did it, why do they seem fine with it when Barack Obama does it. There is little difference between the two. Bush gave tax cuts....Obama has done the same while increasing spending. Bush started a war on shaky knowledge and without public approval....Obama has secretly killed American citizens in foreign countries violating treaties, and armed Mexican drug cartels (all while asking Americans to hand over their guns). I will probably only ever vote for independent candidates for the rest of my life. Better to be part of the losing team than to be part of the problem. I don't mean to stir up controversy either, but it bugs the hell out of me. And I can't imagine how it looks to the rest of the world.",
" I do not think that he has done a good job. I do commend him for going all out for what he believes, what else can you ask for in a president. We just have completely different ideas on how to run the country. A few things I don't like..\n\nAllowing ISIS to rise by pulling out of Iraq too early, we never should have been there in the first place but once we were, leaving a broken state up for grabs was a bad idea.\n\nObamacare. A mess of a bill that was passed in a rush and now insurance premiums are going through the roof. Everyone predicted that would happen and I really believe that it was just an attempt to move us towards universal healthcare by spiking the prices. I would remove state lines on health insurance.\n\nInsane debt hike: Obama has spent more than every other president combined. This is partially due to Obamacare as well, another reason why I hate it. We are in insane debt and we cannot keep going at this rate.\n\nMeddling in lower level court cases. Obama makes statements about court cases, solely involving \"white on black\" crime, and seems to always be on the side of the victim before a court case has even been settled. I think he has dramatically increased racial tensions. If he really needs to meddle in the judicial branch at least wait until the case has been finished.\n\nZero illegal immigration reform and has even tried to promote amnesty. Even Bernie is against weak borders"
] |
Given a question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit forum
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eli5
|
how is a website's price calculated?
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[
" OK, so if you mean *how does one work out how much it costs to host a website?*\n\nThe main factors are:\n\n* storage\n* how many requests (visitors) the website needs to be able handle per hour\n* whether or not the website needs to be able to handle variable data (CMS) or just serve static pages (although this is largely down to what you need the site to do specifically, as either way it's a request from the server.)\n\nIf you mean *Why should I pay so much for a website to be designed?*\n\nThe main factors are:\n\n* The complexity of the website.\n* What you need the website to be able to do. (E-Commerce is more complicated than a blog, which in turn is more complicated than a static page with a gif of a donkey on it.)\n* Both of the above factor into how much time is required to complete the site.\n* Revisions and changes aren't (usually) free."
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[
" The price you see quoted is typically the price of the last trade, as reported by a computer.\n\nBefore computers, people on the floor of the stock exchange would barter. People who wanted to sell would offer shares for a price and if they couldn't get any buyers, they'd keep lowering the price until they could. Similarly, people who wanted to buy would keep raising their price until someone would be willing to sell, and in either case the price of the last trade would be the reported price for that stock.\n\nThese days it's done on computers. People who trade stocks put in orders of the form \"Buy 100 shares of TSLA when the price falls BELOW 195.0\" or \"Sell 100 shares of AAPL when the price falls above 120.0\". Those trade requests get sent to a computer that makes the trades happen automatically.",
" Gets people to spend more. \n\nSame reason why most prices are not rounded. \n\n$4.99\n\n14,995\n\n\nStrangely enough studies have shown that menu prices in restaurants that just show a whole dollar figure make the diner feel like the restaurant is more luxurious. I.e. 12- vs $11.95."
] |
Given a question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit forum
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eli5
|
Why do some courts insist that people swear on the bible, if the bible itself says swearing by or on anything is basically a sin?
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[
" The bigger question is, why do we swear on bibles in a court that should recognize the separation of church and state.",
" It's very very very rare (if at all) that court proceeding have individuals swearing on the Bible. Though, some elected officials do take their oath of office on the Bible (or any other religious symbol), if they choose to do so.\n\nEDIT: WOW! Go away a few hours, watch *The Walking Dead* and come back to a ton of comments. It seems that I stand corrected that swearing on the Bible is not as very very very rare as I thought and happens in quite a few states still. Consensus seems to be that if the Bible is used that it is not mandatory and an individual can be affirmed."
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[
" When I was getting divorced here in the US, they asked me to swear on the bible and I said I wasn't going to be able to do that. It caused a bit of a brief stir as my lawyer was apparently supposed to ask me this ahead of time. They had me essentially swear on the US and state law that I was telling the truth.",
" essentially, they want them to swear on something that means a lot to the person... most of our presidents have been christian, and so most have sworn on the holy bible, it's not required to swear on the bible, it is the persons choice to do so"
] |
Given a question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit forum
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eli5
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How do pilots perform emergency/forced landings?
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[
" An emergency landing in an airliner is just like a regular landing, except that the aircraft is given priority to proceed towards, and land, at the nearest suitable airport.\n\nThe nature of the emergency determines how much additional risk is involved.\n\nAt the low end are passenger medical issues, which essentially add no risk. Then you have engine failures and cabin depressurizations. While risk from these incidents is marginally higher, pilots train to deal with them like it's just an unusual day at the office. The highest risk emergencies are those which affect multiple aircraft systems (like multiple engine failures), or cause major structural damage, and for which no specific procedure exists.\n\nFamous examples of these include the United DC-10 that crashed in Sioux City in 1989, and the Air Transat Airbus that ran out of fuel and landed in the Azores about 12 years ago.\n\nAirliners make emergency landings every day somewhere in the world, almost always without incident.",
" If the aircraft is still controllable, it's landed as a glider (assuming engine failure). Emergency procedures are drilled over and over and over again. Emergency runways can include anything from highways to rivers to dirt roads depending on speed, maneuverability, type of aircraft, and type of emergency.\n\nIf the aircraft is no longer under pilot control, ejection is the way to go."
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[
" I fly commercial aircraft for a major air carrier in the United States. All taxiing is done using a tiller on the Captain's side that has electronic linkage to the nose wheel. Once in position for takeoff, pilots either fly the plane by hand or let the autopilot take control depending on how sophisticated the plane is. My company's policy is to hand fly the plane to at least 600 feet above the ground before engaging the autopilot. The autopilot must be turned off prior to 400 feet in visual conditions (the pilot can see the runway), or as low as 100ft in instrument conditions (the pilot cannot see the runway). That is not to say the pilot cannot choose to hand fly the plane longer. I usually hand fly up to 10,000 ft and then engage the autopilot, then disengage it at about 5000 feet and hand fly it in to the runway. There is certain airspace known as RVSM at 29,000 to 41,000 ft where the autopilot must be engaged per FAA regulation. This is to reduce the likelihood of pilot error causing a mid air collision. \n\nTLDR: the pilots usually fly the takeoff and landing and allow the autopilot to fly the enroute portion of the flight.",
" Airline pilot here. Practice makes perfect. Also, great number of my and other colleagues landings are usually far from perfect, but hey, we try."
] |
Given a question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit forum
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eli5
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How do news outlets like Vice News ensure their journalists survive when doing documentaries like The Islamic State?
