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

[User]
[Elden Ring] How does society function?

In the Lands Between, you see castles and maybe like 5 non-hostile NPCs. But there are no real cities or farms or anything. The world is filled with hostile and powerful monsters and people who attack on first sight. Is it some sort of purgatory situation where the inhabitants dont need food or shelter? Or is there some place that the Tarnished doesnt go?

[Assistant] Yes, since people cant truly die in elden ring world as death was removed from the elden ring which is the natural order... Regular people either are hiding or lost their mind long ago for being killed again and again and starvation... So no, society doesnt function, the few keeps and whatnot we see are kinda kept by either few warriors that have a stronger mind and a sense of duty...


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

[User]
[Comics] What are comic books within comic universes about?

For example I'm pretty sure there is a Captain America comic in a Captain America universe, and I know there are pics of She Hulk, reading She Hulk.  Comics must exist in universe for many comic heroes.

But a lot of any comic is about their alter ego.  It's about all the trials they go through, their family and friends and what they struggle with.

Do comic writers just make stuff up, and create fake backstories?  Or do they just ignore that aspect of the character totally.

If they make it up, I wonder what Batmans fake backstory would be.  Who do they think he is?  Obviously not a billionaire playboy.
Or what about spidermans, or any of the heroes really.

Without knowing what we do about these heroes are they still compelling?

[Assistant] IIRC Marvel Comics exist as a publication in the Marvel Universe.  They are transcripts of various heroes' adventures, as told from their own perspective, and have been used as legal evidence in court cases by She-Hulk.


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

[User] [ELI5] Why music streaming services like 8tracks and Pandora are not "allowed" to let you skip more than a X songs per hour?

[Assistant]
IAmTopher is not correct.

The reason is because of the license agreement they made with the record labels to allow them to stream music in the first place.  Under copyright law, these music services can either be classified as "interactive" or "non-interactive".  Interactive services allow you to select a song individually.  Spotify is one such example.  Pandora is non-interactive, which meant they had cheaper licensing they had to pay, but more restrictions on how their service could be used.

If you could rewind, select individual songs, or skip more than a certain number it would violate their license.

Source: American Copyright Association panel earlier today.


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

[User]
ELI5: What is happening in my brain when I am 'moved to crying' by the chords of a song?

I'm sure many of you have experienced this--you're listening to a song, maybe an instrumental track, and something about the music just makes you want to.. cry. You're not remembering anything, or really thinking anything verbally--you're just somewhat overwhelmed by the emotions inspired in you by a piece of music. Is this just the same as a parent being moved to cry by the sight of their newborn child, or a person crying at a beautiful moment in a movie, or is something different going on here?

[Assistant]
As a composition major, I'll step in on this one.

Dissonance is a term in music theory when there are notes that don't sound like they belong, or their frequencies conflict with each other.  Good sounding chords include thirds, fifths, sevenths, and so on.  To construct a 'good sounding' chord, you need to skip every other note or the two notes are too close to each other.  There's a bit of math involved, mostly because the resonation of a frequency is 'pitched' to vibrate at a certain speed.  If you play two frequencies that are too close, it can produce dissonance and that's generally avoided in pop music.

However, a great trick to produce a very poignant feeling with your music is to intentionally create a dissonance, and then 'resolve' it.  To best explain that, let's go over chords really quickly.

If you have a standard scale, there are 7 notes and then the scale repeats, but at a higher frequency, producing a note that sounds higher than the same note lower on the scale.

( C  D  E  F  G  A  B  C)

To make a basic C major chord, you'll want the root (the note that the scale originates from), and then the third and the fifth.  In pop/rock music, a power chord is just the root and the fifth which produces the least possible identity of any chord. The third of any chord is where all the magic happens.

(C  -   E  -  G  -  -  C) will be our root chord, the chord that you hear where you know this is where the rest of the song is in relation to.

The most dissonant possible chord is going to be the 7th chord (meaning that the root of the chord starts on the 7th note in the scale), although the 5th is most commonly used as it contains notes that the 7th also has.

The 7th chord would look like this:

( -  D  -  F  -  -  B  - )  Notice how it still has the same spacing, it's just starting from a different position.  It may be easier to see how it's the same if we start from "B."

A C major root chord would look like this:
(C  -   E  -  G  -  -  C)

B minor diminished (7th chord in C) is like this:
(B  -   D  -  F  -  -  B)

B and F sound terrible together, they cause a Tritone, which produces the maximum amount of dissonance.  When you move the note B up to C, and then you move F down to E, that's what's known as a resolution, and the process of turing such a horrible sound into such a very pleasant sound is the part that makes you cry.

There are other ways to cause this, like minor 9th suspensions, blah blah, but

__tl;dr__, the tears come because there was a really bad sound and then they turned into notes that sound beautiful.

For you musicians at home, try playing those notes together, the 4th and 7th notes, and then move in 'contrary motion.'  Move the 7th up to the root, and move the 4th down to the 3rd.


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

[User]
Is there a reason for the difference between cubes (numbers to the power of 3)?

If you take the first six cubes:

1   8   27   64   125   216

Then calculate the differences:

7   19   37   61   91

Then the difference between those numbers:

12   18   24   30

The difference between these numbers is always 6. Is there an explanation as to why this is?

[Assistant]
So, you have four consecutive cubes, let's say n^(3), (n+1)^(3), (n+2)^(3), and (n+3)^(3).

The differences between the successive cubes are (n+1)^(3) \- n^(3), (n+2)^(3) \- (n+1)^(3), and (n+3)^(3) \- (n+2)^(3).

The differences between the differences are ((n+2)^(3) \- (n+1)^(3)) - ((n+1)^(3) \- n^(3)) and ((n+3)^(3) \- (n+2)^(3)) - ((n+2)^(3) \- (n+1)^(3)).

And finally the difference between the last two numbers is (((n+3)^(3) \- (n+2)^(3)) - ((n+2)^(3) \- (n+1)^(3))) - (((n+2)^(3) \- (n+1)^(3)) - ((n+1)^(3) \- n^(3))). Simplify this expression. See what you get.

