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5q199q | What are the benefits of consuming alkaline (pH > 7) food and drink? Does it have any merit? | A friend of mine recently shared a video of a woman and her children testing the pH of a variety of bottled water brands. Any time the pH was above 7, that bottle "passed the test." A pH below 7 was met with disdain. Why? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Nothing. It's total nonsense. The person that popularised the \"diet\" was recently arrested for practicing medicine without a license. Two people died under his care. It's a total scam. You can read about Robert Young here. Including the charges brought against him. He's just been sentenced to prison btw. URL_0",
"My friend has serious acid reflux issues. The doctor recommended alkaline water because it helps neutralize the acid a bit. S'all.",
"you pad the pockets of the business owner. you create jobs of companies that sell alkaline water. you invigorate the economy. oh you meant your own body? there aint any benefits. it's hogwash!"
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5q1aeb | What does the EPA freeze actually affect? | I'm aware it freezes funding, but does that include currently ongoing research? Also, why can the EPA not even utilize their twitter account? Is this considered censorship? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Yes, it includes currently ongoing research. Current employees are still getting their paycheck, but at the moment new expenses of basically any kind are getting denied. That means registering for conferences, traveling to field sites, updating software licenses, buying reagents, lab supplies, office supplies, instruments, and on and on and on. If the funds are already allocated, those purchases will *probably* go through, but nothing new until further notice, with no indication whatsoever on what the larger plan is, or for how long the current state is intended to last. The language covers grants and contracts, and if you know anything about how being a federal employee works, you know that *everything* you buy has to go through a pile of red tape and be under an official contract. The actual memo sent from the transition team to EPA upper management was somewhat vague in parts, and I fully expect individual branch offices to disregard it here and there where they think they can get away with it, but by and large it's affecting everything. Source: several (furious and depressed) friends who work at an EPA research branch. For example, one is a new postdoc who literally hasn't been able to do his job since Monday afternoon because he needs to resupply on trivial stuff like petri dishes but can't.",
"I think that Wintermute93 gave a good answer and I hope to expand on it myself. The presidential administration publicly said the EPA, USDA, and National Parks blackouts are just to get things under control. They would like to make sure the views of the agencies \"align\" with their beliefs. It is perfectly normal for a different party to come into power and want to realign things towards their party. This really is not much to worry about. Things like conferences, lectures, and funding for current projects has NOT been suspended as wintermute93 has suggested though."
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5q1d7x | How did ancient people know why were planets and what weren't? | It may be something to do with my poor eyesight , but I can't tell the difference between a star or a planet in the sky to save my life. How would ancient civilizations like Rome or Greece have seen the difference? I'm assuming, of course, that they knew the planets were there by the way they named their gods. | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The word \"planet\" is derived from the Greek word \"Planeta\" which means \"wanderer\". If you look up at the sky *a lot* you'll notice *most* stars stay in their own constellations. But a *few* of them (five, to be exact) \"wander\" around in their *own* patterns. Now naturally they had no idea what that meant or why they did it, or that they were different in any way than any other star. And the gods were not named after the planets, it's the other way around. And the names we have for them now are a mix of Greek and Roman gods. By the way, an easy way to tell if it's a planet or a star you're looking at is stars twinkle, planets do not.",
"Planets comes from the greek word πλανήτης meaning wanderer as they would move with respect to the stars over time.",
"The word planet means wanderer. They thought they were wandering stars. And the names of the planets were done in the Renaissance and into modernity using the Roman names out of tradition and homage to the Romans (something a lot of the Renaissance was into). The Romans did not name them."
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5q1dsi | Why is the night sky more clear after it rains? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The air is full of dust, pollen, dander, debris and dirt kicked up from the ground, haze from automobile exhaust, smoke, and factories, and the rain wipes it all clean as it falls the same way it washes your dishes. Dirt and debris cling to the drops and it delivers them to the ground clearing the air as it falls."
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5q1vtx | What about military training SO good at creating early risers? | I understand that the short answer is that it creates a routine. My curiosity is about the specific parts of training that create a specific response of "OKAY I'M UP AND READY FOR ANYTHING DESPITE BEING ASLEEP SECONDS AGO!" | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Getting screamed and yelled at seconds after being woken up, and immediately thrown into whatever has to be done that day. No time to wake up, you do that as you complete the next task.",
"This is initially done to teach obedience and discipline. Later on in a military career this comes to serve a utilitarian purpose. Getting soldiers biological clocks on an early rising schedule allows them to utilize more hours of daylight than if they wake up after the sun has already risen. The constant need to wake up at a certain time becomes a habit, the body adapts, it feels natural.",
"It's the idea that i would much rather be up at 4am doing PT than doing it in the sweltering heat later in the afternoon"
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5q1wpy | Why is there little to no atheist representation in US congress? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Atheists won't vote for atheists just because they share a lack of belief, religious people will more often vote against atheists because the lack of said belief. Also, religious people congregate, atheists might leave extremely religious areas, but they won't specifically seek out atheist communities. and given that there's a lot of first past the post going on, 10% of the population evenly spread out across the country will get less representation than 2% that lives extremely close together and can all vote for one candidate.",
"There is a cultural history which makes it very difficult to be an atheist in congress. If someone declares to be an atheist while running for congress, there will be a huge reaction from the Christian community which will make it very difficult fur them to get elected. On the other hand, atheist voters are used to vote for Christian candidates. Most atheist voters vote for Christian candidates, but a lot of Christian voters won't vote for atheist candidates.",
"Representation is geographical rather than theological based. If you wish to see a member of Congress that represents your theological ideals then either campaign for them or run yourself.",
"thats 10-25 people for every 90-75. The Atheist/agnostic population is so diffuse in the greater US population that they are unable to have a direct impact on elected representatives on the basis of faith alone.",
"There may very well be many atheists in congress, but amongst the general population [athiests are generally despised]( URL_0 ) and thought to be immoral, criminal, and don't share the same vision for America as general population voters. So being openly atheist would be a political death sentence.",
"Congressional representation is geographically based. Meaning it will be rare that a group of Atheists will make the majority of voters in a district. What you are proposing would be demographic based representation, which would be a quota and illegal."
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5q1xt1 | How does a hacker get caught? Couldn't they just go buy a $200 laptop, install their hacking tools from a cd or thumb drive, and then take it to a public wifi place (library, Starbucks, etc)? Then burn their stolen hacking data to a CD when they get home? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"First of all hacking takes time, you can't just sit in Starbucks all day. Also wifi isn't usually very fast in public places, it's inefficient.",
"Surprisingly, most hackers don't operate like this. Many of them sit home and cover their traced by hiding their personal information that could be used to identify them such as their IP address or really anything. Web traffic is anonymized through VPN services or tools such as TOR browser. This makes it harder for people to track down hackers by rerouting their web traffic to hide the origination which usually provides a geolocation. Hackers that get caught are usually sloppy or they're playing with the big boys (such as large hacking organizations or government agencies.) The Big boys can intercept and gather more data because they have more sources and ISPs (Internet service providers) they can tap data from. To give you an idea of how someone would get caught in the scenario you presented, I'll walk through. •$200 laptop, has a serial number, maybe the hacker got careless and set it up with some random shred of personal info. •The public wifi they're accessing is sure to have some oversight and monitoring. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if ISP security teams more actively monitor traffic from sources such as this (and other places that offer free wifi) more actively than they would a residential Internet user. •That CD is physical evidence. If a raid were to be conducted on the said hackers house, the chances of this data being found is extremely probably. Hackers get caught by being sloppy or brave, yet it's usually a combo of the two when talking about the ones that got caught.",
"they get caught because they leak or leave details of their crime in places where law enforcement finds them. you don't hear about the hackers who don't get caught because the police never find them! being in a public wifi places doesn't prevent you from getting caught. starbucks still has security camera's with time indexes. oh did you buy a coffee with your credit card while you were on that 10 hour hackathon? bam..caught. did you finish up and then hailed a cab to take you home? bam...caught. did you brag about it to your online chat group that you just scored big? ohh...that new guy is a snitch. bam...caught",
"Most 'hacking' is done via social engineering. They gain people's confidence in order to either extract credentials to log into the system with the assets or gain physical access to the system or a network with the system. The act of interacting with people means the people who were duped have information that could aid in an investigation. Physical access leaves more information. Secondly even on public wifi you have to necessarily be in public, which leaves you open to people witnessing your presence.",
"Here's a tip. Use a laptop with no hard drive. Boot off of tails or JonDo OS on CD only. There will be No trace of your use other than the Mac address which can also be modified before connecting to the internet... Store all data that needs saving into an encrypted cloud drive using an encrypted zip container within a zip container using truecrypt with a nice long password. If you wanted to make sure no one will discover the contents of the zip drive, save the first portion of the container in a separate location. You could make this turtles all the way down. Use Kali Linux to encrypt your Disk. When asked for the password give them the self destruct code that wipes the key space and POOF all data is non recoverable..",
"Here is a story of someone getting caught at a library: URL_0 He's not really a \"hacker\" per se, but he's a cybercriminal who was caught while doing exactly what you describe. Using his laptop in a public place was actually one of the things that contributed to his capture: “The plan for the arrest…was to get him into a position where we could have him in a public setting, and I could initiate a chat with him,” Deryeghiayan said in response to questions from prosecutor Serrin Turner. “The purpose was that if indeed [the Dread Pirate Roberts] was Ross Ulbricht, we could get his computer in an open, unencrypted state.”"
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5q1ytx | Why do we feel strong emotions in our chest? | This question was asked a couple of years ago but the answers weren't very detailed or clear, so forgive me for reposting! | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Hypothalamus in brain is strongly affected by emotions! And in return hypothalamus can affect a vast number of structures in the body! So when you feel strong emotions, the neuronal discharge from hypothalamus alters your breathing, your blood pressure, the tone in the blood vessels, vomiting centre etc."
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5q1z8x | If musical scales of the same type (e.g. the major scales) sound the same but a different pitch, why are complex scales used over the simplest one? | I realize you can play the same song in any similar scale you want and have the same song come out. Why then choose anything besides C major/A minor where you don't have any sharps or flats? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"When you call the other keys \"complex\" you have a piano keyboard in mind. Different instruments have different \"default\" keys, some don't have any (i.e. I play a guitar-like instrument with muted open strings, and there's absolutely no difference playing Bb major, C major and E major scales apart from shifting the starting point a few frets). Also many instruments have limited range, and you have to adjust accordingly to make the most use of it. Also, if this is a song, i.e. a live vocalist is involved, you have to adjust to her/his limited range."
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5q20qy | How are dictionaries compiled? How do words get picked to be in a dictionary? How do they not 'forget' to put in a word? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Nowadays they take help of computers. With the computer you can basically count all the words occurring in all newspapers and all of last year's released books within a very reasonable timeframe (hours?). Sort the counts and you have a long list of all the most common words, remove all the words you already had in last year's edition and you have a shorter list of words you might consider adding to this year's edition. I imagine they can do a whole lot more with those statistics, this was just to explain the basics, and I hope you see how no words go forgotten this way! (unless there are computer bugs :D). For example they can also look at how old words change in popularity, if a word increases in popularity, perhaps it has gained another meaning? Or if it loses popularity, perhaps it's an old word that has become replaced by synonym to the extent that it's time to take it out of the dictionary."
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5q232a | How do broken bones fuse together? | Why does the same not happen for teeth? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Someone can more fully explain the actual mechanism that bones use to fuse but teeth and bones are not really the same thing. Even though bones seem hard they're actually made of almost all living tissue, collagen mostly. The outer layer is harder, but still a living tissue. When it breaks the bone can grow new cells and the pieces quickly fuse together. Basically a bone is like a really really dense sponge, but fluid still flows through it. Teeth are different. Most if it is not living tissue, there's no blood running through them. When it breaks it's there's no way to send new cells to repair the outer tooth enamel. The inside is mostly just nerves. whereas breaking a bone is like breaking a sponge, breaking a tooth is like cracking a rock. It can't grow because it isn't alive. EDIT: we're obviously talking about the exterior of the tooth. I love pedantry but jesus fucking christ.",
"The simple answer is that bones heal because they're living tissue. Teeth contain living tissue, but the outside (enamel) is entirely made of a glassy mineral. It's not alive, so it can't heal. Bone healing has three phases. **1) Reactive**: Blood vessels contract to stop bleeding. Cells in the vicinity of the break die, and a fibrous tissue called \"granulation tissue\" forms in their place. Meanwhile, cells called osteoclasts absorb the dead bone tissue. **2) Reparative**: Bones are coated in a layer of connective tissue called the periosteum. A few days after the break, cells from the periosteum start to reproduce and change. Cells very near the break form into hyaline cartilage (the kind of hard cartilage that's inside joints) and cells further away from the break produce woven bone (a weak kind of bone tissue, made of disorganized fibers). The growing tissue from both sides eventually meets in the middle, filling the gap. The bridge of new tissue is called the \"fracture callus\". At this point, the bone is still weak but able to perform some of its original function. Over time, the fracture callus absorbs minerals and becomes harder. At this point, it starts to be penetrated by little channels, containing a tiny blood vessel and lots of osteoblasts (bone-forming cells). The osteoblasts lay down new lamellar bone (a stronger kind of bone tissue, made of fibers organized into plates). The new bone is what's called trabecular (spongy) bone, the kind of bone that's normally on the interior of bones. When the formation of spongy bone is complete, the bone is mostly as strong as the original bone. **3) Remodeling**: Over the next 3-5 years, osteoclasts absorb the surface of the trabecular bone, and osteoblasts replace it with compact bone; the kind of solid bone that the outside of bones is regularly made of. At this point, the repair is complete and the bone is pretty much restored to its original condition. TL;DR: Step 1: cleanup the broken bits. Step 2: Build a scaffold, then replace it with spongy bone. Step 3: Replace the spongy bone on the surface with solid bone."
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5q26f7 | What ist the deal with this “alternative facts“ thing everyone is talking about? What is it and where did it come from? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"A few days ago, the White House press secretary gave a press conference in which he claimed that media reports of relatively low attendance at Trump's inauguration were inaccurate. He made a series of claims to support his position (such as that it was the first use of plastic floor coverings which gave the impression of a less crowded Mall) which were swiftly contradicted by a number of other people (such as the assertion that plastic floor coverings were first used at Obama's inauguration in 2013). Later, in an interview with CNN, Trump's former campaign manager was asked why the press secretary had been sent to tell \"falsehoods\" on his first press briefing. After attempting to change the subject, she claimed that he had simply put \"alternative facts\" out there, prompting the interviewer to remark, incredulously, that alternative facts aren't facts, they're falsehoods. In response, \"alternative facts\" as a euphemism for \"lies\" has become something of an internet meme. For example, the largest rail operator in Germany, Deutsche Bahn, often criticized for its poor record for punctuality (\"poor\" by German standards, that is), tweeted on its official account that punctuality was now at 120%, accompanied with the hashtag #alternativefacts.",
"Trump was recently inaugurated as President. You probably already knew that. The thing is, his inauguration did not have as many people as Obama's. It was not deserted or a dramatic failure, but it was still noticeably less. Now, apparently Trump's government didn't like that, and his press secretary tried to claim that Trump's inauguration really was the biggest, and used a bunch of (false) statements to do so. In addition, he accused the media of lying and trying to diminish Trump for what they said about the inauguration. Now later, another part of Trump's government tried to defend the press secretary, with the following sentence : > You're saying it's a falsehood, and they're giving — our press secretary, Sean Spicer, gave alternative facts to that.",
"Trumps advisers created a new word for lie. A lie coming from Trumps team is now called alternative fact.",
"What's more important: The narrative or facts? America is trying to figure that one out. Because alternative facts used to be called lies. But now there are some people who think that instead of on version of what happened...there are multiple versions.",
"Calling lies *alternative facts* is something straight out of George Orwell's dystopian novel *1984*. BTW, 1984 just skyrocketed to #1 on Amazon as of this post. This is not an alternative fact.",
"It is the inability to be data driven, or scientific. Example fact: Climate change is real, and it's linked largely to consumption of fossil fuels and waste. Example alternative fact: No it's not."
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5q27qs | Why do cars have two controls for parking? | I'm referring to the gearstick park and the parking brake (or hand brake). Would it not have been possible to incorporate both into a single control? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"They're two different mechanisms. The parking brake is connected directly to the wheels, holding them in place. The gear shift locks the transmission, which is a part of the engine. There are electronic parking brakes which engage automatically when you move the gear shift to park.",
"The idea is to have two redundant systems so you have double the chance of one break working as intended. If you parked at a slope and had only one system and it failed...crash. If you have two separate systems the chance of both systems failing at the same time is much smaller. Say chance of failure is 1%. So in 1/100 cases your car rolls down the hill. Now both systems have 1% failure chance its 1/10000 cases that both systems fail. redundancy is the easiest way to better statistical errors.",
"Only automatic transmissions have a Park setting on the gearbox, manual transmission are generally left in neutral when parked up",
"Another reason is the emergency brake (the one not on the gear stick) can also be used in case of hydraulic brake (foot brake) failure since it's a separate system. The emergency brake system is more reliable since it's just a cable that runs to the back wheels. If your foot brake goes out you can use the handbrake to slow you down, just do it slowly or you'll loose control. You can't do this with the gear stick parking btw it won't work unless you're stopped."
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5q2q5z | Physicists, How do we know that the fundamental forces used to all be one force at the start of the universe? | Since all our calculations are based around the constant nature of the 4 fundamental forces how do we know that they used to be one? | Physics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"We don't. But we observe that they unite at very high energy states. We also observe an expanding universe and a ton of other evidence of an early state with extremely high energy density. Put one and one together...."
