[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
What do you wish you knew during your job hunt?

Hi academics. I'm starting that magic period where I start applying for my first real, tenure track job. I know that the hiring process is different for each discipline, country and university, but for those who have been through the process before, I'd love to know what one thing you wish you knew before you start the process.

[Assistant] Try not to have your first interview be for the place you really want to work for.  There is a lot of valuable experience that comes from going through the interview process, so if you feel like you'd pass on a particular job opening, it's still a good idea to apply and interview for it.  Get all of your interview-stupid out of the way before taking interviews for good jobs.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5: How does topical medicine get into your bloodstream? If I spill apple juice on myself does apple juice enter my bloodstream?

[Assistant]
Two things:

1. You know how oil and water don't mix, but if you combine two water-based liquids (like water and fruit juice or something), they do mix together? Chemists call that "like dissolves like". Basically, fatty things can mix with each other, and water-based things can mix with each other, but fat-water combos can't mix.
2. Your cells all have outer membranes (skins) that are mostly made of fat. Including your skin cells. That means your skin presents a fatty surface to the outside world.

The result of those two things is that (like DragonFire said) your skin is somewhat permeable...but especially to fats and oils, and much less permeable to water. That's on purpose, to prevent your body losing a ton of water to evaporation. That's also why you don't inflate when you go swimming, and why you can spill apple juice on your skin and essentially none of it absorbs.

BUT with fats it's a different story. You'll notice that all of the topical medicines are in a greasy or creamy suspension. That's also on purpose, they're fat-based and water-free so that they can "mix with" and absorb into the fatty membranes of your skin's outer layers and into the tissue beneath. Polysporin, Vick's vapo-rub, BenGay, they're all greasy. Even Vaseline and baby oil absorb into your skin for the same reason.

Related fun fact: An organic solvent called DMSO (dimethyl sulfoxide) is gasoline-like (fat soluble) and smells sulfur-y. If you dip your finger into a beaker of DMSO, you can almost immediately taste garlicky in your mouth because it rapidly absorbs into your blood and is exhaled in your breath.

If it's pure DMSO this is pretty harmless, but chemists have to be careful working with this solvent. Anything else already dissolved in the DMSO will be rapidly carried into the body along with the DMSO as it rapid- absorbs into the skin.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[The Man in the High Castle] Why is the I Ching such a big thing in Japan-ruled America?

The I Ching is a Chinese work, not a Japanese work, and as far as I can tell, it never got hugely big in Japan, not even during Imperial Japan. Also, I'm pretty sure it was the Sino-Japanese War that helped kick off WWII, so I don't think Japanese people would want to promote a Chinese work.

[Assistant]
Chinese culture has a vast influence on Japanese culture. Kanji is derived from Chinese writings. Shinto and Zen Buddhism was brought in by Chinese monks.

I-Ching would have been co-opted by the Japanese and "re-packaged" as a Japanese original work.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[MCU] Could Doctor Dtrange have done a time loop to Thanos like he did with Dormammu?

Im a bit of an MCU newbie so I dont really understand how the stones work but couldnt Doctor Strange have done a time loop at any point during one of Thanoss attacks and just reset the loop until the Avengers manage to defeat him?

[Assistant]
No.

Notice that in all the iterations, Dormammu never tried to yank the Eye of Agamotto from Dr Strange? As a timeless being, Dormammu cannot really grasp the concept of time, so he probably isn't even aware of the time stone, let alone use it.

Thanos on the other hand knows exactly what the time stone is and how to use it. In the first loop, Thanos will just grab the stone, and then undo the loop.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[WoW] Arthas had an apocalyptic legion in Northrend. How didn't he have control over the island?

Arthas had control of an almost infinite, perfectly disciplined army with overwhelming biological warfare capabilities as well as ancient magic and technology by the Nerubians. How the hell did he let the Drakkari go rampant for so long, the Taunka, Kalu'ak and Sholazar tribes live for so long, not brutally put down the Nerubian rebels, not exploit the huge deposits of Titan lore and tech literally right next door (Wintergrasp was within spitting distance of the balconies of Icecrown Citadel!), and let the Scarlet Crusade create an entire cathedral right on his doorstep for the years between The Frozen Throne and Wrath?

[Assistant]
There's a theory that a bit of the original Prince Arthas remained and that this shred of humanity worked subconsciously to keep the Lich King from reaching his true potential. Even if that's not true though, there are quite a few factors working against Arthas:

The Scourge *was* trying to stomp out the Nerubian rebels, but the Nerubians were both powerful and immune to the plague, so the fighting was a challenge even for the legions of the Lich King.

Sholazar was protected by Titanic magic that instantly destroyed any undead that tried to enter the basin, so he wasn't able to attack the tribes there. Undead are only just starting to advance on Sholazar by the time the Horde and the Alliance focus on Northrend, and that was only because members of the Cult of the Damned were able to sneak in and destroy one of the pillars.

The titan tech was protected by powerful guardians that even the Scourge might have had some trouble with. Even if they were victorious, since the guardians were not made of flesh Arthas wouldn't have been able to reanimate them to replenish his losses.

The Drakkari were also a pretty formidable force. Since they had stolen the power of their loa, they effectively had the power of gods at their disposal.

Also, on top of everything that was going on in Northrend Arthas was trying to dodge the attention of the Burning Legion as well as maintain his foothold in the Plaguelands, where the Argent Dawn was working with both the Horde and the Alliance to drive him out.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5: Why in sand dunes is there no gravel or small pebbles? Only sand for miles? Wouldn't there be small pebbles at least?

[Assistant] Wind pushes the grains around.  The heavy stuff doesnt move as well as the light stuff, so it gets left behind.  The too light stuff gets blown away completely.  What is left is sand, too heavy to fly away completely but light enough to move alot.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] [Guardians of the Galaxy] If Ronan went to fight Thanos after Ronan got the Infinity Stone would he have a chance to beat Thanos?

[Assistant] No. Thanos has faced against several users of Infinity Stones and have come out on top. On a meta level, he'll create the Infinity Gauntlet in the next Avenger movie which means over coming Dr. Strange, and Vision.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[Fantasy] Are there any fantasy works where the local wildlife has evolved to make use of magic, or is magic limited to intelligent beings?

I feel like if magic is out there, there should be animals making use of it.  No species has found a way to use magic?  The only examples I can think of are in Avatar: The Last Airbender, where people learned bending from various animals.  Are there others?

[Assistant] Harry Potter! The Fantastic Beasts mentioned in the book and shown in the movies often have magical abilities.  Their magic is more limited than the wizards, but they're often capable of certain magic things.  And House Elves, Centaurs, and Goblins are all confirmed to have magic in their own right.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[The Long Earth] If stuff made of iron can't step between the worlds, how come the iron in our blood can?

If iron can't step between the worlds, how come the iron in our blood can? Does this mean I could make an alloy that contains iron and thus take tools made in this material with me when I step?

[Assistant] I believe it's theorized by some scientists that chemically pure iron and iron ore can't make it through, but organic molecules containing iron are given a special pass. It's never quite revealed why or how things in the Long Earth work, but major theological discussions posit that it can't be a coincidence it opened up to us when we needed it most, and that the Long Earth is, at some level, made for the sapient steppers.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5: How does burned food stick to glass? What's it holding onto?

[Assistant]
The proteins and carbohydrates in food are glue.

Old-fashioned methods of making glue used the long protein molecules in animal products. Long molecules help the glue stick to itself and the surfaces. Modern glue contents don't differ much from the old fashioned contents.

When you cook food too well, you evaporate the water  so the food glue hardens. The chemical reaction for glue to bind to a surface also increases with temperature. This caused the food to bind to metal and glass surfaces.

Glassware in particular can absorb and hold more heat than it's metal equivalents (due to it's greater thickness). This means it can transfer a lot more heat and burn/glue food to it easier than metal.

Nonstick surfaces do not react to form bonds with the food glue. That's what prevents the sticking.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[Star Trek] Why does the replicator always assume I want iced tea?

I know iced tea exists, but I always want it hot. Why does the replicator give me iced tea whenever I don't specify? And why do I have to word it as "tea, Earl Grey, hot" instead of "hot Earl Grey tea". Who programmed this thing? Yoda?

Once I've asked it for black licorice, and it came out wet, because apparently you're supposed to specify that it's dry.

[Assistant]
First few times using the replicator:

Picard: Tea.

Computer: What type of tea would you like?

Picard: Earl Grey.

Computer: Would you like your tea hot or iced?

Picard: Hot.

-

Eventually he anticipated the questions and started answering them before they were asked.

Have you ever dealt with customer service from the same organization multiple times in a row? They ask the same questions from a script and after a few times you start answering the questions before they ask them.

The computer could certainly parse an order for hot Earl Grey tea, but thats not the way Picard got used to ordering it.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
CMV: Christians are pushing people away from religion with their actions, instead of achieving their goal of evangelism ironically.