Basically, the first time you take the difference, the cubes cancel out, next time the squares cancel out, and the third time the linear terms cancel out leaving only a constant.

Btw, this phenomenon is intimately tied with differentiation. The third derivative of the third-degree polynomial is a constant function precisely because of the behavior you noticed.


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

[User] [The Grinch] What happens to Whoville when the snowflake it's on melts?

[Assistant]
One of two scenarios are in play.

A) The Snowflake experiences time at a relatively slower pace. The inhabitants of Whoville might experience millenia before the Snowflake thaws and their world is annihilated. By this point their scientists might have discovered the nature of their world and created a way to evacuate their civilisation to the *much much much* larger planet below, before the Snowflake melts.

B) This is a magical Snowflake, or an incredibly lucky one that happens to find itself in the correct conditions to *never* melt. More likely magical. Therefore the Whoville populace and the Grinch can go on in relative peace and tranquility without their world getting destroyed.


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

[User]
What are the ramifications of running out of helium?

I keep hearing about helium as a finite resource and how we are wasting it on party balloons etc...What happens if we run out? Will there be atmospheric knock-on effects? Will ecosystems struggle to survive in any way?

[Assistant]
It's more to do with the technical uses for which we apply helium. It's used for all sorts of supercooling applications, from medical MRI machines to scientific equipment like mass spectrometers and even the Large Hadron Collider.

Also, we're not running out of it, the problem is that the US has had enormous reserves of it which they've been selling at far below the market price.  That means people have not been bothering to harvest the significant amounts of helium put out by natural gas extraction.

When the reserves run out (which they're due to fairly shortly), the commercial pressures will kick back in.  What will happen then is that the price of helium will return to normal market control.

The problem for the everyman is that it's going to be (and infact pretty much already is) heading over the budget of those wanting to fill party balloons with it.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] How come Jedi seem to be able to just start duel wielding lightsabers with ease?

Anakin in episode II and Kit Fisto in the Clone Wars series both at one point suddenly start using two lightsabers with ease and efficiency, but how? That's an entirely different style of fighting that would take years to master like any other, are all Jedi Aldo given extensive training in duel wielding?

[Assistant]
They aren't really given any training unless it's specifically sought out. Using two lightsabers is considered highly aggressive.

When you see one Jedi take up a new lightsaber and start using it, they're usually just surrendering themselves to the Force and hoping that it, combined with the element of surprise, will guide them to victory. It doesn't often end well, of course. See for reference the first battle between Count Dooku and Anakin Skywalker: Skywalker borrows Obi-Wan's lightsaber and it's destroyed within seconds. Using a single saber, he's able to last for a bit longer before being totally disarmed. The Jedi Traitor, Barriss Offee, showed a surprising amount of skill, but given her deep connection to the Force, it can just as easily be seen as the Force guiding her well. In the same fight, Anakin Skywalker could barely match her when using two lightsabers, but once he reverted back to his usual single-bladed style, he proved to be an overwhelming opponent for her due to his superior strength, skill, and her lack of practice with the style.

Most of the other canon examples of people wielding two lightsabers, such as Ahsoka Tano, Asajj Ventress, General Krell, and Darth Maul, came about because they had specifically practiced in that style.


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

[User]
Does the Hoover Dam need the water from Lake Mead to stay structurally sound?

Ive been reading articles about how low the water level is in Lake Mead and it got me thinking about two things.

1. Does the concrete that was used to build the dam rely at all on being continuously wet (i.e. is the concrete prone to crumbling prematurely when its dry for extended periods of time)?

2. Since the dam was built to hold back tremendous pressure from the lake, now that the lake is so low is there concern that the dam could collapse into the lake because the water isnt there to balance things out?

The thing was built during the Great Depression and wasnt sure, at the time, if they ever factored the lake ever drying up in their engineering plans.

[Assistant]
A few items of note. First, the concrete does not rely on being continuously wet. Once cured, water has little effect on concrete itself. Water, and especially repeated wet-dry cycles, can affect the reinforcement within concrete, but concrete itself is largely unaffected by water. However, Hoover Dam is largely built without reinforcement. It does have some small amount of reinforcement in it, but only a few areas such as the spillway actually rely on reinforcement for structural purposes.

Next, also consider that the dam itself is incredibly thick. Think about how a basement or cave remains at a constant temperature through the year. It takes a long time for changes to air temperature to work their way through the soil. And the same is true for moisture penetrating through concrete. It does happen, but it takes a long time and tends to average things out. So if low moisture levels could affect the concrete of the dam chemically, only decades-long swings in lake level would be relevant.

Finally, do not worry about the dam collapsing if there is no water behind it. The dam was built not just to generate electricity, but to manage flooding on the Colorado. The designers planned that the water levels would wildly swing up and down.

Structurally, a dam like Hoover is designed in such a way that the pressure from the water is resisted by the dam's raw weight. Lowering the water level simply reduces the component counteracting weight. At no point will any forces completely reverse direction. You could drain the entire lake and it would only reduce the loading on the dam.

Or, if you want to think of it a different way, we've already tested the dam in this condition! Think about how it was built. The river was first diverted around the dam site, and the dam was constructed on a dry riverbed. So when it was built, there was absolutely no water butting up against it. Furthermore, concrete only gains strength as it cures, so the concrete was slightly weaker when they started filling the lake than it is today.


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

[User]
ELI5: How did computer languages, like C++ and binary, even get made? How does the computer even understand it? And since people made them, couldn't they have made it easier?

For those wondering, no, I'm not a programmer. But this question keeps popping up in my head everyone I open my laptop or PC.

[Assistant] I once programmed a computer in binary.  It had a keyboard that looked like a piano, and you pressed the keys to set bits on.  It was super slow and a real pain to program that way, so assemblers were written.  You wrote a program in text (albeit on punched paper cards) and the assembler turned it into the binary the computer could run.  One line per machine instruction.  Every language since is trying to use fewer lines to represent the program. This makes programmers more efficient (aka cheaper).  Many languages exist because there are many ideas of how to "do things better".  New ideas and languages are made every year by CS PhD candidates.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why can some animals be domesticated, while others cant be?