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[
" It's not just who you know, it's who do you know that know other people. \n\nJournalism, and not the punditry we've grown accustom to through major news outlets, is about finding these people and learning their stories. People like ISIS, Syrian Rebels, minors in Chile, etc... want their story told, but they know there are risks in telling their story and they may be reluctant to trust a journalist who might \"misrepresent\" them.\n\nSometimes the channels required to arrange these kinds of documentaries/interviews/exposees require a lot of \"I know a guy, who knows a guy, who knows a guy whose brother could get you a meeting with [group name here]\" conversations where the sources are putting themselves in danger (either with their group, or enemy groups) for the simple act of arranging a meeting. Sometimes the people actually going into the field have formed a friendship with the people they're interviewing after months of talking; a single friend in a war torn region can literally save your life when you're talking to people that behead journalists for propaganda purposes. Many times these journalists are putting a lot of trust in their sources. They might get out of the airport, get in a cab and stay at a safe house for a few weeks while the organization debates what to do with them. \n\nUltimately they're able do these documentaries because the group they're filming has already given them freedom to do so long before the filming takes place. There is a lot of risk and when we hear stories of journalists getting beheaded, it can sometimes be because they got into the wrong taxi on their way to meet a source that would have arranged them an interview with the very group that kills them-a large group like ISIS doesn't know every member of its organization so saying \"bob can speak for you\" means fuck all when a different cell hasn't even heard of a bob. \n\nFor groups that don't rely on external displays, like a drug cartels, rebels and such, reporters are usually given a background check long before they come close to anybody in person, and the group will simply drop contact if they don't like/trust the reporter. \n\nThis is where the idea of \"journalistic integrity\" comes in. The right to free press, in the US and other places, includes a protection of these sources, but not every outlet will protect their sources (too much anonymity can discredit a story after all), sometimes a news outlet will gain a reputation for misrepresenting a source and not be trusted by some groups. For an outlet like Vice, they're able to get the stories they do because A: people watch vice (remember, they want their story to be told), and B: Vice's has a reputation for not misrepresenting their sources, giving them more weight and scoring them more high profile documentaries. \n\nIn short: these groups want their story to be told, journalist will seek out members of these groups through various channels (sometimes easy, sometimes very hard and sometimes not fully legal (but the journalists may be protected depending on their country)). The documentaries might be impassive but behind the camera these journalists are usually on friendly terms with people who want us to understand them better.\n\nBecause even a group like ISIS is full of a individuals who see themselves as something more than a political affiliation. And if anybody want's to do an interview with a terrorist group/militant group/white supremacist organization etc, etc... they better be prepared to talk to them as people first and party members second. \n\nI hope that made sense.",
" ISIS, despite their reputation, are neither stupid (mostly) nor aimless. This is true for most terrorist groups if not all.\n\nNews agencies cannot guarantee their journalists survival but they can negotiate with them in order to allow its journalists to do a documentary about them. This deal is likely to have a bunch of conditions attached and even then, there's small chance of this agreement being ignored.\n\nThis is one method. The other method is to film undercover."
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[
" As a general rule, its best not to get your \"facts\" from Vice or any other media outlet. They are selling the story, not educating.",
" In general they can arrange with rebels to get in and report. \n\nIt is not difficult to get in to rebel or IS held areas from the Turkish, Saudi , or Jordanian borders although journalists are not likely to reveal exactly where or how they crossed. \n\nPeople who report on IS tend to be locals (like in the vice news video), or make a special arrangement with IS. For instance, PBS Frontline got a local a special arrangement with the Taliban to follow and report on them. It is harder with IS since they tend to be harsher to journalists than the Taliban, but you get the idea. You need contacts and connections to report on such groups."
] |
Given a question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit forum
|
eli5
|
How does Directv get anti-cable commercials played on cable?
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[
" Generally, when you want an advertisement played on TV you pay the Channel not the cable/satellite provider. So, for example, DirectTV could pay ESPN to play a DirectTV ad. \n\nWhen a cable company provides a specific channel, they generally pay that channel for the privilege and get no real say over what that channel plays. As such, if DirectTV has bought an ad on ESPN that ad will be shown on ESPN whether it's being broadcasted by a cable company or a satellite company."
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[
" A couple possibilities-\n\nCable companies insert ads over existing ads per agreement. Computers run the automation and it could be timed on a clock or sent by \"tone\"...well, sometimes it takes a second for the playback to get up to speed, so you see the top of the underlying commercial.\n\nAt a tv station, the MCO may be running his break a split second late, so you see the underlying commercial.",
" A lot of the anti-trust scrutiny of cable companies relates to *direct* competition. Suppose you have two cable companies and have each one serving exactly 50% of the country, but with no overlap. They merge, forming a perfect monopoly -- but no individual customer is left with fewer choices. In some mergers the cable companies have agreed, in cases where they serve the same city, to sell off one of their networks in that city so that it would remain a customer choice.\n\nOf course, when you have two giant \"competing\" cable companies with millions of customers each but only a handful of places they *actually compete*, then it becomes clear that competition was already broken *before*, and the merger wasn't really the problem."
] |
Given a question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit forum
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eli5
|
How can a computer solve a Captcha?
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[
" Captchas are made to be hard for computers to solve, they are meant as a test to verify that an actual human is doing something (such as signing up for an account).\n\nSome captchas are unfortunately not hard enough, and a programmer can make a piece of software which can read it anyway. This is usually called OCR (Optical Character Recognition) software.\n\nFor example Adobe Acrobat has a feature, where you can scan a page of text, and then you can make Acrobat run OCR on it, such that the text is understood by the computer, which makes the scanned page searchable, and copyable. It is basically the same concept, though the algorithm has to be made especially for breaking captchas, otherwise you probably won't get it to work."
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[
" The human visual system is remarkably good at understanding what something is even when really distorted, computers are not so much (at least now). Most recognition of letters/objects by a computer are done via neural networks, and requires a large training set of examples of objects it is trying to classify. Captchas try to distort the characters randomly each time and in various ways, or use a huge set of real images, which means a neural network trying to classify them would not have likely seen enough examples very close to it to successfully classify the characters/images.",
" The Captcha is a graphic, not text. So a web robot can't just read the text from the HTML code, it has to actually do optical character recognition on the image. Which is why they make the characters all distorted, with different colors and patterns. Humans are pretty good at recognizing the letters in the randomness. Machines have a harder time so it makes it more difficult for the robots (but not impossible)"
] |
Given a question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit forum
|
eli5
|
What a Carmichael number is?
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[
" [Fermat's Little Theorem](_URL_0_) is a cute number theory result, which says that if p is any prime number, and a is any number not divisible by p, then a^p-1 - 1 is divisible by p. \n\nHowever, the opposite of this is not true. For example, there are numbers p for the above formula holds, but p is not prime. These numbers are called carmichael numbers. \n\nFor example, let p = 561, and let a be any number which doesn't share a common factor with p. Then it can be proven that a^p-1 - 1 is divisible by p, but p = 3 * 11 * 17, so p is not prime."
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[
" This one is a bit of a problem for me to explain so hopefully there is someone with a stronger mathematics/CS background that can do it easier. \n\nAny number that can be explained, whether plainly or by algorithm, through a program is a computable number. This includes almost every number, however there are exceptions; basically numbers which will halt a program before completion. The only non-computable number I am aware of is Chaitin’s Constant/Construct. \n\nBasically it claims that each program has a normal and transcendental number that is not computable. Which as a group are referred to as CC’s Omega. The wiki should provide a pretty good explanation.",
" Transcendental numbers are by definition irrational. They are defined as numbers which are not algebraic, and rational numbers are a subset of algebraic numbers. So nope, you can't represent them using any single rational number.\n\nHowever, you can approximate them as closely as you like using decimal expansion, which is how we write pi, for example. pi = 3.1415926535...\n\n3.1415925435 is a rational number, and what my statement means is, pi is somewhere between 3.14159265350 and 3.14159265360. It's not exact value, but at least you have now pretty good idea what I mean when I say \"pi\".\n\nIf you use infinite number of rational numbers, you however can pinpoint any irrational number.\n\n1. 3\n2. 3.1\n3. 3.14\n4. 3.141\n5. 3.1415\n6. 3.14159\n7. 3.141592\n8. 3.1415926\n9. 3.14159265\n10. 3.141592653\n11. 3.1415926535\n12. ...\n\nThis sequence will, in infinity, pinpoint what pi really is. But since we can't type out infinite sequences like that, it's a bit pointless. However, with irrational numbers, that's generally all we really have to work with. That's also why pi is a named symbol. We can't type it using numbers, so we need to name it to be able to talk about it."