Long story short I was involved and employed at a Christian church when I was 22. I had been catholic my whole life leading up to that. The experiences I had at that church made me hate all organized religions and has made me seriously question if God exists at all. Without going in to detail, I went from a casually religious person who wasnt diehard in church every Sunday but believed in God and considered myself religious...to a person who will never step foot in a church again, who will never pray, and who will never raise their kids under a religion. All because of the actions of a group of Christian people who were actively trying to save me and make me accept Jesus and all that.
So many people go through the same things I did. They are curious about God or religion so they wind up at a Christian church and come out worse than they were to begin with. Most people find Christians make them feel like they are  worth less than they are and feel constantly judged. My experience happened shortly after losing my mom to cancer and I was extremely vulnerable. I was taken advantage of and all of my self esteem was stripped away, all in the effort to make me accept Jesus. Perhaps its not Christians themselves, but their methods? Or the fact that its so ingenuine? I heard Christians calling non-Christians projects. And they literally turn more people off from religion entirely as opposed to bringing people to God.
I also think they put too much emphasis on what you arent allowed to be/do (gay, living with a boyfriend, listener of secular music) instead of making you feel accepted as who and what you are.

[Assistant]
If Christianity was rebrand to the "Everybody does whatever they want club" where all you had to do was blink to join, they'd increase membership. But their goal is not to increase number of members.

Their goal is to save your soul from hell, which unfortunately means there must be some conditions, rules and common beliefs.

They aren't pushing people away, it's just that many people don't want to be christian.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[Discworld] Were the animal men Rincewind saw in Fourecks really animal men?

I know the helpful kangaroo entity was physically a kangaroo, but Rincewind saw many other citizens as animal-people. Were they really that or a magical illusion? Or maybe even a stress induced illusion?

And for that matter, was Rincewind's shooting against the bandits magically assisted by the Kangaroo or just Rincewind being awesome?

[Assistant]
By all indications they were in fact animal people, though curiously not as horribly warped as the fairy tale critters we met in "Witches Abroad," perhaps suggesting XXXX animals aren't as fundamentally at odds with human nature (maybe because they're just that dangerous?)

The Trickster was indeed helping Rincewind along. While he can do an impressive number of things, it's been confirmed time and again that he just can't do magic. He's BAD.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] [Halo] Why did the Forerunners, being an extremely technologically advanced civilization, fail to defeat the Flood using conventional military firepower? Does the same explanation also extend to the UNSC and Covenant?

[Assistant]
Well, partially because of the strength of the Flood when descovered. The Flood had already been at war with Humans, who were almost comparable to the Forerunners at the time, and throughout that war had already amassed significant military capabilities. The Flood then elected to withdraw, slowing their own infection rate of humans and the galaxy at large for thousands of years, presenting a weaker and more manageable target.

This changed with the testing of the first Rings at Charum Hakor. With the Primordial released, and put into direct contact with the main defense AI for the entire Encumine. And, with that opening, they launched their offensive, revealing their true strength and threat.

So, basically... The Forerunners thought they could, and the Didact actually argued in support of that strategy. But the Flood managed to conceal the threat they posed, downplaying their strength and causing the council to support a less radical approach. And, by the time it was revealed who the Flood were, and exactly what they were capable of, it was too late to change direction.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5: Why does the air shimmer over hot things (i.e. fire, pavement, a warm summer day)?

[Assistant]
over hot things the air get warmer, when the air gets warmer it expands resulting in lower pressure. remember light travels in various speeds in different mediums(The denser the medium the slower it travels) therefore when light enters from the higher pressure air to the lower pressure its speed decreases and its path changes, this is refraction. That's why you see the air shimmering over hot things
This is also called the 'mirage effect'.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
When I hit my hand against a wall, what exactly is stopping my hand from going through the wall?

I know it sounds like a stupid question.

When you're looking at it on an atomic level, what makes atoms (or nuclei) unable to intersect with one another? Why are some subatomic particles able to intersect, but not atomic particles?

[Assistant] It's the force of the electrons in your hand repelling the electrons in the wall. The closer your hand gets, the larger that force gets; due to the inverse square dependence of electrostatic forces, you don't notice it until you're pressed right up against it.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
How do species evolve traits that aren't useful until fully evolved?

I'm thinking wings specifically, but there are others. A proto-wing that isn't developed enough to fly with would be useless, so how can a species evolve to have wings?

[Assistant] Many animals can glide in the air without doing powered flight: "flying" squirrels, "flying" fish, colugos.  Gliding helps them escape predators.  Three clades of vertebrates evolved true powered flight: birds, bats and pterosaurs.  Most likely, their wings allowed them to glide first, so it is not true that they were useless.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[HARRY POTTER] Becoming a powerful wizard. Are you born with it or can you learn to be one?

Simple question. Can you learn to be a great wizard by pure hard work and skill or is it something that you are born with.

Most of the powerful wizards display superior magical prowess at a young age without any training. Take Voldy's magic while he was at an orphanage as an example.

Is it something that you could simply work at it and become a powerful wizard?

(Pre-empting that people will cite Hermione as an example. She was a hard working witch but I doubt she could become as powerful as Voldemort even if she had the ambition to)

[Assistant] Natural aptitude certainly has something to do with it. If you aren't prodigiously gifted, you'll never be a wizard the like of Dumbledore or Tom Riddle. That said, any wizard of that caliber has devoted a lifetime of study with an erudite mind to the craft in addition to their inborn talents. If you are a wizard of average aptitude, you can still become great. Take Kingsley, McGonogal, or Snape. They are all extremely proficient wizards, and none of them are magical prodigies. Their greatness comes from self cultivation.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5: If species is defined as a group of organisms able to produce offspring with each other, how do biologists classify species that reproduce asexually?

[Assistant] Turns out there are lots of different species concepts and not a single concept that works for every species. You are describing the 'biological species concept', but species concepts exist that define species by their role in the environment, their physical appearance, their evolutionary history, etc. Many of those concepts work well for asexually reproducing species. Ultimately, scientists go by the concept that works best for the group they are studying.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
Do you guys agree with this guy's post?

Saw this on an AskReddit post. As a senior in high school applying to universities as a CS major, I'm a lil worried.

> I'm willing to wager thousands of prospective CS students are those who found a bit of interest in programming, and then saw the amount of money a "software programmer" could make (or perhaps vice-versa). They've always been "good" with computers, and that AP CS class they took last year really piqued their interests. They researched further and found "software/development managers" could make over 200k a year, and suddenly they envision themselves sitting at a computer all day, hacking away, maybe even working remotely from home, and making 300k a year. And to add even more weight to the potential disillusionment, many of these soon to be CS majors hope that maybe, just maybe, they'll somehow create the next Snapchat or Facebook or Flappy Bird or Bitcoin or Unturned or whatever new product that allows them to sit down, rake in millions, and enjoy an early retirement in the "bustle and hub" of California's Silicon Valley. That's not to say it can't happen. By all means aim high. But you don't see nearly every prospective lawyer eyeing a spot on the Supreme Court, or every prospective biology major with realistic goals to cure cancer. A CS degree is slowly becoming the new business degree of the 21st century: I don't know what the hell I want to do in life, I like money, and I guess I've always been kind of good at math, so I'll just major in CS and I'll probably be rich or something. Check any school's available undergraduate data. Computer Science, or some form of it, is most likely one of the 3 largest majors on campus, and almost certainly their most impacted major. For all prospective CS majors here: be wary. CS is going to become infinitely more competitive in the coming decade (much more than it already is). Just stay ahead of the curve and you'll be fine.

[Assistant]
Yes, but it's a difficult degree. People just out for the money are going to get reality checked on a few of the classes, and be faced with potentially changing majors.

I would say that if you want to pursue this degree, be good at math or programming at least. It's best if you're proficient in both, but you can get away with one or the other.

As for the entrepreneurial aspect, there's nothing wrong with side goals and dreaming big.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
cmv: recycling, going electric, using public transport and bikes is nowere close to being enough.

I am not saying we shouldn't do anything but I am afraid this is just a way to get distracted. "As a citisen I am doing my part, taking the bike at work , recycling correctly, now the rest us up to the government". At the same time the amazon forest is getting cut down, the siberian permafrost melting so tonnea of methane goes into the air, glaciers melting and sun not reflecting enough of them adding to heating up the oceans, not to mention industries and that. I am just afraid our effort as citizens counts to 0,000001% of the problem and we get comfy about it because we simply don't have enough knowledge and info to put this into perspective .
So without being cynical looking at the whole picture I am almost sure recycling, biking, going electric and all the other stuff counts for nothing as long as the world goes business as usual (the whole post is refering to the efforts of saving hunanity from catastrophic climate consequences).

[Assistant] It's as much as most regular urban living people will be able to manage. The rest involves industry far outside the scope average people can influence. But it is "enough" for as much as regular people can physically do.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] [D&D]Every 289 the Modrons, a race of sentient golem-people from the elemental plane of Law, Mechanus, march across the cosmos in a great march, looking for something and killing anything that gets in their way. What are some theories on what they are looking for?

[Assistant]
They're still looking for Orcus's wand from back when he killed and stole the then Primus's identity. Due to the large stratified clockwork-like bureaucratic nightmare that is the Modron society, orders don't get handed down very quickly, and organizing events can take anywhere from decades to centuries.