I saw a video of a pet raccoon living in somebodys house. It was cute. I started looking things up about how raccoons become domesticated. All of the literature said it has never been done, and probably cant be done. No explanation of why.

[Assistant]
In guns, germs and steel there are six criteria for domestication.

1. The animal needs to be able to eat a variety of different things and be willing to live of human scraps. Even better if they can eat foods we can't like grass.

2. They must grow up fast or at least faster than humans. This is why despite Asian elephants being tamed for 3000 years they arent considered domesticated. We haven't been able to selectively breed them

3. Animals must be willing to breed in close quarters of captivity. This is why pandas and antelopes are a bad candidate for domestication.

4. The animals have to be pleasant in nature. An animal that is ill-tempered or unpredictable is dangerous.

5. They also need to be calm and not scared/skittish. Because they are hard to control as well.

6. Animals need to be able to see humans as their master so a social hierarchy is important.

Even though some individual zebras have been tamed the species is hard to domesticate because of their temperament.

We have also tried to tame or domesticate great white sharks but they will die in captivity. The longest one has been held has been 16 days.


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

[User]
Does hot water flow faster than cold water?

Just went through my head as particles move faster with heat, does it affect the flow.

[Assistant] It can flow marginally faster while remaining laminar(smooth) rather than turbulent. This is defined by the Reynolds number and is proportional to density and viscosity which both reduce with higher temperature. Lower Reynolds is less turbulence.  Water is liquid over a narrow range of temperature though.


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

[User]
ELI5 Correlation vs. Causation

When looking at statistical data over a period of time, what does correlation mean?  How is it different from causation?

[Assistant]
In this context, correlation would mean that two things track with each other. If X goes up, so does Y, and if X goes down, so does Y. Not necessarily at the same rate. There is another type of correlation, called inverse correlation, that is where when one thing goes up, the other goes down, not necessarily at the same rate. X goes up, Y goes down and X goes down, Y goes up.

Correlation is different from causation because from the data you can't tell that X causes Y, although it might. This is obvious when you realize that if X correlates with Y, the reverse is true, Y correlates with X, yet very rarely does X cause Y *and* Y cause X.

As an example, sales of ice cream rise in the summer, as would deaths from drowning (because more people swim in the summer). So ice cream sales and drownings are correlated. But that does not mean that drowning causes ice cream sales, or ice cream causes drowning.

**Edit: Added explanation of Inverse Correlation**


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

[User] ELI5: How do touch screens work?

[Assistant]
Basically most touchscreens consist of a few basic parts.

1)The glass, or sometimes plastic top layer, this is just a nice surface it by design does not do much of anything.

2)The display, this is the screen it shows stuff. This is more or less like any screen, again not real touchy function here.

3) The digitizer.

The digitizer is where all the magic happens and the technology to accurately measure and collect multiple touch points at once is pretty complex. However the basic premise is pretty simple.

A uniform current of electricity is sent across the digitizer. When you touch the digitizer your finger disrupts this a causes that otherwise uniform flow not to be uniform in the place where it is touched. This raw information on the state of this electrical current across the digitizer is sent a computer which takes this info and tries to turn it into touches and gestures.


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

[User]
Changing ones co-authorship?

Another fellow student and I decided to work on a research paper to submit to a conference. From the start, I took the lead since they werent familiar with the research field we were in (Cognitive Science). They worked strictly on the computational side of things while I worked on the behavioral + some of the computational. However, there was a lot of hand-holding involved since Id constantly have to direct them on what to develop and even what to write because they were indecisive. I wrote roughly 95% of the paper, implemented an LM model, and recruited participants, which is almost everything. They only developed the simulation (basic Unity + a plugin), inputted the figures, and wrote a couple of short bullet points.

Despite this and gut instincts to put him as the second author, I still caved in and gave him first authorship. We recently found out we got into the workshop, and after I told them, they told me they didnt want to be a part of it. They proceeded to say they didnt care, and we took the spot from someone more deserving. This hurt me quite a lot because they knew how much getting in would mean to me. I want to proceed even if it means presenting alone because Im proud of my research, and Im better off without them.

With that, I was wondering if it would be ethical to change their co-authorship to second/am I allowed to? I genuinely dont believe they deserve first authorship, but I wanted to get some perspective since Im still relatively new to this. Thank you!

[Assistant]
That's a weird situation if ever I've seen one.

So to be clear: you did most of the work, wrote the paper, then for whatever reason decided to put someone else as the first author instead, and when the paper got accepted, that person told you they didn't care and didn't want to be on the paper?

I have so many questions.


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

[User] ELI5: If places like Baghdad and Cairo can reach 40-50 C in the summer, how did they become the center of civilization in ancient and medieval times when there was no air conditioning?

[Assistant] Ancient peoples knew how to put up shade and keep things cool in very hot climates, and both cities lie along major rivers. Almost all ancient cities are along rivers or oceans, since it (a) moderates the climate relative to nearby areas, (b) provides food and water and (c) allows trade up and downriver.


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

[User]
What does Camus mean by human solidarity is metaphysical?

When he rebels, a man
identifies himself with other men and so surpasses himself, and from this point of view human solidarity
is metaphysical.

[Assistant]
If a person rebels against the absurdity of life, he realises that every other person is also fighting the same fight for meaning and reason in a world that is profoundly absurd. This makes a person feel a direct connetion with all other human beeings.
Now why does he say it's "metaphysical"?
He refers to "metaphysical" as something that lays outside of the direct physical realm, in the sense that everything that is not directly physical is metaphysical. Similar to the views of for example Schelling, who wrote that all metaphysics are in the end immanent (located in the physical things themselves or rather in the connection between them).
And because this connection isn't a thing but rather something intersubjectiv, it is metaphysical.

There are of course some implications that this notion of metaphysics has for the concept of solidarity and can be understood as a criticsm towards other concepts of solidarity.


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

[User]
CMV: There is nothing wrong with me positively identifying a woman by her butt.

By wrong, I mean sexist and or demeaning.

In a case that happened to me, I was able to conclude if the woman I saw from a distance was an individual someone else was looking for.