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5q2q6v | How can solids keep its form if the atoms that make it up are constantly moving? | Chemistry | explainlikeimfive | {
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"In a solid the atoms that make it up is not constantly moving. That is the difference between a solid and a liquid. The atoms are moving a bit but they will not move past each other and will therefore keep its general configuration. Some solids, especially pure metals, will allow you to mold the solid as you can move the atoms around",
"In solids the are only vibrating in their place, not moving around like in liquids or gasses. You can see the forces keeping the atoms attracted to each other as rubber bands: In solids these rubber bands are stretched, but they are still of rubber, allowing some motion, vibration. In a liquid they are lose so the atoms can move more and sometimes they come closer to other atoms so they attach their rubber bands to them instead, thus the atoms are moving around, but as a whole the liquid is sticking together. In a gas, the atoms have so much energy that they are too fast and too far apart to even attach to each other with the rubber bands most of the time, should they bump into each other anyway the rubber band isn't strong enough to overcome their high movement energy, so they don't stick together and rather spread out over time - they diffuse."
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5q2t2d | If a spider falls onto the web of another spider's, will it be able to walk normally? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Spiders create little sticky blobs at points in their web and the creator uses the safe spots to move around without getting tangled up. It's possible, although highly unlikely without outside interference, for a spider to get tangles in it's own web. Spiders are carnivorous and cannibalistic, and they will eat anything caught in their web, even another spider if the opportunity arises.",
"While I think most of us understand how spiderwebs work, I think an interesting thing to consider is if a spider ended up in an alien web, would it be able to \"perceive\" where the sticky parts are and avoid them, or do spiders navigate their own webs just by instinctively knowing their own infrastructure? Can a spider see the sticky blobs and walk around them, or does a spider just know to \"skip every other strand because that's how I've always made my webs.\"",
"Spiders aren't smart enough to remember the exact details of their own webs. The reason why spiders are able to avoid getting caught in their webs is because they know instinctively how to build a web, and they know instinctively how to walk on it. For example, all orb weaver spiders use non-sticky threads for the spokes, and sticky threads for the spiral. So any orb weaver will know how to walk on the web of another orb weaver. Many spiders also have oil on their feet that helps them avoid getting stuck. And finally, as long as they didn't *fall* in, they can simply walk carefully to get out - most insects get caught in a web by falling or flying into it, allowing them to get tangled up before they even know what's happening. A spider that falls into the web of a *different* species, however, might not know where to go, so all bets are off. Even if it does get trapped, it can still get out - a web is meant to stop an insect long enough for the spider to paralyze it with its bite and wrap it up, not trap it forever. Spider silk is also edible, so in the worst case scenario the trapped spider can eat its way free. On the other hand, if the spider who *made* the web is still there, it might not get the chance. Spiders are quite territorial, and have no problem with eating other spiders.",
"Oh I saw this last week on tv... the web contains sticking and non sticking threads. Ths spider uses the non sticking threads to be able to move around in the web and could theoretically also get stuck in it's own web. So yes, I believe an \"alien\" spider probably would get caught not knowing where the non sticking threads are.",
"Also If so would the spider whose web it is eat the spider that fell in?",
"Building on the other answers about sticky vs. non-sticky segments... the unanswered part is \"can a spider figure out which parts of a foreign web are sticky, and which parts aren't?\" Related to that: does the spider avoid the sticky threads on its home web by memory? Or does it have a way to see/sense which threads are sticky?"
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5q2uto | How do random number generators work on the most fundamental levels in programming or otherwise? | I was trying to think how I would come up with it but couldn't find anything that was very clean or efficient. Thanks for reading | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Without an additional hardware device, called a \"true random number generator\" (TRNG), there simply is no real random, but we use pseudo randomness. To clarify that, what does \"random\" actually mean? Simplified, randomness means the fact of having a sequence of numbers that we can't find any pattern in, so the next number in the sequence cannot be determined knowing the whole prior sequence. Furthermore this implies that the elements of the sequence as a whole are equally distributed on a given interval. We can now emulate that behaviour by using pseudo-random generators: Those are mathematical functions or algorithms that show the required behaviour of equal distribution, but that have a period (the amount of 'random' numbers you can get out of it before we get the same random numbers as before a second time) that is far greater than the amount of pseudo-random numbers we actually get out of it. The most famous example might be the [Mersenne Twister]( URL_0 ) with a period of 2^19937 - 1. Let me be clear: The amount of atoms in the visible universe is [estimated to be roughly 10^80]( URL_1 ), what estimates to 2^266. When you now initialize the Mersenne Twister with some variables that only youself are aware of (e.g. the current system time in microseconds, maybe joined with some memory contents), you got your own, personal source of pseudo-randomness.",
"These guys have pretty much nailed it. To make it more simple, however... There are two options - 1. Take an input from something your computer is monitoring. Some good ones: Temperature, current RAM usage, hard drive spin RPM, etc. Apply some math to those to get them to fit into the random number range you're generating. I.e. if the hard drive is spinning at 3217 RPMs, and you need a number between 1-10, take the last 2 digits, divide by 2, and round down. 2. Pick from a big, predetermined list. You can start at different places on the list, also by taking an input."
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5q2uw7 | What makes prostitution illegal, while acting in porn for money not? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"In the US, pornography is a type of expression that falls under the broad protection of the 1st Amendment. Technically speaking, you are paying actors to act, and it just happens that sexual intercourse is part of that. You aren't paying them directly for the sex, nor are you paying them for the actor's sexual gratification (you're paying them for the audience's sexual gratification). Prostitution is strictly money-for-sex for the participants (at least one's) sexual gratification and it isn't an expression of free speech. You may find the distinction arbitrary, but nevertheless that is the distinction that the US Courts have ruled and upheld since the 80's and it's stuck. Now, the follow-up question is why can't you just bring a camera to a prostitute and call it porn? Well that's because the people operating the law aren't stupid. They may be malicious and incompetent, but they aren't stupid. Pornography companies and actors wade through mountains of regulations and paperwork to do what they do and there are laws regarding acting in general. You can't just point a camera at someone and -poof- they're now an actor.",
"Because prostitution is charging people to have sex with you. Porn is charging someone to film you while you have sex. No money changes hands between the actors. It is not illegal for two actors to engage in consensual sex. Neither is it illegal for a third person to film someone having sex (with their consent) and it's not illegal to pay someone for permission to film them."
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5q3063 | What is happening on a neurological level when you get dizzy? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"If you're talking about dizziness after spinning around loads of times, this is because of a mismatch between your sense of balance and your vision. Deep in our ear, we have three channels that have liquid in them. When we move our head around, the liquid in these channels moves around and this allows our brain to keep balance and keep our eyes completely fixed on a point no matter how we move our head. After you spin round loads of times, this liquid is still \"sloshing around\" inside the channels in your ear. These are sending messages to your brain telling you that you're still spinning around even though you're not. Your brain then sends signals to your eyes, trying to make them 'keep up' with the spinning that it thinks is happening, making it seem like the world keeps spinning around. When you try to make a movement with your legs, your brain will send signals to the legs that are modified by your sense of balance, so your legs won't do what you're trying to make them do, e.g. if you want to move your leg forward, your brain thinks that \"forward\" keeps changing, even though it isn't anymore. If you get dizziness without spinning around first, then this is most likely due to a problem in the inner ear where these channels are."
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5q37n6 | What is being written on my boarding pass right before I get in the security line? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Where did you see this? it might help if you specify what kind of flight it was. Personally I don't recall anything being written on my boarding pass for many years back. They just scan it and that's it.",
"Security personnel are circling important information to verify that it is accurate (date, name, gate) and showing that it was checked. Many are further required to initial the boarding pass to show that it was checked and that they are doing their job. It is clearly becoming less important since many people have digital boarding passes which receive no such markings."
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5q38wk | Why is the American credit system such a mess? | Economics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Well, the reason these people are committing identity theft is *because* there are already a whole lot of things in place to verify people's identities and confirm who they are -- those parents and siblings have already messed up their credit to the point that they, using their own identities, cannot get credit. A lot of American financial rules put a lot of weight on people, not the institutions, to manage their own credit -- the whole \"check your credit report every year!\" is all about individuals watching out for bank fraud that affects them. Banks don't have an equal level of incentive to prevent fraud, because from the bank's point of view the cost of a little fraud isn't worth the extra work to prevent that fraud in the first place, especially when the system gets individuals to do the bank's work for them. So, the amount of fraud in the US fits the capitalistic: \"what's the cost vs benefit\" calculation. Most people never have their identity stolen, banks aren't losing money hand over fist through identity fraud, so it has only been fixed as far as it took to get it to this point.",
"Culturally in the US, a lot of responsibility is placed on the individual rather than the institution. This has huge advantages for responsible people (getting to travel the world for free on credit card points), to huge disadvantages on irresponsible people (getting into so much debt, they will never pay off). The US is also unique in that a lot of bank debt is bundled up and resold. So the bank ends up being more a commission based salesman, rather than worrying too much about risk of default. This all leads to irresponsible people who have ruined their own credit, then being able to commit fraud to ruin their child's credit. > I really feel for you guys with this crazy credit system and the health care. There are many advantages of the US credit system over the UK system. It makes it far easier for a responsible people to manage their credit. The US healthcare system has zero advantages over any other western country. It is a nightmare, hijacked by insurance companies. Every level is based on profits over patient health."
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5q39hx | How did we come to know which mushrooms we could and couldn't eat? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Trial and error. If somebody eats a mushroom and dies, others will know to avoid it in the future.",
"Watching what other like animals consume. If a pig eats it and doesn't die it's probably safe for humans.",
"Me: \"Hey Joe, tell me what this tastes like.\" Joe: \"BARF.\" Me: \"Hmm... Hey Bob, tell me what _this_ tastes like.\" Bob: \"Chicken.\" Me: \"Ooo!\"",
"It's called natural selection. There once was a time where a group of humans liked fool's mushroom. Over time, this group became smaller and smaller, until none were left in it"
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5q39z9 | How do doctors know or decide what antibiotic to prescribe for an illness? | My kids went to the doctor and both were diagnosed with ear and sinus infections. My son was prescribed one med while my daughter was prescribed something different. Neither is allergic to anything and they're relatively close in age. The only thing is they saw different doctors. I was just wondering if it's simply doctor preference or if there's a medical reason for the difference. | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"LOL I'll try to give an answer that has a bit less hatred towards doctors than the other guy. When the doctor see all the symptoms, he can form a list of differential diagnoses (a list of potential causes). Running cultures will help you pinpoint the exact disease, but that involves the patient coming backing in 2 weeks, and not receiving any relief until then. Since patients don't like that (understandably), doctors give what's called \"Empirical therapy,\" where you treat the most likely cause. It's easy to differentiate if it's a bacterial or viral infection right away. When choosing the exact antibiotic (if it is bacterial), there are a number of right answers. If a lot of patients have recently come in with a certain disease, then doctors will give an antibiotic that works well against that disease (but is still good enough for other diseases). If there hasn't been an outbreak in that clinic, then the doctor is more likely to give broad-range antibiotics."
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5q3iz2 | What makes metal tarnish, and what is so special about gold that it doesn't tarnish | Chemistry | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Since the process of 'tarnishing', or corrosion, is a redox reaction between the metal and oxygen and water, an incredibly stable and unreactive element such as gold will not be affected. **Edit:** As /u/nickbrisola pointed out, I should also say that gold is a 'passivating' metal. These types of metal react with oxygen to form an impervious oxide layer that prevents from any water or oxygen to be in contact with the metal, hence preventing corrosion. Other examples of such metals include Aluminium and Chromium. The opposite of these metals are known as 'active' metals and include Iron and Magnesium - which can be easily corroded.",
"All chemical reactions are based on interactions between the electrons of atoms. To understand rust and tarnish, you need to understand how metals react. Rust and tarnish are generally made when a metal reacts with other compounds containing oxygen or sulfur in the surrounding environment (air/water/ground) and water. Other commenters have talked about how stable gold is, but the chemical reason behind this stability is due to gold's \"valence\" electrons; the outermost electrons in a gold atom. These electrons are the ones that are able to react. These electrons are found in regions around the atom called orbitals which can only take a certain amount of electrons before they fill up. What we see in gold (and other group 11 elements) is that the orbitals which contain the reactive electrons are actually at full capacity. Atoms like it a lot when these orbitals are filled and it ends up taking too much energy to add or remove an electron from a gold atom for a reaction to happen with oxygen or sulfur. This makes gold really resistant to oxidation (rusting/tarnishing). Iron, on the other hand, is very reactive with water/oxygen and forms rust (Iron Oxide) pretty quickly. It gets oxidized by oxygen really quickly because that reaction allows Iron's orbitals to be filled in a more stable way. It then forms the oxide after reacting with water giving us the red rust we see everywhere. Side note, there's actually a difference between tarnish and rust. Tarnish is a layer on top of the metal that insulates it and protects the deeper layers of the metal like the green tarnish on copper (statue of liberty) while rust generally flakes off and cannot protect the metal below (steel and iron rust). This is why iron things left out will eventually rust completely through while the statue of liberty is still standing. There are also quantum reasons for the increased stability of gold which explains why we see tarnish on silver but not gold, but that's a little beyond an ELI5. tl;dr: gold doesn't tarnish because it's happy where it is and it would take too much energy for it to rust or tarnish. P.S. looking up wikipedia's pages on rust, tarnish, oxidation states and electron filling of transition metals will explain everything a lot better than I can :) Edit^2: Iron oxide not aluminum.",
"\"Tarnish\" is the surface of the metal reacting with various things it comes in contact with, producing the discolouration. Kind of like how orange rust forms on iron (Iron III Oxide) or the bright green patina that forms on copper (copper carbonate). Gold is extremely stable. It does not readily react with chemicals found in the environment normally. So because there is nothing that can react with the surface of the gold, the surface stays exactly how it was at manufacture and does not develop a tarnish.",
"Gold does not tarnish easily nor does it form a passivation layer like Aluminum, and while most tarnish is an oxidation reaction, silver and Gold tend to react more with sulphur than oxygen. Proof: when polishing silver, the tarnish being removed is black silver sulphide, whereas silver oxide is white."
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5q3kkj | In typical office-pen ink tubes, what is that yellow wax-like stuff at the top of the ink? | I know the wording is rough but I couldn't figure out what to call it. Here's an example: [Pilot G2 Refills.]( URL_0 ) What's the yellow-orange stuff? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Some sort of oil or other viscous substance that acts as a soft barrier between the ink, which dries when exposed to air, and the outside air. Also serves as a weight to push down the ink when it's low."