] |
Given a question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit forum
|
eli5
|
Why do some soft tissue muscle injuries take several months to heal
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[
" My guess is that you're thinking about strains and sprains, which aren't muscle damage at all but actually damage to the tendons (bind muscle to bone) and ligaments (bind bone to bone). A piece of tissue's ability to heal itself directly corresponds to the amount of vascularization–i.e. blood–it has. Tendons and ligaments are *very* poorly vascularized, so the chemicals and cells needed to repair them aren't able to travel to them very easily. Skin, muscle, and body cavity tissues, on the other hand, are vascularized out the wazoo and heal relatively quickly."
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[
" Muscle fibers tend to be this type of longish cells.\nWhen you work out and go through several cycles of lengthening and contraction of the fibers some regions will be weaker than others so you will have small tears within your muscle.\n\nThis causes slight levels and inflammation that help recruit repair tools to strengthen these weaker, damaged regions of your muscle. \n\nIn this process the tissues around the repair region accumulate liquids and all the cells and signals that will do the repair and reconstruction putting some pressure over the local nerves.\n\nThis is perceived as pain.\n\n\nThe previous model suggested that it was just accumulation of lactic acid (what you produce when you exhaust all the energy available in the muscle is consumed and you go into anaerobic mode), and that the lactic acid would be a toxic metabolite inducing pain.",
" It would be more accurate to call it micro-damage. Placing a lot of mechanical stress on muscle fibers tends to cause damage to microscopic cell components (sarcomeres). The cell itself is still perfectly healthy, so nothing is broken beyond repair. Sarcomeres are the components that produce force by contracting.\n\nWhen the components of the muscle fibers are damaged, molecules from them are released. These molecules signal other molecules and a huge chain of metabolic events starts up. Some of the major things that end up happening are hormones, like Human Growth Hormone and testosterone, being released.\n\nUltimately, the damaged sarcomeres get repaired rather quickly at the molecular level, which recovers your muscle back to normal. Also, your body adapts to the exercises (mechanical stress) by creating more sarcomeres. More sarcomeres require more space inside their muscle fibers, so they grow.\n\nTL/DR - This refers to molecular damage, not cell or tissue damage.\n\nPS - increasing muscle size is not the only thing that makes you stronger. your nervous system also adapts to exercise by modulating signal strength and improving the coordination of individual muscle fiber contractions."
] |
Given a question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit forum
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eli5
|
Why do people keep blaming Obama for the things he wasn't able to accomplish instead of congress?
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[
" Because Obama had a Democratic Congress for two years. \n\nBecause Obama blaming congress for the fact that he didn't close Guantanamo, expanded the war in Afghanistan, increased federal raids of legal pot dispensaries, and murdered a US citizen without trial, is disingenuous.\n\nAnd because when Bush didn't accomplish something, he was blamed, not Congress.",
" Obviously a lot of it has to do with the fact society sees a president as a figurehead for government. However, President Obama and particular ran a *hugely* promise-heavy campaign filled with signs that said \"Hope\" and \"Change\". \n\nI agree that unrealistic campaign promises are a huge problem for all candidates, but Obama's campaign was particularly guilty of this, to the extent that it made people feel that his election would turn the paradigm of crooked politics on it's head. When this didn't happen, people don't care if it's congress's fault, *he* was the one who promised over and over that he was the \"Change we could believe in\"."
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[
" I do not think it is accurate to say that Congress does not get things done. It manages to spend trillions of dollars every year. It manages to pay for the military adventures of whomever is president. I think it is more accurate to say that the American public cannot get along and that fact is being manipulated to hide all the terrible wasteful things congress does in fact manage to do.",
" Because we all learned at an early age that the president has a limited set of influence on the government as a whole, and congress are the ones who actually decide issues like this. Incidentally congress are mostly old people who really don't give a shit about how the internet is used, and will line their pockets with money from whoever is lobbying them the hardest.\n\n\nPeople love to blame the president for *everything* these days, and it's obnoxious."
] |
Given a question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit forum
|
eli5
|
Why are Kinder eggs still banned in the US but other food with toys in them, like Yowie and Choco Treasure, are not despite basically being the same?
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[
" In the US, any candy that contains a toy has to be approved by the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Choco Treasure goes through this regulatory requirement. Kinder Eggs do not. So, since they haven't proven to the US Government that their product is safe, they can't be sold here.\n\nIf there ever was a desire by Ferrero to market Kinder Eggs in the US, they would go to the expense of getting them certified for sale here. But clearly, they don't think it's worth the expense.\n\nRemember, it's not the Kinder Eggs are specifically banned. ALL candy containing toys are banned unless they are CPSC approved.",
" The US bans non-edible things being \"embedded\" inside food, which is reasonable enough if it stops someone selling a chocolate bar with bits of plastic in it. However, the plastic capsule inside a Kinder egg is also considered to be embedded, and banned even though there's little chance of you trying to eat the egg whole and choking on the capsule. The legal versions avoid the ban by having a ring of plastic which protrudes from the capsule to the outside. Now you don't have a plastic capsule embedded in a piece of chocolate, you have two separate pieces of chocolate outside a plastic capsule."
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[
" The only place I've seen the knockoffs is at mom and pop type marts and privately owned grocery stores. There was no plastic piece separating the chocolate like the picture posted above. It was small plastic toys inside a full chocolate hollowed egg. They were delicious but also probably bought illegally. Now if they realized it was illegal or not I have no idea. I bought the entire pack and my kid loved it!",
" It is *because* they have a less diverse population.\n\nIn the US, specialty foods tend to remain a small segment of the population, and only the lowest common denominator things, like chocolate, circulate in the broader market.\n\nBut in Japan, if one person likes a specialty item, it is more likely the entire country will."
] |
Given a question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit forum
|
eli5
|
Why do almost all countries still have speed limits on highways, even though Germany has no speed limit and has a low crash rate?
