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

[User]
[Action Movies] My assault rifle is useless! Im a highly trained, heavily armed soldier. Why cant I kill anything? And why is my armor useless? Why do all my friends die to single pistol shots?

This makes no sense. We have teamwork, equipment, motivation, and tons of firepower. Why cant we hit that guy who wont even use cover? Even if we get lucky, it just clips him in the (unarmored) shoulder, and he just ignores it. But he can kill us every time, even with long range shots with a handgun. But if he steals our armor it becomes impenetrable. What gives?

[Assistant] Did your boss not tell you who this guy is? He served a tour in every war you've heard of in the last 25 years, and some that you haven't. He was a guy who was already 9/10ths homicidal badass and got trained to the next level. He flew the Gullfire over Leningrad, man. He eats Green Berets for breakfast. He was trained to survive eating things that would make a billy goat puke. And your team decided it would be a good idea to kill his dog and kidnap his wife? Right now he's running on pure hatred. He's the calm center of Hurricane Fuck You. You're screwed man.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] What would happen if Voldemort broke an unbreakable vow whilst still having horcruxes?

Would one of the horcruxes get destroyed perhaps?  Or would Voldemort (or any other wizard with a horcrux) be unable to make the unbreakable vow in the first place?

[Assistant] His spirit would be ripped from his body in a similar fashion to when the killing curse reflected back at him when he tried to kill Harry Potter. He would have to wander as a disembodied spirit until he was able to get a new body.


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

[User] Eli5: When a house gets completely burned down, how can experts figure out where the fire originated?

[Assistant] I am a licensed General Contractor, noticed the responses didn't give any insight as to what fire inspectors look for so i thought i would try to. To start, one must understand how houses are built to a small degree. By today's standards, all materials are built with materials that have a fire rating. Drywall for example is comprised of approximately 1/5th water, when it burns the water converts to steam slowing the fires ability to spread. This also means that each material reacts differently to heat and flame over time. Fire inspectors have the knowledge of what materials look like after being exposed to different temperatures at different lengths of time. Similar to how an ice cube will melt faster on a hot day than a cold one, fiberglass insulation, OSB, and framing studs burn at different rates. When homes are being built they add "fire barriers" to slow the burn. Fire calk and fire resistant insulation between levels of a home is a good example of this. These slow down the fire, so the materials toward the origin of the fire will have been exposed to more heat and flame for a longer period of time so the damage will be more severe. another thing they look for are common causes each with their own signs. For example an electrical fire will show signs of arcing or "black marks" on the walls etc. Hope this helped a little bit.


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

[User]
Eli5 Why are different galaxies different colors?

I understand how different stars are different colors, and planets, and so-forth. But my thought process assumes the law of averages would make most galaxies at least close to the same overall color..why arent they?

[Assistant]
Redshift and blueshift factor in, too. Galaxies are all in motion. Some galaxies are coming towards us, some away from us, some at incredibly fast speeds. These relative motions compress or elongate the frequencies of the light coming from them, so they get pushed up the spectrum to red or down the spectrum to blue and violet, and everywhere in between.

Since this more or less applies to each given galaxy as a whole, for the most part, it would give lots of galaxies different apparent colors from our perspective on earth.


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

[User]
[Jurassic World]How strong would the I.Rex have to be in order to break through all the things it did?

That metal gate looked huge. Piercing what looked like inch thick Aluminum oxynitride (although it was cracked)? Smashing right through the aviary walls.

Why didn't it just ram its way out if it could smash through all that stuff like nothing?

[Assistant]
The I.Rex was smart and cunning.  The enclosure was large, but it was still too small to bust out of easily.  A running charge from one end to the other wasn't quite enough to smash the reinforced concrete walls.  That didn't stop it giving it a go.  It's certainly implied that the steel reinforcement being welded into place was due to the I.Rex almost knocking a wall down.  Likewise, the comment about the "walls needed to be taller" implied the I.Rex had made at least one climbing/jump escape attempt, and then there's the smashed window in the observation platform.

All these point to the I.Rex learning a valuable lesson - that if it escapes, it has to do it fast, and in one shot - otherwise the small food with the stick-devices will surround it from above and make it too sleepy to exploit the weakness.

So when the engineer triggered the door, the I.Rex charged.  It was what it had been planning for.  Its doubtful it understood the concept of leverage or shearing forces, but the key concept was that it hit the door while it was still partially open.  Basically, the strength of the door and wall is much weaker at the edges.  This is not a problem if the door is closed - there's no edge to exploit.

But a partially open door?  Force equals mass times acceleration.  A T-Rex could weigh up to nine tons, and at full sprint could touch 30 kilometers per hour  (accel of ~8m/s) .  At a rough estimate, the edge of the door got hit by more than seven tons of pressure.

It gave.

The gate out of the Herbivore Paddock got pretty much the same treatment.  Nine plus tonnes of charging I.Rex at full speed?  Momentum had it's way, and the metal got crushed.

As for the Gyrosphere?  A T-Rex can exert nearly six tons of bite force pressure.  The I.Rex was "bigger and stronger", so exerted more.  It was able to puncture the sphere glass, and then used gravity to exert more force by bashing the sphere against the ground - much as some birds have learnt to do with nuts.

The Aviary dome was much weaker - possibly glass or plexiglass.  Not as much tensile strength is needed to keep in a bunch of comparatively lightweight (and hollow-boned) flying dinosaurs.


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

[User] ELI5: What does it mean to die of "natural causes"?

[Assistant]
It basically means they weren't killed by some external agent, like a bullet, car accident or drug overdose.

There are many ways you can die of natural causes, heart attack, stroke, pneumonia.  It just means something else didn't kill you.  And if someone is elderly and there is no sign of anything else, they aren't going to look very hard.


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

[User]
[Halo] Why did they incorporate holographic projectors into the hands of the newer models of mjolnir armor?

Does it have some practical benefit? Spartan armor doesn't exactly seem like the kind of hardware that you add frivolous bells & whistles onto.

[Assistant]
I mean you can share and look at lots of important tactical Intel that way: Terrain maps, important messages from your superiors ect.

If it was all just projected into the helmet you would need to either link up with your fellow Spartans or need an external holo-projector.


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

[User] [Doctor who] why isnt the doctor seen as a religious figure in human culture and why does the numerous alien intrusions invasions and accidents not have a bigger impact on human culture and technology?

[Assistant]
Aliens didnt start (regularly, publicly) invading earth until a few years ago. As Captain Jack says, the 21st century is when everything changes. This is true in most era of the show, despite the fact that previous eras featured many alien invasions in past decades; the show doesnt have a strict, consistent canon.

This is hardly surprising in a show about time travel. You can attribute any inconsistencies between old and new who to the time war, and lots of events were wiped from history by the crack in time in Matt Smiths era.

Aliens have a large impact on Earths technology; for instance, series 1 episode 6 Dalek tells us that Henry Van Statten owns the internet because he scavenged a crashed spacecraft with the technology.

According to series 6, the Silents shaped every aspect of human history as part of an elaborate plan to kill the Doctor.


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

[User]
What the hell is B-theory?

I dont even...

[Assistant]
There's the B-theory of time which is contrasted with the A-theory.

According to the B-theory, events are ordered by relations that don't make mention of tensed terms like past, present, or future. The relations just talk about what events were before or after others.

e.g. 10/7/13 is two days after 10/5/13.

According to A-theory, relations make mention of tensed features.

e.g. 10/7/13 is two days in the future.

The terminology was invented by McTaggert in his argument against the reality of time. He argued that the A-theory was incoherent because all events will have to have all the temporal properties since all events are future and will eventually be past. He also denies that you can solve the problem by saying that the events have these properties *at different times* because that would require another set of temporal relations and would thus just push the problem off rather than resolving it.


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

[User]
CMV: Google is too big to fall

We have all seen corporations come and go, but I don't think Google will ever disappear. It is too big to fall.

Its Search Engine, for one, is used by almost every netizen, everyday. Its Video Platform is used by many every day to get their share of entertainment. Its Operating System is used by billions every day. It is looking for even more income sources, and even more Projects, making its central structure itself continually evolving, rather than stagnating innovation.

It has its arms  nice and deep in nearly every future technology. Now do we really think that Google can just dissapear? I don't think so. If someone comes up with something great that Google doesn't have, then it has the resources to just buy it, integrate it and stamp on it the Google Branding (or not). Case in point, Nest.

Nest looked interesting, and Google snapped it up.

While most corporations will wither away, unless the Internet itself is gone, then I don't think Google will be going away, ever.

[Assistant]
I feel like the term " too big to fall" is a little silly on account of the fact that some of the biggest empires in the world eventually faded away, because of some stupid decision or other. Sooner or later, everything dies, and so too will Google.

If you disagree, consider the Romans, the French, the British, and the Mongols. They were all massive empires and they all fell one by one because of either poor choices or because they simply fizzled out. Sooner or later Google will probably do something that won't be very popular, or the great minds driving them will pass away. Remember that corporations are little more than the people and resources that are encompassed within them.

Even if Google is around for the next hundred years, they are still not immune to losses.

TL;DR: shit happens and people die. This is inevitable.


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

[User]
ELI5: How does gentrification push poor people out of neighborhoods?