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5q3mrc | If the petroleum industry receives over $4 billion in annual government subsidies (on average), why is there a tax on fossil fuels? Wouldn't these cash flows 'cancel out?' | ELI5: If the petroleum industry receives over $4 billion in annual government subsidies (on average), why is there a tax on petroleum? Wouldn't these cash flows 'cancel out?' To my understanding, the subsidies decrease the cost of petroleum products, and taxes increase the cost. What's the point? Is this a vicious circle? | Economics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Most of the subsidies for the fossil fuels industry in the US comes in the form of tax breaks. Some economists would be upset at using the term subsidy to mean tax break, but common usage of the word includes them. Petroleum companies get tax breaks for doing specific things that the government wants to incentivize (or avoid punishing). For example, they get a foreign tax credit which allows them to deduct taxes paid in foreign countries from their profits that are returned to the US. The government allows that because it wants US companies to do business abroad while bringing money back into the US. Companies either wouldn't do business abroad or would keep their earnings outside of the US if they got double taxed on them. It's also worth noting that this tax break is available to pretty much all US businesses, not just the petroleum industry. There are also subsidies promoting domestic manufacturing, exploration for new wells, etc. There are a couple reasons you can't just trade these out for a tax on petroluem. First, the tax on gasoline is collected by both the stats and the federal government, which means the states also rely on the tax for money. However, the federal government is the one who gives the subsidies. So the people doing the taxing aren't always the same ones providing the subsidies. Additionally, people are the ones paying the tax and it's on gasoline. Petroleum companies are the ones getting the subsidies and it's on their businesses in general and drilling for oil; not just gasoline. Second, if you remove the subsidies you lose your ability to influence the behavior of the subsidized industries. Without the subsidies companies could get the same savings without having to undertake specific tasks to claim the subsidy.",
"When people hear the word \"subsidy\", they think that the government is writing a check to an industry and the industry deposits the check in the bank as profit. But that isn't the case, and opponents of the industry can intentionally use this misunderstanding to misrepresent the situation. Here's some of the things that are included in that \"$4 billion\" figure: > The single largest expenditure is just over $1 billion for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which is designed to protect the U.S. from oil shortages. The second largest category is just under $1 billion in tax exemptions for farm fuel. The justification for that tax exemption is that fuel taxes pay for roads, and the farm equipment that benefits from the tax exemption is technically not supposed to be using the roads. The third largest category? $570 million for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program. (This program is classified as a petroleum subsidy because it artificially reduces the price of fuel, which helps oil companies sell more of it). Those three programs account for $2.5 billion a year in \"oil subsidies.\" [The Surprising Reason That Oil Subsidies Persist: Even Liberals Love Them]( URL_0 ) ETA: Thanks for the gold, kind stranger. I'll use it to buy a big cowboy hat and a big Cadillac with steer horns on the grill.",
"Most of these answers are misleading or missing the major reason. * Tax breaks (\"subsidies\") are for American petroleum countries. * Taxes are on *any* oil sold in the U.S. So by cutting taxes only on US companies, they are able to be more profitable in comparison to non-US companies. Oil has a price controlled by the market so everyone has to sell at that price (in general) so any way that their expenses can be reduced (expenses include taxes) will make the US companies more competitive. Adding taxes on to oil later on (and in different amounts depending on the type/use) means that we're taxing all oil consumed in the US. This is not the same as oil made in the US. So we tilt the playing field in favor of the US companies and then tax them all evenly. This gets way more complicated because other countries try to do the same thing, but this is the general idea of *why*.",
"You need to understand what a is a tax deduction, what is a tax credit, and why the government (ideally) would issue them. A tax credit of $100 means that what you owe in taxes is lowered by $100. So if your business owes $200 and you have a credit of $100 you now only owe $100. Credits apply to what you owe. Deductions work differently. Say you earn $100,000 and you have a $10,000 tax deduction. You now only owe taxes on $100,000 - $10,000 = $90,000 at whatever rate you are taxed at in that particular bracket. The government subsidize through tax credits and deductions things we want to see more of, especially if we would not see that activity normally. For oil companies often we subsidize exploration for new reserves. If you are a small company you need these credits to explore for new wells. This injects competition into the industry and generally the big companies don't like these small guys running around, driving up the cost of leases, and having to pay these guys money for what the big companies were eventually going to get to anyway. But of course the big companies benefit as well. Importantly to us, how do we benefit? The argument is we benefit by taxing all the other stuff that comes along with the oil industry. All the work clothes, all the account services, all these industries pay their income taxes, their sales taxes, etc. States benefit from royalty payments as well. That is not inconsiderable. The Federal government benefits from royalty payments as well. Quite frankly a lot of the oil guys hate paying twice (royalties and production taxes). And when you speak of taxes increasing the cost you need to define where the tax is. A tax at the gas pump is paid by the consumer and is for maintenance of all the road construction and maintenance. It is just and fair that those that get the most use out of the roads pay a tax for using the roads. A \"good\" tax is avoidable by those that don't use the service and is unavoidable by those that do use the service. A gas tax is a \"good\" tax at the pump because it targets exactly who is using the roads. Taxes on gas get incorporated into tax. Everything that is moved by ship or truck pays some form of gas tax and is incorporated into the price of what you buy. These are good taxes.",
"Long story short, oil and gas doesn't get subsidies, it gets tax breaks. Taxes it would pay on profits or payroll are reduced as incentive for them to set up shop in your country/state instead of the next guy's. Wind and solar, they get/got subsidies, tax breaks are useless to someone with no profit model because you will never have enough tax burden to use it. things are changing though as renewables are finding ways to turn an actual profit, subsidies will hopefully turn to tax breaks for them also.",
"Aside from all the more or less accurate information you've received about the difference between business and petroleum related tax breaks and federal gas tax revenue, the one piece missing is that federal petroleum excise taxes are nearly ten times more than the $4 billion in subsides you cite. Approximately $39 billion annually (this does include some unrelated taxes like those on truck tires, but they're a pretty small share). And side note, $4 billion is a rounding error in a $3.5 trillion budget.",
"I frequently see the same debate on reddit regarding subsidies for fossil fuels. For the sake of clarity I've decided to compile all of the fossil fuel subsidies currently in use. I'm tired of the top-line numbers that don't have much in the way of specifics. Here is what was spent by the federal government from 2002-2008. The total amount of subsidies and direct payments over that period for the fossil fuel industry was $72,473 million. **Tax Credits** **Foreign Tax Credit ($15,300 million)** - IRC Section 901. This is a generally applicable credit that is intended to enable taxpayers earning income or profits abroad to avoid double taxation. Special rules under this provision allow characterization of royalty payments to foreign governments as corporate income taxes, which have provided special benefits to oil and gas producers. IRC Section 907 imposes limitations on those benefits but does not eliminate them. **Credit for Production of Nonconventional Fuels ($14,097 million)**- IRC Section 45K. This provision provides a tax credit for the production of certain fuels. Qualifying fuels include: oil from shale, tar sands; gas from geopressurized brine, Devonian shale, coal seams, tight formations, biomass, and coal-based synthetic fuels. This credit has historically primarily benefited coal producers. **Oil and Gas Exploration & Development Expensing ($7,100 million)**- IRC Section 617. Intangible Drilling Costs (IDC) (for example, wages, costs of machinery, or unsalvageable materials) may be deducted as business expenses rather than amortized. Integrated oil companies may deduct only 70 percent and must amortize the remainder. **Oil and Gas Excess Percentage over Cost Depletion ($5,441 million)**- IRC Section 613. Independent producers and royalty owners can deduct 15 percent of gross income earned from qualifying oil, gas, and oil shale deposits. **Credit for Enhanced Oil Recovery Costs ($1,575 million)** - IRC Section 43. This tax credit is available for hydrocarbon-based tertiary injectant methods defined by IRC Section 193. **Characterizing Coal Royalty Payments as Capital Gains ($986 million)** - IRC Section 631(c). Income from the sale of coal under royalty contract may be treated as a capital gain rather than ordinary income for qualifying individuals. **Exclusion of Benefit Payments to Disabled Miners ($438 million)** - 30 U.S.C. 922(c). Disability payments out of the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund are not treated as income to the recipients. **Exclusion of Alternative Fuels from Fuel Excise Tax ($343 million)** - IRC Section 6426(d). This section applies to liquified petroleum gas (LPG), P-series fuels (defined at 42 U.S.C. 13211(2)), compressed natural gas (CNG), liquefied natural gas (LNG), liquefied hydrogen, liquid coal, and liquid hydrocarbon from biomass. **Other-Fuel Exploration & Development Expensing ($342 million)** - IRC Section 617. Identical provisions as applied to oil and gas (above). Including, for example, the costs of surface stripping, and construction of shafts and tunnels. **Other-Fuel Excess of Percentage over Cost Depletion ($323 million)**- IRC Section 613. Taxpayers may deduct 10 percent of gross income from coal production. **Deduction for Clean Fuel Vehicles and Refueling Property-Fossil Fuels ($209 million)** - IRC Section 179A. This deduction is equal to the cost of property with certain limitations. Qualifying fuels: natural gas, LNG, LPG, hydrogen, electric, E85, methanol, and other alcohol fuels. Amounts were prorated between fossil fuels and renewables. **Exception from Passive Loss Limitations for Oil and Gas ($190 million)** - IRC Section 469(c)(3). Owners of working interests in oil and gas properties may aggregate negative taxable income from qualifying sources with all other income sources. **Credit for Clean Coal Investment ($186 million)**- IRC Sections 48A and 48B. Available for 20 percent of the basis of integrated gasification combined cycle property and 15 percent of the basis for other advanced coal-based generation technologies. **Expensing Liquid Fuel Refineries ($164 million)** - IRC Section 179C. This deduction is available to refiners of crude oil and other fuels defined at IRC Section 45K(c) (above). **Special Rules for Mining Reclamation Reserves ($159 million)** - IRC Section 468. This deduction is available for early payments into reserve trusts, with eligibility determined by the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act and the Solid Waste Management Act. The amounts attributable to mines rather than solid-waste facilities are conservatively assumed to be one-half of the total. **Natural Gas Distribution Lines Treated as Fifteen-Year Modified Accelerated Cost Recovery System (MACRS) Property ($138 million)** - IRC Section 168(e)(3)(E)(viii). The normally applicable depreciation period is shortened for qualifying natural gas distribution lines. **Sulfur Regulatory Compliance Incentives for Small Diesel Refiners (Combined) ($109 million)**- IRC Sections 179B and 45H. This tax credit is available for fuel that complies with EPA Highway Diesel Fuel Sulfur Control Requirements. Small refiners may claim a current-year deduction in lieu of depreciation for up to 75 percent of associated capital costs. **84-month Amortization Period for Coal Pollution Control ($102 million)** - IRC Section 169(d)(5). Extends the amortization period used in calculating the deduction from the generally applicable 60-month period available for other types of pollution control facilities. **Expensing Advanced Mine Safety Equipment ($32 million)** - IRC Section 179E. The costs of qualifying mine safety equipment may be expensed rather than recovered through depreciation. **Credit for Clean Fuel Vehicles and Refueling Property-Fossil Fuels ($14 million)**- IRC Section 30C. This tax credit is available for up to 30 percent of the cost of the property. Qualifying fuels include: E85, natural gas, LNG, CNG, LPG, hydrogen, and 20 percent biodiesel. Amounts were prorated between fossil fuels and biofuels. **Natural Gas Gathering Lines Treated as Seven-year Property with Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) Relief ($6 million)** - IRC Section 168(e)(3)(C)(iv). Depreciation period shortened for qualifying natural gas gathering lines. **Natural Gas Arbitrage Exemption ($6 million)** - IRC Section 148(b)(4). This provision excludes prepayments under qualified natural gas supply contracts from the definition of “investment-type property,” creating an exception to the general rule that tax-exempt bonds do not include bond issues used to obtain higher-yielding investments. **Amortization of Oil and Gas Geological and Geophysical Costs ($145 million)** - IRC Section 167(h). This provision allows a shortened depreciation period of two years for non-integrated oil companies and seven years for integrated companies. **Direct Payments** **LIHEAP ($6,358 million)** The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) allocates block grants to states so they can provide low-income households with energy assistance. In a typical year, over half of the funds are used to assist with heating costs, while remaining funds are used to assist with cooling costs, state leveraging and outreach programs, and weatherization efforts. **Strategic Petroleum Reserve ($6,183 million)** - The Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) was created in 1975 after multiple oil crises, in order to protect the American economy from severe oil supply disruptions. The SPR is funded through annual appropriations to the Department of Energy with special appropriations for oil purchases. Oil is also obtained through a “royalty-in-kind” program with the Minerals Management Service. **Black Lung Disability Trust Fund ($1,035 million)** - The Black Lung Disability Trust Fund (BLDTF) pays health benefits to coal miners afflicted with pneumoconiosis or “black lung disease.” Created in 1978, it is funded through an excise tax of $1.10/ton on underground coal and $.55/ton on surface coal, exempting lignite coal, imports, and exports. As with other excise taxes (for example, those on crude petroleum or transportation fuels), these levies support a trust fund that accrues to the benefit of the fuel market itself (i.e., coal), by covering health costs incurred in the production of that fuel. Thus, the cost and benefit of the tax to the fuel should theoretically net to zero. However, as the excise tax payments did not sufficiently cover early benefits payments, the BLDTF was given “indefinite authority to borrow” from the U.S. General Fund. **Highway Trust Fund ($500 million)** - The Highway Trust Fund supports highway, road, and other transportation projects throughout the country. **Northeast Home Heating Oil Reserve ($50 million)** - The Northeast Home Heating Oil Reserve is intended to compensate for supply interruptions to home heating oil supplies, without distorting heating oil prices enough to alter consumer behavior. **Naval Petroleum and Oil Shale Reserves ($28 million)** - The Naval Petroleum and Oil Shale Reserves once functioned as a Navy counterpart to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.",
"It's not a straightforward swap of money in/money out. For the most part, gasoline taxes are collected to fund highway maintenance and are intended as a proxy road use tax, so that the burden of funding public highways falls most heavily on the people actually using the highways the most Subsidies given to petroleum producers, on the other hand, are intended to shape their organizational behavior in a direction desired by Congress. There are various reasons for this, but much of it is the fact that exploration is extremely expensive up front due to the capital and labor expenses involved in sending people out to look for reserves, with the reward deferred. You may or may not find anything and might not sell for years. Subsidizing research and exploration makes it possible for smaller companies to do this, so the industry isn't completely dominated by a few giant oil companies with the capital reserves to absorb the upfront losses involved in developing new reserves. The taxes do have the effect of making gasoline more expensive to the consumer, and the subsidies have the effect of making it less expensive, but in neither case is that the main reason we do it.",
"The taxes are much, much larger. Most of the subsidies are available to companies other than oil companies.",
"Anti capitalists are doing a good job of fooling you. They don't tax you AS MUCH as they could have so they act like they're giving you something. So they raise your taxes by $100 then give you a $20 deduction and claim that you got $20 in government subsidies. Same with budget cuts. Some govt agency or union will ask for a wage increase of 12%. They'll actually get an 8% raise and then cry about having their wages cut by 4%.",
"This is a misnomer developed by liberal media, etc. Oil companies don't receive any subsidies at all. Subsidies, in corn for example, are where someone is paid to produce or not produce by the government despite market conditions. You can make the argument that a tax break is a subsidy as it functions to subsidize companies' bottom lines, but really it is just a tax break. Tax incentives are to help a government guide investment. Subsidies do the same thing, but are used specifically for market distortion.",
"So why is everyone against subsidies for clean energy again?",
"Let's leave aside /u/TellahTheSage 's and /u/TheScamr 's great posts on what is and is not a subsidy - the main point is that they don't cancel out, they stack. You are paying both of them. And then buying the product.",
"Tax subsidies are usually on capital expenses to promote large new projects that increase production and employment. The government collects far more income from royalties and income tax than they give up in subsidies. The energy industry even with its subsidies is one of the largest contributors of revenue to the federal government. This is where idealism battles pragmatism. The government collects a minuscule amount of revenue from renewables. They're still unprofitable, no royalties will ever be collected. If there's a breakthrough in renewables the federal government will have a huge gap to fill to collect revenue."
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5q3o8h | Does the president even have the power to gag employees of federal agencies and the agencies themselves? Don't we pay for their research, expertise, and information? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The President is the head of the Executive Branch of the Federal Government. Every agency of the Federal Government falls under the Executive Branch, which means the President is the boss of all of these employees, and can put a gag order on any of them. The President is not the boss of someone in the Legislative or judicial branches of Government(Judges, Senators, Congressman), and cannot put a gag order on them.",
"Due to the differences between our government's I'm not entirely sure this is the same but reminds me of Canada. Our previous prime minister silenced scientists. Sorry, on mobile. ( URL_0 ) The primary reason from what I understand was because their party's stance was global warming isn't real and pro oil and gas. Basically didn't want scientists talking to media about how they are making really poor decisions about the environment. Trying to control public opinion. Very scary they can do this kind of thing. As soon as our new prime minister got into office he immediately removed the gag order.",
"Yes. The President has the power to put a Gag order on any employee of the Executive Branch of the Government. Most federal agencies are a part of that branch.",
"Outside of wartime, how often has this happened in the past? Examples?",
"The president is their boss. During work hours, they have to do what he says (within legal limits) or he can fire them. He cannot tell them what to do during their off hours. Nor can he fire them for what they do during their non-working time, other than political appointees (which the vast majority of gov't employees are not).",
"The president can give gag orders to any executive department, see Bush regarding abortion information in federal clinics, and then Clinton rescinding that. So if the head of EPA wants to say something, they can as a citizen, but as acting head of the EPA they are legally required to follow the direction given by the president. As for blocking off contact with Congress, he can do that but congress always has the option of formally calling a witness. So if that same EPA director wanted to say something he could make it known there was information to congress, who would then formally request testimony, and then anything not protected for national security would be open. So it isn't a 100% effective gag, but it stops people from being on the job contradicting his mission plan (whatever that may be). As for people speaking on their own behalf, that is still protected, but as you become more of a public figure it becomes less protected. So a guy working part time at the EPA will have much more leeway in their acceptable actions than someone that is a figurehead of the EPA.",
"I have a related question: Who told Trump how to do this? The man is an idiot. He didn't even know he had to hire staff. So who's really pulling the strings here? Who told him he had this power, and how to use it?",
"Does anyone here with legal background know how a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request would impact this gag order? Generally over the past several years I know this has sort of been the \"nuclear option\" for getting information from Federal Agencies but I don't know if it can or would affect a presidential gag order."
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5q3o9p | If successfully extracted, could ATPs be used as efficient fuel? | I read about how [radiotrophic fungus]( URL_0 ) uses melanin to convert radiation to produce adenosine triphosphate. If we could extract that ATP, then could that be a potential source of efficient energy? If yes, how could we extract it? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The answer is no. ATP is valuable for our metabolism because it can be recycled a bunch of times. If you burn it, you would use it just once. Also the energy taken from ATP in our body just comes from the cleavage of one phosphate group(not from the incineration of the whole molecule), and it has only value when this happens in a biological system, because you need biological substrates where the energy from the cleavage gets transferred to.",
"From a cleavage of the phosphate from the ATP you only get 32 kJoule/mol. If you would burn it you would get much more energy. As comparison: from the burning of glucose, which has roughly the same number of atoms and also O, C, and H in a similar proportion, you get 2800kJoule/mol. (ATP has roundabout twice as much atoms and also contains nitrogens so you would even get more energy from it by burning it.) The value of ATP does not come from the amount of energy you get when you burn it, it comes from its ability to transfer small amounts of energy there where they are needed and simultanously not getting used up in that process."
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5q3ud1 | Why does toilet paper clean my glasses 100 times better than any shirt, tissue or sometimes even glasses cloth? | Toilet paper has become the absolute champion of cleaning glasses for me. Sometimes those special glasses cloths can compete but I don't necessarily have those around all the time and I think they're not even that healthy for glasses. And other than that nothing can compete with the heavenly toilet paper. I'm curious why that is! | Physics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Toilet paper is clean as it have never been used before. Cloth is often used several times and can contain impurities like fat and acids from previous use. This can get transferred to your glasses when you clean them.",
"I suppose it is because since toilet paper contains wood fibers, it works like a very fine abrasive. The is good at getting dirt particles off of your glasses. When my glasses get dirty, I like to use dish soap and warm water to get all the oils off from when I touch them. They also tend to dry without spots this way, but sometimes I use a paper towel though to dry them. Over time though, this will scratch the hell out of your glass."
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5q3ul6 | why does North America get so many more tornadoes than the rest or the world? | I was reading that about 3/4 of tornados happen in North America. Why? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"A long north-south stretch of relatively flat terrain known as the Great Plains. The cold air in the north wants to push toward the equator because of centrifugal force, which in turn displaces warmer, lighter air currently near the equator. By the quirks of the Great Plains' geography, these can pick up a lot of speed in opposite direction, so where they scrape the edges of each other, it creates a spinning vortex (yes, I know that is redundant) known as a tornado.",
"Inland North America has a stretch of land that's relatively flat with no natural obstacles that extends from the Tropic of Cancer in Northern Mexico, all the way into the Artic Circle. With no natural obstacles like mountains it's relatively easy for the Cold Artic air, and hot Tropic air to meet, and this creates the conditions for tornadoes to form."