So it takes 289 years for a section of Modrons to finish organizing and set off on the March, sometimes one section does it quicker though.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5: What is happening when I add salt to already boiling water?

I know about boiling point elevation, but this is something different. I noticed today when I had a pot of boiling water (already raised to a boil) for pasta and I added salt to it that it began to bubble much more violently before calming down and stopping. What was happening there?

[Assistant] Nucleation, probably. The rough, uneven surface of the salt crystal allows for pockets of air to get trapped when they enter the water, and then as they release the water appears to boil more violently.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] [Captain Planet] If heart turns bad people into good, why didn't they used it against the bad guys?

[Assistant] Ma-Ti has a moral objection to overriding the free will of other humans, in the same way that Wheeler has an objection to just char-broiling the bad guys with his ring, even though that would also solve the problem.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[Frozen] What was the ecological fall out to the events surrounding Queen Elsa's coronation?

The terrible snowstorm dropped up to 20 ft of snow in some places in the middle of summer. When the winter was over what happened to the crops? Was there flooding? How many people died of exposure?

[Assistant]
Fortunately the people of Arendelle are a hardy folk, inured to long, harsh winters.  Unfortunately losing all your crops mid-season means that it's going to be a lean winter.

The royal grain stores were naturally opened to help the populace get through the worst of it.  The Queen's magic also was able to extend the growing season so that some of the stores were replenished.

The livestock losses, however, were catastrophic.  The trade embargo with Weselton was quietly lifted to allow the herds of dairy cows and swine to be replenished.  Damage to the ship s' hulls in the harbour from the expanding ice also necessitated receiving foreign aid.

Flooding was not an issue because the same magic that created the moisture in the first place was able to disperse it as well.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[DC] How does Wonder Woman, someone on the side of peace, Justice, and defending man reconcile the fact that her Greek Gods have done some really messed up stuff?

Zeus is obvious with the whole multiple rapes. Theres Poseidon with making a woman have sex with a bull. Athena was a sore loser and turned a woman into a spider. Hera straight up torments all of Zeuss children.

[Assistant] Diana pretty much has "Defend humanity against the worst excesses of the Greek pantheon" as part of her job description. She has a more complex relationship with the Goddesses, acknowledging that they are great and powerful, but also occasionally scary and frightening.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] Why are they called Pull Requests and not Merge Requests?

[Assistant] Hysterical raisins, as they say. Git was originally created to manage Linux source code. Linux doesn't have centralized repo; it's quite possibly the only project that really makes use of that D in DVCS. Changes were added to mainstream by politely asking the maintainers to download them from you - literally running `git pull` in their repos. A request to pull, if you will. Or a pull request.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] [SPIRITED AWAY] Was there any other humans working in the bathhouse?

[Assistant] Humans, no; they make a pretty specific point that everyone can smell "the human" and "the human" is unusual there.  However, since Chihiro is slowly losing her identity upon arriving, it's possible that someone at the bathhouse *used* to be a human.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
CMV: "Rules as Written" when it comes to D&D and other tabletop games doesn't mean much, and DM's in fact *should* go through the rules and change anything they don't like.

So players in tabletop games like D&D like to talk about the rules, ways to break the game, etc, and often they'll use the phrase RAW or "Rules as written", but I think it's kind of pointless to argue this. D&D has always emphasized that DMs should change any and all rules that they want to.

I've been watching some funny youtube videos where people talk about "overpowered" spells, ways to break the game, best "combos", etc. And while they're funny, I'm also taking notes on what to change in my own game in order to prevent this kind of powergaming.

This brings me to another point that I wanted to include in the title (but it was already clunky) - even D&D 5e, arguably the most "streamlined" and "munchkin-proof" edition yet, is still written by mere mortals and has its share of balance problems. I think this is mostly due to the fact that the creators can't imagine every scenario, and sometimes they just make little mistakes, like allowing players to summon creatures that can polymorph them into killing machines for a long period of time.

In fact, I think the videos on youtube that show these kinds of balance issues should be used to construct a sort of "community patch" which could list out these issues and ways to correct them.

Maybe what I'm saying doesn't seem very controversial, but I know a lot of players can be "rules lawyers", so maybe it is. But I think each roleplaying system isn't perfect and needs a significant amount of tweaking from creative players and DM's to be brought to its fullest potential, there's no need to wait for new editions.

edit: I'm not talking about secretly changing the rules without telling your players, I would discuss the changes with them beforehand.

[Assistant]
RAW is important because it is consistent. It is the base upon which any set of house rules is built. If there is going to be any discussion of how the game should play or be played, it will necessarily be in the context of what in the RAW does or does not work for a given group/DM.

A community patch also seems like a strange way to approach what you see as problems with the system. RAW is the base, and groups can and should modify them to suit their needs, but the needs and desires of each group are too varied for there to be some magical set of house rules that will improve the game for everyone.

Some groups want games that are more powerful. They let people roll stats in ridiculous ways, give them bonus feats and skills in character creation, and implement powerful variants like spell points, or allow incredibly powerful homebrew classes and subclasses.

Some groups want to emphasize exploration or some non-combat pillar and outright ban several spells and background options that can trivialize this like outlander and goodberry.

Some groups want to trim back the power of the optimized damage per round builds, and therefore ban or change the feats these builds make strong use of.

There can't be a real community patch to the game when there is no "community way" to play the game. Every groups modifications should be specific and to suit their needs and playstyle. To understand what those changes might be, it is important to discuss and understand RAW, so you can make informed decisions about what to change and why.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
Are 1st and 2nd year PhD students usually expected to teach? Is being younger than the students you are teaching weird?

Hello,

I am currently an undergrad math student. I will be graduating with my bachelors at the age of 19 and will go for my PhD after that. Would the fact that I would still be 19 make the teaching aspect more difficult?

Thank you for your help.

[Assistant]
Many universities have a policy or informally try to make sure those teaching have at least one degree higher than those they are teaching. Sometimes even terminal PhD programs will have students pick up an MA/MS along the way, or set a point of progress (x number of grad credits) before you can teach undergrads).

Try to avoid teaching immediately if you can. If you must teach, dress professionally and maybe try to make some sessions online if it is a predominantly face to face class.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
What does conditioner (for your hair) actually do? And how does it do it?

And does it still do it if it's in that shampoo/conditioner combo stuff?

[Assistant]
Shampoo's main goal is cleaning hair.  During the cleaning process a lot of the natural oils are stripped from hair.  Conditioners add back things like oils to undo some of the less-desirable effects of Shampoo.

Fun Fact: modern chemistry has managed to merge shampoo and conditioner pretty well into one product.  Some still believe that separate products are needed, but others are fine with a combined product.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
CMV: They/Them pronouns are too confusing for it to catch on in the general public anytime soon.

**Edit: I changed my mind. They/Them pronouns are not confusing, they are the linguistically correct term to use when someone's gender is unknown.**

**Edit 2: Allright, we've covered pretty much all of it, now it's just edgelords posting. Thanks for the insight everyone! Great conversation!**

Original Post:
I'm Non-Binary and as I've never felt like a man nor a woman, I love the idea of gender neutral pronouns.

However, They/Them is way too confusing and requires too much tongue twisting to be able to use as easily as He/Him and She/Her. It makes communication less clear rather than more clear. I think it is asking too much to ask people to change their entire language. This isn't like asking someone to refer to a trans person by their proper pronouns as people already know how to use both he and she pronouns.

I think the general public is too used to saying "He went down to the river by himself" and "She went down to the river by herself" to refer to a single person, to start saying "They went down to the river by themselves" as it implies multiple people.

The only time the general public uses "they/them" pronouns to refer to a single person is reluctantly, to refer to someone before they can assume their gender.

It gets confusing during (admittedly silly) statements such as the following: "Demi Lovato works very well with Ariana Grande. They're so cute." You don't know if the statement "They're so cute" is about Demi Lovato, or about both of them. Another confusing statement is "They're coming to eat some Ice Cream." You wouldn't know if you need to order Ice Cream for 1 person, or multiple. You literally have to ask "So is it 1 person coming or multiple?"

Unfortunately, I don't know a better choice, as coming up with completely new terms would be even worse, because at least people are used to using "they/them" for unknown people.

But I think it is too much to ask people to extend the usage to something they're not used to. I also don't think we should get mad at people who struggle to use they/them pronouns, as it gets pretty mouthy. Even I struggle with it, for example I literally play Bloodhound in Apex Legends because they are Non-Binary, but in the heat of the moment, I keep using "He/Him" and have to correct myself. I can't imagine what that must be like for someone who doesn't even know what Non-Binary is. It's like a muscle you have to train yourself to use, and I can't see people caring enough to want to train that muscle.

[Assistant]
That is the problem every time this view comes up: it generally only works with isolated sentences. If the only thing you say to a person is "They went down the river by themselves", it might be confusing - putting any sort of common context around it immediately solves the issue.

"What did X do after that?"

"They went down to the river by themselves"

There is no question here whether it's used in plural or singular. It is that way with nearly every commonly encountered context.