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[
" I used to live in Germany many years ago, so disclaimer that this info may be old. \n\nAlthough the Autobahn mostly has no limits, parts of it do (near exits, etc.) and there is a \"recommended\" speed for the rest... roughly 120km/h.\n\nGerman citizens have their permits for exactly a year, during which they are kept to strict standards about what it takes to A) keep it and B) obtain a license. When I was there, I had a friend who was 18, still on her permit. She refused to drive anywhere but from work to home, because she told me that if she gets into so much as one accident, she'd lose the opportunity to get a license. \n\nEven getting in trouble for speeding on the metered highways could result in bigger ramifications than it does in the United States.",
" As a German, the reason lies probably in that you need to reverse your question – why has Germany not yet introduced a general speed limit? Because what really matters is what is by the countries seen as desirable and a thing to work towards. And a general speed limit is what is seen as the \"better\" thing, which leaves Germany as a bit of a holdout. \n\nThere are actually frequently noises made about introducing a general limit here, too, but no politician ever dares to make a serious move. We Germans are serious about our cars and driving, and there is a strong lobby working towards keeping things as they are and preserving the interests of all car drivers. The German automobile club ADAC is the biggest auto club in Europe and has currently over 19 million members (in a country with 82 million inhabitants), and they also have a thing or two to say whenever the idea of a general speed limit rises its head.\n\ntl;dr: \nGermany with its Autobahn with no speed limit isn't seen as something to aspire to by other countries, but is instead a lone holdout unwilling to change its way.\n\n[btw, there are actually large areas of Autobahn that do have speed limits. The no-limit thing only goes for stretches that are not marked otherwise, and those often end rather abruptly. We also have on the Autobahn a recommended speed of 130 km/h, which means if you get involved in an accident at a speed higher than that, you can still be regarded to be partly at fault even if you weren't the one who caused it]"
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[
" Germany has low birthrate (due to many factors, including WWII trauma: after the Lebensraum, pro-natality policies are much frowned upon than in France for instance). This is the case for every industrialized nations. Germans and Japaneses are just faster than the others.",
" Several reasons that boil down to not treating driving like a god given right.\n\n* **Roadway design** The roads with no speed limits are very carefully designed and built to be safe. For example the concrete is 36 inches thick versus something like 6 inches in a typical US highway. There's a limit to how much the road can tilt and a minimum for how far one has to be able to see down the roadway (can't find the numbers right now)\n\n* **Stringent safety inspections** Vehicles that will get a pass in most other areas will fail in Germany. They have a saying there \"Until TUV do we part\". For example any frame rust will cause your vehicle to fail. Tires with 2/32\" tread depth? Forget it.\n\n* **Stringent driver training and licensing** In most countries you can get a driver's license without taking driver's ed. In Germany it's required, it's expensive ($2k US last I heard), and it's a real class not a workshop like what you get elsewhere. Before you're allowed to get a license you're required to get on the autobahn and drive at 200 kph (~120 MPH for us Yankees). Don't worry, usually you do this in a Beamer (my cousin wrecked one or two doing this but I digress).\n\n* **Stringent safety and road regulations** In Germany driving is considered a privilege not a right and its regulated as such. Most behavior that's considered polite elsewhere is legally required there. Traveling in the left lane? Ticket. Flashing your high beams at someone? Ticket. Driving too slow? Ticket. Ran out of gas? Ticket. Too many tickets and you'll have to redo the driver training rather than just going to defensive driving. (Personally I think this is the big one, I've yet to see anyone get a ticket in the US for driving 35 in a 55)\n\nAll of these leads to Germany having fewer accidents and fatalities per mile with higher average speeds than the US, where driving is treated like a right."
] |
Given a question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit forum
|
eli5
|
Why does it rain less during summer? Wouldn't the increase in sunlight and heat cause more evaporation and therefore more precipitation?
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[
" It actually doesn't rain more or less because of the season. At least not consistently across the whole world.\n\nEssentially weather is the result of swirling within both the oceans and the atmosphere. At different times of year, varying amounts of sun combined with the rotation of the earth cause the oceans and the atmosphere to swirl differently (in a complicated and interconnected way).\n\nThis swirling causes heat (and in the case of the atmosphere, moisture) to be moved from place to place, and up and down within both the atmosphere and the oceans. The result is that conditions that create rain are much more likely in some parts of the world in summer, in other parts of the world conditions that create rain come mostly during the winter.",
" When water evaporates, it makes the air more humid. The hotter air is, the more moisture it can take, because the air molecules have more energy which leaves more room for water molecules to mix in there. So yes, there is more evaporation in the summer, but it takes a lot more moisture for the air to get fully saturated and cause precipitation.\n\nIn the winter, you get storm systems where warm air blowing in off the ocean rises over the mountains. The air atop the mountains is much colder, and the warm moist air can't keep all its moisture. So as the ocean air cools (as it rises over the mountains,) it dumps moisture in the form of rain, and that's called a orographic storm. You don't get those kinds of orographic storms in the summer either, because the mountains are warmer and you don't have a big discrepancy between the heat of the ocean and the cold mountains."
] |
[
" In the winter the sun spends more time lower in the sky. It's actually less bright since the rays are traveling through more air, but it's in your eyes more than in the summer when it is higher in the sky.",
" The directions of the currents. The East coast pushes warm gulf water up the shore, and that water - being warmer, will evaporate much more readily. The West has cold Alaskan water coming down, such that the water will be 15 degrees cooler - or more - at the same latitudes in late summer. \n\nAlso, the weather patterns from the gulf, from the atlantic, the great lakes, and from Hudson Bay all combine to mix the air and create lots of rain events during the summer out east. In the west, high pressure systems and the jet stream patterns generally block any precipitation in the south. Some monsoon rains come in during the summer from Baja and the southern Pacific, bu rarely, and nowhere near as often as all the water that can come in from the gulf. \n\nTo add to all that, all the rainfall in the east means that there is just a lot more moisture in the earth itself which can evaporate and add to the weather, while the West is mostly desert because of the giant mountains that create a \"rain shadow\" effect to to the west of them. So there's another source of moisture taken away. \n\nWeather is really complicated, but short of it is the existence of the Gulf, currents that flow from the gulf up the coast vs down from Alaska, and the very tall mountain ranges in the Sierras and Cascades."
] |
Given a question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit forum
|
eli5
|
What's te deal with G20?
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[
" The reason people don't like the G20 is beavuse it's 20 of the world's largest economies that get together and talk about what way they want to steer the world's economies. Basically like the rich deciding what policy changes they can decide to make them richer without asking the rest of the world."
] |
[
" Probably yes. G8 is like elite club of superpowers, you need to earn place there. So, maybe, China (also depends on their handling of this crisis) may take this place.\n\nBTW [It's G7 now, officially](_URL_0_).",
" They are not a large enough player on the global stage to merit being a part of that elite group. They are powerful enough to be in the G20 though."
] |
Given a question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit forum
|
eli5
|
How does carbon and isotopic dating work?
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[
" Carbon dating works for things that were once alive, but then died. There is a special kind of carbon called Carbon-14 that is short lived (in historical terms) but gets constantly created in our atmosphere. Basically as long as something is alive and breathing it keeps a constant level of this carbon-14. Once it dies, the carbon-14 begins to decay. By measuring the ratio of carbon-14 still around, you can guess when it died. For things like wooden tools and paper they assume they were made shortly after the tree was chopped down."
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[
" There are numerous methods of dating materials.\n\nCarbon dating is one. Every plant/animal is made of carbon. Due to interaction with cosmic rays nitrogen-14 is activated and turns into radioactive carbon-14. The carbon is absorbed by plants, plants are eaten by animals. Animals are eaten by other animals. This carbon processes in and out of the body and decays back to nitrogen-14. But the levels remain relatively constant. When the plant/animal dies it can no longer take in new carbon-14 so the level begins to drop through radioactive decay. Carbon-14 has a half-life of 5 thousand years.\n\nSo if we take a bone sample and measure the carbon-14 at 25% of the standard value if it were alive, we know its about 10,000 years old.\n\nWe can also tell based on materials in the sample created by events we know about. For example, steel. If you're doing testing with steel and it needs to be free from radioactive contaminants then it needs to be pre-ww2 steel. \n\nWhen the atomic bombs went off in the 40's and 50's radioactive materials spread around the planet in minute traces. They contaminated anything and everything. So any steel manufactured from materials after WW2 will have this radioactive signature inside it. Pre-ww2 steel did not use this contaminated materials so it doesnt have the radioactive signature. So if you look at a sampke of steel and dont see the contamination we know it was made pre-ww2.\n\nThere are many many other methods.",
" > When you carbon date it today to find its age, are you finding the age of the iron or are you finding the age of the sword?\n\nCarbon dating is only used on biological material in comparison to the levels in the atmosphere at the time. So in your example we would date the leather wrapping on the handle to see when the cow died and assume they didn't use leather from a cow who died hundreds of years prior.\n\nThe reason it works is that some carbon is radioactive and when it is tied up in an organism it rotates through them regularly. Once they die it doesn't go anywhere and the radioactive atoms decay at a known rate, so by looking at the different proportion we can know when the organism died."
] |
Given a question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit forum
|
eli5
|
If the top quark is heavier than the higgs, why was it comparatively easier to detect?