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5q3z6w | What exactly will an Exascale supercomputer be used for, and how will it benefit humanity? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Ever wonder why a video game has to simulate unit stats instead of working out the physics of swords hitting shields? Simulating each particle requires a TON of computing power. Engineering software is the same way. We can model parts of systems with particular materials and simulate how they interact with one another. This allows us to stretch the limits of materials and design, which is HUGE for high-end projects like space travel, industrial plant design, and micro-processors. However, we can only model PARTS of each system, and have to spoof in external factors. Even then those models refer to generalizations from industry codebooks, not actual particle science formulas. To do the whole system would require massive computing power, and programming particle physics into miles of pipeline can be done, but no reasonable computer could run it. Also, every day more computer algorithms are being developed on paper that enhance security or process MASSIVE amounts of fuzzy data to put together patterns. DNA and genetics research is largely statistics based. Why did you inherit your grandmother's parkinson's, but it skipped your mom? We can throw everyone's genetic data into this computer and have it sort out what makes you so special. Using the same logic, we could sort out how the universe moves within each other by throwing daily star coordinates into the data pile. The computer can look at every star in the sky, compare it to every other star in the sky, and try to spot patterns in their movements. This can give us a greater understanding of our place in the galaxy and maybe even spot a Death Star headed our way. There's a ton of things that various industries are trying to do, but are limited by computer power. Most of science and engineering is driven by industry codes that use generalizations that are't accurate but \"close enough\". If we are to truly understand the world, we have to keep sharpening our pencils, and the Exascale is a really big one."
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5q44a9 | How much would my life be different if I only had the organs that are 100% essential. What difficulties would I face, and how would it affect my every day life as well as life in general. | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"If you start to look at it from a racing point-of-view, it starts to come together. You obviously need the brain, heart, lungs, and digestive system. Now, there are people that function just fine after a hemispherectomy, so that that right lobe and toss it in the scrap bin. Same thing with the lungs, you only really need one, so hack that out, too. We won't mess with the heart. There are people that band or staple or whatever their stomachs, so we could cut the size by 2/3 and get by. You can do just fine without a significant chunk of the lower intestine, so go ahead and get rid of a few feet of that. Two kidneys? Who needs *two*? And take half of that liver and donate it while you're at it. If you're not going to reproduce and you're a male, you may as well...ahem... make yourself more aerodynamic, so-to-speak. That'll save a little weight. Appendix, tonsils, and the tongue if you're not going to miss tasting or speaking, can all get the fuck outta' hea'. You don't really *need* depth perception, either. Keep the nose because you don't want to scare the children, and same with the ears. We're aiming for as light as possible, but that doesn't mean we can't be aesthetically pleasing. Take the pancreas because we can just give you insulin. It'll be inconvenient, but you'll be light and swift. I mean, considering there are people with some of these issues (not all at once, obviously) and they tend to get on just fine, I'd imagine you would be too if you wanted to."
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5q49gs | Why do colored pencils sharpen like crap in most sharpeners? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"They aren't made with the same stuff as your Dixon-Tigonderoga. Standard pencil are made with graphite or charcoal, forms of carbon that is black in color. Colored pencils are made with wax or oil-based products that hold artificial pigments.",
"Colored pencil \"lead\" is made of much softer stuff, so if you make it as sharp as carbon-based black pencil, it will break easily, often while still in the sharpener. I have a sharpener for colored pencils, is has a less sharp angle."
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5q4asd | why did we start roasting and drinking coffee beans instead of the much sweeter fruit? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Spoilage (and how to avoid it - especially during shipping and storage) is a major reason why we eat many of things we do. Roasted coffee beans keep indefinitely (not really but a long time) and the fruit does not. Now you could dry the fruits, but when coffee really started to take off, shipping and storing was less speedy and advanced than it is today so the bean solidified it's place as the primary coffee plant export. TLDR: It's not the only reason, far from it, but shipping and storage of beans is easier than for fruit."
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5q4hga | The difference between a 'pepperbox' gun and a revolver. | Dumb question from a gun noob. | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"With a pepperbox the barrel and firing chamber rotate to a new barrel and firing chamber. With a revolver only the firing chamber rotates.",
"Consider old time muskets. Once you fired your shot, to go again you had to spend a minute loading powder, wad, ball. This is inconvenient when you're in a shootout. The first obvious solution was to put more barrels on the gun. That way you could have the equivalent of 6 (or whatever) barrels loaded before the fight, so you can keep shooting while your opponent reloads. Hopefully the fight is only 6 shots long though, because now you have to spend the next 5 minutes reloading. This was the original intent of the pepperbox revolver. It had six barrels that were loaded and functioned independently off of a single trigger. However, six barrels at the end of the gun gets really heavy. If you're trying shoot anything more than a couple paces away you're going to have a tough time holding it steady. So, gunsmiths iterated on the design and came up with the modern revolver. One longer barrel for greater accuracy, and only the bullet-storage drum rotated. Still simple and reliable, but much lighter for easier aiming at longer distances. You could now reliably hit something across the street instead of just across the room. In a modern context the pepper box design *could* come back into play if your shooter wanted to have multiple calibers firing under the same trigger. Maybe they're a super secret assassin, and want a 12ga \"door opener\", 3x .45 cal AP rounds, and 2x 22LR \"hollywood slient\" rounds. This is a horrible gun for almost any real purpose, but they'd probably sell hundreds in America."
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5q4ni0 | How would a scientist identify the key differences in the body between a 18 year old and a 16 year old female? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"That depends entirely on the differences between the two girls. Since people mature at slightly different rates, people at those ages can't be *guaranteed* to have developed in any specific particular ways (unlike the difference between a 1-year-old and a 3-year-old which is much more likely to have some definitive differences)."
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5q4ytn | At what point do humans become different species? | I was reading about a 17 year old kid who is 6'9" and 400 lbs. there are Tibetans whose blood uses oxygen better than other people's. Europeans have Neanderthal dna from inter breeding. In some insects the only difference in species is the shape of a horn. We are already much more diverse than that, so at what point do we differentiate species of humans? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The usual definition of species includes the ability to interbreed. Humans would have to diverge so much from one another that two groups could no longer produce offspring, which is highly unlikely to ever occur.",
"There is no hard and fast line that separates different species. There are a number of criteria and factors that affect the decision, but all of them have wiggle room. A big factor is whether or not members of the group all interbreed and produce viable offspring. There are a few exceptions, but it is usually a big factor. As it is, all humans can (and do) breed with all other humans and produce fertile offspring, so that would seem to keep us pretty firmly as the same species.",
"Thing is, species is a human invention, a labeling system. In nature what we define as separate species can in many cases mix, so simple definition of *what is a species* simply do not work that way in the real world. Generally species are unable to interbreed/unable to produce viable offspring from interbreeding, but that is only a simple explanation. In many cases obviously \"different species\" can mix. Species that exist on a mountain range, or across a continent, are often *similar enough* to mix with their neighboring species but *not* with their neighbour's neighbor. This form what is known as a *species complex*, a group of species with more complicated interbreeding. Neanderthals, Denisovians, and other sapiens actually formed a species complex with Homo sapiens, separating, moving, changing, mixing again over time. Passing down different traits doesn't make two organisms different species; a poodle and a pitbull are both dogs. Tall people and short people are all people. Species can also diverge, mix, and diverge again, because evolving into a different species is a long, long process. Physical differences are not the only factor; to you, two insects may *appear* identical, but other factors such as pheromones, behaviors, shape of their genitals, etc can also be different. Two insects that look the same but have different behaviors can't interbreed in the wild because they don't *get busy* at the same time or in the same way. Back to the question; what would it take for different groups of humans to be different species? It would probably have to be fundamental inability to mix and produce normal fertile offspring. Even though that isn't the best definition of what a species *is*, if they can't mix at all then it's pretty clear they have diverged enough to be separate species."
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5q516d | Why is buying a house considered an investment? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"When you buy a house, it keeps its value for a very long time (unlike a car, for example which decreases in value the older it gets). In a sense you aren't spending money at all: you're just transforming it from cash to bricks. Houses also tend to increase in value over time so you generally make a profit when you sell a house (like a good investment).",
"Looking at a national average, real estate value in the US goes up by 5-10% every year. Obviously, this varies wildly at the local level, (from -50% to +100%) but lets assume you're in the national average. If you bought your house in cash, you could buy a $100k house today, and sell it this time next year for $110k and make a $10k profit (not including costs associated with purchase/sale). Keep it for 5 years and you'll be able to sell it for $161k! If you don't have $100k sitting around, you can get a mortgage. Lets say you're able to get one for 5% interest. Now your $100k house will still gain 10% each year, but you're going to pay the bank 5% in interest. If you sell the house in 5 years you'll still bring in $161k, but will have had to pay the bank roughly $28k in interest on that loan, reducing your profit from $61k to ~$33k. Only 5% rate of return, but it beats your savings account, and maybe even your 401k. But again, this doesn't include the costs of owning the house. If in that 5 years you had to kick out $20k for a new Roof and HVAC system, so that's coming out of your $28k profit. You also have to consider local property taxes and closing costs for both the purchase and sale, which could easily exceed the $8k you have left. But maybe it doesn't! Maybe you know the area, and see that business developers are investing heavily, and expect your house to sell for $200k in 5 years! Suddenly it's an excellent investment! What could go wrong! It's 2006 and everything is fantastic! Or 2008 could happen and your $100k house you were planning to get $200k out of is now worth $75k and dropping. You could double down and buy your neighbor's house, or you could be the neighbor that cuts their losses and runs. Like anything else, it's an investment. Maybe it will pay out, maybe it won't. Historically, you'll usually at least break even if you're patient. Your only other alternative is renting, but then you're subject to the whims of your landlord which may include lifestyle restrictions and arbitrary rent hikes. See, unlike the homeowner who has their \"rent\" locked in at a steady rate via their mortgage, when property values go up by 20% so does your rent."
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5q598b | Why do all the planets in space appear so perfectly spherical? | Physics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"This is because gravity pulls evenly from every direction so it forms a sphere. When they formed gravity pulled all the matter together and a ball naturally forms. Gravity continues acting on the planet to keep its shape, although planets are slightly wider at their equater because of spinning on their axis. This creates some force pulling out. Think if you blow a bubble the air inside and out is creating an even force and it makes a sphere shape."
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5q5ckv | How can a border wall be authorized/built by an executive order? | Specifically, where does the money come from? Mexico isn't paying for it up front, it wasn't in the budget, and I thought Congress pretty much entirely had "the power of the purse" so it's not as though the President can simply divert funds from elsewhere or create a new tax. Can he just send in the Army Corp of Engineers as Commander in Chief and essentially make it a military project? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Congress needs to allocate funds in order to begin paying for construction, the President is able to move without them by using executive orders like he has done this week and the former president did last year, but as far as I know he cannot actually PAY for any programs with this tool. If he were to use the army corps of engineers (which I don't think hes planning to do) that money would come out of their budget, which is also controlled by congress. If any money were to come from Mexico for this project (at the moment none has) congress would determine how to spend that too.",
"If the wall is to be built, as a Federal Project it would be designed and built by the Army Corps of Engineers, or contractors acting in their stead and under their guidance and supervision. Congress gives the Army Corps of Engineers $X per year to operate. Presumably, Trump could use his executive power to shift a pile of their engineering time towards wall research & design, at the expense of those engineers monitoring dams, waterways, or whatever else they were planning to do this year. So long as they stay within their congressional budget, executive orders can cover their orders until Congress passes a law explicitly banning work on a border wall project. However, actually building the wall hits real material costs estimated to be $20 billion for the wall alone. This isn't engineering, construction management, quality control, or surveying costs, that's just purchasing concrete, steel, and labor to build it. It also doesn't include the estimated $20bil in highway improvements TX, AZ, NM, and CA would have to implement so concrete trucks and construction equipment can transport wall parts to the construction site. Odds are their respective DOT's aren't going to drop their already redlined budgets to build all new highways for free. For the wall to be anything more than pretty pictures and engineering drawings, Congress would have to find a way to pay for it. Trump says he'll get Mexico to give us the extra revenue to cover the costs, but the specifics of how that will play out has yet to be seen. This also ignores the idea that if we're getting $60bil from Mexico, we could also use that to build hospitals or schools or highways or genuinely competent immigration enforcement offices in every major city instead of an that stupid fucking wall. As we're going to be saying alot this year: Call your congressmen and senators. Get involved or you get left behind."
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5q5d0l | What Would it Take for Cable Companies (in the US) to be Accused of Violating Antitrust Laws? | Economics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"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. Of 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."
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5q5d7f | Why do we get the urge to hurt ourselves when we're extremely stressed out? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Not everyone has these feelings. Some do, and some even act on them. There are a few reasons. - Actual or contemplated pain acts as a distraction against the stressful situation. - Actual pain releases endorphins, brain chemicals that help us feel better, like a built-in medicine. (Eating hot chilies also does this.) - Some people report that the ability to hurt themselves makes them feel like at least they are control of something."
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5q5m00 | How will the proposed wall solve any of America's problems? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Mostly, it will make us feel better, because we've already forgotten about the large fence between our countries that at the least isn't very safe to put a ladder against. It will make it marginally harder for the 5% of illegal immigrants that cross the border outside of a checkpoint to get into and out of the US. The other 95% cross the border legally, but then stay illegally after their work/vacation visa expires. See, there are plenty of programs for companies to hire migrant workers on a 3-month work visa, which is more than enough to get someone over the border. They do their work as a legal immigrant for 3 months, then are supposed to head back home. Or the family of Mexicans that want to spend a nice weekend at Disney World that got \"lost\" on their way back to the airport. There's really nothing stopping them from simply not going home and hanging around in the US until someone makes them leave. Hang around long enough and you can apply for legit citizenship. Especially if you can pop out a baby on US soil. I'm genuinely hoping the wall becomes a metaphor for spending $60bil on Immigration enforcement reform instead of a giant concrete dong along our border. That kind of money could have an Immigration officer following up with every visa, verifying that folks actually left when they said they did. If we're going to go full-retard on curbing illegal immigrants, it would be nice if we could be smart about it.",
"Well it will provide some temporary economic stimulus plus a permanent improvement to the ladder industry.",
"It won't, it's a scapegoat. People don't just cross the border to come into the U.S, people come on boats and planes and over stay their visas. If you want more security train better law enforcement, help fight isis, stop all plane travel ? The people behind 9/11 didn't cross through the Mexico US border, they all came here on visas. The wall is more of a symbol, for security and nationalism. If the economy improves or good things happen \"see the wall was great\" if the economy tanks \"those dam democrats and backstabbing republicans undermined how big/tall/great the wall could have been.\"",
"Some people believe illegal immigration is a drain on the economy, where illegal immigrants are consuming gov't services at rates that exceed the economic benefits they provide. They also believe that building a wall will stop illegal immigrants from entering the country in the first place. Note that both believes are highly controversial.",
"A fence and INS agents patrolling it (what we have now) is good and could probably use some additional resources but a literal massive wall will do very little additional good, it's very questionable if it would do enough to justify its expense. While it may help stop a casual border-crosser the method of crossing would soon adapt to counter it. It may stop the very poorest of the poor but most workers come across the border with temporary visas and they simply overstay the visa, and about half of the people currently doing just that come in through the airport. That sort of thing would increase a lot. Which border-crossers get in would change but how many get in wouldn't change very much. Some massive wall is not a very good idea in the real world.",
"It won't. The wall is a lie. It might make it harder for people to immigrate, in the sense that they will spend more time scaling it or digging under it, and are more likely to get arrested. But this won't actually solve any real problems in America.",
"solve which problem? illegal immigrants? it won't. but it will solve the problem of hundreds if not thousands of constructor worker jobs. at least...until the wall is finished. and instead of paying the constructor workers, we'll have paid billions to the most profitable construction companies owned by friends and associates of your Congressman or Senator."
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5q5whi | What exactly would it be like to live or visit the fourth dimension (4D)? | Physics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"A dimension is not a place you can visit. A dimension is a direction. For example, on a straight line, there is only one possible direction of motion, namely forward/backward, so a line is a one-dimensional space. In a flat plane, you can move forward/backward or left/right, so a plane is two-dimensional. Similarly, the earth's surface is two-dimensional because you can move east/west or north/south. Keep in mind we don't need to use east/west or north/south specifically; we could use northeast/southwest and northwest/southeast, for example, and still be able to measure distances and directions just as accurately. So there isn't really a fixed \"first dimension\" or \"second dimension\"; you can choose any combination of directions you want, but in the end you will always need 2 directions to specify motion on the earth's surface. No single direction can encompass all possible movements, and any third direction you try to add will just be redundant. The *number* of dimensions a particular space has is fixed; which directions correspond to which dimensions are not. Similarly, if you take all of space, not just earth's surface, there are now 3 independent directions to move in: not just east/west and north/south but also up/down. Again, up/down is not \"the third dimension\" in any meaningful sense, since we can choose any combination of 3 directions we want in any order we want to label the dimensions. A fourth spatial dimension would be exactly the same sort of thing: just take ordinary space and add another direction to travel in. Of course it's impossible to visualize this, since human brains evolved to deal with three-dimensional objects, but it's not fundamentally any different than two-, three-, or seventeen-dimensional space. Some confusion can arise in physics because in relativity there are in fact two kinds of dimensions/directions: ones that act like space and ones that act like time. As far as we can tell, the universe has three-dimensional space and one-dimensional time (since there's only one direction to time: forwards/backwards), but some theories postulate more dimensions which are not apparent on the macro scale. So while space itself is three-dimensional, the full structure of space-time is four-dimensional."