In addition, let's look at this part:

>"Demi Lovato works very well with Ariana Grande. They're so cute." You don't know if the statement "They're so cute" is about Demi Lovato, or about both of them.

Does this create any more confusion than using "she" here?

>"Demi Lovato works very well with Ariana Grande. **She's** so cute."

There is still confusion as to who "she" refers to. The solution is an extremely simple clarification issued directly afterwards.

This whole problem isn't an issue in the real world. It only exists on paper. The easiest solution would be to simply say the name in dubious situations.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5: How is the VR experience of a phone with an attachment like Galaxy S7 different from that of Occulus Rift?

[Assistant]
There are several different aspects to this as of right now (early 2016) which may change in the future. The first is that phones don't have nearly as much processing power or storage space as a gaming PC, this means games are often short or re-use the same content throughout the game. Graphics are often simple and use low resolution textures, they also have poor batteries and can get hot quickly.

Secondly you then also have the screens used in these phones, the Oculus Rift can update the screen 90 times a second vs a phones 60. This many not sound like much but it makes a huge difference. Specifically the GearVR only displays an image for a fraction of a frame to avoid blur, so the higher the screens refresh rate = less noticeable flicker (think back to the days of old CRT tv's)

Lastly is cost, the target market for GearVR is more of a casual audience so the headset of often of lower quality in design and will have less features so that the manufacturers can sell it at a specific price point, the biggest drawback right now with the current generation of GearVR headsets is that there is no positional tracking. With an Oculus Rift or Vive the displays inside the headsets have been specifically made for VR, the optics have been paired perfectly to the displays and the whole unit is of much higher quality.

Please note that this answer is only applicable to current generation devices (Gear VR, Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, etc.), VR is probably the fastest introduction of a completely brand new technology I've ever seen so the landscape and direction VR takes will change very quickly and without warning, for all we know in a year things could be vastly different.

A new generation of virtual reality headsets may very well be totally self contained and wireless, meaning you do not need a PC or a phone and that the 'computer' for the device is in the headset itself. This is, at present the most likely way vr will advance and become it's own medium and this would offer a middle-ground between 'GearVR' mobile Vr and PC vr.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
Why use spaces in C when they don't affect the code? (Beginner CS50)

I have a question that's very confusing to me. So you know how you write

    if ( i + j < n - 1)
         printf(" ");
    else
         printf("#");

right?   When I write it as

    if ( i + j < n - 1)
    printf(" ");
    else
    printf("#");

I get the same exact result. Why go through all the trouble of putting spaces and all that? I get confused what's for what in longer code sometimes. Is putting those spaces just a common programmer practise, or is it a MUST? Is it just the CS50 IDE that doesn't register those spaces? So many questions.

[Assistant]
The spacing and indentation is to make it easier to read. For example, you could write the above as:

`if(i+j<n-1)printf(" ");else printf("#");`

It's still the same result, but harder to read. C is very lenient when it comes to spacing. As the following is also the same but much harder to read. It's best to agree on a coding style with the other engineers on a project and stick to it. The more you look at a particular style the easier it becomes.

`if`

`(i`

`+j`

`<`

`n`

`-1)`

`printf`

`(`

`" "`

`)`

`; else`

`printf ( "#"`

`);`


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5: How can the Voyager and other craft go to such extreme distance? How does it have enough fuel? Why can't we send humans like that instead?

I'm curious about these pictures that I see all the time. Voyager or some other spacecraft sends pictures of distant planets, being some light years away. Even pictures of Earth looking like a speck of dust. How did it travel so far? How is this possible?

For humans, I understand it would take tons of more specialized equipment but surely we can send them a great distance than the Moon.

Most of what I say might sound very uninformed and downright wrong. So anything and everything related to this will be very much appreciated.

Thank you for your replies!

[Assistant]
Nobody mentioned this, but the Voyager missions were created to take advantage of an unusual planetary alignment. They gravity whipped around several planets as they went outward, both saving on fuel, and getting great close-ups of them.

Normally a mission like that would only fly by one, maybe two, and never have enough fuel to break solar orbit.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5: Considering that Kidney Stones are notoriously painful (as well as common), why is it so difficult to develop a painless method of extraction?

Furthermore, why can't they use some form of anesthesia?

[Assistant]
The stones are inside part the kidney, which is a very delicate organ with a great deal of major blood vessels going into and out of it.

It's a dangerous area to mess around with, with the amount of blood moving through it.

Nicking an artery can lead to some serious damage.

Additionally; once they leave the kidney they have to pass through a muscular tube which conveys urine down to the bladder. That's something you really want to avoid the damage surgery will do to it, as scar tissue is potentially dangerous if it blocks the tube.

I can't answer the anaesthesia part, though!


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5: Most antidepressants seem to inhbit (or block) serotonin, dopamine, etc receptors... but if those are what make a person happy, why does blocking them treat depression?

Oh, I'm stupid.  They inhibit reuptake, not the receptors themselves.

[Assistant] Its blocking the reuptake of them.  Sometimes they dont get passed on to be used / effective and get reabsorbed back.  So the blockers block that and force them to continue forward making you feel them more.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
What in our brains causes feelings of hopelessness associated with suicide?

What about depression causes people to have the "hopeless" feeling that pushes so many people to suicide? Why don't we feel this while we're happy and why would our own brains be so easily led to killing itself despite the common belief while happy that suicide doesn't make sense?

[Assistant]
Depression likely has something to do with serotonin. The most common treatments are SSRIs, which increase levels of serotonin in the brain.

That said, mechanisms behind depression aren't fully understood. There are likely significant psychological factors as well.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[Star Wars] If Order 66 failed miserably and not a single Jedi died to their clones, what would Palpatines next move be?

Assuming this statistical anomaly happened and the Jedi miraculously slaughtered all their clones, how would this affect his plans?

[Assistant] All the clones that were on hand to directly enact Order 66 does not equal all the clones at the Republic's disposal. If by some miracle every Jedi manages to escape, there's still millions more clones, plus the Inquisitorius and Vader. The Jedi remain the enemies of the newborn Empire. Sidious watches his back until they're all gone.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[Warhammer 40k] Would it be possible to engineer a virus to infect and kill Tyranids?

Alternatively why have the Tyranids not encountered a virus that could wipe them out on any of the countless planets they have consumed?

[Assistant]
There have been many viruses, naturally occurring as well as manufactured and deployed in plague bombs, that killed a lot of Tyranids.

The next generation of Tyranids develops a resistance, the next generation develops an immunity, then they devour and recycle the biomass from all of the dead Tyranids in the first attack. Then the next generation develops a gland that spits the same virus back out with gobs of corrosive mucus.

So, yes, but it only works the first time you use it. The HIVE MIND, which can transmit genetic information through the warp, can propagate a resistance to any disease faster than the disease itself can possibly spread.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[Star Wars] Can the Jedi or Sith drink alcohol?

I know theyre supposed to be above normal vices like love, attachment, greed, anger, etc., but does that extend to alcohol as well?

Edit: In the event that alcohol doesnt exist in the SW universe, can they drink blue milk or smoke deathsticks?

[Assistant] We see Obi Wan order a drink at a bar in AotC, right after he mind-tricks the deathsticks kid. Presumably it was alcoholic, it looked like a shot, and he drank it like a shot, which would be odd if it were just, like, juice or something.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] [Fallout] Which vault would have been the best to be kept in? Which vault would have been the worst?

[Assistant]
101, while an experiment, was overall pretty safe and stable as long as the Overseer wasn't too batshit crazy.

13 turned out pretty well until that whole waterchip fiasco and then some mutants from outside.

Their were a few dozen other vaults that acted as control, and everything went to plan.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5 How does a pregnancy test work? Especially how does the first stripe appear almost immediately, but the 2nd only after 15min?

[Assistant]
When a women becomes pregnant, her body starts produced tons of hormones to prepare her body to sustain and carry the child. Some of these hormones will begin to collect in the woman's urine with days or weeks of fertilization.

The tests work by triggering a two phase chemical reaction. The first reaction basically just detects water, that's the first, "not pregnant" line. The second stripe contains a chemical that changes color when it reacts with the hormones, but it takes more time. Think of it this way, there's a ton of water in pee so that's easy to detect, there's only a tiny bit of hormones so they're harder to find.

So you'll always get that first stripe, if you don't it's a sign the test is defective. The second line, if it appears, takes a while because it's the part that's actually "doing something".


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[Metal Gear Solid] If the whole purpose was to launch nukes with a rail gun anywhere in the world, then with bother building an expensive bipetal tank-mecha (REX), when they could have simply mounted the rail gun on a ship?

I just got done watching the entire MSGS cinematic on youtube because I'm to lazy to emulate the game or get a PS1.

The whole point behind constructing Metal Gear REX was to use it's rail gun to launch a nuke from anywhere in the world, to anywhere in the world, without use of a missile, making the nuke invisible.

I also get that REX can walk anywhere and thus make himself within range of any country in the world.

BUT

Can't a ship like a Navy Destroyer basically do the same thing while not being limited by the ocean? (No game addresses how REX is supposed to cross an ocean).