If you own a house or apartment in a poor neigborhood and the area gets gentrified, how can this be a bad thing for you? Doesn't your property just rise in value? Why can the poor not continue living there if they want?

[Assistant]
Your property rising in value isn't necessarily a good thing.  It's good if you own it and want to sell it, sure.  But if you want to keep owning it, it means you have to pay more in property taxes every year.

If you *don't* own it, then it's even worse.  It means your rent will go up, oftentimes so dramatically that you can no longer afford to live there.


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

[User] ELI5: How come it is easy to stay upright on a bike when it is moving but hard when it is not moving?

[Assistant]
It's dynamically stable.

A lean to a side makes the front wheel turn towards that side and sets the bike upright again.

Make an experiment. Stand next to a stationary bike and hold it by the seat. Now lean it to sides and observe the handlebars. You will notice the effect immediately.

In normal operation the handlebars turn by a tiny angle but that's enough to counter a tiny lean.

It's like holding a stick upright on your finger. Whenever the stick starts falling you move your finger "under" the fall to keep it up. The bike does roughly the same when it's moving. When it isn't moving it falls, just like a stick does once you stop moving your hand.


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

[User] ELI5: why is it that people spend hundreds to thousands on engagement rings? won't they just be replaced by the wedding ring in a couple month anyway?

[Assistant]
They aren't replaced. People generally wear both (with the engagement ring being the flashier one, and the wedding ring being a relatively plain band. Still can be rather pricy depending on what material/finish/etc).

There's a whole history to why, but the simplified version is that people used to treat 'being engaged' as being enough to act married because there was often a very long gap between deciding to get married and actually being able to have the ceremony. Sex, living together, etc. Some sort of big gift was a sign that the guy was actually taking this seriously rather than just looking for a way to get laid, and if it fell through at least the woman would be left with something more than syphilis.


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

[User] [Godzilla] How does Shin Godzilla's biology differ from the older Godzilla and what was growing on the end of his tail?

[Assistant]
Godzilla from the earlier movies was a mutated dinosaur or a prehistoric organism from when the earth was more radioactive. Because of this, his biology for the most part is comparable to non-mutant/regular living things. In Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla II (1993), a baby Godzilla is examined and revealed to have a secondary brain. In many movies, he has at least a skeleton. Other than that he has always at least been basically of normalish biology. An exception might be in GMK(2001), where he is a ghost/god of destruction.

Shin Godzilla, however, is a mass of constantly mutating, rapidly evolving micro organisms. At the end, those things coming out of his tail were his next stage of evolution.


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

[User]
How do we know that the universe is expanding and light is not just losing momentum?

We know that the universe is expanding since light coming from distant galaxies are redshifted. How do we know that the redshift isn't the result of light losing momentum over incredibly long periods of time? (As momentum decreases, wavelength increases (p=h/))

Are there any other methods to verify that the universe is expanding other than observing redshifts of light?

[Assistant]
This question is extremely common, there are likely many good threads with further discussion if you wish to search for it.

Much of the observational evidence for the big bang comes from studying its 'echo', the cosmic microwave background (CMBR). There are many measurements you can do with a quality map of the CMBR and each one we do matches our predictions for an expanding universe.

Another good piece of evidence is the relative ratios of primordial elements. We know roughly how much of each stuff was in the universe, 75% H 24%He and some lithium. We know how long the universe was at a certain temperature and we know fusion rates and decay rates of unstable isotopes so we should be able to predict this ratio. Our predictions match our observations.


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

[User] ELI5: Why are there no tattoo 'printers' ?

[Assistant]
There are no tattoo printers because the depth into the skin to place the ink, the elasticity of the skin, hydration, muscle tone, and scarification of the epidermis are all variables that tattoo artists take into account and compensate for while executing a piece. There's also bleeding versus clotting, edma, allergic reactions, vein placement.

It may be possible to design and implement state-of-the-art medical robotics that take all these into account; the means to afford that is beyond most tattoo shops, and the means to operate that  including licensing, insurance, maintenance  is prohibitive. It would be something used by cosmetic surgeons.


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

[User]
I am CrustalTrudger and I study mountains. Ask Me Anything!

I have a PhD in geology and am an Exploration Postdoctoral Fellow at Arizona State University. I've spent most of the last 10 years studying the formation and evolution of the Greater Caucasus Mountains, one of the youngest, active mountain ranges on earth (yes, there are other active and interesting mountain ranges to study besides the Himalaya!). My work is split between the field (making maps of the distribution of rocks and faults, measuring the thickness and types of rocks in detail, etc), the lab (measuring the age of minerals within rocks), and the computer (modeling the development of topography of mountains and doing detailed analyses of natural topography). More generally my research is focused on the links and potential feedbacks between the processes that build mountain ranges (faulting, folding), the processes that destroy mountain ranges (erosion by rivers and glaciers),  the role that climate plays in both, and how the records of all of these interactions are preserved in the deposits of sediments that fill basins next to mountain ranges.

I'll show up at 1 pm EDT (9 pm UTC, 10 am PDT) to start answering your questions!

[Assistant]
What kind of processes interplay with climate and mountain building?

And as far as mountainbuilding goes, which is more significant as a shortening and uplift process - folding or faulting? Does it vary much by lithology or is it largely depth controlled?


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

[User]
[Marvel] Why does the general population treat mutants with such distrust but not other superpowered individuals?

For instance, it seems likely that when Spider-Man first came on the scene, people would have assumed he was a mutant, but this doesn't seem to be the case. What's different about mutants that makes people wary of them?

[Assistant]
Because Mutants are not "human". They have evolved and are for the most part more advanced than humans. So the rest of humanity feel threatened or jealous. They are scared that Mutants are the future and non-mutants will die out.

They don't feel this way with superpowered heroes like Spider-man because they are essentially humans that gained their power through some external means and not through evolution/genes.


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

[User] Why aren't all beer bottles twist off?

[Assistant]
well, as a homebrewer, twist offs do not provide as good of a seal as pry-offs. especially, beers that you want to store for 1+year in the bottle.  oxygen and sunlight are two of the worst enemies to a beer.  the beer inside will slowly oxidize, the co2 in the beer will slowly escape and make the beer taste flat/stale/bad.

production-wise, it's also more expensive to make a "decent" enough twist off with a "good" seal.  pry-offs are a LOT cheaper, it's simple&easy and it just works.

that's why you generally don't find decent craft beers in twist-offs or in clear/green bottles. though, cans can be pretty awesome.


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

[User]
How will the decision of Putin to sell gas and oil for rubles only help strengthen this currency?

Russian President Vladimir Putin has decided that Russia will demand ruble payments from so-called enemy states for its gas and oil. These countries will have to pay for oil and gas instead of dollars or euros in Russian currency.

The Kremlin is thus creating additional demand for the Russian currency, which will dampen the significant weakening of the ruble as a result of Western sanctions.

Now, this makes sense. But..

how is it different from the current situation, where Russia receives euros and dollars for gas and oil? The country could just as well use them for their exchange for rubles, which would logically strengthen the ruble in exactly the same way as receiving rubles for gas and oil directly, right?

[Assistant]
It is different because other currencies apart from EUR or USD can be used to purchase up the ruble-gas. That reduces (in theory) global demand for EUR and USD and diversifies currency reserves of the Russian CB.

As for the effect on RUB - it hugely increases RUB circulation (in theory) due to RUB actually being exchanged between the buyer of the ruble-gas and the CB - not the case with euro-gas or dollar-gas. Mind you, bank commissions (directly for Russian CB) are being generated every RUB exchange.

Moreover, buyers of ruble-gas will be holding RUB accounts with Russian banks to facilitate easy movement of funds. Sellers will use RUB credit facilities to support business growth. That is a big win (in theory) for Russian banks.


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

[User]
[Cowboy Bebop][Spoilers]Question about Spike Spiegel's reputation

So according to the Teddy Bomber from "Cowboy Funk", everyone with a price of their head fears the name Spike Spiegel. That being said; Why is Spike able to hold such a reputation in the bounty hunting business despite people in his Syndicate thinking that he's dead?

[Assistant]
They knew he was alive, Vicious certainly knew. And they were even attacked by the Red Dragons a few times.

IIRC In one of the episodes where Vicious attempts to take over the syndicate it's hinted that they were previously uninterested in hunting down people who were connected to Vicious until Vicious himself made a move against The Syndicate implying that up until that point Vicious (*as a high ranking member of The Red Dragon Syndicate*) had been tasked with or had taken it upon himself to track down Spike. Therefore the rest of The Syndicate was busy doing whatever a crime syndicate does.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do internet cables that go under the ocean simultaneously handle millions or even billions of data transfers?

I understand the physics behind how the cables themselves work in transmitting light. What I don't quite understand is how it's possible to convert millions of messages, emails, etc every second and transmit them back and forth using only a few of those transoceanic cables. Basically, how do they funnel down all that data into several cables?

[Assistant]
In the earliest days of wire-based communication (analogue), there was only one signal on the wire at a time.