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5q63v2 | How exactly is recycling good for the environment when it almost always requires a source of fuel to break down and re-purpose the materials(in turn creating more air pollution and also requires the excavation of more fossil fuel)? | Chemistry | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It is less harmful than excavating new material deposits, by far. It's also the fact that if you just throw it out, it has to go to a landfill, which uses up land and can take hundreds of years to even start to decay (if it ever really does - look at the Pacific Garbage Patch). In order of benefit to the environment, Reduce > Reuse > Recycle. Reducing means you need less to begin with, and thus don't even add any pollution from the start. Reusing something means you only need to create pollution once - when it's first made. Recycling means you create pollution more than once, but it's less than if you just went out and bought more unrecycled material to begin with.",
"> the only logical explanation must be is that it is less harmful to recycle than it is to excavate new raw material deposits and manufacture them(but of course it's still harmful to an extent). This is exactly the case. For as much energy as it takes to recycle metal, glass, plastics, and asphalt, it's a fraction of the energy it takes to extract those base materials from ore/crude/etc. Paper is arguable whether it's energy or cost effective - for any paper saying it's effective, there's another that says it's not. What I can say is A) we're not cutting down the rain forests to make paper (they do so for agriculture, and tend to burn the wood on the land), and B) you can only recycle paper so many times before the fibers break down to the point they're no longer usable. > It's kind of depressing if that's the case. Why so? Did you think we'd get a net zero or net gain from recycling? How did you come to conclude that's one possible explanation? Recycling is a good thing because we don't have to consume the resources and produce the pollution necessary to extract and process ore, and that should be celebrated.",
"edit-added more refs. Recycling is not necessarily better for the environment than not recycling. In many cases, recycling is far worse for the environment than not recycling. However, there is a massive recycling industry that makes it's money by convincing people that recycling is better for the environment than alternatives. Take a look at the use of ultra efficient incinerators in northern Europe and the massive PR battle against them by recycling companies( waste to energy plant info- URL_3 and the pro-recycling lobby groups that work against them URL_2 ) Remember, recycling centers are often private businesses (heavily subsidized by the taxpayer) that benefit from convincing people to recycle so that they can sell the product of recycling for a profit. Consider this, if you recycle a plastic bottle in rural kentucky, chances are it will end up getting shipped to China to be turned back into plastic. If you happen to leave a bit of food in the bottom of your bottle, the Chinese can't turn it back into plastic since it is dirty, so it just gets buried in a landfill in China ( URL_0 ). Clearly shipping trash to China is energy intensive and is usually omitted from arguments for recycling. Also, recycling is expensive. No one wants seems to ever think about opportunity cost with environmental efforts. Maybe instead of building a massive recycling plant and twice as many garbage trucks (one for garbage one for recycling), we instead could get a better environmental benefit from some other activity. Preservation of the Amazon rain forest from slash and burn comes to mind as an alternative. Here is a recent cost benefit analysis showing that recycling is worse than incinerating even with a large cost to C02 included: URL_1 TLDR: Recycling is greenwashing"
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5q692b | The Border wall. I thought a lot of the Mexican-US boarder already had a wall. | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It has some chain link fence, and there are some more secure border areas but there are miles and miles of land that are unoccupied. Places where the Rio Grande is no more than a foot deep, where anyone can travel across. There are even paid guides that transport people through these areas to the US. Basically anyone can cross the border if they are trying hard enough with a little luck. What we have now is kind of a joke tbh."
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5q69x9 | How do torches burn so long? | You know the torches that are in movies, the medieval kind? They just seem to be fabric wrapped around a stick, sometimes dosed in oil. But they burn for what seems like forever. Whats the deal? | Chemistry | explainlikeimfive | {
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"They are coated with a petroleum or tar substance which is what burns. Here is a fun experiment: get a metal tray and some cotton balls. Try burning a cotton ball. Now dip one is rubbing alcohol and light it. Burns hot and fast, eh? Now smear some Vaseline on one and light it. Now it burns a long time. Kind of sooty but long lasting."
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5q6cod | Why are boats in drydock propped up in the air with blocks of wood? How is that stable? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The bottom of 1/4 the boat is substantially heavier than the top 3/4 of the boat, like a weeble-wobble if-you-will, the blocks are laid out in such a way that a stand set on one side will have an identical stand on the opposite side with a chain linking the two together. As the boat is lowered from the lift, the bottom of the boat comes in contact with the stands/blocks, if the blocks want to move outward, the tension of the chain keeps the block from moving any further."
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5q6d0l | What is happening in this gif with droplets of gallium? | [This is the gif I'm referring to.]( URL_1 ) Taken from [this post.]( URL_0 ) | Chemistry | explainlikeimfive | {
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"When two drops of a liquid touch each other, they rapidly coalesce into one bigger drop. So each time one of the small drops is absorbed by the large one in the middle, the large one expands - knocking the other drops away. The reason they don't immediately coalesce into one big drop because there's still a thin layer of air inbetween, which prevents them from actually touching. You can sometimes see the same thing happening with water drops, which can bounce off or float on the surface of water for short periods of time."
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5q6hu5 | Given that becoming the president doesn't lawfully require any career politics experience, what's "a day in the life" of the president if anyone is allowed to be it? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It is a whole bunch of meetings with people/organizations, briefings from different departments, and making appearances. That is what the President does."
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5q6pp2 | How does canning food increase its shelf life so much? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Bacteria causes spoilage in food. During the canning process you heat the food which kills any bacteria present in it, and at the same time seal the food within it's container. So you've A - Killed the vast majority of present bacteria, and B - Locked the door to prevent further bacteria from getting. At that point, the only real remaining threat to the food is the eventual breakdown of the actual foodstuff itself.",
"It doesn't. If you took a block of meat and stuck it in a can and sealed it, it would go bad. The trick is that once the can is sealed it is heated to a temperature which kills all the micro-organisms inside of it [(pasteurization) ]( URL_2 ) and since the can is sealed, none can get back in until it's opened. So it's really the sterilizing of the food once it's sealed that gives it the long shelf life. There used to be this idea that some things happened [spontaneously]( URL_4 ). Like if you left meat outside, it would grow maggots all by itself. We didn't understand that maggots, and rotting occurred because of the action of insects and micro-organisms like bacteria and fungus. It wasn't until [one great gentleman experimented with meat]( URL_1 ) that was kept behind a screen so that insects couldn't get to it that we could prove that maggots were caused by flies. Later [another great gentlemen]( URL_3 ) discovered the same was true of bacteria, and that if you seal the food, and then heat it to kill off the bacteria, that it would not rot at all. This is also one of the reasons that canned foods are all kind of mushy and lack texture. It's because they are kind of boiled in the can. Frozen vegetables on the other hand are crisper because they haven't been cooked by pasteurization. It is also possible to sterilize food by [exposing it to ionizing radiation.]( URL_0 ) Instead of using heat, they use radiation to kill all the bacteria. Metal makes a pretty good radiation shelter though so it would take too long and it's easier just to heat them. Some things which are sterilized with radiation would be bandaids, medical instruments like scalpel blades, aircraft parts, space craft, even some fresh fruit, which makes it stay fresh much longer even though eventually the bacteria and fungus do eat it away and spoil it."
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pasteurization",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Pasteur",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_generation"
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5q6wfy | The Dow hit 20,000. What is the Dow and what does this mean? | Economics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) is a weighted average of 30 large companies traded on the New York Stock Exchange. It is used as a rough indicator of how the stock market as a whole is doing, which in turn is a rough indicator for the economy on the whole."
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5q6x4m | How To Get Reliable Internet | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"You want to get a second opinon from another internet provider. It's possible your current provider may not have good service in your area"
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5q70en | Why do so many actors end up directing some of the episodes of the tv show they are starring on? | e.g. Michael J. Adams directed the winter premier of Suits, like I have seen it very often. Is it something with their contracts? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It is a way to expand professionally. Being on a mid-tier basic cable TV series isn't something you can ride for the rest of your career...especially if you were cast for being young and good looking, and that is becoming less true each passing year. If you don't want to go back to doing dinner theater and TV commercials, directing is a career path you can continue one with when you are balding and overweight. Also, not to disparage a career, but it isn't that hard to do with an established TV show. The producers and writers have all the creative control, the actors know their characters, the sets are build, the wardrobe stocked, and there is an experienced assistant director standing right next to you. It is more than just yelling \"action!\" and \"cut!\", but with a bunch of people who've done a hundred times before, it is a pretty gentle way to break into the craft. Finally, sometimes it is in the contract. If you are a lead in a long running TV show, there is a temptation to leave and find something else before it loses its popularity and before you lose your looks. The show has to provide inducements for you to stay, money, more creative control, and sometimes the opportunity to direct.",
"When an actor on a hit (or relatively successful) show has their contract run out, their agent will negotiate a new contract with the production studio. Obviously more money is the biggest issue, but they might haggle a little big and compromise on things like a better schedule, a nicer trailer on set, an executive producer credit [which might also mean a small cut of the profit], or a chance to direct. Directing could just be an ego boost, but in some cases can open up a new career path for them. Fred Savage, from the Wonder Years, for example, became much more active (and successful) as a producer and director after his child-star days passed."
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5q72in | Why did relatively nearby cities like Philadelphia and Boston not grow to the size and importance NYC did? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"New York had a viable route west along the Hudson and Mohawk rivers. They invested wisely on the Erie Canal to improve it as a trade route. Philly and Washington had lesser success with their systems of canals. Baltimore gambled on the new technology of the Railroad and competed with New York briefly. In a nutshell, of all the east coast cities they had the best access west, took full advantage of it at the right time.",
"A huge number of late 19th century and early 20th century immigrants came through Ellis Island in New York. Many of them stayed. The city grew in population rapidly. Besides that, the New York Harbor was and still is the biggest and busiest harbor on the east coast. For much of the 19th century the Collector for the Port of NY was reckoned to among the most powerful political positions at the time. Chester A Arthur was one such collecter before he became VP and then later President. IIRC for a brief time New York was the capital of the United States.",
"I guess it depends on how you define importance, are cheese steaks important to you?"
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5q7910 | What would happen if the US stopped giving aid to foreign countries? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"The countries we aid would have more people die due to lack of food and medicine. At least they will if the slack is not taken up by other countries giving aid."
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5q7auj | Why we don't see full black in night/close eyes but see random noise moving around? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I suppose it could be visual snow, but more likely what you're seeing is called eigengrau. To explain, the way your eyes see in dim light is for particles of light to enter the eye and strike the rods of the eye, specifically activating a protein called rhodopsin. This protein is extremely sensitive to light, which enables us to see in very dim light, but is also so sensitive that it can be activated by the heat of your body. Since, even in pitch black, some of this rhodopsin would be activated by the heat of your body, you see a dark grey when you close your eyes instead of pure black. When your eyes are open this dark grey is actually the darkest color you can see, your brain just compares it to the other lighter objects around it and you interpret the object as a pure black. True ELI5, your eyes can never see pure black because the chemical in your eyes that let you see in dim light is so sensitive they can activate from the heat of your body, making your brain interpret a dark grey instead of a pure black.",
"That's called visual snow. It's actually a condition you can look up. Not everyone sees what you're speaking of. It's not harmful, but they don't really know what causes it. I too have moderate visual snow.",
"For some reason when my eyes are closed, a sudden noise (ex: a knock or a thud from upstairs) anywhere in my dark room causes a white flash. Does anyone have an idea what that is?",
"What does \"noise moving around\" look like? So I know it when I see it.",
"I've known about visual snow for a while in regards to myself. More than half the time though it progresses into full blown images to the point that I can dream while fully awake. (Not to be confused with lucid dreaming) still entirely conscious during this. Not much luck looking that up, anyone got any idea? Been like that as far as I can remember. Always thought it might be a combination of the visual snow and a very visual focused mind. Edit: this only happens in pitch black btw",
"This is probably not visual snow, which should be visible at all times. The reason is because in darkness your eye and brain essentially turn up the volume on the signal from your eyes. It's like when speakers hiss if you turn the volume up to max without anything playing - tiny random fluctuations are amplified so that they are perceptible. In normal conditions the sensitivity is turned down or other bright objects swamp the noise so you can't hear it, but this doesn't happen in the dark. The advantage is that you can find your way out of the bedroom for a slash without waking up your wife. Fun fact: your brain also tries to maximise your ability to see in the dark by using several seconds worth of data from your eyes to form an image. This makes moving objects look blurry and hard to discern in the dark.",
"Sometimes when i rub my eyes really hard it gets brighter and it looks it moves a lot more."
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5q7i9b | Where does an electron "go" once it enters a piece of electronics? Whathappens to it? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"They don't really 'go' very far. In DC currents, it can take hours for an actual single electron to travel an inch. In AC currents, they just oscillate back and forth - not travelling anywhere. Electricity - as what we commonly think about - is really an electromagnetic field that propegates really fast down a conductor. A very simple definition for voltage is the difference of intensity between two points of an EM field. A not so great analogy is think about yelling at a person across a field. You are generating a pressure wave that propegates through air molecules a long distance. The actual air you exhaled in doing to isn't what the person on the other side experienced. There is no \"flow\" of air between you two. The air isn't going anywhere, it's the wave that was generated that is travelling",
"It keeps moving down the wire until eventually it moves out of the device and back into the power source. Electrons are just little particles that we can convince to move through a wire. We take advantage of that movement to either heat something or cause something else to move. But electrons don't get burned up or used up, they just get pushed around."
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5q85lg | Why did the U.S savings account interest rate go down to almost 0%, compared to the '80s and '90s, when it was much higher? | Economics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Short answer is because our loan interest went down as well. When the bank is getting 12 and 13% on their home loans and a little more on consumer loans, they can afford to pay more in interest so they have more to loan. This is how they make money. When the interest rates they charged drop so does the amount they pay for those savings. My mortgage loan is at 4% today. Savings is under 1%.",
"Savings and CD interest rates are intended to be a reward for keeping your money in an account. The banks will loan out this money and generate a profit (hopefully). The problem for savers now is that the government discount rate to banks has been nearly zero since the Great Recession. Whenever you hear on the news about the federal reserve increasing their rate, that means loans, credit cards, bonds, mortgages, CMOs, and other investments should go up as well. That's the theory anyway. All I've seen from working in banking is the loan rate going up and the savings/CD rates staying the same. The retail banking industry is still in trouble.",
"Supply and Demand. Banks make money through various means, but the majority comes from \"buying\" your cash at a low rate and \"selling\" it at a higher rate. Despite what people say, there is quite a bit of regulation within the banking industry. One of the biggest factors in how banks can lend money is governed by a ratio of money lent to money borrowed at the close of business. Banks are required to have a certain percentage of money lent to them on reserve. If a bank does not meet this threshold at the close of business, typically they will borrow from the federal reserve, otherwise face penalties. They can also borrow from other banks, at a cheaper rate, however borrowing from the reserve is easier to do. So now you have three places banks get their money in order from cheapest to most expensive: 1. Their customers(the bank sets the rate) 2. Other banks 3. Federal reserve Basically, this creates a tier of interest rates, and savings accounts are always going to be the lowest. Based on the profit-margin(or spread) the bank aims to achieve, and based on the free-market value of what they can lend money at, this will typically govern what the banks determine to be the rate on savings accounts. So back to supply and demand. The Fed creates the supply of money. Consumers create the demand for money. When consumer spending is low, the Fed will lower the rate at which they lend money to the banks. This will cause banks to lend the money at lower rates, which should increase consumer spending. When consumer spending is high, the Fed should raise interest on money they lend, which in turn will raise the interest rate of which banks can lend that money back to the consumer at. It's very much a balancing act, and some might even consider it a chicken-egg scenario."
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5q87fs | Why is isolationism bad for the United States? | To Clarify: Isolationism regarding both trade and interventionism. How did the United States trade with the world pre-World War II? Is the United States really in danger of another aggressor? Not super interested in migration policy regarding "The Wall" or anything like that. | Economics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Assuming you mean isolation with respect to trade, two points come to mind. 1. Comparitave Advantage- Some countries are better at certain things than other things. To keep it simple, let's say the French are really good at making wine, while the Japanese are really good at making flat screen televisions. With isolationism, the French get good wine and crappy/expensive televisions, and vice versa. If the French traded some of their wine with Japan for televisions, everyone gets good wine and good television. Now imagine this with every product imaginable. Everyone gets the best of everything. 2. Interdependency- If a country is isolated, it has nothing to lose by being a dick to other countries. Because North Korea doesn't trade with the US, they can be as bothersome as they like. China, on the other hand, trades a great deal with the US. If the US and China were to become actively aggressive with each other, both countries would be hurt economically. In short, since the US makes a lot of money trading with China and Russia, we'd rather not attack them. This could probably be formatted better, but I'm on mobile.",
"The argument against isolationism is that it will cause inflation (the price of goods will go up), there will not be substantially more jobs, on a geopolitical note, the world will be less friendly to the US, and finally that while the US will be more insulated from the economic cycle swings in the rest of the country it will be much more effected by US swings. So lets Break each of these down a little more: Inflation: It costs more money to make things in the US, therefore, if you make more stuff in the US, the price of stuff will slowly crawl up to match the increased costs. isolationist countries also generally impose tariffs or taxes on imports, so the cost of anything imported also goes up. Look at Trucks right now. There is a 25% tariff on trucks, this has lead to the domination of the market by only a few US companies, and increased prices for everyone, while giving them less options and not any better quality. Jobs: We want to bring jobs back to the US right? Well a system is always going to reach an equilibrium. If the prices of goods goes up, people will buy less of them, since there is less demand, we don't need to make as much, and jobs that would have come back given everything static, will actually just disappear. Also, if you are currently paying 5 people in the Philippines $5 a day ($25 total) to make shirts, it is going to be very hard to justify paying 5 Americans $160 a day to make the same shirts. This will result in a lot more automation and capital investments as opposed to jobs. There is never going to be a 1 for 1 trade off. Geopolitics: You need allies in the world today. Now, obviously the US spends a lot more in foreign aid than it receives, but it also has one of the biggest sticks on the block to swing around for it. Countries that may otherwise not be amenable to US interests are far less willing to deviate if they are being substantially helped. This is not only useful in large things like wars, but also on a multitude of smaller issues as well. For instance, do you want to travel abroad ever? Having more countries that will grant you visa's is going to help with that. Economic Cycle: There are up and downs in the economy. Globalization helps to soften the blow of a bad economy because it may not be bad everywhere at the same time. This is not always true, but is enough. If the US economy slows down, its not quite as painful since all our US companies are still selling as normal overseas, and all those companies overseas can still sell to us at the same low prices. When you don't have any or minimal trade, you can't rely on other countries to help keep you afloat. This will makes the ups in the economy much better, and the downs much worse.",
"Our involvement in the international community brings markets for our good, access to other markets for our goods, some of the easiest travel allowance in the world. Our population and government has also enjoyed having advance bases that make sure fighting happens on other people's soil and advanced bargaining, but that could be something you don't find value in. Could we be self sufficient? Probably. But you will have much more expensive and limited products, lower movie budgetd, less access to year round fresh fruit and veggies, less cross pollinated innovation, and the loss of potential businesses and innovation from immigrants. Like Google!",
"Basically what Trump doesn't (want to) understand is that it's in China's and Russia's interest that the US takes isolationist approach. It will lead to US being a low-key player in world arena, while Russia can fasten its grip on Europe militarily, China economically, and everything will be intertwined between these. And US is left alone, eventually with a crappy economy and abstract idea that Trump supported that everyone has to eat after he's dead of his old age 8 years from now. And it's hard to go back to being a key player then."