It seems the issue of the game was not REX itself, but simply the Rail Gun mounted on it.

Metal Gear 4 makes it clear REX was not designed as a frontline assault weapon, but more of a long-range mobile weapons plataforn.

Wouldn't it make more sense, from the logical and financial aspect, for DARPA to simply invest in perfecting the rail gun platform itself, and then simply mount it on ship, or heck, even tanks, (judging by the size of it in MSG1)?

RAY was supposed to be a all around infantry and combat unit design to overpower enemy mechs and mobile infantry, so I get it's purpose.

I don't get the purpose of REX, who's designed to fight long-range.

Why even bother building a gigantic bipedal highly futuristic and expensive mech that will only serve as a glorified artillery piece?  Shit, a rail gun mounted tank would to the same thing while being less of a target.

I know it breaks the suspension of disbelief, but isn't this how it goes IRL? Military prefers what's simple and works instead of what big, flashy, destructive but super expensive?

[Assistant] A big issue with the MG world is that they have a different chain of historical events, most critically the shenanigans of Big Boss, Zero, and the other players of their strange game of global control. By the time of REX, the world has already been menaced by multiple nuclear-equipped vehicles of assorted sizes, configurations and threat levels, and there's a meme that whoever manages to perfect and control such a weapon system will have an edge in geopolitics. No one stops and says "wouldn't it be a better idea to put this on a conventional ship" because they think quadruped or biped mechs are the current hotness, while conventional surface ships aren't. Conventional ships are easy to track via satellite assets or by following hunter-killer subs, while REX could disappear in any sufficiently large building or tunnel, or be dismantled and smuggled in containers, or otherwise shuffled in a way that impedes conventional tracking, before letting rip with a ICBM tier shot that hits with minimal warning from unpredictable vectors.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5: Alpha Go and its decision making process.

[Assistant] AlphaGo uses something called machine learning, which is essentially a way of classifying objects based on the classification of past objects that we give the computer. In this case the objects being classified are the states of the board. So we tell AlphaGo what the good and bad moves of past games were, and AlphaGo uses that data to tell which moves it should think are good or bad. It then uses a combination of this information and searching through possible moves to make a decision about what it should play.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5: what makes an airplane "lightning proof?"

[Assistant] Airplanes are almost all metal on the outside.  They are hit by lightning all the time, but the current flows around the plane's skin and down to the ground.  Some systems kick off, but the pilots switch them on again and make a note in the logbook for maintenance to check for damage.  No big deal, but not "lightning proof".


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5 Whats left after a brain tumours removed

When a brain tumour is removed , is there just an empty space left where it was? And does that space fill up  agin ???

[Assistant]
Air. Apparently after surgery patients can hear the air bubble move around *inside their brain* as they change the orientation of their head.

The air is absorbed gradually by the tissue and fluid in the brain, then removed via the lungs and exhaled. The lost volume of air is replaced by Cerebro-Spinal Fluid, the liquid which normally encases the spine and brain.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5: At what point do small bugs take damage from falling?

I released a spider today and after launching it from about six feet up, which was about 72 times its height, I started to wonder about this.

EDIT: Took out a typo. I didnt think anybody would care or notice but you know, Reddit.

[Assistant]
They don't.  Their terminal velocities are too low.  They just won't hit the ground from falling hard enough to cause damage.

Terminal velocity is the max. speed you'll hit the ground at if dropped.  It's determined by things such as gravity, air pressure, shape and density of the dropped body.

Might be different if the wind blows them into something.

In fact, things like spiders, ants, etc are found floating in the air.  Like, plane flying altitudes.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] [Star Wars] How did Anakin get the scar on his face in Revenge of the Sith?

[Assistant]
In a duel with Asajj Ventress on Coruscant, about a year before the end of the Clone Wars.

In the interest of full disclosure, he retaliated by using the Force to wrap her in live electrical wires and knock her off a building (though she survived, oddly enough). One of his many steps toward the dark side of the Force.

War is brutal, man.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5: What exactly happened with the provisional ballot situation across Arizona tonight?

Keep hearing about voter suppression in the form of having voters use provisional ballots that ultimately don't count anyway. Why is this such a widespread issue? Surely it can't be unintentional if it was so prevelant tonight.

[Assistant]
It is a misunderstanding of how votes are counted.

The purpose of an election to determine who got the most votes, not to make people feel all warm and fuzzy because their vote got counted.

Sometimes it is possible to know who won with out counting all the votes.  If someone is up by 10,000 votes, and there are 2000 provisional ballots, it is a waste of time to count them.

But not counted is difference from doesn't count.  If the election was closer, provisional ballots do get validated and counted.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5: Why when things crash does the audio continue to play?

There's probably different versions of this so feel free to answer either or. Perhaps the reasons are connected, perhaps not.

Example 1: My phone crashed, nothing was working, screen was blank, buttons unresponsive yet my music continued to play.

Example 2: in games like fifa and GTA when the game crashes the audio will continue to function and play on, sometimes even continuing to different songs even when the game is totally crashed and unresponsive otherwise.

[Assistant]
Audio hardware is configured with a small memory buffer to hold audio data. The buffer is circular (ELI5 version), and the hardware will continue to play that buffer until it's told to stop. The software, or video game, or whatever, is constantly figuring out what has been played, and overwriting that with the next 1/4 second or so of audio. The hardware will circle around and play over the new data, never knowing or caring that it was changed.

So, when a program crashes, the audio hardware wasn't told to stop. It can't, the software died! It's just happy doing what it was told and playing that buffer, which is no longer getting updated, round and round.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5: Whats in between an atom?

So my (basic) understanding of atoms is you have a nucleus (also always wondered what exactly a nucleus is made of) and then you have the electrons orbiting around it, like a ring around Saturn. My question is, what is between the ring and the nucleus?

[Assistant]
Nothing, just empty space.
Also, to be more specific, it's not really a ring, more like a cloud (called the atomic orbital) that can have different forms. It describes the position of the electron (as a wave) or a chance of it being located at any specific point (as a particle), quantum mechanics are complicated.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] Why do GIFs load slower than videos?

[Assistant]
The files are simply bigger as GIF stores full copies of each frame, while modern video formats only store the differences between the frames.

The reason for that is simply that GIF is very old and was never meant for video. The reason why GIF is still used, instead of modern video formats, is that videos can't be used in the same places images can be used. Forums for example allow often the posting of images, but rarely the posting of video. This in turn is an artifact of videos not being officially supported by HTML, which changed only recently.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5 : What really is Second person view?

Ive seen first person view, Ive seen third person view, but never second person.

[Assistant]
2nd person would be literally a second person. If you were talking about a videogame it would be literally the camera following another character in the scene instead of you.

Technically mario 64 would be that. Since the whole point of view is always from the lakitu following you, but you control it and it's always acting like a 3rd person camera so it's only technically true. A real one would be a camera that follows some random NPC then you are walking around somewhere in the background.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
I still don't understand what a share fundamentally is

Please explain it precisely and simply (sorry). Obviously it is a share of a company, but in what way?

1) Is a share defined as a percentage of a company or as a dollar amount of a company?  Or something else entirely? I don't get how share prices can rise/fall if they represent a set amount, but it would make sense if it was a set percentage. But from what I've gathered it isn't defined as a set percentage.

2) How does issuing new shares impact old ones? And is there a limit to the amount of shares they can issue? (Especially this last part hinges on whether a share is defined as a set percentage of a firm or something else I guess).

3) How do shares determine how much the holder will profit from liquidation? E.g. if you own 1/1000 of the shares you get 1/1000 of the profit of liquidation I assume. But if the board decides to issue 1000 new shares soon before liquidation, you will loose half of that, at least if you don't pay to buy one of the new shares. This seems unfair.

[Assistant]
Imagine you start a lemonade stand. You see it doing well and generating decent profit in your locality. Since this one's doing so well, you think about expanding your business, and now you wanna open a lemonade stand in your neighbouring localities. But you need a lot more money for that, and you don't have the money. So you get an idea: You decide on a valuation of your business based on your future plans, for the sake of simplicity, let's say, after you open a lemonade stand in your neighbouring localities, you decide that your business will be worth $1000.

You need $500 to open a stand in your neighbouring localities, so you "divide" your business into 100 parts. Each part is called a share. Each share is now worth $1000/100 = $10. You show your friends your expansion plans and now they want in. Since you only need $500 for your expansion plans, you sell 50 shares of your company to your friends. The only reason they bought your share is because they believe that your company's valuation will go up as your business grows when its valuation goes up, the value of their share goes up, since the value of a share = (company valuation)/(total number of shares). After your expansion, people in your neighbouring localities also know of your business and looking at how good your lemonade is, they believe that your business has more growth potential. So they go out asking your friends, to whom you initially sold your shares, to sell it to them and they're willing to offer $12 for it (it was previously only $10). This is how your share's value goes up and now your business' valuation is suddenly $1200 (from $1000).