Someone came up to me and was asking where x was. We both looked around and the person who asked pointed out someone a little ways off.

Is that her? She asked and pointed. The person had the same shirt (many people did that day) and hair style as the other person in question usually has.

I looked in the direction she was pointing and I immediately was drawn to the individual who she was pointing at because from behind they do look similar.

I then proceed to say, no that is her, x has a bigger butt than that.

That comment landed me into a little hot water.

There are several ways you can identify a person. Their face, voice, body shape and even the way they walk.

What I said was absolutely non sexual at all (which is what I was told it was). It is a fact, the person someone was looking for had a big butt. The lack of it was easily for me to deduct that the person we were looking at was not the person we searching for.

It should be looked at no different if I said no thats not her, she has longer legs or no thats not him he has a bigger gut or  she has a bigger head

Change my view: What I said was not a form of sexual harassment, degrading, demeaning, rude, sexually charged or anything of the like.

[Assistant] It kind of signifies that youve been paying attention to her behind and people dont like that. Objectively speaking yes theres nothing *wrong* with it as a form of identifying someone especially when everyone is wearing the same clothes and you only have physical features to go off of. Idk how old you guys were when this happened but (immature) people always put up their guard when you use *the forbidden potty words* especially with regards to women.


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

[User]
Is it possible there is a super nova we don't see yet within our galaxy, that is close enough to our solar system, that once it appeared would be bright enough to illuminate the night sky for the rest of human existence?

This of course assumes that the event happened several hundred thousand years ago, and light from the event has not yet reached Earth. Based on a program I saw on TV the other night, it seems quite plausible, though the program did not attempt to paint this scenario at all.

[Assistant]
Supernovae don't last very long. The initial burst of energy can be as brief as only a few hours, depending on the type of supernova, (edit: but will often take weeks/months to burn out entirely).

So, taking IK Peg as an example, which is only 150LY away, we can do a little maths with known values to figure out how bright it'll be here on earth:

IK Peg will be a type 1a supernova, if it does explode, which will have an absolute magnitude of around -19. (Magnitude is a measure of brightness, essentially. Lower values are brighter.) So, we use the formula:

Apparent Magnitude = -5 + Absolute Magnitude + 5log(d)

...where d is the distance in parsecs. 150LY is about 46 Parsecs, we get:

Apparent Magnitude = -5 -19 + 8.31 = -15.69

Now, remembering that with magnitudes, lower numbers are brighter, we can compare this to a few things we're familiar with. The maximum brightness of the moon is magnitude -12.94. The sun is around -26.74. It might not be particularly visible during the day, given the presence of the sun, but at night, it'd easily be the brightest thing in the sky.

If we examine the case of the second closest potential supernova, Spica; this star will end in a type 2 supernova, due to its composition. At a distance of 260LY, this event will have an apparent magnitude of -12.58, which still places it on-par with the moon in terms of brightness.


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

[User] [Harry Potter] Harry Potter World: Do non-English speakers still use the same incantations as they have in England, and if so do their accents alter the affect of the spell?

[Assistant]
It has been established by Pottermore that each different part of the world utilizes magic different. Africa doesn't use wands anymore and they're homeschooled. Native Americans don't use as much magic as they use potions, and those are super different from European potions, etc. So it would stand to reason that a lot of spells, while shared, have regional equivalents.

It's like when you're going to Brazil and you eat a canjica, then come back to America to eat coconut pudding. It's very similar and it gets you to similar places, but not exactly the same.


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

[User]
[ATLA] The fire nation seems to depend heavily on the ocean for transportation. Why couldn't the water benders just wreck them?

Mainly in the Avatar Roku episode, where they were breaking through a Fire Navy blockade and the waterbender of the team, Katara, was just sitting there not doing anything.

[Assistant] Because weirdly enough, their boats are actually pretty good at surviving the movements of water. It would take a lot of Water Benders working together to sink a single ship - barring the Avatar, who is the Avatar.


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

[User]
ELI5: when exactly did democrats and republicans switch ideology.

Ex: Lincoln was a rep but opposed slavery while democrats back then supported it.

[Assistant]
Basically, the republicans became part of the democrats, but the whole thing got smooshed around and split up again as this was happening.

Our two party system traces itself back to the split between liberalism and conservatism, which both had different meanings at the time than they do today. Both parties today would be seen as very liberal at the time this split took place. (although saying the split took place at one time is not entirely correct, as it happened gradually) The major difference between conservatism and liberalism, is the idea of the value of the individual vs the "social fabric. " At the time of lincoln, the Democratic party was conservative, and the republican party was liberal.

Liberals (everyone in mainstream politics today) think that everyone can basically be expected to make their own decisions, and that if you let them, people will fulfill their own potential. If someone fails, it is because they suck and deserve to fail, and if someone succeeds, it is because they are pretty great and deserve their success. If someone tries to do something radical, they should be allowed to sink or swim on their own merit. This was the ideology of the old school republican party.

Conservatives (although the word has since been used differently) believe that each person's actions should viewed as impacting everyone else in society. Everyone has their place in society, and if one person tries to do something radical, the chance that it will blow up and negatively impact others should be enough that they should be prevented from doing this. This was the ideology of the oldschool democratic party, and is pretty much dead.

Looking at these viewpoints, we can see conservatives, democrats, supporting slavery (freeing the slaves is great for them, but hurts society as a whole by destroying the southern economy), and democrats, conservatives, being against it (blacks are people that should be allowed to make their own decisions).

Now, conservatism in that form pretty much isn't a thing anymore. Instead, the word conservatism is used to refer to classical liberalism, which is pretty much what is described above. This classical liberalism is the ideology of the modern republican party.What the US refers to as Liberalism, the ideology of the democratic party, is kind of like Social Liberalism, but not as robust as in other countries.

Basically, the republicans, conservatives, or classical liberals are like the above description of liberalism. They are for open market economic policies and "small government" because they think people should be able to *make their own decisions* in the marketplace and sink and swim on their own merit.