Later, we learned to pass multiple signals by using different frequencies/wavelengths for different signals. In it's simplest forms, imagine that instead of shining a white light down a wire for one signal, you're shining red, green, and blue lights. By measuring the amount of red, green, and blue light at the other end, you can separate the signals. That's the principle, just scaled up and with a bit of fiddly detail at each end. This gives us (with current technology) up to about 80 signals per strand of fiber. A cable can have dozens of fibers, so that's potentially a few thousand signals in a cable with a hundred fiber strands

But as you say, there are millions of data transfers... this part is fairly easy though. Although the signals appear to be fully simultaneous, we don't actually have a constant connection along each possible pathway: what we do is break our data up into chunks called "packets", and put an address on it of where it needs to go (your IP address).

That might sound strange, but think of it like sending things in the mail. Instead of having someone drive back and forth and give the message, we put them in packets, and send them down the road with an address on it.

Think of our cable as a road network. We make a road (a strand of fiber) and then we give it 80 lanes: those are our multiple signals. Now imagine we can overlap those signals so all 80 lanes are just one lane where the cars don't interfere with each other.

And then for each lane, we can send lots of individual cars (packets) down one after another, with their own destinations. We don't need to make a full connection (lane) between each pair of destinations, we just send everything down the shared lanes and let it split off when it needs to.

And then we combine a whole bunch of these roads (fibers) into one cable. So imagine we have 100 of these roads next to each other.


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

[User] Eli5 why the coastline paradox is a paradox?

[Assistant]
The term paradox does not necessarily mean something that is impossible, but can also be applied to some things that are just so counter intuitive that you would not remotely think of them

The counterintuitive thing here is that you would think that the measurement of a coastline is consistent.  Most people find it incredibly counter intuitive when they are told that the answer varies from a fixed number to infinity depending on how you measure it.


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

[User] If the sun is white but appears yellow because of atmospheric scattering, why doesn't the moon also appear yellow?

[Assistant] The moon *does* appear yellow or even red when it's low in the sky (or there are a lot of particulates).  You think of the moon as white or pale yellow because usually when you see it it's high in the sky and therefore tending towards white.  If you looked at the sun at solar noon (don't), it would look a lot whiter than you typically think of it.  That's because the only time it's comfortable to look at or near the sun is when it's lower in the sky and therefore more yellowish/reddish.


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

[User]
[Spiderverse] At the end of the movie you see spider-man noir with the rubiks cube in his own dimension, and the cube is still in full color. What are the implications of this?

The rubiks cube he has is the only colorful thing in a whole dimension that is black and white. What are some things that might happen if it was shown or discovered by other people?

[Assistant]
Everything slowly becomes diluted by colour. The sharp edges of noir are dulled. People *smile.* Everyone grows soft. Culture goes from wallowing in the ugly truths of humanity to floating on a four quadrant fantasies. Sony's logo looks more like Google's, and Disney never grows big because a Rubik's cube rather than animation brings much the needed levity to a war torn world.

Alternatively, a Peter Parker who looks suspiciously like Tobey Maguire teaches a muted world to bloom with passion.


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

[User] Why does the hair on the average human head continue to grow while all other primates have hair that stops naturally at a relatively short length?

[Assistant]
Think Peacocks.

Peacock feathers likely evolved because Peahens saw brilliant plumage as a sign of health.  So, Peahens who liked brilliant plumage mated with Peacocks who had brilliant plumage.

The male children of these Peacocks and Peahens likely had more brilliant plumage, while the female children likely had a preference for brilliant plumage.  So, they mated.

Their male children likely even had *even more* brilliant plumage, and their female children likely had *even more* of a preference for brilliant plumage.  And so on and so forth, until you get the ridiculous Peacock feathers of today.

This process is called Fisherian runaway sexual selection.

It's ~~theorized~~ **speculated** that long human hair came about much in the same way.  After early humans lost much of their body hair, longer head hair became a sign of good health.  So humans who had long hair and a preference for long hair mated, producing children who had longer hair and a bigger preference for longer hair.  And so on, and so forth.


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

[User]
If you put a red hot bar of iron in space with nothing around it, would it cool down?

Since it has nothing to transfer the energy to, would it stay hot indefinitely?

[Assistant] Well, you said it yourself, "red hot." If it is glowing red, it is radiating energy, as light, at all frequencies up to the red end of the visible range. This includes infrared and lower frequencies. If it were hotter, and be "white hot," it would be radiating energy, as light, with higher frequencies, too, into the blue end of the spectrum. So it loses energy by radiating light into space. And even if it weren't hot enough to be visibly glowing, it would still be radiating energy in the infrared and lower frequencies.


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

[User]
Do identical twins need to take immunosuppressants if an organ transplantation happens between them?

If they are genetically identical, does that mean that they can freely donate organs to each other with no negative consequences?

[Assistant]
No. In fact, the first transplant was a kidney between identical twins.  The doctor did not consider this the start of anything because he felt that the situation was so rare that it would not be duplicated.

There was a test using a skin graft before they tried the transplant to confirm transplanted material would not be attacked by the immune system.


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

[User]
If I shake hands with someone who just washed their hands, do I make their hand dirtier or do they make my hand cleaner?

I actually thought of this after I sprayed disinfectant on my two year old son's hand. While his hands were slightly wet still, I rubbed my hands on his to get a little disinfectant on my hands. Did I actually help clean my hands a little, or did all the germs on my hand just go onto his?

[Assistant]
You transferred some bacteria to his hands, which were destroyed if the disinfectant was still present in sufficient quantity (i.e. not evaporated).

There's no such thing as "transferring cleanliness" much like there's no such thing as "transferring coldness." Hot things transfer heat to cold objects, much like there was a net transfer of (temporarily) live bacteria from your hands to his.

In reality, what probably happened was a transfer of some bacteria to his hands (which were killed if he still had disinfectant on them like you say), and you took some of the disinfectant onto your hands too, which killed bacteria on your hands as well.

By the way, your body is crawling with bacteria like you wouldn't believe. They aren't badyour skin exists to keep them out and to control. In most cases, there is no need to disinfect your kids' hands unless you or they have an active cold. And the immune systemespecially in childhoodrequires stimulation for proper development and function. There's been a slew of research that correlates insufficient exposure to "germs" and other foreign bodies with a higher rate of allergy development as well as autoimmune disorders. One reason for the recent FDA move to pull antibacterial soaps off the market is because they didn't actually do anything.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do most fans, humidifiers, etc, seem to go from off, to the highest setting and then down from there?

Seriously, why not just off, low, medium and high. Or off, 1, 2, 3. They all seem to be off, 3, 2, 1.

[Assistant] Basically, it's to ensure that the motor gets enough power to start the fan moving.  If you went from off to low power, the motor might not get enough power to actually move the fan.  If it can't actually turn over, then instead of turning electricity into motion, the motor will turn electricity into heat and can burn out.


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

[User] ELI5: Can you give me an understandable example of money laundering? So say its a storefront that sells art but is actually money laundering. How does that work? What is actually happening?

[Assistant]
You've been stealing $20 notes from your father's wallet for a few weeks, and now have quite a stash ($100) to spend at the toy shop. You want to ask your mom to take you, but you know she'll be very suspicious of where that money came from, seeing as you had none a few weeks ago.

So you open a lemonade stand on the front lawn. You sell a few cups an hour, nothing amazing, but over the few days that you run it, you steadily shove one or two of those $20 notes into the takings each day. Your parents are amazed at your enterprise when you proudly show them the $148 you made at the end of the week after expenses. Of course, $100 of that is your stolen money, only $48 is "real" profits. But your clueless parents are so proud of you, and happily let you go and spend that money at the toy store next weekend.

And just like that, your $100 of dirty stolen money is now sparkly clean lemonade stand money.


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

[User] [Disney] Why do some Ducks, such as Donald Duck and his nephews, have a distinctive "quacky" sound to their voice while other Ducks, such as Scrooge McDuck and Darkwing Duck, speak relatively normally?

[Assistant]
Donalds family carry a common trait that results in the strange 'lisp' most of them carry, as other duck characters tend to speak relatively normally.

Scrooge had his reversed using surgery, in order to sound more like a businessman people would trust.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] How does C3PO know the language of the Sith?

Who programmed that language into his memory banks and why would someone go thru the trouble of then prohibiting him from translating it?

[Assistant]
It's unlikely each language was programmed individually, likely there is a galactic database of languages that all protocol droids with translation functions are created using.

At some point the sith language was added to that database, and then later the restrictions were placed on it, probably a long time ago by the republic around Darth Banes time when the sith ceased to be a galactic power.


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

[User]
[Star Wars A New Hope] Why didn't princess Leia just email the secret plans to the rebel alliance?

With technology being able to transmit 3d images (holograms) in real time, was it that hard to send a file, let's say 1 gig in size, through some sort of communication device?

[Assistant]
The file would be way more than just one gig - it's a 3D model with full scale plans of a battlestation that's 120 kilometers in diameter.

Bear in mind also that the Empire was on high alert that the plans had been stolen, and the HoloNet (the equivalent to the Internet/TV) had been locked down to all non-Imperial broadcasts. Theoretically a slicer could get a channel open on it, but it'd be found quickly especially if there was a data stream the size of what the Death Star plans would be.


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

[User]
[Lord of the Rings] maybe this is a dumb question but WHY did Sauron want to put all of his power into the One Ring? Did he know it was a dumb idea? I mean, its really risky no? What if he lost the ring or something? More so, why even put it into "something"?