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5q8b2z | If I get eight hours of sleep, when my alarm rings I feel like death warmed over. If I get six hours of sleep, when my alarm rings I feel chipper and ready to get up. Why is this? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Is this always at a specific time of day? For example, when you sleep and wake after six hours, is it always at a particular time, like 7AM? This is an important detail. For example, I have a condition called Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome. What that means is that my circadian rythm is out of sync with most people's. Where most people generally feel tired around 10 - 12PM, and wake between 6 - 9AM, I feel tired around 4AM and like to wake around 12AM. For people with DSPS, our sleep schedules are *very* rigid. If I try to force myself to sleep and wake at the wrong times, I essentially do not get any quality sleep, and feel like shit. It is important to note details like you have noted. This helps you calibrate your sleep schedule. Sleep comes in 5 stages. We cycle through the stages, 1 - 4, and then REM, throughout the night. A good night's sleep consists of 3 - 6 full cycles of this. Waking up during or right after REM can help you feel refreshed. Right after REM ends, we rrevert to stage 1, which is the \"lightest\" and closest to waking of all stages of sleep. So it is relatively easy to shift from REM to waking, and you'll feel refreshed and remember your dreams on top of that. However, waking up in other stages can make you feel groggy. Your body wants to complete the cycle, and waking up in stage 2 or 3 makes you feel \"incomplete\", because your body wanted to complete the full cycle, and the brain takes a while to get adjusted to being woken up right in the middle of the cycyle. Sleep experts recommend trying to keep track of when you hit certain stages; if you can time yourself correctly, you can make sure you're always feeling good and waking right after REM."
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5q8eqo | Why do Apple consumers stay devoted to Apple products and have a hard time switching to anything else? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I've only had an automatic red gasoline car my whole life and I know everything about it. Now I have a manual blue disel truck and know very little about it. Most of the same things can be done like getting from Point A to Point B but it is all different. The color (UI) is different which makes identifying it in public (using the programs/applications) harder, I have to learn things that I didn't before (stick shift).",
"In my experience, a lot of people get an iPhone because that's the brand they hear about most. Or a MacBook because it looks cool. They get used to it and have a hard time using something else, so they stick with what they know. Or, if they're feeling adventurous, they'll buy a $250.00 Windows laptop or a $75.00 Android tablet and find out that it's a useless piece of crap compared to their $1500.00 MacBook or $800 iPad and infer that all Windows or Android devices are crap."
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5q8hqz | Why is lightning typically yellow in entertainment (the flash, he-man, etc) even though we perceive it as blue in real life? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"That's something I wonder as well. Personally, I like blue lightning better. But somehow electricity is always seen as \"yellow\". Maybe because the first light bulbs were growing yellowish and that was an early way to \"see\" electricity?"
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5q8io0 | How does Twitter censorship work? And how are governments involved? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Judging by Wikipedia, Twitter has the ability to limit messages based on geographic region. And apparently has a mechanism by which Twitter can be asked to hide messages. Basically, if Twitter gets a legal order telling Twitter to hide things, they can comply. How the government is involved depends also on whether you consider the judiciary part of government."
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5q8jt4 | Why do some actors that imo were pretty good, start making straight to dvd/netflix crap? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Handfuls of reasons. Actors are humans too. From what I've read about different actors, its a bit all over the place. Some can't handle money and fame and tend to back off from the lime light in lieu of drugs, women, gambling, or other vices. Some burn bridges when their egos get in the way. Some have families that they focus on. Some just lose it and can't act they way they used to. Some devote their lives to something new, like religion or charity. Some spiral into depression or develop medical problems. Some are typecast into a role and can't find work elsewhere. Sometimes the public gets bored with them and producers aren't interested anymore. Sometimes they shoot the moon and turn out a flop they can't recover from. Some just age out of it but are content with the money they have. Some move onto behind the camera roles. It's really all over the place, unless you want to know about a specific actor there isnt a catch all reason.",
"A lot of the time when actors are doing that, they just enjoy it. Not necessarily that they enjoy acting, but that they like the script or have enough money that they can do bad movies just for something to do.",
"All kinds of reasons. To be fair to Lundgren (your example), that dude is a fricken genius. He doesn't really need his acting career in any meaningful sense and probably just picks up a few gigs here and there that he either likes the script, is friends with the director/producer, or films near where he is at the time to just do something fun and waste a few days. & nbsp; Not quite the direct-to-dvd crowd, but some other well-known actors with long lists of bad movies in their history(like nicolas cage or samuel l jackson) are known to do it simply because they don't like to not be working. They pick up shitty roles here and there to fill gaps in their schedule just so they have something to do.",
"It's a common misconception that professional actors would somehow be above all the normal issues that any other professional would have. But like any professional in any other field they will take the job if they feel it is worth their time and will want to continue to practice their craft. The role may not be a big one but it will still add a certain depth and range to their resume. In the case of acting, it is when an actor can play a kind of role they normally don't play, to show their acting range. There are thousands of actors out there and only a handful of big budget movies. Like any other freelance professional, if a serious actor wants to continue getting experience, practice, and network with more industry professionals, they won't sit around and wait for the next big job come knocking at their door, they will go out and keep getting work with smaller jobs."
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5q8ktc | Why does drinking fluids help when you're sick? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Truth of the matter is no one knows for sure but we have some ideas, it might be all of these, or none at all. First of all the obvious, if you're sick enough you're losing water by sweating feverishly, having diarrhea and throwing up, then you're keeping yourself from being dehydrated and dehydration can make you feel pretty miserable. Second, being dehydrated makes you feel crappy, so of you're lightly dehydrated plus sick then you're feeling double-crappy. Supporters of this theory point to comfort food and the desire to engage in soothing activities like warm baths when sick. Third, most of the feeling crappy when you're sick is actually the result of your body's own immune response, causing inflammation, fever and other responses to fight infection. A minor cause is the remains of destroyed cells and if it's a bacterial infection, bacterial toxins. Being well-hydrated helps your body eliminate these toxic substances more easily. We're not sure about immune chemicals but excess might be excreted by the kidneys. Another theory says when you're sick your metabolism is increased and you need more water to help things along. Truth of the matter is it's not certain which factors play into it, but it's probably a complex combination of factors."
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5q8t1n | each time a new wireless standard comes out, it seems better and faster than before. Any reason we couldn't have accomplished this sooner? What are the enablers we now have that we didn't have before? | I'm asking because I happened to be reading about Bluetooth 5. This is also applicable to wifi etc. Did we discover new encoding / compression algorithms or what? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Every engineering problem comes down to a trade-off between cost and capability. A wireless standard is limited by what the cost effective electronics of the day can accomplish. As time goes on, processing power gets cheaper, so you can do more at a target price point.",
"Good answer about cost effective solutions to meet the current needs, where both the needs and costs change over time, but your point about discovering new techniques should be addressed. New, better, coding techniques (for errors correction and recovery) allow you to send more bits in a given symbol. Essentially, if you and I are talking and we want to communicate the most complete sentences with the fewest words, we can agree on a code book. Something like: heyu = how are you?, hiya = I am fine, etc. but in binary. If I just send those four letters, but you only get h\\_y\\_ you cannot decode my message. I can add extra letters to the message (redundancy) with some type of agreed coding so if you lose some of the letters you might be able to figure out which were missing, up to some point. In communication systems, this can extend to 256 bits or more in a single symbol (sent as a single transmission waveform), and with coding techniques available I will chose how to encode my data and what kind if symbols to use based on how likely it is that there will be errors (how much noise there is on the channel). At the same time that processing power has gotten better and cheaper, so we can process long messages to decode them quickly, and we have moved from hardware processing to software, people have also discovered new codes which can give me as much or more ability to decode the original message with better chances of success. In some cases the math was simple (turbo codes), it just took someone having an Aha! moment, in others (LDPC) the math gets pretty out there. Also, new codes are great on paper, but not always possible to process in the time required for real two way real-time communication. Beyond an ELI5 post as well, new antenna designs, multiple input multiple output antenna arrays and cross antenna interference cancellation techniques, as well as new more efficient multiple access strategies, have been developed that would not have been reasonable, or in some cases possible, with older systems.",
"Wireless N draft was 2007, released 2009. Since then, we haven't had any strictly better standards for 2.4 GHz. ac is an improvement over short distances, but not over longer distances. It is not strictly better. ac wireless has several advantages: 1) Does not use 2.4 GHz. 2.4GHz spectrum is massively congested now, since wifi is everywhere. 5 GHz has more room, and less things on it. This is an advantage which in 2007 really wasn't all that big, because there were less wifi devices everywhere (the iphone only came out in 2007, no smart watches, etc.). Also, less interference from things like microwave ovens. 2) Higher frequency = more speed. ac starts at 450 Mbits per second. Not really much call for that in 2007. 3) Beamforming / MIMO. This uses processing power to increase the throughput by focusing the signal. Wireless n was already a significantly higher throughput than most people needed, and if you needed really high throughput you'd use ethernet. 4) Extended battery life. This advantage has improved over time, as the power drain of other items such as CPU has gone down, laptops have gotten thinner, and batteries smaller as a consequence. However, there are downsides: a) More processing power. Which means more expensive, a cost which goes down over time as chips get faster. b) Using 5 GHz means you need antennae for two frequencies, since otherwise you would not be able to use 2.4 GHz networks. More cost. c) Less range on the 5 GHz. With a higher frequencies, it does not go as far, and is stopped by walls, etc. more easily. d) You need to upgrade everything to ac to get the benefits. So, I'm seeing quite a few disadvantages, for advantages which are mostly increased throughput which no one needed."
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5q8tnl | What do the values of the Dow, Nasdaq, and S & P actually mean? | Economics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The Dow, Nasdaq, and S & P all represent an aggregate of publicly traded companies. If you were to take the total amount of shares a company has, and multiply it by their share price, that is the current value of that company. Therefore, if you take a bunch of companies and aggregate their stock price, you can determine how much value they've collectively gained and lost over a period of time. Since they are (arguably) a representative sample of all businesses in the US, you can use these aggregate stock prices to objectively judge if the economy is \"up\" or \"down\"."
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5q8vfs | Why do people tell their children that they are adopted? | It is better to raise them as your own kids right? In SriLanka and India people don't usually tell children that they are adopted. | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"You can tell a child they are adopted ***AND*** raise them as your own. A child may not be a combination of their parents' DNA, and might not have come out their mother's vajayjay.... but if the adults are loving and supportive of the kid then they are just as good as the \"real\" parents and deserve to be called as such. Additionally, as the kid gets older they would probably figure it out on their own anyway. So why lie? Children will likely eventually realize that biological children look like their parents, but they don't. This is especially common in the US where many adoptions are Chinese babies, so the parents are caucasian, black or latino and the baby is Asian. The kid's gonna figure it out, so honesty from the start is better.",
"Because if they find out, its very hard to cope. It might feel like a betrayal (any lies from your parents do). It's better to preempt that by telling them, but making sure they know it makes no difference.",
"1) There is a lot of medical information that knowing you are adopted carries and that is something that it is extremely important for people to know once they are responsible for their own health care. 2) There is no difference in how you raise or love someone if they are adopted. Denying them the truth of who they are is insulting and will destroy any potential relationship you have once they find out so once they are old enough to know they should be told. Betraying a child in that manner is very difficult for the child to cope with if you have not informed them yourself. 3) The child has the intrinsic right to seek out their biological parents if they want.",
"Because like it or not, being adopted is a part of their identity. And a child, whom will grow up to be an adult, has a right to know who they are and where they come from.",
"I'd say it's to prevent the children from finding out on their own and resenting their adoptive parents for lying to them or hiding something so important from them for such a long time. By telling them they are adopted, the parents are being honest and up front with their kids, and it also gives the children the option to possibly find and connect with their birth parents if possible, if they want to and are ready to do so."
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5q8x56 | Are the McDonalds in all countries around the world connected to one main 'headquarter' ? | Economics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Most McDonald's restaurants are not owned by the McDonald's corporation. They're franchises. That means that some businessman wants to open a restaurant - he pays a franchise fee to McDonald's that gives him the right to open X number of restaurants in a certain physical region. He agrees to buy all of his supplies from McDonald's corp, build his building to their specifications, follow their guidelines for running the business, use their marketing materials, etc. He pays them a yearly fee on top of everything else. They may also help him get a loan to purchase the property and build the building. But day to day operation is up to him."
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5q90dk | Why does our immune system not develop a strong resistance against the common cold although we get it many times throughout our lifetime? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"The common cold isn't just one virus, it's hundreds of different viruses that produce similar symptoms. They're different enough that your body doesn't recognize them as being the same thing, so having seen one variation doesn't protect you from the others."
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5q94qe | Why are many trades jobs, such as sanitation and street sweeping, unionized and highly paid? | URL_0 I saw this comic and it made me think. The street sweeper would have a highly paid job when it is a government job, that is given decent wages by politicians. Why are many trade jobs more highly paid than traditional university degree required employment, such as teaching? | Economics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"While a comic like this may have an element of truth, don't take it too literally. Here's a [job analysis]( URL_0 ) for garbage collectors showing a median salary of $33,800. The same site's listing [for teachers]( URL_1 ) shows a median salary of $54,890."
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5q98e0 | Why is it so difficult to finish sentences when we hear our voices with a delay? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Hum, if I understand correctly, we can imagine you are speaking on a mic and the Speaker have a latency. So you hear your voice with a delay. Correct ? Well, our brain perceives our voice like if it's the voice of someone else. So he try to listen and understand it. When you are speaking normaly your brain can manage this. But when he hear your voice with a delay, first he don't recognize the voice because he haven't the bones vibration. And second, he try to listen the voice shifted and also try to listen your voice not shifted. (Try a little experience. Write a sentance on a paper. Ask a friend to read it (tell him you will read it too but with 2seconds delay). Wait 2 seconds after he start reading, and start reading it loud to. Your friend will have difficulty to end the sentance)."
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5q9gn5 | What causes us to naturally smile? | Or "Why do positive emotions make us show our teeth?" | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Or, to paraphrase, why do positive emotions make us show our teeth?"
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5q9kp9 | Why do we suddendly lose motivation when close to finishing a task? The last 20% is always the hardest to me. | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Not sure this is a universal thing but anways... If you know when the task needs to be done by for example a school assignment, you will work towards completing this task and once you realise you are mostly done you will think about the deadline. This may be a while away. Therefore you will relax and take a breather when it comes to this task as you know you are close enough to being done that you can do something else for now and do this task at a later date. This procrastination then gets worse until you eventually have come close to the deadline and do it. Basically you would rather have everything 80% done than one thing 100%. Just do things straight away in future to prevent this.",
"Two explanations: 1. The 80/20 rule: 80% of a task requires only 20% of the effort, the last 20% requires 80% of the effort. 2. You're not a [completer/finisher]( URL_0 ). I'm the same: once I get to the point I *know* I could complete it I lose interest. Fortunately I work in a position where my role doesn't require it: I task others to do the last 20% :)",
"I've seen it described as a 'fear of finishing', related to worries about having nothing to do afterwards and fears about being unneeded. If you don't finish it then somebody still needs you... I suffer from this too and it still seems to happen even if I know I have a long list of things to do next.",
"Is it possible that when you were very young you were conditioned to fear finishing something because it was sure to result in criticism or punishment?",
"Possibly you are leaving the hard stuff to last, meaning that the last 20% is the majority of the work and all the bits you struggled with bundled together.",
"Related LPT: when working out, count down your reps because 15 out of 20 sounds good enough to your mind when you started at 1 so you can justify stopping there but if you count down from 20, nobody likes to stop at 5 or 2 etc Apply the same logic to other problems, tweak your approach to feed into your laziness",
"You are so close to the end, that in your head, it is already finished. So the rest of the action is boring. When you are still problem-solving, your creativity is being stimulated so you really have a sense of doing something. But ending a project becomes as mundane as filling out a form.",
"Starting a task is harder for me, then there's the overcoming unforeseen obstacles part way through that is difficult too."