The democrats, social liberals referred to as liberal, try to take into account peoples situation. For example, if someone inherits a great deal of money, or is born into a city with very few employment opportunities, they are not succeeding or failing on their own merit, they are being raised or lowered by their situation. The "big government" ideas come from the wish to even the odds, so that people really are sinking or swimming *on their own merit* and if that means that some avenues are closed to everyone, so be it. This can sound a lot like conservatism, but it has its roots more in socialism, which is a whole different story.

You will notice that these two modern ideologies are extremely similar when you get down to it. Basically, rather than switch around, the oldschool democratic party pulled an "if you can't beat em, join em."


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

[User] ELI5: Why are time periods (e.g. 50's, 60's, etc.) written with apostrophes?

[Assistant]
They're rightly written with apostrophes, but everyone puts them in the wrong place.

They're contractions,  - `the 1950s` turns into `the '50s`, just how you would contract `they are` into `they're`


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

[User] ELI5- Earwax: Wheres it coming from and whats it doing?

[Assistant]
Have you ever wondered what would happen if a roach or a fly crawled into your ear and got stuck there?

The answer is earwax.

It's made by the skin in the ear canal specifically to protect and clean the inner bits of the ear, while also allowing the ear canal to be a small enough hole to keep things like errant fingers and sticks from getting into it.

If you leave your ears alone, they become self-cleaning under normal circumstances. The ear wax is continuously produced and slowly works its way out of the ear canal, carrying the little bits that get into your ear canal out with it.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Vader corrupts Luke and they kill the emperor together, how do they set about ruling the Galaxy?

This isn't a typical Sith "you keep what you kill" deal. Palpatine had genuine political power, Vader did not; he was more akin to a special agent, from what we've seen; above the law, given some level of deference and respect, but definitely not in charge.

So Vader and Luke lay the smackdown on Palpatine. Then what?

Best case scenario: The Moffs, Military officers et al assume control in absence of a direct leader. Some infighting occurs but mostly they limp on with the existing system, only without an ominous emperor looming over their heads. Vader is just seen as a bit of an odity/ the former emperor's pet, no one really knows what to do with him and he's just sort of kept around as a "well, it's always been the case, why break tradition?" thing?

Worst case scenario: As above, but Vader and Luke are vilified as assassins and hunted wherever they go.

In any case, it doesn't seem that Vader was a named successor, and I don't really a route from "kill Palpatine" to "rule the Galaxy" that would actually work.

[Assistant]
Deep in the second Death Star, Luke, pushed beyond all reasonable limits, looks to his father's hand, outstretched in the Emperor's throne room and whispers his answer. "Yes."

The Emperor, enraged, blows Vader across the room with a bolt of force lightning and then turns to the young Jedi. "You fool! You seek to ally with your father against *me*? He laughs at the idea that his crippled apprentice and his poorly trained son offer any threat and decides to torture them, he needs neither of them.

Force lightning surges through Luke and the young boy man screams. Sideous is impressed with how much pain he can take and decides that he will keep the boy as his new apprentice and just dispose of Vader. Turning to see where the wreck of his Vader landed, he finds the back suit lumbering towards him at speed.

He is surprised, Vader should be dead, but something has kept him alive and in that moment's surprise Vader strikes, flinging himself forward and smashing the Emperor into the deep pit to his death. It is an unlikely and unusual way for such a powerful Sith to die.

Vader checks his suit, miraculously he is largely unharmed, but his boy has been badly hurt. Good, he needs to learn pain and fear if he is to be a worthy apprentice. He kneels down and touches his son's head, after all this time he has finally found his child.

The fleet is in disarray and Vader immediately orders a retreat, leaving the second Death Star and transferring to a ship with a hyperdrive. He is intimately familiar with all ships, codes and the plans for the attack and quickly pulls everything back to the nearest base to reorganise. Everyone obeys, he is very high ranking and no one would dare disobey an order issued in the Emperors name. The Second Death Star, abandoned, is destroyed and the rebels rejoice.

Vader acts quickly, he heads back to Coruscant and sends out word for all Moffs to return there for an emergency meeting. Most do, but a few, feeling strangely free, do not. They will be trouble, but later.

90% of the Moffs return to Coruscant to find Vader and his son have seized power and are offered a choice, swear their allegiance, or die. They all swear and most, having meant it, are allowed to return with new "advisers" who will stay with them day and night to ensure they behave. A few, who are sensed to be disingenuous in their pledge, are separated and the new Sith Lord, kills them with his father's red lightsaber.

Vader will spend the next few moths taking control of the Empire and concentrating on training Luke, giving him access to all the power of the dark side and sending him on his first missions to bring the errant Moffs in line. Vader knows every inch of the Empire and it is easy to kill those who would cause him trouble and replace them with loyal stooges. The rebellion is ruthlessly hunted, no quarter is given and they are hounded from one end of the Galaxy to the next.

Finally, Luke is ready and his final mission is to track down and destroy the leaders of the rebellion. Under the guise of having escaped Vader, he finds them without much trouble and once he is inside their defences, he slaughters them all, except Leia. He returns to Vader with her and Vader begins the process of breaking his daughter. It takes months, but he succeeds and unlocks her terrifying potential.

But trouble is brewing. Vader is an unpopular figure among those who know he had seized power and many do not with to follow him, he needs a figurehead, a young, attractive person who can be thrust into the light. It's handy that Leia is finally ready.

Luke is his fist, immensely strong, vicious and amoral, he is sent to wipe out whole systems that pose a threat, but Leia offers a respectable face. She was a well known opponent of the former Chancellor and now many are confused, has she brought about the change in leadership she sought? She must have, but the Empire still exists?

Leia, a trained diplomat, moves to create a respectability to the Empire that neither Vader nor Sideous understood. She reforms the puppet Senate, changes the Empire back to the Republic and declares that the people are now free. Of course, nothing changes, but everyone feels much better.

Vader is now hidden in the background, he spends his time working with the remains of Palpatine's work, looking for a way to expend life. Luke restarts the Jedi order and soon force potentials are flooding in from all over the Empire, Luke is building an army.