My knowledge of the LOTR just come from the films, so I apologies if the reason is provided elsewhere.  Was the idea to gain immortality, kinda like Voldemort where you turn the Ring into a horcrux-like object? Because I was wondering if it was like a phylactery since Sauron was called a "Necromancer".

But even then, it seemed like a bad idea, he was already extremely strong in that opening of Fellowship of the Ring where he's wrecking the army, what fear had he of dying?

And if not immortality, then what? I'm just trying to wrap my head around why would Sauron need to disembody his power into an ornament.

[Assistant]
When Sauron was in possession of his ring, his powers were amplified; and contrary to popular belief, when Sauron wasnt in possession of his ring, he was still at full power without amplification.

Sauron originally made the ring as the final stage of a years long plan to subjugate the Noldor (powerful smithing elves) to his will. Of course, this didnt go according to plan, but the Sauron you see at the beginning of the movies is the Sauron with the One Ring. Yes, he is powerful, but even with the ring he is capable of being slain (having been so several times already).

Sauron made the ring knowing full well that no one (barring extremely powerful beings that wouldnt get involved) could willingly destroy the ring, and he was right. Sauron also knew that the beings of Middle Earth who could wrestle away spiritual ownership of the ring from him were countable on his fingers. As long as the ring existed on Earth, Sauron would be able to return and the ring would always try to return to him.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do people often find a physically "unattractive" person, more attractive the more time they spend with them?

[Assistant]
First you have to understand attraction.

So, the reason people are attracted to others is based around chemicals in the brain. You see a physically attractive person and your brain goes "I like that, here's some drugs, keep looking that way."

Now when you spend time with someone, perhaps they make you laugh, perhaps they smell good, perhaps they're very stimulating in other ways, your brain will release the same drugs. Even if you're not physically attracted to the person, you can still develop an emotional attachment.

Emotional attachment isn't immediate and takes time to develop while physical attachment is immediate.


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

[User]
How did we figure out the mass of elementary particles?

Have always we figured out the mass of such small particles.

[Assistant]
It depends on the particle. There are two main methods:

* Measure the elementary charge (Millikan experiment). Measure the deflection of beams of various charged particles in magnetic fields to get their charge to mass ratio -> calculate the mass of all these particles

That gives you masses of electrons, muons, protons and various long-living nuclei.

* More masses can be calculated if you can observe the decay of particles and measure the energies of the decay products.

Quarks don't appear individually (top quark as exception), so you need theoretical calculations linking the quark masses to the masses of composite particles (hadrons) we can observe.

Neutrinos are a bit more complicated as they are so light and rarely interacting with stuff, and we don't have direct mass measurements of them yet, although there are multiple indirect measurements constraining the possible mass range.


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

[User] ELI5: They say that 650 million people watched the moon landing. How do they take in to account how many people were watching on the same television?

[Assistant]
They don't actually know how many people watched it. With broadcast TV you can't know who is actually receiving the broadcast and whose TV is turned on at that channel.

What they did was simply survey. Ask a large group of people whether they watched the moon landing on TV and extrapolate from there to the entire population. That's basically how TV ratings were measured.


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

[User]
[Marvel] Is Deadpool still cursed by Thanos?

Thanos has died multiple times since he placed his curse on Deadpool. Is the curse still active? How does the curse remain active if he's dead? Do the various magical/reality altering entities (Dr. Strange, the Watcher, Celestial, etc.) that Deadpool meets up with ever talk about the curse?

[Assistant]
Yes.

It's not a magical curse, though. Thanos altered the way Deadpool stands in the universe. Since it was Deadpool's universal nature that changed, it's not reliant on Thanos' energies to maintain.

Most don't mention it, because they don't want to deal with Deadpool that personally.


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

[User]
ELI5: Common Core math?

I grew up and went to school in the era before Common Core math, can somebody explain to me why they are teaching math this way now and hell it even makes any kind of sense?

[Assistant]
In the past, the focus of math instruction was on calculating ("doing math"). This was especially important in the era before ubiquitous technology with a calculator in everyone's pocket. It also meant that being taught one way to perform a calculation was enough, such as the traditional way to multiply two multi-digit numbers.

But the catch was that there was one method for every topic, and those methods didn't connect well across the years. Learning how to multiply numbers in 3rd grade and learning how to, say, multiply two polynomials in 11th grade were taught using completely different methods, even though the underlying structure is actually the same. As you can imagine, this led to students feeling overwhelmed trying to remember dozens of different math techniques separately instead of understanding the structures they shared in common, like trying to memorize the spelling of a word without knowing how it's pronounced.

The Common Core State Standards are an attempt to do two things: (1) Teach multiple ways of performing early math tasks, to both increase learning for students across many different learning preferences and to stress underlying themes and structures instead of just processes. And (2) to emphasize what mathematical thinking is really about - how to think about mathematics and not just how to do it - by adding what are called "standards of mathematical practice" to the content. These include things like "I know how to look for and make use of repeated structures and patterns" which is a skill that leads to math success in every year of school whether it's addition or simplifying fractions or graphing parabolas.

The real catch is that many math *teachers* weren't educated to think this deeply about math, especially elementary school teachers who usually don't get degrees in math. So if they're anxious about math to begin with and barely comfortable teaching basic processes, trying to teach for deep understanding using multiple approaches that they never practiced themselves in school is a real, difficult challenge (and the reason for so many frustrated and derisive Facebook memes posted by teachers and parents!).


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

[User]
Why would a company choose to go public?

EDIT: Thanks guys!

[Assistant] It can raise a lot of cash from selling stock.  Probably a lot more cash than it could if it were privately held.  Remember that once a company is public, just about everyone is a potential investor.  Increasing that pool of investors is often a useful thing.


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

[User] ELI5:Why wet slaps hurt more?

[Assistant]
Skin is soft, mushy, and full of lots of little cracks and holes. When you slap someone, a lot of the force from the slap gets cushioned by the skin and dissipated over the larger surface area created by those little uneven surfaces. This happens for both your hand and the slapped person.

When your skin is wet, it pulls itself taut to help keep that moisture out. This tightens it out a bit to reduce surface area and makes it slightly less mushy. In addition, the water fills in some of the cracks and holes, making the surface more uniform. This reduces the energy lost and makes the slap hurt more.

If you wait even longer while wet, like long enough for your hand to get all pruney, the opposite will happen. All of those wrinkles increase surface area and make the skin even mushier, and so the slap will hurt even less.


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

[User] ELI5 why do ceiling fans go to high on first pull, then medium and low instead of the other way?

[Assistant]
Well, imagine pushing a stalled car. Getting it rolling is the hardest part; once its rolling its easier to keep it going. The same thing is true of making the fan blade spin. When the fan is stopped, getting the fan turning actually takes quit a bit of energy, so the switch makes you start it on High. On the Low setting, theres enough juice to keep a spinning blade turning, but not enough to start it from a dead stop.

You can unplug a box fan, set the switch to low, then plug it in and see what happens. If the fan has a super-low setting, it may not even start to spin. But most fans will start up, albeit slowly. But do that a hundred times and the motor may burn out.


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

[User]
ELI5: How does the presence of steel bars in concrete slabs used in construction help in strengthening buildings constructed using them ?

Modern buildings are often constructed with slabs of concrete within which steel bars are enclosed.
How does just the presence of these steel bars within the concrete slabs increase their strength as compared to the concrete slabs without these steel bars enclosed within them ?

[Assistant]
Concrete is good in compression, but terrible in tension- its relatively weak and when it fails it normally fails by snapping without any warning.

Steel is good in tension - it has a high tensile strength and when it fails it stretches for a bit first, so you see things bending and sagging in a bad way before it falls down, giving you time to GTFO.

So you can take a concrete beam/slab and stick steel bars in the areas that are going to be in tension. When you load up the beams/floors the concrete cracks a little and then the steel carries the tension.

This lets you have a structure with the concrete working in compression, which it is good at, and the steel working in tension, which it is good at.


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

[User] ELI5: What's the difference between a not-for-profit organization and a non-profit?

[Assistant] They Do have different aspects in terms of taxes, etc. A charity is a non-profit, and any surplus money goes to the primary cause or is saved for future benefit of the cause. They cannot pay out a portion of fundraising as a commission/bounty. A not-for-profit organization is for the benefit of its members, such as a credit union or country club. It doesn't pay profits to an owner, but may pay out/back money to members, say a referral bonus for bringing in a new member. It typically does not have tax deductible contributions.


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

[User]
I misunderstood my PI's instructions for finding data. I presented it, now I understand, and realize I wasted two months of my time doing it wrong. How can I tell him? I'm afraid he'll think I am useless.

I feel really dumb. I had already planned to leave my program because I am not cut out for this, but I really wanted to do this project right so I could leave something behind to let somebody else elaborate on it.

I have figured out what I did wrong, but it basically completely erases all the work I had done up to now. My PI was very excited, and complimented me on the data I found and now I feel like a fool that he'll think I tricked. I just want to find a way to tell him, let him know I am leaving, and hopefully never hear about this again.

How do I best approach him? I'm seriously on the verge of a meltdown and want to shut down.

[Assistant] I would encourage against leaving due to embarrassment (if that's your reason). Even though what happened is embarrassing, now that you know what went wrong, you are still likely in a better position to re-do the data collection correctly than a new hire would be so telling him you screwed up and then quitting seems better than ghosting, but not as good as offering to fix your mistakes, if he's interested.