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[
" When we collide particles in a particle collider (such as the LHC) they produce any number of particles so long as they satisfy energy conservation (energy/mass in = energy/mass out) and some more specific conservations of quantum numbers (certain particles have certain numbers, eg an electron has a “lepton number” and the anti-electron has minus that number, which must be conserved in a collision so the total number in = the total number out). Using these conservation rules we can find a set of possible decay routes for a particle. That is to say, if we collide two protons we can determine exactly what possible combinations of particles they can decay in to during the collision. Not all of these decay routes occur with equal frequency however, some are rarer than others. Additionally, a certain route may be harder to detect than other routes. A route producing one particle may have more readily available, cheaper or otherwise less engineering intensive machinery that can accurately detect them than another particle. \n\nThe net result is, the decay routes that result in a Higgs particle were harder to build machinery for, on top of the fact that the Higgs decay routes themselves were comparatively rare relative to the top quark. The actual mass of the top quark isn’t such a big deal in a hadron collider (the LHC) because we are already using energies far in excess of the top quark mass so all decay routes are available.\n\nThe final point is how large the theoretical range of the Higgs mass was. There was a lot of searching at different energies that needed to be done (that also meant _potential_ decay routes may not have been possible or may have occurred in lower than expected frequencies if we predicted the mass wrong, so we could have spent a lot of time searching somewhere it was just impossible to find a Higgs)"
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[
" Ok so lets try this.\n\nTo start a little bit of particle physics: You're presumably aware that are elementary particles, things like the quarks, the electron, the photon and etc. Our current understanding of these particles is that they are excitations of their respective quantum fields, that is to say for example, electrons are just excitations of the electron field that permeates the entire universe. The same thing for the quarks, photons, and all the other elementary particles including the Higgs boson. \n\nOk still with me? if not just roll with it. I bring this up because what particle physics are interested in is not so much the Higgs boson as the Higgs field and that by finding the Higgs boson (which is a result of the quantum excitations of the Higgs field) they've confirmed the Higgs field. It's the Higgs field where massive elementary particles get their mass. \n\nThis higgs field interacts with some elementary particles and in doing so some kinetic energy is instead converted into mass-energy. In effect it slows down those particles kind of like being 'slowed down' by moving through molasses. Without the higgs field everything would have zero mass and be moving at the speed of light. Why this only happens to some particles and not others is rather complicated and there's really no way to ELI5 it. \n\nIt's worth noting that most of the mass in the universe doesn't come from the Higgs field. For example the total mass of the quarks that make up a proton is 9.4MeV/c^2 (ignoring current uncertainty i the masses upt he up and down quarks), while the mass of a proton is ~938.27MeV/c^2. The rest of the mass comes from the absolutely immense amount of energy binding those quarks together. However without the Higgs field the quarks would never bind together in the first place. \n\nRecap:\n\n1. Quantum fields are a thing, particles are quantum excitation their quantum field.\n2. The Higgs boson is the quantum excitation of the Higgs field. \n3. The Higgs Field is what gives massive particles their mass\n4. This is only a tiny fraction of the mass in the universe. \n\nQuestions?",
" People have this concept of mass. Mass is a measure of how much stuff is in an object. When mass is affected by gravity, you have weight. So, if you have two items on Earth, the one with more mass is heavier. Mass isn't necessarily related to size: a pillow has less mass than an anvil.\n\nWhen physicists started looking at small particles, even smaller than atoms, they noticed that different particles had different masses. Some particles, like photons, even had no mass! Physicists wondered why this was. One physicist, named Higgs, thought there was an even smaller particle, called a boson, that carries mass. We named this particular Boson after Higgs. So neutrons are 'heavy' becuase they have lots of Higgs Bosons, Electrons are light because they don't have very many, and photons have no mass because they have no Higgs Bosons.\n\nOf course, this is just a theory. Maybe Higgs was wrong; then scientists would need another explanation for mass. Some scientists are trying to find the Higgs Boson by smashing atoms together, but they haven't found it yet."
] |
Given a question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit forum
|
eli5
|
.. Why can i mimic someone elses voice perfectly in my head but cannot make that same voice out loud?
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[
" You don't mimic in your head, u jut recall their voice pattern in your mind"
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[
" Your brain can remember the nuances of your friend's voice well enough to recreate an approximation of it from memory. Your brain is very good with patterns, so it an fill in the blanks even if you've never heard him say those exact words in that order. It's a lot like thinking of an object even though you aren't actively looking at an example of that object.",
" Your voice always has the same frequencies from day to day. IE it doesn't change. However if you sing in the shower, your voice sounds very different than if you sing in a field, or if you sing in a room. Your voice isn't changing, but the size, resonance, and shape of the room you're in changes the character or \"timbre\" of your voice. This is similar to the way that 2 headphones can both have the same frequency response, and yet sound different. \n\nIf you hold a seashell up to your ear, it doesn't change the frequency of the sound that you're hearing, but it absorbs some sounds, and reflects other sounds, making it sound wishy washy and un-natural. Like you have a tin can over your ear. This is caused by the shape of the shell, and the material it's made of. \n\nThe ear cups of a headphone act exactly like cupping your hand over your ear, or a sea shell. The shape of the cup causes some frequencies to not sound as loud, even though the speaker is producing them all equally, but it can also cause other frequencies near the resonant frequency of the enclosure to sound louder. It also changes the phase of the sound so that some frequencies cancel each other out (similar to how noise cancelling headphones do by making reverse sounds that cancel out the original) and this \"colors\" the sound. \n\nEven open back headphones are still inside of an enclosure, and your ear itself is reflecting sound back into the headphone, and all of these things together can change the frequency balance the person hears. Even though the speaker itself is reproducing all of the frequencies, the physics of that sound making it to your ear, makes some frequencies sound louder, and others quieter, almost like someone adjusting sliders on an equalizer. \n\nThe frequency response of a headphone tells you what the lowest frequency and highest frequency it can play are, but are those frequencies all the same amount of loudness? If you map the frequency response, and how loud each frequency is, you get a frequency graph which will give you a relative measure of the energy and loudness of each frequency, but it doesn't tell you if it will sound \"good\" to you. This is because we have differently shaped ears and differently sized heads, and they also affect the sound by changing the interior volume of the headphone cup, and so each person may try the same headphone, and hear slightly different things. \n\nThe main thing that many audiophiles look for in a good headphone isn't necessarily how high or low it can go, but the balance between bass, mids, and treble. This is called it's voicing and or tuning, and there is a certain ratio of bass to mids, to highs, that most people find pleasing. Think of it as the \"sound signature\" of that speaker or headphone. If the bass is too loud, you might describe the mid range as being \"recessed\" or pushed to the background. The bass might be \"too up front\". This is more of a subjective description though. This voicing or signature is also not the most important thing for something sounding \"real\" or \"clear\". \n\nThat would be \"coloration\" or the timbre of the sound. That tendency for some sounds to be very quiet due to frequency dips, and other sounds to be too loud because of resonance in the headphone enclosure or the driver, affect the sound in a similar way to someone playing with the sliders on a graphic equalizer. If someone takes the 1khz slider and moves it up 6db, the rest of the sound can be flat as a table, and it's not going to sound nice because that 1khz sound is going to drown out everything else making it sound tinny. On the other hand if the headphone pad absorbs sound at 400hz then male vocals may lack a realistic punch. When someone says \"This headphone doesn't sound real\" or \"it sounds like I'm listening to music inside of a tin can\" it's coloration that they are describing. \n\nColoration is mostly caused by the resonance and phasing inside the headphone cup and the ear. When two sounds at the same frequency arrive out of phase, they cancel each other out and you hear silence. This is how active noise cancelling works. When a headphone makes a sound, the sound arrives directly to the ear from the headphone, but it also reflects off the back cup of the headphone and so a 2nd slightly quieter sound arrives a split second later. This delay means that certain frequencies can cancel each other out, making them seem quieter than the rest, even though the speaker is accurately producing it. On the other hand other frequencies and their echos can arrive in phase, which doubles the energy making them seem far louder than other frequencies. Just like those EQ sliders. This can ruin peoples enjoyment of a headphone if there are too many \"dips\" and \"peaks\". \n\nGenerally speaking, open backed headphones have less of these phasing and coloration issues than closed back headphones. But all headphones, and even all loud speakers (due to sound echoing, phasing, and cancelling in reflected room noise) all exhibit these tendencies."