The three Skywalkers now control the Galaxy - Leia seemingly the ruler, Luke the head of the Jedi order and ridiculously powerful in the force and Vader, working behind the scenes to control it all and look for the answer he has sought for many years.

At last he finds what he needs. Palpatine had found how to produce clone bodies and transfer his essence to a new form. Vader, sick of his life, transfers into a new body after years of work uncovering Palpatine's secrets and... is free of pain, free of anger, suddenly able to see more clearly than he has been in decades.

In his new body, he finally has access to all the potential he should have had and his eyes open. His old mentor, Obi Wan, appears to him as a force ghost to give one last lesson, that he, Anakin, is the chosen one and no matter how badly he has fallen, he can redeem himself. Vader sees everything and agrees, he has done what no one else has done, he has returned to the light side without help from anyone else.

Now Vader has a problem, he expected to be the puppet master behind this new evil Republic but be in a new, strong body and be able to take back some of the more direct power he gave to his children, but they have grown obscene with power and he does not know how to undo what he has done. If he directly challenges them he is not sure that he will be victorious against them both and they are close allies.

Anakin Skywalker, the chosen one, is all alone against a galaxy that he himself has corrupted to the dark side. He must undo what he has done, defeat or redeem his children and finally bring balance to the force.


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

[User] [Independence Day] Why do the aliens like to get the landmarks? How do they identify the landmarks?

[Assistant] We tend to build landmarks where we have a lot of people concentrated in a relatively small area, and where we concentrate political and economic power.  The aliens just wanted to destroy the centers of such power, and they had heckin' big bombs with which to do it.  The destruction of highly-recognizable structures was entirely incidental.


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

[User]
ELI5: What is the main reason for the Korea country separation?

Honestly, its really hard for me to understand how a thing like that happens these days..

[Assistant]
It's an unresolved Cold War-era conflict.

After WW2, the possessions of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan were basically split between the various allied nations, and in the case of Korea that mean the USSR-led communists got the North, and the US-led capitalists got the South. This obviously didn't last long before war started between the two sides, with the North invading and almost completely annexing the South. The UN intervened behind the US, and reversed the entire conflict, with the South almost completely annexing the North. At this point, Communist China intervened on behalf of the North. With the US unwilling to use the nuclear option and trying to limit direct engagements between US and Chinese forces (so as to prevent WW3), the communists gradually pushed the South and their allies back to (very roughly) the original pre-war border.

At that point, China and the US put together an armistice, essentially freezing the conflict in place. The border has remained that way ever since.


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

[User] If a person is shedding the virus for 14 days after the symptoms have finished then why does the cdc recommend that they dont need to quarantine, shouldnt they be considered contagious?

[Assistant]
14 days is the 99 percentile for incubation time, with 5 days as the average.  This is time to show symptoms after catching the virus.  This is where the 2 weeks recommendation time comes from.

This is not the same as post infection contagious period which is 9 days from the start of symptoms for all cases that aren't bad enough to require hospitalization.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do the planets of our solar system seem to share a rotational plane?

Does it have to do something with an axis the sun spins on?

[Assistant] They were all formed out of the same accretion disk (stuff rotating due to gravity), so when that cloud of dust was collapsing, it collapsed into the same rotational plane, all going pretty much in the same direction.


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

[User] ELI5: Why are steroids bad to the body if they enhance physical capabilities and why can't we nullify those side effects?

[Assistant]
The body works to regulate hormones by feedback. If it detects too much of X hormone, it won't produce it anymore (a problem whether one is using, or stopping use).

ELI5: That's why ze balls shrink sometimes.


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

[User] [Fantastic Four] Has there been an explanation as to why each member got their specific powers?

[Assistant] Ben was the anchor of the group. Their rock if you will. Johnny was a hothead with a temper. A firebrand. Reed was always stretching himself too thin with his various experiments. Sue was always overshadowed by Reed, blending into the background. Their powers reflect their position in the group and their personalities.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] If Anakin was Darth Plagueis' greatest achievement (conception through The Force), why was he left on Tatooine, only to be found by chance by the Jedi?

It seems that Sidious would have a serious interest in Anakin from an early age and would want to teach him in the ways of the Sith as early as possible. I understand that he was able to work Anakin's situation to his advantage in the end. But how was this miracle child lost in the first place? Or was Anakin being trained as a Jedi the plan all along? If so, what was the advantage there?

[Assistant] Because Plagueis didn't know that Anakin existed until he'd been found. Read Darth Plagueis, he was messing with the Force and thought that he might create life with it, but he didn't know what exactly had happened until Qui-Gon Jinn brought the kid to the Jedi.


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

[User] ELI5: NASA is destroying the Cassini probe in Saturn's atmosphere to prevent from contaminating Titan and Enceladus (which could harbour life). So why aren't they worried about the Huygens lander that's already on Titan doing the same thing?

[Assistant]
Probes that are *meant* to land on other worlds are meticulously sterilised before launch.
Since this is an expensive and time-consuming procedure, this step is foregone in other probes, and they are safely destroyed by crashing them into gas giants.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is it that when it's dark you see with less detail on your fixation point and have to use the area around it?

[Assistant]
There are two kinds of light receptors in the eye, rods and cones.  Cones give you color perception and work better with higher light levels.  Rods work better in lower light levels and for detecting motion (because they respond to light changes faster) but aren't sensitive to specific colors.

The center of your field of vision is mostly done with cones and the periphery is mostly rods.


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

[User] [MCU]How much does it cost Tony to make an Iron Man suit?

[Assistant]
Materials total can't be any more than a few hundred thousand dollars, and automated assembly makes creating them quick and cheap.

In 616, however, Tony once remarked to Spider-Man that his Bleeding Edge armor costs 7 billion dollars.

A likely reason being nanotechnology, while being far more powerful, is also astronomically more expensive.


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

[User]
My PhD supervisor doesn't want me to apply for other jobs... what should I do?

Context: 11 months out from submission, Australia, Psychology. Currently work as a casual RA for my PhD supervisor, and I helped her write a grant which, if successful, would be used to employ me as a postdoc. In my email I explicitly said I wouldn't accept another position before hearing back about this grant.