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

[User]
[DC] What made Jor-El so unique among Kryptonians?

He seemed to be extremely different from other Kryptonians.

[Assistant] Jor-El was just a really smart guy, like, smartest on the planet. He's like Kryptonian Lex Luthor without the greed and criminal misconduct. (other than in "For The Man Who Has Everything" but that's another idea entirely...)


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

[User] ELI5: Why was Auschwitz not destroyed by the Nazis to hide evidence, but camps like Treblinka and Westerbork were?

[Assistant] A lot of it was. The gas chambers at Auschwitz, for example, are postwar reconstructions, not the original. The Nazis demolished most of the Auschwitz complex, and destroyed all the records they could.


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

[User]
ELI5:What exactly happens to your heart as you feel it drop when you are scared or upset?

if possible, the heart "breaking" feeling as well.

[Assistant] When under duress, your body goes into fight-or-flight mode. The sensation of your stomach/heart dropping is due to your body dumping blood to your extremities, so you can fight (or flee) more effectively.


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

[User] ELI5: What is that feeling we get in our stomach when we're hungry? Why does it happen?

[Assistant] Hunger is caused by a region in your brain called the hypothalamus, which regulates many different types of involuntary activities. The hypothalamus makes you feel full or hungry based on chemical hormone signals, nerve signals, and the type of food we last ate (more or less satiated for longer). Nerve signals from the stomach and small intestine detect pressure changes (distended or empty). Ghrelin stimulates secretion of neuropeptide Y which causes people to feel hungry; gherlin is released two hours after people eat and is associated with insulin levels.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why exactly do people get nauseous (and sometimes puke) from seeing other people puke?

Got the idea from another puke ELI5 post.

Is it a result of humans being social creatures, trying to protect ourselves from toxins we may have ingested as a group/ illnesses we may have picked up, or is it a biological response (or both)?

[Assistant]
>Is it a result of humans being social creatures, trying to protect ourselves from toxins we may have ingested as a group/ illnesses we may have picked up, or is it a biological response (or both)?

Those are not really two different things. The fact that this response has evolved tells you that there's most likely a survival advantage to it, and your hypothesis is very likely to be the cause (bad food ingested as a group).

So if you imagine a large number of people, half of which have a physical response to the smell/sight/sounds of another human puking and another half that don't, it's easy to see why the former group may be less likely to die of food poisoning, and why this physical response may be part of our biology as a result of us being social creatures.

It's also interesting to note that humans respond similarly to other stimuli that may signal danger, such as the smell of feces or rotting flesh, both of which would indicate the presence of harmful bacteria.


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

[User]
[Transformers] why don't decepticons just conquer earth?

why is it so hard for the decepticons to take out a small group of autobots and then steamroll earth?

[Assistant] Frankly, it is largely due to inherent flaws within their faction and ideology. Decepticon leadership values obedience and dedication to the cause/leader in its general soldiery, which is great in a planet-spanning empire, but less than adequate when facing what is essentially a guerrilla campaign in hostile territory. The common decepticon doesnt have the necessary initiative, drive, and adaptability to effectively combat the small group of elite autobot commandos hiding within the populace of Earth, and dont have the requisite numbers to utterly overwhelm them. On top of that, the upper echelons of Decepticon command are rife with feuds, assassination attempts, various levels of incompetence, and politicking. This prevents them from producing a wholly united front against the Autobots, and its not uncommon for some sky commander or another (a certain jet springs to mind) to simply take off in the middle  of a fight, either out of cowardice or in an attempt to get another commander killed or discredited. This consequently results is large amounts of casualties as the remaining commanders are forced to retreat under fire. Simply put,  the strengths that the Decepticons possessed during the War for Cybertron have largely been lost or countered by the time the conflict reaches Earth. Their armies are depleted, their commanders are fragmented, and many simply dont want to fight anymore, and are ill equipped to do so in the new theatre.


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

[User]
Why do "cold" and "hot" burns feel the same to the touch of human skin?

Burning is typically associated with heat or fire, but at times is also related to damage from extreme cold. What, why and how are the distinctions of extreme temp "burns" decided and what defines a "burn"?

[Assistant] Because after a certain threshold, only neurons associated with pain are firing. The ones sensing hot and cold become irrelevant. So both sensations just feel like pain. And both hot and cold when extreme can cause tissue to die which may answer you burn question.


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

[User] [General] Can someone ELI5 hardlight? (Illusion context)

[Assistant]
The idea of a hologram is a three-dimensional projected image.  Where normally we think of images as being two-dimensional and projected on a flat surface (like a movie screen or a television or your phone screen), a hologram uses either a special surface or some sort of force field to project a three-dimensional image. However, this is still just a projected light image: you can move your hand through it, and maybe even *see* through it. The hologram cannot pick things up or physically affect anything around it. Think of the 3D Jaws hologram that tried to "eat" Marty McFly in *Back to the Future Part II*.

"Hardlight" basically increases the forcefield(s) to the point that the hologram is tactile - you *can* touch it and feel it. The hologram is still essentially just light; it has no more mass than a bunch of photons - but your hand won't go through it anymore, which definitely increases the illusion.


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

[User]
If mankind can create AI that is more intelligent than itself, is it possible that mankind's creator is less intelligent than itself? Could it be something we don't even consider to be sentient?

If humans ever create an artificial intelligence that is of greater intelligence than humankind, that would prove that it is possible for a thing to create another thing that is more intelligent than itself.

Would that mean it's possible or even likely that the creator of humankind could be of lesser intelligence than itself?

Could the creator of humankind be something we don't even think of as conscious, sentient or alive?

[Assistant]
In 'Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion' David Hume brings up the idea that, if humans work on projects in groups often creating many failures projects, there may be the possibility that a group of creators did the same and we may live in one of the failed universes.

Daniel Dennett likes to bring up IBM's Deep Blue, the first computer that beat a chess grandmaster, as an example of a human creation being 'smarter' (in one area: chess) than any of its creators, none of whom would have been able to beat a chess master.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why every fan I've ever seen has the speed settings in this order "Off, 3, 2, 1".

Why don't they follow the natural order of "Off(0), 1, 2, 3"?

[Assistant]
It helps keep the motor from burning out.  It takes more energy to get a fan starting to turn compared to keeping it turning.  If you start on low,  the fan can have trouble getting up to speed since it is drawing such little power.

To make the motor last longer, you should always start on high, wait until the speed picks up to where you want it, and then lower the speed setting.


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

[User] [Star Wars] How would Darth Vader and Grand Admiral Thrawn interact?

[Assistant] In the EU, Thrawn and Vader were allies for a while. Vader recognized Thrawn as an intelligent person who could be trusted on to be loyal to the Empire and to not play the power games that the other Admirals and Moffs and high-mucky-mucks of the Empire played and Thrawn recognized Vader as being more than a brutal murderer in a suit. Prior to the Battle of Hoth, Thrawn and Vader were allies in a push to get the Empire to switch away from the TIE Fighter strategy of throwing huge numbers of pilots and ships at the enemy and overwhelming them and instead focusing on smaller numbers of better equipped fighters like the Advanced and the Defender piloted by capable, valuable pilots who aren't considered expendable. They were up against entrenched interests though, so when it came time for Vader to hunt down the Rebels and Thrawn to start dealing with the Outer Rim, they went their separate ways and not much came of it.


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

[User]
Degree but no opportunity for a PhD position

Hi everyone,
I graduated earlier this year. At the beginning I wasn't really worrying about my career. i've always known I'd like to stay in academia and continue into a PhD program. Fast forward 6 months: I still haven't found a PhD position (I applied for one, but ultimately I didn't fit the lab and position), am struggling to find a job (I have some freelance gigs, but they are not enough to really cover my expenses) and generally feel really lost. So many of my friends immediately got a PhD position after graduating from their master's (at the same uni) and I'm here looking at job ads, but so far nothing has come up.

What makes it even harder is that my degree is in the humanities. During my master's I've focused on my grades and my job at uni, because my goal was to secure a PhD position. The result of this is that I don't have experience with anything not directly related to my degree. My degree, however, isn't particularly what you would call 'useful in real life'. Add Covid to this and there you are. No job and basically no way of getting out of this situation atm. I have applied for tons of  jobs (you dont need a degree for) but I'm basically overqualified for most of them and have received more rejections than I can count.  I know I can't go on like this forever, but I also know that my situation won't change in the near future.

I'm not sure why I'm typing this up really. Did anyone have similar experiences after graduating? Is there anything I can do aside from waiting? It's just really exhausting and I'm pretty desperate since I would like to get started with my career but it seems everything's just working against that.

[Assistant]
Maybe have a chat with a job coaching agency, get a professional second pair of eyes? There'll surely be some specialized in jobs for graduates (it's a well-known general issue that people coming out of academia don't realize how many generalizable skills they have and what industry could be looking for, and not).

(Also, silver lining that may be helpful to you - a lot of people are absolutely miserable in academia, and if you had the kind of privilege that would predict having a good time you wouldn't be in this situation. Maybe you end if finding a good PhD position, and if so great, but I'd still seriously look at what's out there in all-of-not-academia, even if - maybe especially if - you always assumed you'd go the academic route.)