At some point, you'll notice that 100 shares are not enough since the demand is too high, more people want to own a part of your business, so you announce a stock split. Instead of 100 shares, now there'll be 200 shares in the market. That'll not change the valuation of your company, but now every shareholder will have double of what they previously owned, you will now have 100 shares, but the price of an individual share will halve since supply just doubled.

Higher share prices help you get your business get more loans with ease. They also help you with your company's public image.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5: What does Russia have to gain from taking over Crimea?

I understand Russia's only warm water port is located there, and about half the population are essentially Russian, but what do Russia and Putin have to truly gain from taking over Crimea? It seems like there's a lot more to lose than gain.

[Assistant]
Crimea was a 19th century strategic necessity for Russia.  It provided Russia with an effective navy in the Black and Mediterranean seas when those waterways were critical to Russia's economy and Russia faced European powers that might have tried to strangle its economy during wartime.

Crimea today is a feint designed to allow Russia to test the resistance of Europe and America to its imperial intentions in Ukraine.  Most Russians consider Ukraine a part of Russia.  The very seat of the ancient Rus people, for whom the whole country is named, is in Kiyev.  Russian Maximum Leader Putin famously told President Bush that "Ukraine isn't even a nation".  Ukraine has some of the most fruitful farmlands in Europe.  The Ukrainian capacity for agriculture was a major point of Hitler's desires to destroy the Soviet Union - with Ukraine under German control, the Third Reich would have had food security and not be reliant on other countries for sustenance.

Russia clearly sees Ukraine in the same light.  Russia + Ukraine is a much more powerful force than Russia - Ukraine.  In fact, Russia - Ukraine may not even be able to sustain itself as a significant power, becoming more akin to a France or a UK - requiring alliances and collective action to really make a difference in world affairs.

Russia has played a long game in Ukraine since the breakup of the USSR.  It has worked assiduously behind the scenes to keep Ukraine from doing the two things it thinks would irretrievably sever the Ukrainians from the Russians:  Joining NATO, and joining the European Union.  So far, Russia's interest in keeping Ukraine out of those entities has outweighed the desire of the Europeans and the Americans to get Ukraine into them.  Everyone knows that either step would force a serious confrontation with Russia, and nobody is sure if Russia would blink and back down, or suicidally drag everyone down into the abyss rather than relinquish dreams of being a global superpower.

So buckle up, kiddies.  This is one of the Big Ones.  History is being made right now.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5: Are deep voices related to high testosterone?

Are deep voices related to/caused by high testosterone?

[Assistant] During puberty, testosterone drives development of secondary sex characteristics typically associate with male sex. This includes the lengthening of the vocal cords, which causes the voice to drop. So, kind of.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5: how we ended up using a "standard" tuning on guitar?

When did it became "the norm", what led us to adopt it, also why the B string is not a C to keep the same intervals as the other strings?+

[Assistant]
As you have noted the guitar is mostly tuned in 4ths, with a major 3rd between the G and B string.

The advantage to tuning in fourths is that it makes it easier to play melodies across the fret board. But it also makes it harder to play chords. By switching to a major 3rd interval the notes on the higher strings come down a fret making it easier to reach for forming chords.

If the guitar was all fourths it would be EADGCF -- the problem here is that barre chords would be tough, because you have a minor 2nd between the low string and high string which doesn't sound well. So you would have to compensate with fingering and lose the ease of being able to slide a barre up and down the neck.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5: America, how does the electoral college work? How can someone lose the popular vote but still become POTUS?

[Assistant]
Let's make a fictional little country with just 3 states.

State A: 11 million people, 5 Electoral votes.
State B: 7 million people, 4 electoral votes.
State C: 4 million people, 2 electoral votes.

Also to keep it simple everyone actually goes and votes...

In state A: 10 million votes for JB, 1 million votes for DT.
In State B: 3 million votes for JB, 4 million votes for DT.
In State C: 1 million votes for JB, 3 million votes for DT.

In total JB has 14 million votes, DT has 8 million votes.

Each state gives all their electoral college votes (there are a few exceptions but we're keeping it simple) to the candidate who wins that state.  So the 5 votes from State A go to JB, the 4 + 2 votes from states B and C go to DT.

DT wins the election with 5 against 6, having 36.4% of the popular vote.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5: Why do farmers destroy their crops when weather conditions are bad? Why bother going through the trouble? Why not just let them grow and get at least some harvest?

[Assistant] Im a farmer: Disease thrives in weak crops, and many diseases live in the soil and will come back the next year if you've let it proliferate. Also it's not as easy as just "letting them grow". It's all day every day hard work, and not worth wasting that much time and money on something that won't pay off. And depending on the type of operation, you may be able to replace it with something that has a quick growing time that's better suited for the conditions, so you could salvage the season somewhat. Also "at least some harvest" isn't really a thing. You're not just getting less produce, you're getting lower quality produce that isn't saleable and may or may not even be usable depending on what you're growing.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] Why do all the bulbs in a string of Christmas lights receive the same power? Shouldn't it be less as it goes through each bulb?

[Assistant]
Beware of the 'empty pipes fallacy' in electric circuits.  Metal conductors contain a sea of mobile electrons, so the wires act like pre-filled pipes, and a power supply is an electron-pump.  In a series chain of bulbs, the wires' charges all move at once, so all the bulbs light equally.

Visualize a belt and two pulleys.  Now have many people lightly touch the belt.  If you suddenly start spinning one of the pulleys, so the belt starts moving along, will everyone simultaneously get a friction-burn on their finger?  Yep.  Each rubbing finger will independently slow the entire belt while it becomes frictionally heated.   The same thing happens in a series chain of bulbs: each bulb separately extracts energy from the entire loop of flowing charges.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[DCEU] Why did Bruce spend a fortune to get Clark his farm back and only gave Barry a job recommendation?

You full on bought a bank just to get Clark his land back and you couldn't even give the young kid you asked to risk his life a lawyer to review his dad's case? Not cool Bruce.

[Assistant]
To be fair, if you buy Clark's farm back, he can work as a farmer. If you can put Bruce Wayne as a professional reference you can work as whatever you damn well please.

A recommendation from Bruce Wayne is like a recommendation from Bill Gates.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[Dc Comics]Why arent Flash and Superman the most intelligent people out in the universe?

Let alone have superhuman abilities wouldnt there minds be abe to comprehend more than a normal human? Cant they feasibliy just read every single book and obtain piece of knowledge on earth since they can move at light speeds ?Why are people like Batman and Lex Luthor Still Smarter than Them ?

[Assistant] Big Blue is super-intelligent. He's just not paranoid like Batman so he doesn't have plans inside of plans inside of plans. And The Flash beat him at speed chess, while debating morality and philosophy, so he's not a slouch either.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
What's the difference between malignant narcissism and psychopathy?

This passage appears in the book *Snakes in Suits* by Paul Babiak and Robert Hare:

> Narcissists have difficulty learning alternative behaviors; but over time, and with some assistanceas with all personality disordersthey can learn to moderate their behaviors and the negative effectthey have on others. The real problem for others is when narcissisticfeatures, especially a sense of entitlement and a lack of empathy,shade into antisocial and destructive behaviors. When this happens,the pattern might be described as aggressive or malignant narcissism,which is difficult to distinguish from psychopathy.

[Assistant]
Malignant narcissism can fall under the category of grandiose narcissism which can also be termed things like "psychopathic", but there are differences between the two. Although they are very similar in terms of traits (such as lack of empathy), there is a fine line between malignant narcissism and psychopathy. The main difference is that malignant narcissists seek attention, while people who have been diagnosed with psychopathy don't need to. Narcissists in one way or another crave attention and want to be the centre of the world, where as psychopaths seek attention as a means to persuade people into doing things for them, but they do not need attention to function like narcissists do. People with psychopathy have a clear disregard for the emotions of people, which allows them to not care what people think or say about them, where as a narcissist will find ways to protect their ego if they feel it is in danger (if people are talking poorly about them).

edit: a few words, bad grammar from typing on phone :(


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
What is unique about carbon that makes it ideal for organic chemistry?

I understand that it bonds well molecularly with many other elements. What other elements could be the basis for advanced life (I've heard silicon might be suitable)? What qualities in an element might make it reasonably suitable?

*EDIT*: Wow, thanks for the extraordinary response! I posted this just before going to sleep last night, so I didn't get a chance to respond, but your answers were fascinating! Much appreciated!

[Assistant]
It easily makes 4 strong bonds, either with more carbon atoms or with other non-metals like oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, and phosphorus. This allows long chains of carbon atoms with other atoms hanging off the side, leading to a bewildering range of possible molecules of different shapes, sizes, and chemical properties.

Other non-metals either don't make enough bonds (oxygen makes 2, nitrogen 3, hydrogen 1), or the bonds aren't strong enough to form long chains that are reasonably stable (silicon, phosphorus, etc.). Metals usually don't make covalent bonds at all, so they can't form chains (inter-metallic bonds are far too weak).


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5:If Voyager 1 has entered interstellar space (currently at 135AU), how can the theoretical Planet IX orbit the sun at upto 1500 AU?

Wouldn't that make it a rogue planet in interstellar space?