Following the recommendation I've seen in numerous places online as well as directly from my university's careers advice, I've started looking out for post-doc jobs that I'd be interested in and preparing my resume, etc. for an application. I've found a position that I think I'm a really good fit for, and even though I think it's unlikely they'll be willing to wait 11 months for me I thought I would give it a shot to practice my application skills and form a connection with the lab. Universities have had significant job cuts in Australia and I would really like to stay in the country so that is another reason why I want to start looking early. I mentioned this to my supervisor as well.

When I told my supervisor that I'm starting to look for jobs she said it's too way too early, I'd need to be prepared to start within weeks which would forfeit my scholarship and force me to study part time which would cause problems for my PhD, etc. She also noted she's waiting on the result from multiple grants (to my knowledge, only the one I assisted with would fund a postdoc, though I will clarify) which she'd be able to use to hire me, and she'll be able to keep me on part time in my RA position until the end of next year anyway.

I'm a bit surprised by how quickly she made the assumption that I would start a job before the end of my scholarship, and how bluntly she told me to not apply yet. We have a reasonably good relationship and she's usually pretty easy going so I actually expected support even if she also told me her true opinion. She obviously values having me in her lab and wants me to stay, but I don't want to put myself in a position where I've wasted time waiting around for her grant results that only have a 10-25% chance of being successful.

My question is: **can I still apply for jobs anyway**, keeping in mind that I might not be able to use her as a referee if I get to that stage until we agree on it not being too soon anymore?

I already decided I won't accept a job offer before we hear back on the grant I helped with (results to come "in 4th quarter" this year), and that I won't take anything starting before my scholarship ends in June 2021. I feel like it's unlikely I'll get to the final stage within my first few applications and it's good to get used to the process while I don't have the stress of needing of job ASAP.

[Assistant]
IMO, 11 months out is too early to start looking for postdocs / applying for them. Most people advertising want someone pretty soon. Going through the application for practice when you wouldnt be ready to start isnt going to make a good impression on people spending time to review those applications.

For most academic jobs that require a PhD, applying before youve finished your degree, everyone is going to want to hear, from your committee chair, that you will absolutely and unequivocally be defended and ready to start a job by the listed start date. Too many people will have been burned by someone who does not finish in time.

Maybe someone from Oz can clarify if the situation is different down there.


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

[User]
Where does the logic of DNA codons come from?

I was talking to a friend recently who is studying to be a microbiology major. She was showing me some of her material regarding genetic code. Her homework was to explain a line of genetic proteins. The page looked like a series of ATCG in what looked to me to be totally random order. She showed me how she broke down the code into blocks of 3 which corresponded to 64 codons. My understanding was that the codons form some sort of "letters" to be used in genetic code. I understand the basics of the proteins that make up DNA, but the codons baffle me.

My question is, where did the underlying logic behind these codons come from? I somewhat understand how the codons form letters, but how do those letters create something such as skin or hair color? I tried Google and most of the explanations were religious or attempting to disprove evolution. I'm not interested in that, but I have to admit I'm at a total loss to explain how series of proteins form letters which then become a sort of language of life.

Forgive me if my terminology or understanding is off. I'm definitely a layman when it comes to biology, but I like to learn. Just curious about life. Thanks for taking the time to read this.

[Assistant]
Lets say there is a stretch of DNA that is 306 bases long, Those 306 bases can me read over into a 306 base-length strand of mRNA, made up of 1 'start' codon, 100 'letter' codons, and 1 'stop' codon. As you correctly stated, each 'letter; codon corresponds to a specific **amino acid**. Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins. As the mRNA is read by the ribosome, a long chain of 100 amino acids will be formed. The specific order and content of this chain causes it to fold up in a very precise manner. Hydrophobicity and hydrophilicity as well as ionic charges dictate this process. In the end, you have a 3-D structure made up of amino acids which is your new functional protein.

The codons are conserved throughout all organisms that use DNA, which indicates this 'language' developed almost at the same time as did the genetic material. This makes sense if you think about it like this: Words and language couldn't exist if words didn't have specific meanings. If the letters D-O-G mean a 4-legged canine to me but they mean a 2-legged primate to someone else the word 'dog' is meaningless.

The genes that are carried in DNA determine the types and order of the codons, which in turn determine the types and order of amino acids, which in turn determine the size and shape of the protein, which in turn determines how that protein behaves and functions. Different eye/skin colors are based on differences in the genetic code that cause differences in the codons, amino acids, and ultimately proteins.

I think the conservation of the genetic code is elegant proof of evolution, and the fact that we all are related. Divergences in genetics are how evolutionary biologists determine how closely related 2 species are, and they are able to calculate approximately how long ago the 2 species diverged from a common ancestor.


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

[User]
[40K] What is with human DNA?

We can breed with the Elder, have DNA inserts from the Necrons (AKA the blank/Pariah gene) and have the capacity for great psychic powers. So how is this all linked were we the Old ones or just an oddball species with really adaptable DNA?

[Assistant]
Well, the breeding with Eldar probably has less to do with Humans, and more to do with the Eldar. The Eldar genome is psychomorphic, shifting under even subconscious mentall pressures. It's possible that their DNA adapted to suit humans, rather than being inately compatible. (Even then, it is by far he stupedest thing Goto has written, and totally unsupported by every other source. Ever.).

Other than that... There's not much particularly strange. A bit of a tendency towards more rapid environmental adaptation, as seen in the Abhuman populations, but nothing particularly strange. Low key psychic aptitude isn't that uncommon in the Galaxy, and Pariah's are a genetic anomaly.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do AP Bullets destroy tanks?

I read that bullets are just sharp tipped objects fired by gas/explosive charge.

If it pierces tank armor, how does it destroy the tank (result in an explosion) if the bullet/shell does not hit the gas tank/engine?

[Assistant]
Wow, there's a lot of bad info in here.

There are two major types of modern anti-tank ammunition. HEAT, and APDS.