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

[User] ELI5: Why do commentators/voice actors from old footage from the 40s 50s and 60s sound so different than reporters' voices today?

[Assistant] I believe what you're referring to the "transatlantic accent" which was taught in boarding schools up through the early 60's (also many actors and the like learned the accent to be more marketable, as it was seen as an upper-class/well-educated way of speaking).


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

[User]
[Star Wars] In A New Hope; Why would Ben take Luke to Anchorhead with him after knowing Luke was driven by vengeance for the the loss of his family? Didnt he learn anything from Anakin?

The Empire just killed the only family he knew... the first thing Luke says to Ben after, is that he wants to learn the ways of the force and be a Jedi Knight like his father.

Ben knows his fathers full story.. Luke is obviously upset and emotional and driven by those emotions to learn to be powerful.

Why wouldnt Ben, slow things down a bit and tell Luke about what would happen if he follows a path of vengeance or anger? He already knows that Luke is really old to begin his Jedi training to begin with. He knows first hand how dangerous this path is.

[Assistant] Ben was taking him to his sister in the hopes that both finding out he still had living family and that his sister was fighting the evil their father had brought on the galaxy would root him more strongly against Anakin and the dark side. If Ben left him on Tattooine he would be found sooner or later by Anakin and in his emotional state be much easier to turn to the Dark Side.


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

[User] ELI5 How does a well work? Is there a finite amount of water in a drinking well? Why is it okay to drink? Do they somehow replenish water or if they dry up that is it?

[Assistant]
Wells work using the water underground. The ground is full of little cracks and lets water seep down into it when it rains. Some of this is lost on the surface due to evaporation but some of stays in the ground.  Using scientific methods we can see how far below the ground the water is. This is known as the water table. If you dig a hole that goes deeper than the water table, the water, following gravity, will flow into the gap you have just dug. This fills it up the hole and is how wells replenish thier water.

The best example i can give of this is digging holes in the sand at the beach. The water table there is pretty much level with the sea. When you start digging the sand is dry, then it seems to get more 'wet' the deeper you go. And when you get below the water level the hole fills with water quickly.


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

[User]
[Gotg2] Why does Drax continue to mispronounce Anulax batteries as Harbulary?

Obviously he's a little dull, but what's the significance of the word Harbulary?

[Assistant] Drax said it perfectly correctly the first time, like he says every word correctly the first time. No weakling little Quill is going to tell Drax that the Harbularies are not Harbularies. Drax will not be confused by the weakling Quill's feeble attempts at confusion, his mind is too razor-honed and his will too powerful.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Why didn't the rebels go after Darth Vader's TIE fighter at the end of the Battle of Yavin?

They surely would have detected the lone escaping fighter. Even if they didn't know it was Vader's they should have thought better than to let it escape.

[Assistant]
They were kind of fleeing the destruction of the Death Star and subsequently fleeing Yavin (like, immediately after the ceremony they start breaking things down to pack them up and ship out).

Plus, they've seen what Vader can do. Like single-handedly wiping out half of Phoenix Squadron. He is *not* to be underestimated, even in a damaged ship.


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

[User]
How are more smurfs made.

Baby smurf comes to mind but I know other smurf children were running around for awhile.

[Assistant] Well, first, you need two Smurfs. Ideally you'd have a male Smurf and a female Smurf. When they love eachother very much, they get together and Smurf. Then the male Smurf Smurfs his Smurf with the female's Smurf. They Smurf with their Smurfs until they Smurf, and he Smurfs all over her Smurf. 9 Smurfs later, a baby is Smurfed!


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

[User] ELI5: Why is right-handedness dominant?

[Assistant]
One theory:

The reason we have hand dominance is for practically using tools effectively. Humans cooperate using tools all the time. A right handed tool will not necessarily work for a left handed person. In this case, humans evolved to create a hand dominance through cooperation. Those early civilizations that had a hand dominance were able to cooperate more, which led to better successes. Why it was the right hand could be just considered coincidence.

So why do we have left handed dominance? That's because just as important as it was to cooperate, it was also just as important to compete. If you look at professional athletes today, almost %50 of them are left handed, which is an extremely higher percentage than total number of left handed people (less than 10%). Civilizations that had at least *some* left hand dominant people were able to compete better.

TL;DR - Majority dominance allows more cooperation. Minority dominance allows better competition.


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

[User]
Who was Plato's intended audience?

In our modern age, Plato's writings are widely read and studied by many people in all walks of life. Considering the literacy rates and methods of publication, who would have read Plato in the ancient world?

[Assistant] Since there was no easy way to print written works, they were usually read aloud to small groups of friends or acquaintances. Knowledge of a text would spread by word of mouth, so anyone learning philosophy needed a good memory. Famously, at the beginning of Plato's Parmenides, Plato writes that Antiphon recited the whole dialogue from memory after having learned it as a child. Although this is probably a fictional stylistic device, it does give us a sense of how ideas spread in the ancient world.


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

[User]
[Who Framed Roger Rabbit] Roger Rabbit ends with the defeat of a creepy judge, and toon town is able to continue to live on in harmony. What about toons that arent party hearty as your average loony toon? Would Rick Sanchez not be allowed to live there because hes more adult?

What about Homer Simpson or Peter Griffin? Would the South Park boys even be allowed?

[Assistant] Jessica Rabbit was drawn simply to be a sexual. Baby Herman was an alcoholic, cigar smoking, womanizer. Im sure that there are far worse cartoons living there so they wouldnt have an issue with adult cartoons.


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

[User]
ELI5: Mole Hairs

ELI5: This is gross but how come a hair that grows out of a mole is longer than any other hair in the nearby vicinity?

[Assistant]
A mole is a small cluster of specialised skin cells called melanocytes.   Usually, melanocytes are spread out evenly, but now and again they clump together and form a mole.   A melanocytes job is to produce melanin, which is the pigment or colour in your skin.  This is why moles are dark, and also why you can get moles by being in the sun.

Hairs that grow from a mole are affected by this melanin just like skin is.   Melanin makes hair darker and coarser, and longer.   The structure of these mole hairs is more like the hair on your head (or pubis) than the hair on your arms or legs.


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

[User] What methods work for reducing crime?

[Assistant] This question is framed too broadly. What kind of crime? Crime is a big umbrella term for all sorts of behavior that emerges from different motivations and circumstances. Are we talking violent crime, property crime, drug use, white collar crime, juvenile delinquency, or what? Also, what's your time scale for reducing crime? Do you want to make a neighborhood safer immediately? Or are we looking for a long-term reduction in crime (say 10-20 years down the road)? Narrowing it down a little will help people give you better answers.


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

[User] [Se7en] For the Sloth victim, the doctor says that if someone shined a flashlight in his eyes he would die from shock - is there any scientific truth to this statement given the circumstances?

[Assistant]
More than likely, yes. If the human body is put through enough torture or hardships then they're hanging on by a thread. Even minor amounts of stress on the system can prove fatal.

This was actually a problem encountered when the American forces of World War II liberated the concentration camps. Some GIs, horrified about what they had seen and the massive amounts of starvation inflicted upon the inmates by the guards, gave whatever food they could to the liberated, ranging from ration packs to candy. But even the smallest amount of food was too much for them and some of them - after only eating a packet of candy - died from overfeeding.


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

[User]
ELI5. Is it better to have your thermostat turned down when you are out of the house and have it come back on when you get home or to keep it at a constant temp?

I got in a fight with my girlfriend about this and I actually have never gotten specific info on which is better, so fill me in guys!

[Assistant]
It is better to turn down your heat when you are not home. tl;dr: The amount of energy it takes to bring your house from cold to warm is less than the amount of energy required to keep it warm all day.

To answer your question, you need to define *better*. I'll take better to mean *wastes the least amount of energy*. If each technique keeps your house the same temperature when you are home (the energy inside is constant), what we need to compare is **how much energy gets leaked outside**.

When your house is hotter inside than outside, the energy (heat) will move from areas of higher concentration to lower concentration. The warmer your house is than the outside, the faster this will happen. It's the same reason why you can boil water faster on a stovetop set to high than a stovetop set to medium-high. The hotter something is (like the burner), the faster heat will flow from the source to the surrounding environment (like the water). You can look up Newton's Law of Cooling for equations that describe this effect.

So, when you keep the house warm all day, you leak heat outside at a constant rate. The only way to leak heat faster is if you heat the house above room temperature. If you turn down your heat when you're gone, at first the heat leaks at the same rate as a heated house, but as the house cools the rate of heat leaking will slow down simply because there is less of a temperature difference between outside and inside. When you need to reheat the cold house, it doesn't matter that it might feel like you are using a lot of energy, as you bring the temperature of the house up you are always leaking heat at a slower rate than if you kept it that temperature the entire time.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] Why aren't Slytherins's open use of blood prejudice challenged by students, some whom lost their family to Voldemort?

While it's understandable for the corrupt Fudge to let Lucius bribe his way out of prison, why would Hogwarts students, some of them lost their entire family to Voldemort & Death Eaters, allow Draco walking around spouting the very same hate speech that killed their family? It should be like in Durmstrang where edgy students drawing Hallow's symbol are 'taught the error of their ways' by Grindelwald victim's family.