[Assistant] The border of our solar system is pretty vague and open to interpretation. Some would say past Pluto, some would say past the Oort cloud, etc.  There's been a few different times when there were reports of Voyager leaving our solar system and it really all matters on where you define the border to be.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5 - when an something travels fast enough under water, it creates air bubbles... where does the air come from??

when something travels fast enough through water, air pockets are created... but where does the air come from??

okay ive tried explaining this to several people and its difficult so hear me out.

ever heard of a Mantis Shrimp? those little dudes can punch through water SO quickly that air bubbles form around them... my question is where does the air come from? is it pulled from the water (H2O) or is it literally just empty space (like a vacuum)? is it even air? is it breathable?

my second question- in theory, if it is air, could you create something that continuously breaks up water so quickly that an air bubble would form and you could breathe said air? or if you were trapped underwater and somehow had a reliable way of creating those air pockets, could you survive off of that?

[Assistant] High pressure in front, low pressure behind. As pressure lowers, the boiling point of water lowers. Pressure goes low enough, water essentially boils. Bubbles are created, bubbles collapse due to pressure. Collapsing bubbles are called cavitation.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[Star Wars] What's the deal with the droid army manufacturers?

 I originally thought that the Trade Federation had providing the CIS with their droid army. But from _Attack of the Clones_, it seems that the Techno Union originally provided them with droids, but then the Trade Federation later joined and chipped in.

  Though from what I've read, a certain company, which is Trade Federation property, created the B-1 droids. But it seemed that the owner of the Techno Union managed that company. And the B-2 droids were created by the Techno Union.

  Did both corporations create B-1 droids? Which corporation supplied first? Which types of droids were made by which corporation? What is the relationship between these corporations?

[Assistant] Both groups worked together to get the Droid production up and running. Techno Union provided the scientific and engineering know how to make the Droid and the TF funded the building of factories and aquire resources.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] [Ratatouille] How come Anton Ego reputation remain intact after Gusteau's death?

[Assistant]
That wouldn't lessen Ego's reputation; it'd inflate it.

Ego isn't renowned for his kind and gentle words, praising and encouraging rising stars in the culinary world. He essentially rules by fear, combining an incredibly refined palette with a cruel but clever writing style; the persona of the vicious critic is half of why he's so well-known. It's his gimmick.

Gusteau's death would've just added to the legend of Ego; especially if he was as callous and unsympathetic after the death as he is with everything else. Imagine a scenario where someone asks Ego if, in the light of Gusteau's death, he intended on revisiting his review of the restaurant, only for Ego to answer something like "Why? Did the food improve?".

Sure, people would say Ego was an asshole, and very few people in the industry probably have anything nice to say about him when they know he isn't listening, but regardless, it builds a reputation.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5: Why do plastic milk jugs always have gross little dried flakes of milk crust around the edge of the cap? No other containers of liquid (including milk-based ones) seem to have this problem.

[Assistant]
I work at a dairy.  I've ran the machines that make the bottles and fill the bottles.  Basically after the milk goes in the cap is for a lack of a better term dropped onto the top of the bottle, pressed down and then screwed tight in basically one quick motion that takes about a second.  When the cap is pressed down excess milk will squeeze out of the top before it screwed on tightly.  After the cap has been attached the filled bottles go through a quick sanitize rinse before they are put into milk crates.  The rinse gets the vast majority of the milk off but the little bit that's left will eventually dry on.  When we fill we fill to the top with no air bubbles left, which you have to do because milk foams when it's being forced quickly into a bottle like that.  When you look at other drinks that come in bottles you'll notice there's a little bit of air at the top, but not so much in a milk jug.

For the five year olds in the room  milk has a lot of air bubbles in it when you first put it in the bottle so you have to over fill it to top it off..  we give the bottles a bath but sometimes a little gets left behind.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5: Why did Teachers in the past focused so much on Cursive?

Even in the 2000s I was being taught cursive, even though it seemed generally obsolete at that point. Why teach cursive when print is fundamentally better in every way, and we live in on age of computers?

[Assistant]
People don't really understand how deeply cursive was ingrained in the culture. Writing cursive was a fundamental part of basic literacy. It wasn't a weird fancy form of writing, it *was* writing. Print was only used in books, newspapers, and some signs (and sometimes for headers on handwritten documents), which is why it is called "print". When you had a pen and were told to "write" something, it meant to write it in cursive. To tell someone to not write cursive, you had to specify that they should "print" the words, as in they should imitate printed words, which was not the usual way to use a pen.

TL;DR: Cursive *was* writing, not a fancy form of it. Print came from printing presses, pens were used for cursive.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
Is there a theory that says the universe has a limited 'processing power'?

If the universe is viewed to work in a similar way as a computer, wouldn't it have a maximum number of events that it could process at once? For example, could time possibly exist because the universe is 'lagging' because it cannot handle all of the reactions occurring throughout it in the past, present and future simultaneously?

[Assistant]
There is a maximum processing power theoretically possible,  yes. It's called Bremermann's limit, and it's about 10^50 bits per second per kilogram of matter.

But your second question doesn't really make sense. The concepts of "at once", "simultaneously", and processing power all assume the existence of time, so time can't exist *because* of them.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[Dishonored] Are there any other landmasses in the world?

Is it just Pandyssia and the Isles?

[Assistant] Not that are mapped, but that doesn't mean "no". Sololov complains that maps don't even show Pandyssia's location properly compared to the isles, on purpose, meaning the maps & globes can't be entirely trusted.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5: Why does superglue always take forever to dry on the desired surface, but bonds to your skin in a microsecond?

Every time I use superglue to fix something, it seems to take hours to finally dry, but while I'm holding it in place, if I accidentally get any on my fingers, it's dry before I can even run to the sink and wash it off. Is there some science behind this, or does God just hate me?

[Assistant] Superglue requires moisture to set. Typically when you're glueing something the surfaces are clean and dry, so there is only atmospheric moisture to set the glue, and the glue is closed off from the air by the surfaces being pressed together. Your fingers are a comparatively moist environment, and the texture of your skin tends to wick the glue out across a larger area. More moisture and a larger exposed surface area = rapid drying.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] If Magnetism is the result of moving charge, then why aren't all Atoms magnetic if they're surrounded by a moving cloud of negative charge?

[Assistant] They are, atoms have a magnetic dipole moment, from both the spin of the electrons, the orbital angular momentum of the electrons, and the nucleus itself. However, when you have many atoms, the magnetic moments aren't necessarily aligned and if they're all pointing different directions then the magnetic fields cancel out. Only special materials have the magnetic moments align naturally.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[Monsters Inc] Why are Mike and Sully allowed to get away with extrajudicially banishing Randall? Why the fuck is banishment even a punishment in the monster world?

This always bugged me every time I watched Monsters Inc but like Mike and Sully straight up banish Randall, there's no due process at all, like yeah he did try to kill them and take Boo to the scream extractor, and he did help banish Mike and Sully earlier, but it doesn't make it right.

He should face justice. When he got banished he got mistaken for an alligator and knocked out with a shovel. From the accents the place he got banished to is probably the American south, and they eat gator down there lol Getting killed and eaten is not justice.

But even if that didn't happen, banishing Randall makes no sense, he can literally turn invisible! Like so what if the door he got thrown out is destroyed, all he has to do is find another human settlement, find kids, find another door, and wait. It didn't take long for Mike and Sully to come back after being banished, it would probably be a breeze for a monster like Randall. He could probably sneak back, leave Monstroplis and just chill wherever, it's not like anyone would specifically be looking for him.

And banishing as a whole is pretty messed, throwing someone into the human world, cutting them off from their friends, family, fellow monsters and expecting them to survive in a strange land and never ever come back is just so many levels of fucked up. And add on top of that crazy humans trying to hunt you down (iirc Bigfoot was mentioned as banished) it sounds like a nightmare.

That's not justice, hell, even as retribution it goes way too far and I would never want to wish that upon anyone. Yet it appears to be an accepted punishment in the Monster world, the Abominable Snowman is banished for mail tampering (implied at the end of Monsters University) and to be fair, that's a federal offense in the human world, but banishment is extremely immoral, there's a reason it's no longer a thing in the human world.

Yeah, the monster world thinks scaring children is good for generating power so they're already operating on some dubious ethics, but banishing another monster to what is basically another dimension isn't right, and also doesn't make sense. Imagine if the human world discovered the existence of monsters, that puts the entire monster world in jeopardy.

[Assistant]
Monster justice is not subject to human morals. Banishment is clearly an acceptable punishment by the society there, as it has been in the human realm in the past.

"The problem with aliens is that they are just so darn alien." Larry Niven.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
CMV: Boxing died tonight.

We just witnessed the last "great" fight boxing will ever produce.  Boxing has been in steady decline since the advent of the more versatile and dynamic UFC/MMA fighting.  Mayweather and Pacquiao both received the highest paychecks in history, because of inflation and because they are the only two household names left in boxing.  Heavyweight fighters produced more interesting and action packed fights and the sport slowly transitioned into the more tactical, lower weight fighters who rarely get knocked out.  Given tonight's fight conclusion and the lack of excitement a tactical fighter shows, we just witnessed the death of boxing.