] |
Given a question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit forum
|
eli5
|
What happens to the living bugs I suck up with the vacuum cleaner?
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[
" I read a study once where they sucked up ants periodically into clear canister vacuum. Every few days they'd suck up more ants. At first almost all of them died. However, the few that survived started reinforcing the dirt and particles in the canister so the next time they vacuumed they were protected and more started to survive. They welcomed the new ants in the beginning but over time the ants in the canister got larger and more aggressive and started killing any new ant sucked up.",
" On a normal bag filter they could get pressed against a filter but usually their weight drops them somewhere in the bag. Bugs are able to last many days, and in some cases years, without food.\n\nMy only personal experience with this is watching ants go through both a low- and high-powered mini-vacuum."
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[
" They put their lips over a shot glass and inhale all the air. Now there's a vacuum in the shot glass. Vacuums suck things inside themselves. The vacuum tries to suck the blood of the person's face into the shot glass, but because there's no hole in the person's face, the blood just ends up stuck inside their lips. Now their lips are full of blood, and therefore, swollen.",
" I think these answers fail to point out the REASON why flicking it doesn't kill it. When you flick an insect/swat it out of the air, you're imparting force from you to the animal. However, as said by other posters, just imparting force onto an insect (like an ant or wasp) isn't enough to kill it (because it is very small and you're not able to impart enough force to damage its carapace, instead of squishing it just gets accelerated by most of the force of the strike from you). However when you 'squish' an insect, you are hitting it against something. In effect, think of it like hitting a baseball off a batting T. If you hit the ball with a baseball bat and it flies off into the distance, the ball might be damaged but may still be functional. However, if you hit that same ball again but it hits a wall this time, the ball may be squished or flattened against the wall instead (assuming it doesn't bounce off the wall)."
] |
Given a question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit forum
|
eli5
|
Why do spinning car wheels sometimes look they're spinning backwards?
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[
" It's caused by the AC power making street lights have a strobe effect. When that strobing light hits the spinning wheel, the uneven frequency of the light versus the speed at which the wheel is spinning makes it appear to start spinning backwards. That's why you only see it at night. If you shined a flashlight on a spinning wheel, you wouldn't see this because it's a constant current with no strobe. This same effect can be observed when a spinning wheel is videoed, since video is really just strobing sequences of images."
] |
[
" It's called the wagon wheel effect. I can explain exactly what is happening, but it's likely you've only seen it under strobing lights and in movies. If you watch something rotate slowly and your frame rate is slow enough you will see the object rotate normally. But what happens if the object rotates so fast, that the next time you \"take a snapshot\" it's almost made one revolution? It appears to have moved backwards instead of forward.",
" I believe that it gets to a point where the tire is revolving at the speed that your eye \"refreshes\", so your eye thinks that the wheel stopped rotating.\n\nThen, just before accelerating to speeds that start to turn the wheel into a blur, you see images at a rate where spots on the wheel are caught by your eye earlier in the rotation than normal, since now the revolution rate overlaps your eyes refresh rate, so you think the wheel is turning backwards, but it's actually going so far forward that it appears to go back.\n\nThen, like I said, your brain turns the revolutions into a \"blur\" because it's going too fast for you to follow.\n\nThis is the same reason you get funky effects when taking a video of a monitor."
] |
Given a question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit forum
|
eli5
|
Why do GIFs(from a reliable host) take longer to load than Videos?
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[
" Animated GIFs are pretty inefficient at video-like things. Consider:\n\n* An MP4 (480i) video of the \"[Tech News Tonight](_URL_1_)\" podcast runs 12 minutes and is 28 MiB.\n* [This GIF](_URL_0_) runs 15 seconds and weighs 8.2 MiB.\n\nThis is because GIF is a sequence of still images, which are individually well-compressed, but 300 small images add up.\nMP4 actually decomposes the frames and stores only the changes between frames. Effectively the compression is more efficient."
] |
[
" Generally, \"HTML5\". This will probably get you a video file that is much faster to load. Gif is a very inefficient format for anything but the simplest of animations, so it takes a long time to load. HTML5 makes it easy for web pages to serve more efficient video files without mucking about with plugins.\n\nBut don't take my word for it – try it yourself and see which one works better for you.",
" Most gifs only start playing once the whole thing is loaded, whereas videos generally just need a small part buffered to start showing. The rest is downloaded while you are watching."
] |
Given a question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit forum
|
eli5
|
Why is it 'It is open' without the -ed but it's "It is closed" with the -ed?
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[
" Because english is a stupid gobbledygook language that never makes sense. The old joke is that English isn't 1 language, it's 3 languages stacked on top of each other wearing a trench coat. It happens to have a penchant for following other languages down dark alleys and rifling through their pockets for loose bits of grammar.\n\nIn this case one the usage of one of the words most likely comes from a Middle English verb(open), and the other is likely from a French adverb(closed). So one is a description of the current state(it is open) and the other is shorthand saying that the action has happened(it has closed).\n\nThe reason I say that it's likely the etymology is that the Middle English had two related state values for the family of words around open that meant roughly what we mean when we say open. However the state value in Middle English around \"close\" meant that something was near, not something that wasn't open. Meanwhile the French verb for close meant what we mean when we say \"to close\". So our usage of the term closed is more likely to come from the French verb than the English verb.\n\nDisclaimer: Not a linguist. Totally based on a couple of Google searches and enjoying language based history/jokes because I speak a few languages. If someone with real expertise comes along take their explanation over mine any day of the week."
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[
" because note pad tries its best ot make sense of the foreign file structure you told it to open resulting in uneditable gibberish(generally its either because of file structure or encoding, your note pad xpects files to be read in a specific way ).",
" I can answer the **it vs it's thing**. I always stuff it up, because my mind sees ' as possessive. As such, if I write \"the car lost it's wheel\" that looks correct to me, despite being cognitively aware it's wrong. I have to actually read it as \"it is\" in my mind to get it right."
] |
Given a question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit forum
|
eli5
|
Difference between Special and General Relativity
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[
" Special relativity describes flat space; general relativity describes curved space.\n\nNote that general relativity is a superset of special. It's not an evolutionary step - GR doesn't replace SR like GR replaced Newton.\n\nOn a scale where the curvature of space is approximately zero, things behave just like SR says. \n\nNote that all other forces and particles inhabit space, so SR is really a statement about the geometry that applies to all forces and particles. Although it was first discovered in the context of electromagnetism, it's not unique to electromagnetism.",
" I'll explain the difference between them, without going into what either form of Relativity actually *is*: Special Relativity only deals with objects (and reference frames) moving at constant speed. General Relativity extends Special Relativity, by figuring out how to deal with acceleration. (Spoiler alert: All acceleration is indistinguishable from gravity.)\n\nSpecial Relativity doesn't actually require complicated maths either. High-school algebra (variables, square roots) is sufficient to cover the entire subject, making it less complicated than high-school physics (which if you're not using calculus, you're not doing correctly). On the other hand, General Relativity requires ass-butt maths. As in, I have a bachelor's degree in mathematics, and I don't know enough math do to general relativity. It's a topic called Differential Geometry, which *starts* by figuring how out to draw straight lines when space itself is curved. It then goes into trying to count the number of different incompatible ways that you can do calculus to the inside of a four-dimensional sphere (lack of spoiler alert: not yet proven to be finite; generally believed to be more than 1)."