[Assistant]
The truth of the matter is that there is a lot of tacit support for ideals of blood purity among the wizarding population, even at high levels of society and government. It might not be the majority, but it's enough to pose a threat. Even though the Order and its supporters won the last war, Voldemort's supporters and fellow travelers didn't really meet with a whole lot of punishment (with a few exceptions), and many of them (like the Malfoys) continued to hold positions of great influence even after openly working for Voldemort. This means that the pro-Muggle people have to be careful about coming down too hard on the blood-purity types, lest they upset the delicate balance of power in post-First Wizarding War Britain.

I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that everyone sort of knew Voldemort wasn't really gone (hence all the "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named" nonsense) and was trying to hold off the inevitable second war as long as they could. It also explains how the Ministry of Magic was subverted so quickly, as you had plenty of people within the bureaucracy (like Umbridge) who were simply bidding their time for the proper moment to put their beliefs into action and plenty more willing to go out enforce anti-Muggle legislation when given the official nod to do so.

I can't speak for any new developments brought on by *The Cursed Child*, but I'd imagine that after the clear victory of the good guys at the Battle of Hogwarts and Voldemort's death, the victors are going to be a lot more aggressive about putting a stop to the blood purity bullshit than they were after Voldemort's first "death". JK Rowling even goes as far as to say that Slytherin's association with blood purity had waned if not entirely dissipated by the time Harry's kids are going to school.


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

[User]
How is high blood pressure bad for you but exercise isn't bad for your cardiovascular system (like blood vessels)?

I understand that exercise will increase the strength of your heart muscle (I think?) making it more efficient.

But as far as the blood pumping through the veins, how is that any different than if someone's blood pressure was just high? I've read that high blood pressure can weaken/damage the inner lining of blood vessels increasing the risk of a stroke later on in life, and I don't see how that would be any different with exercise.

[Assistant]
Because it is a constant stress on the walls of your arteries and your heart vs just a temporary one.  Your heart has to work harder to pump the same amount of volume into a smaller space, which is one cause of high blood pressure.  If it does this all the time, eventually it's going to tire itself.  And no, it's not constant exercise for it because it never has a chance to lower its workload so as to regenerate muscle.

High blood pressure can also lead to things like aneurysms (burst of a blood vessel in the brain), a heart attack (destruction of blood vessels on the heart, such as the coronary artery), hemorrhaging (blood vessels bursting in your body), or congestive heart failure (the load the heart has to pump against [your blood pressure] is so great that it simply cannot overcome the resistance to get blood into your aorta, and you die).

Another thing is that high blood pressure can shut down your kidneys by the same method (destruction of blood vessels) and since your kidneys rely on blood flow to work (and filter the blood properly), you get build up of all sorts of nasty stuff in your blood.

During exercise, your blood pressure is just temporarily elevated, which your body is more than capable of handling.  With high blood pressure, your blood pressure is elevated all the time, which your body can only handle to a certain extent.


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

[User] ELI5: You can locate an airplane when you hear one with reasonable accuracy. But why is it much harder to locate a helicopter?

[Assistant]
You can make use of the Doppler effect to gauge the direction of incoming sound waves (changes in pitch correlate with the direction and motion of an object).

Helicopters move a lot slower. Especially if they're just hovering, you lose one source of information about it's direction. So it's harder to locate.


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

[User] Does the human body actually have receptors specifically for THC or is that just a stoner myth?

[Assistant]
the body uses endogenous cannabinoids, that have receptors specifically for them.

THC just "happens" to be the right shape to also dock to those receptors.

Much like all the thousands of other cannabinoids known.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] What incentive was there for Palpatine to rescue Vader from Mustafar?

The dude's won. Jedi are only a handful and all but extinct, he's the Emperor and he's got the Galaxy right where he wants. Why did he have to fly over to Mustafar like some concerned father figure if Vader couldn't be of much use anymore?

I mean, yeah in hindsight Vader was still VERY useful, but IN that moment, what made Palpatine think "hey, well...there's goes my prized pupil of the dark side, this guy is worse off than Dooku and Maul at this point. i could train a new apprentice....eh fuck it, lets go get Vader..."  why? I don't believe Sidious even cared for Anakin. There were better suited alternatives. Anakin just got beat, why invest in him again? Dumb move to make as a Sith master.

[Assistant] Because he was more powerful than Dooku, Maul, etc, but not powerful enough to be a threat to him any more; there were still Jedi out there, so having Vader as an enforcer/troubleshooter was useful. Plus, it allowed him to play at being the weak, frail old man who could manipulate his enemies behind the scenes.


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

[User] When your car windows fogs up on the inside during cold weather, is it better to use hot hair or cold air to clear it up?

[Assistant]
**Cold air for the short run, hot air for the long run.**

This is what happens:

- before you get into the car, the air both inside and outside of the car is cold (cold air can't hold much moisture)
- when you get into the car, the air temperature in the car is raised   breathing adds moisture to the air, which condenses on the window - think condensation of a cold beer bottle on a hot day

*If you turn on the air conditioner* you'll eliminate condensation by having both sides of the window at the same temperature. Corollary: keep the aircon on, otherwise the window will fog up again because of the temperature difference.

*If you turn on the heating* you'll add capacity to the air to absorb moisture (warm air has a larger capacity, think humid summer days vs. dry winter days), thus removing it from the window. This process will take a bit longer between heating up the air and transferring all the vapour away from the window, but it will be more sustainable, and, more imporatantly, more comfortable.

**tl;dr: turn on the heating and be patient.**


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

[User]
How many electrons are in a volt of electricity?

The electricity we use, is electrons traveling in a stream down a wire, right?  So, how many electrons are in each volt of electricity?  Can we even figure this out?

[Assistant]
a coulomb is 6.24110^18 electrons creating a charge as in a capacitor.  An Ampere is defined as 1 Coulomb/second flowing through a circuit.  A volt is the amount of pressure needed to force 1 Ampere through a 1 ohm resistance.

So volts is not a number of electrons, it is a pressure, or potential difference between points in a circuit.


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

[User]
"Cogito ergo sum" before Descartes?

Are there any accounts of individuals who asserted essentially the same as "Cogito ergo sum" before Descartes, and if so, who asserted it? Sources would be appreciated too.

[Assistant]
"By not positively affirming that they are alive, the skeptics ward off the appearance of error in themselves, yet they do make errors simply by showing themselves alive; one cannot err who is not alive. That we live is therefore not only true, but it is altogether certain as well."

 - St. Augustine, *Enchiridion of Augustine*, Chapter 7 section 20.


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

[User]
[Megaman] Whatever happened to Megaman and Protoman in the future?

Hello, I'm very casual when it comes to Megaman.

I'm confused. To my understanding, X is Doctor Light greatest creation and was awakened by dr.Cain a hundred or so years ago. From him, the reploids were created.

But, what happened to the original Megaman? If I'm not mistaken, him and X are two different individuals.

 And I understand Proto Man was running on limited energy and was going to "die" one day. That's his fate? He died?

[Assistant]
Proto Man most likely "died" after his faulty power core finally ran out of energy. His fate is the most simple.

Mega Man, AKA Rock, has a few possible fates. It may be he is stuck in a timeloop where his past defeats his future or he expired.

The most well known one is that a time traveling Wily kidnapped a future disarmed Rock and turned him into Quint, a robot master meant to defeat Mega Man in the past. Clearly Mega Man defeats Quint, making it very possible that Rock is stuck in a timeloop where he defeats himself.

Another one of Rock's fates is another continuation of Quint. In an obscure game, Shadow Rock is another Mega Man from the future, basically Quint 2.0, long story short, Mega Man (or Bass) defeats Shadow Rock and bury him.

The 3rd option as seen in MM9 is that Rock met his expiration date that all robots have. With Dr. Light and Wily's passings, the governments of the world might force him to be turned into scrap. He no longer has a purpose he can serve.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why didn't the Nazis invade Switzerland?

Switzerland is a tiny country surrounded by Nazi controlled countries, why didn't they invade and capture Switzerland? I also understand that Switzerland had a very powerful military, did that have anything to do with Hitler's decision to stay away from them?

[Assistant]
Just to clear up a few things here.

Switzerland would not have been terribly hard to invade. The vast majority of the population lived then (as now) in the Jura and Plateau regions. These are not mountainous, mostly they are plains and rolling hills. Sure partisans could have done well in the Alps, but for the most part the Alps have nothing worth going to get. And they aren't self sufficient. The Axis could have easily conquered 2/3 of the country and ignored the rest.

Likewise a light army like the Swiss wouldn't have held up and equal sized force of Germans for very long. The Swiss army simply wasn't set up on a scale to fight continental wars.

But it would have been "harder" than similarly sized areas to conquer. And there wasn't much value there to conquer. Switzerland was not a major producer of any material needed by the Germans. In fact Switzerland imported more from Germany than they exported to Germany.

Finally what value Switzerland had for the Germans would have been lost in an attack. The Swiss provided vital rail links to Italy. And they made it very clear that the tunnels would be collapsed and the bridges blown up. So until they could be repaired they would be gone. And these also happened to be in the part of Switzerland that partisans could best operate. That would be a pain to maintain.

And the Swiss provided political capital abroad. As long as there were neutrals (Spain, Portugal, Sweden, and Turkey also come to mind) Hitler could convince the other remaining neutrals like Argentina to remain neutral. Switzerland provided cover for the idea that the war was really all the Allies fault. And he was willing to negotiate for peace.