[Assistant]
People have been predicting the fall of boxing for a long time.

After Mohammad Ali retired, people said that boxing died. After Sugar ray retired, people said boxing died. When Pro Wrestling was booming in the late 1990's, people said boxing was dead. When Mike tyson retired people said the last great boxer retired. Then came manny and mayweather.

After manny and mayweather there will be new journeymen. As long as there is interest, there will be fighters.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
Exit from tenure track?

I'm in an R1 tenure-track position in a health-related field and am constantly asking myself whether the job is worth the stress. I enjoy what I do in general, but have never had a passion for it... I just kind of fell into this path because I didn't know what else to do. The constant anxiety and guilt about grants, papers, etc. diminishes my quality of life... I don't feel like I can stay funded and get tenure unless I allow this to take over my hobbies, family life, etc. Most people I know are also in academia, which means that the non-academic employment world is pretty much a big mystery to me. So my question is: is there a world out there with equal/better pay and less stress? Or are pretty much all careers this exhausting? I think I want to leave, but I'm not sure how, and am keenly aware that if the grass isn't greener on the other side, I won't be able to come back.

[Assistant]
Everyone is different and you won't know until you explore it. There are levels of academia where you can pick and chose how much of each area you want to do, or do don't want to do. You are at the top level where you have to do it all and be the top 2%.  You could pick a smaller school where you various degrees of responsibility and can balance your personal life.

Corporate life is the same. You can be the CEO of a fortune 500 and the pressures would largely be the same with little opportunity for your personal life. Alternatively you could be the CEO of a smaller company that lets you balance work and home or even find a role within a company where you are not in charge and cash a paycheck that lets you live your personal life.

This could still be a daily struggle where you are a cog in a big machine that you hate that pays well or it could be something where you are a cog in a machine that while you enjoy what you are doing it is still mostly a paycheck that allows you to live your life.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] What is stopping the speed of light from going faster?

[Assistant]
Time.  Time is stopping things from going faster than the speed of light.   When things are at rest (like, us... relatively speaking, we are hardly moving at all) we experience Time at it's maximum.  Zero velocity == maximum Time.

When something is moving very fast, it experiences time much slower.   As you get closer to the speed of light (maximum velocity), time gets slower and slower.  You cannot go faster than the speed of light, because that would require negative time, and that just does not happen.  Maximum velocity == Zero Time.

Massless particles such as photons, travel at the speed of light (and never slower [1]), and also never experience time.  The very moment that a photon leaves an electron, from its perspective, it arrives at another electron.  Even if, from our perspective, it took millions of years to travel between electrons.

[1] -- well, not quite.   If something does manage to slow down a photon, and Time no longer is zero, the photon becomes a particle with mass.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[DC - specifically comics] Who was actually responsible for the deaths of Thomas and Martha Wayne?

It seems that over the years Bruce Wayne has come across so many people that things have become utterly muddied when it comes to who was responsible for that fateful night in Crime Alley.

Everyone from Joe Chill, to the Joker, to the Court of Owls, seems to have been implicated at some point or another. Is Bruce projecting his own psychosis by implicating anyone he runs up against in the death of his parents, or was there one definitive behind it?

[Assistant]
In the main comic continuity it was Joe Chill.  At first it is believed to be just a mugging gone wrong but a later storyline had Chill hired to kill the Waynes by a mob boss that Thomas Wayne testified against in court.

A pre-Joker Jack Napier was the random mugger in the 1989 Batman movie and the Court of Owls being responsible was from the Gotham TV series.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] [Phineas and Ferb] Why does Candace Flynn really want to bust her brothers? What does she gain from that or what have they ever done to her?

[Assistant]
I think it's just the sunk cost fallacy. She just started by tattling on them a couple times because they were putting themselves in danger or annoying her, but everything was hidden away before their mom got there. Her mom dismissed the idea as ridiculous, because how could a child make anything more than a LEGO house.

She tried to prove she wasn't lying and then it happened again and again. Now she's at a point where she's spent way too much time and resources trying to prove their shenanigans.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] [LoTR] if the nine men became ring wraiths, what happend to the dwaves and elves?

[Assistant]
The nine kings of humanity turned into ringwraiths because Sauron's hand was in the making of those nine rings. As such, he could influence them directly.

Tolkien's Dwarves aren't made of the same stuff as humans or elves or hobbits, so they weren't affected in the way Sauron expected them to be. So even though Sauron's hand was in the making of the seven rings, all they turned out to do on their own was amplify the dwarves' natural greed. ~~He still could have assumed direct control if he had the one ring, however.~~ Edit: This last bit is incorrect.

It's unclear what would have happened to the elves because once they figured out what Sauron had done, they took off and buried their rings until some time after the last great alliance. After the one ring was lost, they could continue using their rings safely to preserve their homes and their way of life, since they made their own rings without Sauron's help - his hand was not in their making. The one ring could still control them if Sauron had it, but without it their powers were theirs alone.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
What would happen if a black hole made of regular matter met another black hole of similar mass but made of antimatter?

Just something i have been thinking about for a few months if anyone can answer.

[Assistant] There is no difference between a black hole produced from matter and one produced from antimatter. They are just black holes. If they met and collided, they would merge to form one larger black hole, as that is what always happens when the event horizons of two black holes meet.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5: Without visualizing any objects, how can one prove that 1+1=2 ?

[Assistant]
The way we usually define the natural numbers, it's not quite true by definition, but it's close:

* We assume that there is a number called 0
* We assume that if *n* is a number, we can find the number after *n*, which we'll call S(*n*).
* We define 1 to be S(0), the number after 0.
* We define 2 to be S(1), the number after 1.
* We define addition by *m*+S(*n*)=S(*m*+*n*) and *n*+0=*n*.
* So 1+1 = S(0) + S(0) = S(S(0) + 0) = S(S(0)) = S(1) = 2.

Principia Mathematica goes a step further, showing that we don't have to make those first two assumptions. We can prove them from more basic axioms, if we have plenty of paper to spare.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
If our cells can respire anaerobically, why do we die (so quickly) when suffocated? Wouldn't the cells just start respiring anaerobically until oxygen was re-supplied so the lactic acid could be broken down?
I'm assuming here that all cells can respire anaerobically like muscle cells can.

[Assistant]
Anaerobic respiration is nowhere NEAR efficient enough to do anything more than handle short term emergency situations.

When relying on anaerobic respiration, your average cell will break down a molecule of glucose for a net total of 2 molecules of ATP (the energy molecule of the cell).

Using aerobic respiration, your average cell yields a net positive of 36 ATP molecules from the breakdown of one glucose.

So, aerobic respiration provides 18X more energy, or in other words when your body is forced to go into anaerobic mode, it is only about 6% efficient (as compared to aerobic respiration).

This is not enough to keep you alive.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5: What is it about Tor that makes it so hard for the NSA and the likes to break through?

In plain English please!

[Assistant]
When sending data over the internet it gets bounced from one server to another (e.g. yourcomputer>server1>server2>server3>serverhoastingthewebsite).

TOR encryts the data in such a way that if they were to intercept it at one of those servers (e.g. sever2) then they would be able to identify where it came from and where it was going (server1 and server3) but not any further in the chain.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[Rampage]Why did George Just get bigger, but stay otherwise the same?

why didn't his body develop new defenses/adaptations  (IE like the Wolf's gliding ability, or the Alligator's armored back spikes)?

[Assistant] It seems to effect different animals in interesting ways. It also seemed to make the other two much larger. It might be a safety built into the serum. The closer an animal is to human the less dramatic the effect. His albino genetics might have resisted the gene editing.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[Zelda] Has there been any confirmation on which timeline BOTW is in?

Title says it but has anyone found anything to suggest which timeline this game is in since they make references to OOT?

[Assistant]
Everyone says it's after Twilight Princess, which is funny because everyone is wrong. We hear that Ruto and Nabooru became sages in this timeline. That did *not* happen in Twilight Princess's timeline. In that timeline, the sages survived *except* the water sage, who was not replaced.

That leaves the Wind Waker timeline and the A Link to the Past timeline. But in Wind Waker, Hyrule is washed away by the flood forever. So we can rule it out too.

Some people will argue for eons about the Twilight reference, but it's important to note that the three events Zelda mentions don't make sense in any timeline - Adult and Downfall would agree about skyward and adrift in time, Child would agree about skyward and twilight. In the Child timeline, the Master Sword was *never* adrift. When we listen closely, we can also hear Zelda mentioning a great sea in her ongoing monologue while everyone else is talking over her. So that's just an easter egg - a Twilight event happened at some point in the downfall timeline that got remembered, which makes sense because the Twilight exists in all timelines and the Mirror is unaccounted for in two of them.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5: How do remote islands have freshwater springs / waterfalls?

[Assistant] Rain can still recharge the groundwater of an island percolating down and folling in cracks in the rock or porous sand. Typically the freshwater sits atop the denser saltwater, so that if a well drawing groundwater is overpumped it will start to pull in saltwater. This same potential to overdraw freshwater and cause saltwater intrusion happens in coastal areas of large continents.