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5q9trs | If 2 waves coincide perfectly that there's complete destructive interference everywhere, where did their energy go? | Physics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"You cannot produce complete destructive interference. If you arrange two light sources to destructively interfere at one spot, that spot will be surrounded by a ring of constructive interference.",
"Two perfectly overlapping waveforms that are opposite to each other would have to originate from the same point at the same time. Mathematically, it is the same as nonexistence.",
"Imagine you have two opposite waves on a rope traveling towards each other. One is an upwards bump, one is a downwards bump. When they meet, they pull each other towards the middle. For one moment, they both reach the middle, and the rope is completely flat. But remember, the bumps had to move to get to the middle. An object in motion stays in motion, so they keep moving past the middle. Now the upwards bump has become a downwards bump, and vice versa. So for a moment the rope is flat, but it still has energy in the form of motion. That motion energy causes the waves to reappear and keep going."
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5q9w5w | Why does youtube's copyright law about songs not affect lyric videos? | While they're useful, the videos are pretty much a reupload of the song with subtitles, and from what I've heard youtubers can get a copyright strike from as little humming a song. I understand covers since they probably fall under the "transformative" category, but I doubt lyric videos do. | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"If you make content or a music mix, you are to put the titles of songs used in your video description. Else they will will remove your video. Making a lyric video counts as user made content (I guess). So as long you put credits in your description it should be fine."
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5qa4yk | Why do large companies rebrand their name? | Recently Time Warner Cable changed their name to Spectrum. Comcast has almost completely gone to Xfinity. Why do large companies do this? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Because their previous name has a lot of baggage. Time Warner Cable and Comcast are both known for terrible service, so they hope using a different name will disassociate them from their past, even if they're still terrible. A few other notable examples: Clear Channel took over broadcast radio during deregulation and made it generic and bland, becoming the poster child of big media. They changed their name to IHeartMedia. Phillip Morris is infamous for covering up health studies to keep cigarette sales up. They became Altria. Trump hotels are now called \"Scion\" for obvious reasons.",
"TWC is a specific case of the merger between Charter and TWC. Spectrum is the new \"combined\" name for the two companies, even though they still functionally operate as two companies. The reasoning behind the name change is still pretty much the same as in /u/snoodidit's excellent answer."
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5qajed | What is so bad about your country having a trade deficit? | Economics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"People want money to buy things. People want the kind of money used to buy the specific things they want. If Japan makes the thing you want, you need Japan money to buy it. If Russia makes the thing you want, you need Russia money to buy it. If your country has a trade deficit, it means you want what other countries have more than they want what you have. That means you have a reason to have their currency, but they do not have a reason to have your currency. That means that the relative value of their currency goes up while yours goes down. If the value of your currency goes down, the value of all the goods and services you produce goes down along with it."
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5qanj0 | How do traffic jams occur with accidents NOT being the cause? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Good video explaining the effect: URL_0 In short, the reaction time of drivers are the cause. When one person stops or slows down for whatever reason, the person behind has to do so as well. The time needed to realize you have to slow down, stopping, getting distracted by something, realising the person in front started moving again adds up for every person in the line recursively.",
"The more cars on the road, the closer together they have to be. At some point, they are closer than someone feels comfortable with at highway speeds, and they slow down. That makes the cars even closer together, and more people slow down, causing the cascading effect we know as a traffic jam.",
"Bottlenecks in road design. For instance, whoever thought it was a good idea for I-91 and I-95 (two of the biggest highways in New England) to connect with ONE lane was a fucking nut."
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5qanyu | What causes the "helicopter noise" when you roll the backseat windows down in a vehicle, while the front are still up? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"dcxnmif"
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"text": [
"When the air tries to move around your car, it creates a lower pressure outside than inside. This makes air want to go out the window - so it does, but then the pressure inside gets lower so it wants to go back in. It does this rapidly so you hear (and feel) the vibration of the air going in and out of the window. Opening another window should stop it, or at least decrease it. Some cars come with ventilation (usually hidden in the trunk or wheel well) just to stop that from happening."
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5qapjx | How do ad blockers work? | How do they differentiate between native content and ads? Edit: also how do ad blocker blockers work? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"> How do they differentiate between native content and ads? Ads are hosted from a different address than the native content. An ad will be an area of the page blocked out for \"whatever the ad server wants to put there\" so the creator of the site really doesn't know what ultimately will be there. Ad blockers keep a big list of ad provider servers and just filter out content pointing to those addresses.",
"Ad blockers use a list of known ad companies and block their information. Ad blocker blockers have a number of mechanisms, but mostly, the browser sends all kinds of information to the server. Often, that includes extensions and settings. The server can be set up to respond to that information, like with a popup that says \"IE 4 isn't a secure browser and our site won't work on it.\" Or \"we see you're using an ad blocker.\" The next step will eventually be an ad blocker that is more passive."
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5qaq88 | What are arguments against sustainable energy? | Why is everything not solar and wind etc? No political nonsense be objective. | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The biggest problem with solar and wind right now is that they can't provide baseload. If the wind isn't there, or if it's cloudy, there isn't enough electricity. Factories, houses, businesses, the internet all need a consistent level of energy to function. As soon as we figure out how to efficiently and cheaply store energy from excess production, wind and solar will become more popular.",
"\"No political nonsense, be objective.\" The issue is that some things are political by their very nature. When people don't want wind farms next door, you have politics. When coal miners are going to lose jobs, you have politics. When people are afraid of rising prices, you have politics. Whether these things are based in fact is irrelevant, but politics doesn't mean \"baseless debating,\" it just means that two groups don't agree on what's best for everyone.",
"The short answer is because solar, wind, and other sustainable energy resources are far more expensive and less reliable than other forms of energy. Although people love to argue that solar or whatever is cheaper than coal, the reality is obvious when you look at what people actually do with their money. Most of the new power plants in the U.S. and Mexico right now are natural gas. Why? Because when you actually ask people to buy energy, they want the cheapest source available and they don't really care about GHG. People say that they would pay more and buy green energy on surveys, but almost no one buys GHG credits voluntarily or pays the energy company extra to get \"green\" energy. You can do those things if you want, but I guarantee that you aren't going to. Here, buy some carbon credits. I dare you: URL_0",
"- Electricity demand vary a lot during the day and the year and the grid is suppose to always be able to provide enough energy. What happen if the coldest day of the year if it's cloudy and have no wind? You can't have widespread blackout because you can't produce enough electricity right (Imagine people dying from the cold because of that). So you still need other sources just in case, which mean you still need to build other kind of electricity production for these moment. Even if you almost never use them, you still need to pay to build and maintain them on top of you solar and wind power station. It's a cost that few people keep in mind. - Solar and wind still cost more money per MW of energy than other source. Now, with a carbon tax or thing similar, then solar just recently became more cost efficient. The carbon tax is a way to count the long term damage that carbon based electricity production method are creating. These cost by default used to be paid by the government and people (Pipeline leaking, environmental disaster, health issues with pollution, etc). Until recently and not even in all country are Solar and wind worth the cost. So in the past, electricity company couldn't survive the free market with those technology. - Solar and Wind can't be use in transport. Well technically they can but it's highly inefficient. So gas dominated and continue to dominate the transport industry. It's just the best way to power cars and trucks. - The industry don't rebuild all of their plant each year. They build new power plants each years to replace those that are too old or too inefficient. Since for most of the past 30 years, coal, gas and nuclear were more efficient than wind and solar, most of the new power plant build in the last 30 years that are still active are coal, gas or nuclear (with some exception). Same with infrastructure to extract and transport gas and coal. It's just easier to use those source at the moment because so much stuff were build in the past for those. Edit : Just to be sure before people jump on my comment. I don't consider these argument to be enough to counter the problems of climate change and I'm aware that the cost efficiency argument start to flip in favor to Solar.",
"Aside from what has already been mentioned, the other big thing is there's a problem with when we need power delivered. Modern lifestyle results in us consuming the most power at night. Both wind and solar produce the bulk of thier power during the day. In order to make that work we have store energy, which by its very nature will have efficiency loss. That is a BIG hurdle to get past."
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5qaqz8 | why do humans perceive numbers in a logarithmic way instead of a linear way? | For example, most people think the difference between $1 and $8 is a lot, but the difference between $501 and $508 isn't. Also, we tend to think of a hierarchy of numbers like tens- > hundreds- > thousands- > millions, etc. for example when a number is in the millions, we don't care what's in the hundreds place. I'm sorry if I didn't explain this clearly enough, it's a tough concept to convey. | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Going from $1 to $8 is a 700% increase, while going from $501 to $508 is less than 2%. It's more about percentages than raw numbers.",
"Think about this: you're alone in the jungle hunting. 1 or 8 enemies/animals would make a great difference for you, no? Now, same situation but the enemies are 501 or 508. In this case you wouldn't care exaxtly how much there are, right? Iirc, humans still have and sometimes behave with their survival instincts, like the capability to rougly, but really fast, estimate the total number of elements in a group. This results in perceiving a greater difference between groups with fewer elements.",
"It's not just numbers. We perceive pretty much everything in a logarithmic/relative/percentage way --- distance for example ... even sound energy. Why? Because we evolved that way. Why? Either because these types of relative differences are easier to distinguish for our neural and sensory apparatus or because relative error is generally what really matters in the real world. If you were going to walk to pick something up, for example, you don't have to perfectly estimate the distance to it, close your eyes and go for it. Instead, you make a rough estimate which updates, and gets more accurate, in real time as you get closer."
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5qavp1 | Why is reading a chore for some, but relaxing for others? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Reading is a habit and a skill, it needs to be practiced. Sometimes people feel it is a chore because they aren't very good readers, it takes a long time to get through a page and it gets frustrating. If this is the case, persevering and reading more is often the solution, unless a health related reason is involved, like ADHD or Dislexia, there are specific ways to dealing with those then. But aside from that, I think the two biggest reasons are lack of curiosity and reading material choice. If a person is not curious about the world, why would they read? They don't care about learning new things, and doing anything you don't care about is really boring and a chore. I don't think there's much to be done about it if this is the case. On the same note, if you are generally curious about things, but are forced to read about subjects that you're not really interested in, that's going to be boring. And here is where I personally believe schools hinder more than they help. While reading the classics is certainly important to a well rounded education, they are often really dull reading for teens most of the time. Sometimes it's because the language has changed too much since the time the book was written, or not really appropriate for the average teenager maturity level, or the story is just unappealing (*Ethan Fromme*, I'm looking at you). And yet we are all not only forced to read them but to overanalize them to death, but only as long we keep inside the cookie cutter mold of what the teacher thinks the book is all about. It's no wonder kids think reading is boring, the average high school curriculum seems designed to kill any love of reading a person might have. Getting back into books later, when adult responsibilities and life gets in the way is a lot harder."
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5qawp3 | Why isn't the foliage cut off the top of a pineapple? | Why do people who run pineapple farms not cut off the foliage of the top of a pineapple before selling it onto a supermarket for example? isn't it virtually useless? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Floridian here. I have about 30 pineapples growing in my garden. The stem at the top of the pineapple serves several purposes: * First, it keeps the fruit from drying out. If you were to cut it off, juice would leak out, the fruit would become dry and taste worse. * Second, it serves as an indicator of health. If the stem is green and stiff, that means the pineapple is in good shape. If it's brown, crusty, decayed, pulls off easily, etc that means that the pineapple is ripe/rotting. * Lastly, you can plant it and grow a new pineapple plant! That's how I made my garden. Cut the pineapple about a quarter inch below the stem, so that the stem has a disc-shaped bulge at the bottom. Plant it about 3-4 inches deep. As long as it's warm and wet, pineapples will tolerate just about any kind of soil. EDIT: Fun fact: While most plants produce fruit every year, pineapple plants only produce fruit every third year. Not so fun fact: I found out the hard way that you can be allergic to pineapple plants without being allergic to the fruit. Apparently [they are immunologically distinct]( URL_1 ). Five minutes of working in my garden is enough to make me start itching; fifteen minutes will make me break out in hives. EDIT 2: [Here]( URL_0 ) are some pictures of about half of my garden. (The less weedy half)",
"There isn't any good reason to cut it off, but it isn't exactly useless. You can tell of a pineapple is ripe by pulling on a leaf from the center. If it easily comes out, the pineapple is ripe.",
"You can make your pineapple produce fruit if you cut an old apple in half and put it on top of the pineapple plant with a bag over it for two days The gas from the rotting apple triggers the fruit hormones in the pineapple plant"
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5qaxex | Why does some games and programs have these 'press any button to continue' | For example in my Madden game, the first thing that comes up, after I just pressed the logo is 'press any button' | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It's called a *title screen*. It usually tells you what game you're playing in big letters, and has publisher and copyright information. In the 1970's, 1980's and into the 1990's, arcade games were a very important part of the game industry. The games looked like [this]( URL_0 ) (although this is not a period machine from the heyday of arcade games, it's a more recent reproduction -- note the `.com` address on the screen, web addresses didn't enter common usage until the mid-1990's). Games like this would be in public places (sometimes a dedicated arcade, sometimes another place like a mall, pizza parlor or bar). You'd feed a quarter into the coin slot. The coin slot's on the front of the machine, below the bottom of the picture. So the first thing you'd do when you wanted to play this game is fumble around with coins and bend down to insert a quarter. Your eyes certainly wouldn't be on the screen, nor your hands on the controls. Games would also usually allow multiple quarters to be inserted for extra lives or multiplayer modes [1]. In the picture I showed, this machine has 1- or 2-player selection buttons for each of two different games. Basically the game designers added a button to begin the game, in order to have a way for the user to tell the game \"I'm done inserting quarters, looking at the screen and have my hands on the controls. I'm ready to play,\" and additionally select which mode to play the game in. This design was pretty much universal among arcade games, and has become very deeply ingrained in the industry's common practices. Just like how in the movie industry, pretty much every movie has credits at the end. [1] Most games also let you put in a quarter for more extra lives (often called \"continues\") when you get a Game Over. In fact, one of the tenets of arcade game design is to make the game start out very hard, by today's standards. Then keep getting harder. Many arcade games (especially earlier ones) had no ending at all, just kept getting harder with more / faster enemies. Or if the game did have an ending, only the most talented, dedicated, or richest players were expected to reach it. The goal being to require most players to insert additional quarters to progress, limiting most players' ability to monopolize a machine without regularly inserting additional quarters."
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5qaz1j | what are SNP? And RFLP? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"A SNP (\"snip\") is a single nucleotide polymorphism. It's the smallest mutation that can happen - affecting only a single nucleotide (a nucleotide is one of the \"steps\" in a DNA staircase) RFLP is a now-obsolete DNA analysis technique where a DNA is cut up into pieces of various sizes (using restriction enzymes, which are basically scissors for DNA). Those pieces, which are electrically charged, are placed into a thick gel. A voltage is applied, and the pieces start moving through the gel. The big pieces have trouble moving through the fluid, so they don't go very far; the smaller pieces are able to move more easily, so they farther. Eventually, the big pieces and the small pieces seperate out into distinct blotches that look like [this]( URL_0 )"
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5qazs7 | Do fish, whales and other aquatic animals experience flatulence? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dcxqclc"
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"text": [
"Yes. * [Whale farting]( URL_1 ) * [Dolphin farting]( URL_0 ) * [A whole write up]( URL_2 ) on fish farting."
],
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5qb1yz | Why does vision become grainy in the dark? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Ooh, I think I remember this one! You have two kinds of receptors in your retina, rods and cones. Cones see colors and work best in bright light. Rods see black and white and work well in dim light. More cones are in the center of the eye, more rods around the sides. So if you want to see something well in the dark, you may do better to look next to it and use your peripheral vision. Since your best focus is usually at the center, this might help explain the graininess. Take this with a grain of salt, I'm remembering from an interesting book I read about 40 years ago. And I may have my rods and cones switched. But I'm sure some smart young whippersnapper will pop up to correct me."
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5qb2tr | Why do some solids dissolve in water? | Why do some solids (like salt or a piece of popcorn) dissolve in water, while others (coffee grounds or a popcorn kernel) don't? | Chemistry | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Certain materials are ionically bonded, meaning that they have opposite charges and are stuck together electrostatically. Electrostatic bonds are weak. What happens when you drop that material in water? Think of it like a boyfriend and girlfriend who are dating but just not that into each other. They decide to go out to a great dance party. At the party, there are lots of other couples who aren't that into each other either. Suddenly, the guy and his girl have lots of other options (water molecules). So they decide to split up and hang out with different people (dissolve). The guy goes off with a really hot redhead, and the girl spends the night fawning over a quarterback from the local college team. You get the idea. Now, let's talk about covalently bonded materials. Unlike ionic bonds (where electrons are donated from one molecule to the other), in a covalently bonded material electrons are shared. Covalent bonds are very strong and immune to the pull of water molecules. So imagine a happily married couple going to that dance party. They get there, and decide it's fun, but they stick together throughout the evening."