Switzerland also provided access to global markets. Germany was blockaded and surrounded. But by trading with Switzerland he could get international credit. He could then buy needed materiel via middlemen countries like Spain.

So if Hitler attacked, he would conquer Switzerland. But he would have to spend an inordinate amount to succeed. And he would lose just about everything Switzerland had to offer him. It wasn't just not worth the bother, it was a guarantied net loss.


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

[User] ELI5: Why are industrial power generators 3-phased? Why not 1 or 2 phases, what's so special about it?

[Assistant] It's like riding a bike.  Two-phase power is equivalent to a two-pedal bicycle, and there are moments—when one pedal is all the way up and the other is all the way down—when pedalling is really hard and inefficient.  If you had three-pedals (and three legs :-) this problem would go away.


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

[User] [Star Wars] Did Vader really need to test the carbon freezing chamber on Han? He was frozen in carbonite once during the Clone Wars along with Obi-Wan, Captain Rex, Commander Cody, and Ahsoka.

[Assistant] They were frozen using a high-quality carbon freezing unit intended for that exact purpose. The one on Bespin was an industrial unit intended for preserving tibanna gas for transport. It was uncertain whether it would be safe for a high-value prisoner.


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

[User] Why isn't fiberglass as dangerous as asbestos seeing as they are both fairly similar fibers?

[Assistant]
fiberglass is man made, we melt and make glass into thin strands (1-10 micron usually).

Asbestos naturally forms extremely tiny crystals which are a lot smaller than fiberglass.

Fiberglass is still really dangerous and you shouldn't abrade it without proper ventilation and PPE.  We have a carbon fiber shop at work that does carbon and fiberglass, and we treat both of them pretty much like asbestos.  lots of containment, PPE etc.

you can't breathe in fiberglass unless is it abraded, since the fibers are usually really long.  Some silicate powder is used for filler in resin to lay up fiberglass as well, and that stuff is just about as bad as asbestos.

really any form of solid material that can be respirated (diameter and length < 5m) is bad for you to inhale.


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

[User]
Why hasnt bacteriophage therapy become commonplace yet?

I feel like its a discovery on par with something as revolutionary as solar power, but I rarely hear about it ever on the news. With its ability to potentially end the antibiotic resistance crisis, why hasnt this potentially game changing treatment taken off?

[Assistant]
1. Phage therapy works best with immunocompromised people because they won't mount an immune response against the phage.

2. Phages are not only specific to the species, but also the strain/isolate.

3. We're not at the point where we understand which page works best with which bacteria and why, so designing our own phages is not possible at this point. Therefore we have to find and screen from the environment and make a phage library. Then when there is a resistant infection, the isolates have to be screened against the phage library and hope that it works.

4. Personalized medicine is expensive and available to the lucky.


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

[User] What part of the brain controls the tail in primates, and does it do anything today in humans?

[Assistant]
Primates and human have a motor cortex located in the middle part of the brain. This is the central sulcus.
It is quite plastic so the fine mapping between regions and muscles is formed by practice.

Since human do not have tail muscles  then there is no associated motor region.


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

[User]
[General] In a post scarcity society, how would people get the material goods they want?

In a post scarcity society, how would people get the material goods they want?

Would stores, restaurants and corporate name brand products still exist?

Would people make what they want in their homes or would they get it from something resembling a store?

[Assistant] They might replicate it on their home replicator. They might order it and have it sent by drone from a nearby industrial replicator. They might go to a store so they can look at physical items and take one. They might just download it into the Matrix simulation they're living in. The definition of post-scarcity does not specify how you get your goods, so there can be post-scarcity societies that do it in different ways.


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

[User]
ELI5: What makes facebook so valuable? Why would it be a 100 bn $ company?

Facebook is not making any products/ selling anything. Why would it be valuable?

[Assistant]
They do have a product they sell, a very valuable one... You.

All those statuses, all those 'likes', all those location check-ins... That data isn't just there for your friends to see.  It is organized and categorized and analyzed and creates an unbelievable source of data for directed advertising.  You dump every detail of yourself onto Facebook which tells them exactly what to try and sell you.  The ads may be small and seem insignificant, but they are the digital equivalent of real estate on Manhattan Island.  Add to that the ads beyond the actual Facebook.com site itself.  The 'like' button you see on virtually every website now, ever wonder why you don't log in every time you use it?  A cookie based system is essentially tracking your every online movement while at the same time allowing advertisers to customize ads anywhere based on your FB info.  Not just Facebook either: Google, Yahoo, Foursquare, Twitter... All these 'free' products we take for granted as "Innovative communications tools for the 21st century!" are vast information fishing nets for well-paying corporate clients.

I always chuckle when the semi-annual "Facebook is going to start charging a fee!" outrage kicks up.  No they aren't.  They have zero need to ever extract a penny from us, more likely they will keep tacking on new free feature after another.  When you sell something you charge the fee to the buyer, and we aren't the customer... we're the product.


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

[User] [GoT] A man is confused. The faceless men of Bravos kill when a contract is made, and they are paid in coin. Do the faceless men truly believe that this is the will of the many-faced god? To have his gift dispensed arbitrarily, at the whims of random men who are rich and vengeful?

[Assistant] A man misunderstands. The many-faced god takes a payment of great value to the one with a name on his lips. For a man who treasures gold, the many-faced god will take gold. For a man who values blood, the god will take blood. For a man who values honour, the god will take honour.


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

[User]
CMV: Bicycles should be treated as pedestrians rather than cars

In the US, pedal power bikes are usually treated as motor vehicles by the law. It varies from area to area but they are often required to use roads rather than sidewalks. This seems hilariously unsafe.

**Visibility:** Bikes can see pedestrians much better than cars can see bikes. Cars have to keep track of more variables and tend to pay closer attention to other cars.

**Speed:** Bikes cannot possibly keep up with cars, but they can slow down for pedestrians.

**Chaos:** Bikes can't keep a steady speed, rarely use turn signals, and are generally unpredictable. That throws a wrench in the flow of traffic and probably leads to more accidents.

Edit: I agree that bike lanes are the best solution. Sadly most cities don't have the budget, so bikes need to be on roads or on sidewalks. My view is that the second option is safer.

[Assistant]
Bikes are probably just as dangerous to pedestrians as cars are to bikes. Bikes can go up to 20 mph comfortably. Visibility is actually not that great because pedestrians do not walk in lanes or follow any kind of pattern... they might step onto the sidewalk without looking for example.

The bike/car speed is actually closer on many streets, pretty much any street with a standard 35 mph or lower speed limit is perfectly reasonable for both cars and bikes. Of course, this is not the case with highways or thoroughfares but that can be managed by choosing a more appropriate route.

From a bike rider's perspective, the sidewalk is actually less desirable. Sidewalks are frequently much less smooth, poorly maintained, and narrow. They might even have steps or curbs that impede movement. You can't go nearly as fast on a sidewalk and it's far more dangerous... not to mention that there are frequently slow pedestrians in the way. The standard sidewalk is just too narrow for a bike to pass a pedestrian... forcing one or the other to step off the path.


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

[User] ELI5: how can some websites trap the user to their homepages when pressing the back button, but others take you right back to the search page.

[Assistant]
There's an html element called a redirect; essentially if you make a page that immediately redirects you, your back button history will look like this, in descending order from most to least recent

* Current Site

* Site that redirects to Current Site

* Google

So if you *just* hit back, it takes you to the redirect site.

The trick is to double-click back so that it takes you back to Google through the redirect site, or in a more general sense, right click the back button and click google out of there.

Now, if you chain redirects in certain ways you can make it almost impossible to *just* click back. Some browsers have a built in "too many redirects" feature that will stop the browser after a certain number of redirects, but often they don't cover all the ways a redirect can occur, and the feature is most useful if you're working on your own site on the server-level, trying to get a redirect for a legitimate purpose, and not getting infinitely-recursive redirection due to an oopsie.


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

[User]
[Cyberpunk 2077, the game] Why is there no massive labor movement?

I mean, 80 hour workweeks? 6 days off a year?

Everyone is armed, it's not like people aren't familiar with violence in Night City.

And... The USSR still exists? Wouldn't it be beneficial for them to be supporting labor orgs like they did IRL?

[Assistant] Because resistance is pretty violently put down immediately. Soon as you start forming a union you're black bagged by corporate mercs and buried in the landfill. Unemployment is at astronomical figures so plenty of people and immigrants will be ready to take your job before they clean the blood stains off your desk. Outside of the major cities it's near uninhabitable wasteland and what isn't controlled by the government or corporations is controlled by violent gangs. So work hard and work yourself to the bone and maybe you can afford to live long enough to die at work instead of dying in the gutter.


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

[User]
If I eat a mint and it "burns" my tongue, Is it really killing of cells?

Or are the chemicals in it just telling my brain that this hurts? Are there mints that can physically hurt cells?

[Assistant] The sensation of "burning" or "cold" on your tongue are conveyed by sensory neurons. Foods contain molecules which can bind to receptors on this neurons making them signal to the brain the corresponding sensation. These molecules trick the brain into believing that there is something hot or cold. In the case of the mint, menthol binds to cold-sensing receptors making them hypersensitive and our brain interprets that as cold.