] |
[
" Special relativity does work with quantum mechanics, the main issue is the general relativity (which has to do with gravity). \n\nAs its name indicates, general relativity is more general than the special one, which predictions only hold locally, not at the universe scale. \n\nThe most easy way to understand it is that quantum mechanics and general relativity work for distances and times of very different order of magnitude, so it's not hard to see why it is difficult to make them work together. Imagine that you need to explain systems as big as nanometers with a theory that just makes predictions for distances bigger than thousands of kilometers. Or the other way around. \n\nThere are people working on new theories that try to mix gravity with quantum mechanics, which is the first step. There are still a lot of things concerning gravity and general relativity that we don't undersand, such as dark energy, but that's another matter.",
" Special relativity is the what you get if you assume two things: You can't tell if you are moving (or the stuff around you is moving) and the speed of light is always the same whether you are moving or not. \n\nThis results in some weird things like whether two events happen at the same time depends on whether you are moving. I can't think of any short examples but if you like I can edit this post with a longer one."
] |
Given a question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit forum
|
eli5
|
Why do mortgage companies move your mortgage from one lending company to the next?
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[
" Your mortgage is an asset to a lender, but lenders view it differently.\n\nSome companies make their money by doing all the legwork, getting the mortgage made, and funding it initially, but they don't want to sit around for years to collect the interest on it. Instead they sell your mortgage to a long-term lender for a profit. \n\nLet's use some simple numbers for an example. You sign a $100,000 mortgage with 5% interest over 30 years. Theoretically, after 30 years you will have paid roughly $190,000 back. $100k in interest and $90k in principle. \n\nThe company that made this mortgage doesn't want to wait 30 years to get that $90k in profit, so instead they sell the whole thing to a long term lender for $110,000. They make $10k in profit and the big guy will collect $80k in profit over the lifetime of the loan.\n\nThis happens because you have two different kinds of companies. Smaller ones that are willing to do the work for smaller profits that come immediately and larger ones that have the bankroll to be willing to wait for bigger money.\n\nTypically what divides these companies is the amount of funds they have on hand. Imagine company A has $500 they can lend. If they made 5 mortgages, each worth $100k they're done. They sit back and wait for 30 years to get their profits. That's no good. So instead they find a company that has BILLIONS lying around to lend. That big guy can afford to wait for long term big money, while the smaller guy gets their $100k back to make another loan with.\n\nThese numbers are all much smaller than the real thing in order to make the point but you get the idea.",
" They are diversifying assets to protect against any possible negative issues.\n\nLet's say Mortgage Company A has 100% of theer mortgages in California, and Mortgage Company B has 100% of their mortgages in Texas.\n\nIf an earthquake happens in CA, A is screwed as people might have trouble paying for their homes while recovering from a disaster. \n\nIf an oil recession happens in TX, B is screwed as people default on their loans.\n\nSo, they trade and each get 50% of the loans in CA and TX so if something bad happens, their risk is spread out and doesn't kill them"
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[
" The simplest explanation: Banks took more risk than they should have. \n\nLoaning money is, by nature, a risky business. You have to evaluate the person you're loaning money to and determine the likelihood that they will pay it back in the agreed upon time frame. If they don't, then you're probably in trouble because you owe money, too -- either to other banks you've borrowed from or to people who've deposited money in your bank. \n\nIn the mid-2000's, many lenders started offering \"subprime mortgages.\" The term \"subprime\" refers to people who are higher risk -- they don't have enough income or steady income or they have a bad credit history or whatever. \n\nWhy did banks do this? Many reasons, but mostly because -- at least in the early days -- it was easy money. \n\nThen, on top of that, banks started bundling these subprime mortgages together in \"mortgage-backed securities\" (MBS). A security is kind of like a stock. Normally, when you buy a share of stock, you're buying a share in a company. But banks would package all these subprime mortgages together as MBS and sell shares in them. So investors would buy a \"share\" of the mortgage bundle. When the mortgage got paid off, the investors would get the return on their investment. It was a way for banks to spread the risk around instead of owning it all themselves. It was attractive to investors because it wasn't readily apparent that these were high-risk loans in these MBS.\n\nBut this was all a house of cards built on a shaky foundation. Because the subprime mortgages were loaned to high-risk people, when those high-risk people started defaulting on their loans, the banks got stuck with the bill, and lost a lot of money. The mortgage-backed securities, which had looked pretty attractive initially, collapsed in value and everyone who invested in them lost their money, too. \n\nAll of this piled on top of each other caused some really big US banks (Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs) to fail, i.e. go bankrupt, because they didn't have the money to cover their own debts. And when banks fail, that's bad for the economy, because now there's fewer loans made, which means there's less investment, which means there's less economic growth and new jobs, which results in less money being spent, which means it's even harder to get loans ... and the cycle repeats. \n\nIt's a _lot_ more complex than I just explained above, but that's the basic ELI5 explanation: \n\n* Banks made risky loans that they shouldn't have.\n* They made those loans *look* less risky by bundling them together and selling shares of those bundles. \n* But really the loans were just fundamentally bad loans. \n* When the debtors failed to repay the loans, the big banks that owned the loans failed in a big way.\n* When big banks fail in a big way, that hurts the economy.",
" They are both home mortgage loan companies.\n\nThere isn't anything wrong with them. (I mean the procedure of which they do business may rub some people the wrong way) Here is the link\n_URL_0_"
] |
Given a question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit forum
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eli5
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Why can we move the ring finger up while placing hand palm down, with the middle finger rolled inside?
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[
" The ring and middle finger share a tendon, so placing the middle finger down forces the ring finger to be held in place."
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[
" Because you're hitting the ulnar nerve, which runs down the length of the arm, all the way to your ring-finger and pinky.",
" /u/HowManyLettersCanFi\nexplained it here:_URL_0_\nThe tendons in your fingers are independent from one another apart from the ones in your middle and ring finger. These tendons are connected, so that when your middle finger is folded down you cannot move your ring finger. It feels like your ring finger is stuck"
] |
Given a question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit forum
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eli5
|
Why do we pay some farmers not to farm?
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[
" So farm subsidies hark back to WWI, when the federal government subsidized agriculture to keep it cheap for the war effort. These subsidies stuck around in the 20's, which caused many farmers to have to foreclose on their farms as agricultural prices remained rock bottom. \n\nIn the great depression, the FDR administration, through the agricultural adjustment act, famously paid farmers not to plant on their land and to kill off excess livestock to bring prices of agricultural products back up to a point where farming was a viable business model.\n\nIn short, the government subsidizes agriculture because the government has an interest in making sure food prices are not volatile and that farmers can earn a living farming. If they're going to do this without driving farmers out of business as they did in the 1920's, they will occasionally have to pay farmers not to grow (to put upward pressure on the price).\n\nMany would argue that, by 2015, the government could very easily let food prices float freely to no ill effect on the overall economy (and save a bunch of tax dollars). However, farmers are a powerful interest group in US politics and governments, historically, take food security very seriously and likely wouldn't back off of it to save a few bucks.",
" Basically, the government wants to keep some farmers farming. If they go out of business, we run into trouble. So early on, the government would store excess grain/corn/etc to make sure that which went on the market was worth enough to keep everyone paid. But this also meant the farmers had to incur the costs of farming corn that wasn't eaten, the government had to incur the costs of storing corn till it rotted, and so on. It's ultimately cheaper just to pay them not to farm."