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5qb4sm | Are nuclear bomb launchers really trained to "launch the nukes at a moment's notice"? | Hello guys... this may sound like a very stupid question to ask an explanation for, but... I just recently found this comment on a picture on *Danbooru* of all things, and it made me ask my question to you guys here because... I don't understand anything that he is meaning. So basically, someone in the comment section claimed that we live in a much different time than the Cold War and that soldiers aren't kept in isolation. This person claimed otherwise, and this is what he wrote: "**They absolutely do keep soldiers in underground bunkers and give them constant readiness tests to see that they are ready and willing to nuke the world at a moment's notice with no difference from how they were trained in the 60's. (They even use the same, ludicrously obsolete, equipment.)** **In fact, things are even more ludicrously risky than before, as the knowledge of how obsolete they are has drained morale from the units. There have been repeated scandals involving cheating on tests about safety precautions, as well as findings of rampant drug abuse. The nuclear arms are in the hands of people who are coked up and ready to shoot at anything, regardless of knowing what button actually aims the missile.** **You may think it's been forgotten and that things must have surely changed, but that doesn't make it so.**" This may sound stupid, but I really don't know what he's actually talking about. What "obsolete equipment" does he even mean? Are soldiers really trained to be basically insane as he claims? I would really like to know. Because I'm not sure if the US military actually IS insane... Furthermore, he also posted another comment earlier in response to someone else claiming that there's always "a human trigger puller at the end that could defy the orders", which is as follows: "**A human that is selected and trained to unquestioningly follow those orders because in the event of a real nuclear attack, there are only 4 minutes to respond. They don't have time to inform the entire chain of command, they are ordered to assume the people above them know what they are doing.**" This may be a different matter, but it does have a lot to do with that first comment I cited. I realize my request doesn't seem like something for this ELI5 subreddit, but I'm the kind of guy who appreciates coherent explanations as opposed to short unhelpful responses... so this is why I came here. And thus, I would really appreciate an explanation to this... because I sure as hell don't know any better. Thanks in advantage though. | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"So, nukes being nukes, no one is 100% sure the exact chain of events that would have to be taken to go from someone with nuclear launch authority ordering a nuclear strike, to the keys being turned in a missile silo or sub. However, we do know that there are lots of steps in the process, including a transmission of codes, checking the codes, multiple people in the launch silo confirming that they have the proper codes, before they can actually turn the keys that launch the missiles. In short, yes, the launcher crews are trained to do as they are bid. One of the most important things about the existence of nuclear weapons is their *deterrent* value, namely \"If you attack me, then I can attack you back just as hard.\" That means for the system to work I--as the attacker--have to believe that if I attack you, not only do you need the physical ability to hit back, but I have to believe that you *would* hit back. So, if it seems like your missile crews wouldn't *actually* launch their missiles if push came to shove, your deterrent is less valuable. So yes, there's a great emphasis on training the missile crews to do what they're told to do. In terms of obsolete equipment, many missile silos aren't equipped with modern tech. In fact, there are reports that US missiles silos are still run off computers from the 70s with their programs stored on 8 inch floppy disks. I'm not sure if this has helped answer your question, but I'm hoping it helps out somewhat. Feel free to ask any follow ups.",
"The people who are selected to do the particular job you are talking about are simply normal people like yourself that merely have some exceptional attributes. One of the most important is reliability. Our nuclear program is comprised of land, sea and air launched weapons. ICBMs are in land based silos and are manned around the clock, submarine based missiles are also manned around the clock, air launched weapons are on board the aircraft and waiting for launch. In the Air Force, the launch will be done from inside a numbered Air Force command post. Nuclear war is probably not going to be something that happens in the blink of an eye and tensions will most likely escalate over a period of hours or days. At a certain point, the alert system, which has been escalating as well will reach a place where people are 'in place'. At that point, those folks that have been selected to perform will leave their normal duty station and report to the Command Post where they will be secured inside. Everything follows a preset routine and it is merely a matter of doing what is necessary. I know these things because I did these things. I am a graduate of the Armed Forces Air Intelligence Training Center, held a Top Secret SIOP-ESI clearance, was a member of the Air Force Human Reliability Program and served with the Strategic Air Command, 8th Air Force, 43rd Strategic Wing."
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5qb5al | Everyone talks about "curing cancer", but how can you simply cure cancer when there are so many types of cancer? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Media likes to talk about curing cancer because it's a good headline. Scientists do not like to talk about curing cancer because they know that \"curing cancer\" is impossible and that the best they're going to do is get much more effective treatment measures for specific types of cancer.",
"It's oversimplified, as are many things in our modern media. There's no guarantee one solution will work for all cancers.",
"Cancer is an uncontrolled growth of cells. Step 1 in curing cancer is asking \"What causes cells to grow uncontrollably?\" Step 2 is reverse engineering that process. Step 3 is distribution of the reverse process. Step 2.5 is to hide the process because actually curing cancer makes less money.",
"As other posters have mentioned, there is no such thing as a cure for cancer, that is a media headline used to captivate and retain attention. Cancer is a naturally occurring process in living organisms when cells start producing the wrong tissues in the wrong places. What we are really seeking is a greater understanding of the variety of ways cells generate cancerous growths and the most effective and efficient ways of treating it. Until full blown gene-modification therapy is allowed on humans (DNA alterations to \"re-program\" humans) cancer will always be a thing and at best we can find new and better ways to treat the various forms of it."
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5qbany | Why would Mexico pay for a wall on our mutual border? | Economics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Trump will play accountant games with this. 1) He will build it, and then he gets to say \"I created jobs!\" 2) Mexico won't give him a damn dime for it, but he'll tax some shit, and put some tariffs on it, and then he'll also say that he stopped X Billion bucks from crossing the border, and kept those tax-evading bums from getting paid under the table, so it paid for itself.",
"To give you a serious answer, the three biggest things that could motivate Mexico to pay for the wall are: - There are a fairly significant amount of people who illegally enter Mexico from South and Central America in order to cross their northern border into the US. This can range from peaceful citizens to criminal drug and gun cartels. A border wall would eliminate a great deal of this movement through their country. Fewer drug cartels would help make Mexico a safer place, which might incentivize Mexico to pay for the wall. - The wall is a response to illegal crossing of the border by Mexican citizens. Trump is effectively saying, \"we are forced to take on this expense due to the actions of your citizens, therefore it is your responsibility.\" Mexico could be motivated to pay for the wall to keep good relations, or improve relations with the US under an administration that is dissatisfied with how their government has allowed their citizens to act. Paying for the wall would be a \"mea culpa\" and restitution for allowing the issue to continue for so long (from the perspective of Trump's administration and their voter base, at least). So Mexico may become persuaded to do this in good faith for future relations. - The US has a lot of clout in our relationship with Mexico. Many Mexican families rely on aide that their family the US sends to Mexico. We offer them quite a bit in trade, and currently at such fantastic deals that Trump feels like we're being ripped off. Their economy in some ways is linked on our relationship. Trump has said that Mexico will either pay for the wall, or they will pay for it indirectly through our adjusting our relationship with them in the form of strong tariffs, a tax on money sent to them, significantly restructured trade deals. Trump has expressed if this is the route Mexico chooses, that they will be charged with interest. So it would be effectively cheaper for Mexico to agree to pay for the wall at the onset than to decline and endure raised tariffs or taxes."
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5qbaym | How does someone get an address that isn't listed anywhere? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I feel like the specifics of your scenario make this more geared towards /r/AskReddit because of speculation required in the answer. So I will attempt to ELI5 based off the title as a general explanation of how anyone's address information can be obtained. ---- Computers and the Internet have made obtaining personal data about specific persons very accessible. There are a number of ways to gather address information (and other information) about a person. 1. The traditional way was to use a phone-book (e.g. White Pages / Yellow Pages). Those books were specific to a given location/region, so it was necessary to know generally where to look a person up by last name. In this case, the data was provided and published by the landline phone companies which you would have to register with to get a phone line and account. These days that information has been moved to the Internet rather than paper-bound book format, which means it is easier to search across the entire databases of customers. 2. There are services provided by *Information Brokers* (companies that run websites like spokeo, intelius, etc... If you've never looked into these types of sites before, I suggest you take a deep breath and have a look at what they reveal to any anonymous user for free: maps of your potential location, age, locations history, and lists with links to relatives. For an additional low fee around ~$2 to $3 usually, you can purchase the detailed information about a person which often includes lists of phone numbers, criminal arrest history/records, detailed address, date of birth, etc..). These companies make money by buying data about people and combining it together to build large profiles for individuals, as well as links between individuals based on relationships. They can then sell this data to other companies, and often provide a paid service to allow \"background checks\" to be performed such as by a potential employer wanting to dig into a job candidate's personal history. They gather data as follows: - Plenty of data is publicly available, you just need to know how and where to look for it; Criminal arrest records and court documents are freedom/public information domain. - Data Mining and Data Scraping Techniques: the company will use humans or specialized programming code to automatically search through databases, social networks, and other websites online to gather any and all information that may be useful. (Later on it can be joined/associated to a particular person). - When people sign-up for websites, applications, loans, services, credit cards, and even those \"money saver\" or \"frequent shopper rewards\" cards at stores - often the hidden text in those terms and conditions allow them to use and sell information about you. The Information Brokers will purchase this information (and these companies may even buy information back from those same Information Brokers). - Another point that cannot be overlooked is the ability by someone who is determined to find another person to exploit ways of gathering the information directly. *Social Engineering* is a common tactic that is used by criminals and hackers to gain unauthorized access to information by more-or-less tricking someone else into giving up the information when they shouldn't be. So a fake example scenario of how this might work: I could have my girlfriend call up a naive person working at the post office where you used to live and have her pretend to be your niece and say something like \"I really wanted to surprise my aunt with this birthday gift and I don't have the new address, can you please give it to me?\". It doesn't always work, but some people are very good at playing these fake roles and they know how to manipulate people, and they are persistent enough to eventually find a weak-link that will reveal the information they desire. I know you've said you didn't tell anyone - but had you told a family member, and they told one other person ... word of mouth tends to travel unexpectedly. - Finally, there is always the possibility that the post office was aware you moved and they managed to forward mail destined for your old address on to your new address without the sender knowing. If the handwriting of the address was of the sender ... then this is unlikely the case. But if it was typed/printed text then this is a possibility worth considering.",
"It's in postal records within days that your name and your address correlate. For $2.95, this information is available to anyone online.",
"Contrary to popular belief, your home address is not considered \"sensitive data\", so can legally be obtained from many sources. Granted, your employer, friends, and family should/will be unwilling or flat out refuse to share it with strangers. But your address, phone number, e-mail, etc are not officially considered \"sensitive\" data",
"To conceal this, you would need to do what the rich and famous do- have the homes owned by a holding company of some sort. You can't dodge taxes or anything like that; the government will still have traceability back to the owing firm. You can also use mail forwarding services or PO boxes to separate your correspondence from your place of residence. Voter registration can't really be concealed, though."
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5qbht5 | How is it possible that it takes so long to test athletes on doping? | Nesta Carter tested positive on doping 9 years after date. | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It's not that the testing took so long. It's that over time, scientists come up with ways to test for previously undetectable drugs, or to find them at previously-undetectable levels. That's why they save urine samples for years, and that's what happened to Carter.",
"They are constantly retesting samples as new doping drugs are discovered and testing technology improves. There is a chemical arms race going on, where dopers switch to new drugs and masking agents, and testing agency try to keep up. Being able to punish someone in the future for a drug that can't be detected today provides as least some degree of deterrent."
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5qbj4y | Why is the United States focusing on job creation within the coal and fossil fuel industries when many jobs could be created in the development of renewable energy? | Economics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Because places like west virginia are traditionally coal mining areas. There is no need to put renewable energy jobs there. So they see attacking coal as attacking their livelihood. Its a big shitshow of people basically saying \"Ive been a milkman and my dad was a milkman so you should be forcing people to use milkmen!\""
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5qbl0e | How does bank interest work? | If I put $100 in a bank at 3% interest, the next year I would have $103. Why do they pay us and where does the money come from? I understand interest on a loan is just them getting back more than they gave you. Bare we essentially loaning money to the bank? | Economics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Yes, you're loaning money to the bank. If they pay you 3%, and they loan money out to others at 5%, then that 2% difference is how the bank makes their profit.",
"They pay you as incentive to have a savings account with them. They want you to use them because they loan out almost all of what you give them at a higher interest. Things like home loans, car loans, private student loans, and business loans are all examples of what they do with your money. It's called fractional reserve banking, and it's how they make money and where that money comes from. So yes, you are essentially loaning the money to the bank."
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5qbl2v | Why are creatures in deep ocean huge? Shouldn't the pressures make them small? | Like whales and giant octopuses (octopi?), shouldn't the immense pressure of water make them small? why are they so big? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"No. The major issue has to do with *differences* in pressure. If you took a submarine and sent it to the ocean floor, it would get crushed. But if you cut a hole in the submarine and let it sink to the bottom, it would not, because the water inside would be at the same pressure outside and they would cancel eachother out. Humans have a problem because we have all sorts of *air* in our bodies. There is air in your lungs. In your digestive system. There is air in the sinuses of your skull. If you tried holding your breath and diving to the ocean floor, your rib cage and skull would crush long before you got there. There are other structural, metabolic and physiologic problems for humans to survive at depths but I don't think you were asking about those. Deep sea fish don't have so much air in their bodies, so, for example, they won't have swim bladders. **They also have a very high water content of their cells.** Water is notoriously incompressible. Putting more pressure on it will simply make it push back with the same pressure---its *volume* won't change, unlike a balloon filled with any gas. Deep sea creatures also have differences in terms of the structure of their organs and even the enzymes in their cells so that they can withstand higher pressures while maintaining their shape and function. You don't have this, so you would get squished even if air wasn't a big problem. What about whales? Whales are actually mammals and breathe air. They have lungs. But unlike you, their rib cage is very flexible and their lungs are specifically adapted to getting crushed when they dive. Pressure itself then is not a very limiting when it comes to size. In fact, the ocean environment (though not pressure) might even facilitate it. Because of buoyancy, they feel less stress from gravity enabling them to reach larger sizes. Large size also means they have less surface area to lose their body heat, so they can survive with slower metabolism, even in colder temperatures. There aren't so many things that can go into the deep sea, so they might be less likely to suffer from predation. I made that last one up, though. We don't really know why/how some creatures got to be so big, but pressure is not a limiting factor, at least not for the pressures you encounter in the deep sea.",
"Two things. First, the vast majority of deep ocean animals are small. I won't go in to a lot of detail, but search for deep ocean animals and most of them will not be as large as your two example. Now, on to those examples. Whales are more of surface creatures, some of which have adaptations to be able to go deep. They do this specifically to get food. [There are different mechanisms that allow deep diving whales to survive the pressure differences]( URL_0 ). The reason for their size is the same as [the reason for all whales being big]( URL_1 ) - it could be to help conserve warmth, or it could be to prevent being prey, or maybe a combination of different factors like that. Giant and colossal squid, on the other hand, are a different story. They are native to the deep ocean. But, the pressure isn't really an issue to them, no matter what their size is. The reason pressure becomes an issue to something like a submarine is that you have this low pressure area inside where the air is, so you have to have a reinforced structure to keep the immense outside pressure from crushing it. A squid does not have air pockets or compartments like that - their whole body is essentially like a fluid, so will be under equal pressure from all sides, including inside and out. The only time this really becomes an issue is if you rapidly bring one to the surface of the ocean, which will cause the gases dissolved under the high pressure to release from the fluids, essentially giving them \"the bends\" like a diver that surfaces too quickly."
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5qbn11 | What does it mean that the US dollar is backed by silver/gold? | Economics | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dcxygoy",
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"text": [
"So this is all about the \"invention\" of money. Gold is something that humans have historical valued. While it's used in manufacturing it's real value is that it is soft enough to make jewelry and it shines up real nice. WAAAY back in the day, gold was the currency. If you went to a store to buy a new sword they would demand payment in gold. Since gold is quite heavy, this is very impractical, but the idea is that gold is money. To overcome this obstacle (and for other reasons) governments started issuing their own money in the form of paper notes (or coins). They would print up some paper or mint some coins with an official stamp and tell everyone they can use this money rather than gold. The public was skeptical to say the least. This was just paper, it has no real value, why should stores accept it? Why should employees accept it? Why should anyone take it for more then just the paper it is? Gold on the other hand, well gold was GOLD! And so the government had an idea. They had a whole pile of gold in the government's vault. So they wold make a promises to the citizens that anyone who wanted to could show up with some paper money and exchange it for a set amount of gold. Since people believed gold had value and always would, the little bits of paper became iou notes from the government. People were OK with trading this government paper because they could always go get the gold if they wanted to. Funny enough, there is no need to actually make that trade for gold. The knowledge that you could if you wanted to is enough. So the government says, if you show up with a $20 bank note, we will give you 1 oz of gold. If the government has 5,000,000 oz of gold in the vaults, it could print $100,000,000 worth of paper notes. The gold would stay in the vaults and the notes would be used to buy and sell things. This all worked \"fine\", for a while but it had a problem. The amount of gold in the world is not stable, the demand for gold is not stable and gold is not actually \"worth\" anything more than paper money is. If the apocalypse came today and all governments fell and there were people rioting and starving in the streets, no one would want gold anymore than anyone would want US dollars. So this idea that \"gold\" somehow has an intrinsic worth that can outlast governments is actually a fiction. This ability to always exchange a set amount of money for a set amount of gold was known as the gold standard and it was used all over the world. Around 90 years ago, that stopped. And now for the complicated part. As it turns out, the ability to print or not print money is one of the primary tools that governments can use to prevent problems like recessions or depressions. Events like the grate depression or the 2008 crises used to be fairly common. Things like inflation was actually an every day sort of problem that effected peoples lives in very real ways. I know we don't feel like it, so close to 2008, but the truth is that since abandoning the gold standard those kinds of events are much less common than they used to be. Since the government has no requirement to keep a large vault of gold to backup it's money they are free to tweek the amount of money out there in the world in an effort to keep things flowing along. While there have been some major issues (like 2008) it's worked basically fine for nearly 100 years. So to directly answer. The US dollar is NOT any longer backed by gold. It used to be, but it's not any longer.",
"The US dollar is not backed by gold of silver any more. In the past, the dollar was backed by gold. You could take a paper bill to the bank and get a gold coin of the same denomination. The government promised to sell you gold at a fixed price. Now the dollar floats, like other currencies.",
"It means that if you have a dollar bill in your hand, there is a dollar worth of silver or gold in a vault somewhere that this bill is representing. The US hasn't done this in a long time."
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