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[
" As I understand it, the majority of poor farmers are creating food at a sustainable level. This means they only make enough to feed themselves and their families. It's due to the fact that most land is bought by the government or large companies who coerce these small farmers into giving up fertile soil. An example would be Tibetan farmers who were forced to sell their farmland because a large company terraced a nearby mountain, which affected the mountain goat population, which affected the weed growth, etc etc.\n\n Big company farmers *are* very very rich, and they grow things in controlled atmospheres/greenhouses, where temperature/humidity/sunlight/pressure/etc and pesticides and growth drugs and SCIENCE are on their side. They can produce a massive number of crops with minimal cost and time, whereas a poorer farmer is entirely dependent on how the natural world acts. If a river is stopped to create a dam for hydropower, they've just lost their water supply. If the cold snap happens too early in the year, all their tubers have just frozen in the ground. So not only do big companies have the ability to create a lot of produce, they can also do it consistently and for a longer period of time. This means that when they sell, they can do it at a lower price and also build up brand reliability. \n\nBetween fair trade chocolate or regular chocolate, the economical choice is the regular chocolate. It costs more for the poor farmer to create their crop, so they can't create a lot of it, and it's harder for them to sell their crop when they do have enough surplus. \n\nWhen they say that there is enough food to feed everybody in the world, most of this food is not being produced by the local/poorer farmers. It's being made by the economically more developed countries in rural areas, whose target audience is other economically developed countries, because these countries can buy their food. \n\nThe competition is between big companies and independent farmers. There is a massive demand for food, and a massive supply for it, but the distribution doesn't follow the demand because the people who need it most simply cannot afford it.",
" There are all sorts of crops, and farmers can choose to grow whatever they want on their own land (assuming the weather and the dirt are the right kind of weather and dirt for the crop - good luck growing bananas in Connecticut!). Farmers can grow tomatoes or corn or wheat or spelt or a bajillion other things.\n\nAnd I won't go into what grown-ups call \"market economics\", but basically, people are willing to pay different amounts of money for different crops. The same way gold is worth more than silver, some crops are worth more than other crops. And these prices go up and down.\n\nAt one point, lots of US farmers noticed that certain crops (like cotton and tobacco) were consistently worth a lot more than other crops (like corn). They decided to grow the crops that would make them more money. The problem is, if all the farmers started thinking like that, nobody would grow corn, and then there'd be less food to eat! No corn on the cop, no Corn Pops, no Kix! And lots of people would be hungry! So the US Government decided to step it, and they told farmers they'd pay them extra if they were to grow corn (a *subsidy*) so they'd have no reason to switch to tobacco (to *incentivize* corn). So even though the market price for corn is still lower, the US Government *inflates* it, makes it higher, so that farmers will still want to grow corn, so people can eat.\n\nThe problem nowadays is that farmers have figured out how to grow really big farms using really big machines, so one farmer can grow LOTS of corn all by himself or herself! And that meant that there was actually lots and lots of corn, almost too much corn, and so corn started being used in all sorts of different things. Corn being fed to cows, using corn syrup instead of sugar to make things sweet, and so on. If you go to a supermarket, it's actually cheaper to buy a Twinkie than an apple! So some people want the law to change, and the subsidies to go away, but that hasn't happened yet. Lots of farmers would be really upset if that extra money from the government went away, so it's still being debated."
] |
Given a question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit forum
|
eli5
|
The Constitution of the United States describes the requisites of Senators "been nine Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen". What does that mean? Are Senators not supposed to be from that state?
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[
" You are missing the full sentence.\n\n\"No Person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen.\"\n\nIt's a complicated sentence, but says you are disqualified if...\n\n1) you aren't 30 years or older\n2) you haven't been a citizen for at least 9 years or\n3) you aren't a resident of the electing states.\n\nOtherwise you are fine.\n\nThis, my friends, is why teachers tell us to avoid double negatives.",
" Here's the full text of that bit:\n\n > No person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen.\n\nIt's confusing because it's using multiple negatives. No person can be a senator if they (1) haven't attained the age of thirty years, (2) haven't been a citizen of the United States for nine years, and (3) don't live in the state for which they were chosen.\n\nOr, in simpler language, in order to be a senator, a person must:\n\n* Be at least 30 years old,\n* Have been an American citizen for at least 9 years, and,\n* Live in the state that they represent."
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[
" The Constitution actually doesn't clarify what \"Natural-Born\" means. It has come to a general consensus though that this means they dont have to become naturalized, or learn American culture before any other. Of course you have to be a legal citizen and have lived in the USA for over 14 years etc. \n\nIronically even if Obama wasn't born in the USA (which he definitely was born in Hawaii) he could still run for president since he has never had citizenship anywhere else besides the USA and was raised in Hawaii",
" One of the requirements to be a US President is that you are a \"natural-born citizen\", not that you were born in the US - this is not clearly defined by the Constitution but is generally taken to mean that you were a citizen at birth. \n\nThe Naturalization Act of 1790 specifically states:\n\n > the children of citizens of the United States, that may be born beyond sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural born citizens\n\nThus, since Ted Cruz is the son of an American citizen (his mother) born out of the limits of the United States, he is a natural born citizen. This actually applied to John McCain as well, who was born in Panama before the Panama Canal Zone was defined as American territory."
] |
Given a question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit forum
|
eli5
|
Why did 3D movies disappear after being so wildly successful in the 1950s, and how did they make a comeback around the time Avatar came out?
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[
" The simple answer for why they came back around the time that Avatar came out is that Avatar came out. Avatar was made with IMAX and 3D technology in mind and made an enormous amount of money including a very large contribution from the higher cost/profit 3D/IMAX tickets.\n\nShortly after Avatar, everyone and their mother started tacking on 3D to their movies hoping that 3D was what made Avatar so successful and that it would make their movies successful. Now, 3D didn't make movies more popular, but it certainly gave everyone an excuse to charge more for the movies.",
" The old technology wasn't very good, it relied on colored glasses (blue and red I think, one color for each eye) to block out parts of the image on screen for each eye.\n\nIt was successful at the time because it was new and it looked cool but it added very little to the movie itself and the colored glasses tinted the picture you were seeing. It also required people to wear glasses during the movie which, much like today, is another thing that hurts it's appeal.\nAdd to this that the 3D tech was not nearly as immersive as the 3D tech we have today. You didn't get nearly the same effect in depth or in the grades of depth that the current tech can give.\n\nYou'll notice that, although 3D movies are still being made, 3D tech has taken another sharp decline because again, although this new tech is much better than the old tech, it still has drawbacks.\n\nAs for why it came back, well the new 3D tech found a way to create 3D effects without coloring the lenses and the quality of 3d cameras are vastly superior. James Cameron is a huge techno-file and loves to introduce new technology so he felt that this particular advancement would be a revolution for the film industry. As a result he implemented it heavily in Avatar.\n\nTV manufacturers, for example, have completely abandoned the technology because people found them cumbersome in their homes."
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[
" Very similar to why only some cartoons were computer animated while majority were old style. Like Reboot, transformers, and Donkey Kong Country. Why only one movie every couple of years were CA (toy story), and almost all kid movies are. Why HD was a rare thing, later to be 3D, and now it's 4K.\n\nIt costs a ton of money, and very few companies can manage it. As time goes on, technology becomes more efficient and common, so the prices go down because more people can do it and the machines, programs, and equipment become more affordable as well.",
" Before avatar became the highest grossing movie of all time, titanic was the highest grossing movie of all time, which is also directed by James Cameron, the same guy who directed avatar, so James Cameron had a reputation as the guy who directed the highest grossing movie of all time, and he had other hits like terminator, he had a legendary status in all of Hollywood, so when ppl found out that he was coming out with another big budget movie (Avatar), they were hooked, regardless of whether it was good or not. Everyone wanted to see it bc it's James Cameron's movie. And besides he has reputation of making movies that are universally acclaimed and make a lot of money. So that helped him."
] |
Given a question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit forum
|
eli5
|
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