HEAT = High-Explosive Anti-Tank. A HEAT projectile is a shaped charge that uses a small shaped explosive that creates a very focused stream of ultra-hot liquid metal when it detonates. This Explosively Formed Penetrator hits the target at a *very* high speed and burns a hole through the armor. The result on the other side of the armor is a bunch of armor chunks and liquid metal being blasted around the inside of a tank. Nasty.

APDS = Armor-Piercing Discarding Sabot. Modern APDS, often termed APFSDS (Armor Piercing Fin Stabilized Discarding Sabot), is a solid projectile made out of ultra-dense metal like tungsten or uranium. After being fired from the gun it discards its casing (the sabot) and flies towards the target at incredibly high speed. It relies on extremely high velocity to pierce through the armor of the target like a giant arrow. The result on the target is what you'd imagine when a vehicle eats a 40lb metal arrow at 4,000 miles per hour. Everything turns into a rapidly expanding cloud of very hot fragments.

Nobody has used an explosive-tipped armor piercing round (APHE) in an anti-tank role in about 60 years.


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

[User]
[Marvel/DC] Which character will leave a bigger mark on history?

So the DC and Marvel universe are fraught with all kind of heroes and villains. Of them, who are the most productive and that have had or will leave the biggest impact on history and the status quo of their respective universe in say 100, or 1000 years?
To discriminate, there're those that have the most potential but don't use it (ex. Peter Parker), those that spend all day working but whose research isn't seen by the public at large (ex. Richards) or that spend lots of time and effort on individual cases (ex. Batman). That's not to say they don't achieve anything, maybe even they get recognized after their deaths or the good they provide is only seen many years in the future.
So who would you say will have the most impact?

[Assistant]
Superman without a doubt. He's the only hero who survived as an "original" through to the dc 1million time line.

Whilst others have a legacy which got continued by other people and descendants...superman was the original one, and by that point he had absorbed enough solar energy to literally be a god. He could occupy everywhere, see everything and hear everything at the same time.


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

[User]
ELI5: In the event of military drafting/call up ever being brought into place. Would it be possible for the powerful or wealthy to avoid this situation?

If ever a circumstance occurred where military drafting was put in place, especially in western countries. Would the extremely wealthy (e.g. celebrities, big business owners and their families) be able to avoid the call up due to their wealth and power? Like if Canada had a military call up, how possible would it be for the likes of Justin Bieber to serve on the front line?

[Assistant] Of course they could avoid it. All they really need is enough money to buy a lawyer that can argue a decent case for them, or a doctor who's willing to declare them unfit. Money is power, and that power can be applied to nearly anything.


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

[User] ELI5: What's the difference between the CIA and FBI? They seem very similar to me.

[Assistant]
The CIA is the foreign intelligence service of the United States. Their job is to gather, process, and analyze national security information as well as perform espionage. The main difference between the CIA and FBI (of many) is that the CIA operates almost exclusively outside the United States.

The FBI is a law enforcement agency. They're essentially a police force that operates on the federal level instead of the state, county, or municipal level. Because federal crimes tend to be very serious and can impact national security, they use a lot of techniques and equipment that have more in common with intelligence agencies than most police forces.


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

[User]
How do I get productive while programming?

I have the ambition to program, but every time I open up my IDE, I just procrastinate for what seems like forever. Any suggestions?

[Assistant]
Why do you open your IDE if you don't know what you're going to do?

Really the most effective approach here is to scratch an itch. But you need to have an itch first. It might be stupid small but that's enough to trick your brain into throwing an over-engineered solution at it.


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

[User]
[Death Note] I see a lot of TikToks talk about how Light is in the wrong because he doesnt understand the socio-economic factors that cause some people to become/be falsely labeled criminals. Is this addressed in the Anime or Manga?

From the looks of it he also likes to target your everyday thugs, and later the police force. Has he ever went after a corrupt politician, or at least a politician he disagreed with?

[Assistant]
Son, someone calling themselves **The God of the new World** isn't the epitome of rationality or ethics.

It becomes pretty clear to anyone, but Light, that he's just another murderer and that he does it more for the power it gives him over Life and Death.


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

[User]
How can astronomers figure out the "day" length on a gas planet?

It's easy to determine the day length on a rocky planet or celestial body with thin/no atmosphere, but how can you determine the rotation period in a planet where there's no ground? The speed of the gas should not be taken as refference (I'm guessing), since the gas may be rotating at different speeds on various locations of the planet.

Bonus: How could astronomers figure out Titan and Venus? Both have pretty thick and opaque atmospheres, so I'm guessing some other light frequencies, like infrared maybe?

[Assistant]
A good example here is Jupiter, because each atmospheric band rotates at a slightly different speed to another - this is called differential rotation. Jupiter's polar regions rotate about 5 minutes slower than it's equator, at 9h 55m, while it's equator takes 9h 50m. The official speed of rotation of Jupiter is measured by its magnetosphere, which is also 9h 55m. This was determined by radio astronomers.

Venus has no appreciable magnetosphere, so Magellan in the early 1990's used it's radar to accurate determine its rotation of the surface. ESA's Venus Express spacecraft used Infrared to look at its surface last year and found Venus' rotation has actually slowed considerably (6.5min!) since Magellan visited.


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

[User] Alkali metals are the most reactive metals. Are there any compounds that are more reactive?

[Assistant] This is an impossible question to answer since it depends on what exactly you mean by 'reactive', it's a very broad term. The simple answer is yes, there are many compounds that are extremely reactive. If you're just looking at elements fluorine is very reactive with just about anything it comes into contact with. If you're including any compounds then you could include super acids, super bases, high explosives, etc...


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

[User] ELI5:Can some one please explain me why are winglets required in planes and why dont Fighter planes have them ?

[Assistant]
On a plane wing there is a low pressure on the upside and a high pressure on the downside. This pressure differential is basically what makes the plane fly.
Since pressure differentials always want to equalize the high pressure will slip around the tip of the wing, raising the pressure on the upside there and destroy a part of your lift.

The winglet is there to reduce this.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is it illegal for Americans to travel to a foreign country to have sex with a 14 year old even if the age of consent in that country is 14?

[Assistant]
Technically, as a US citizen you are covered by the laws of the US regardless of where in the world you are. However with very few exceptions, when you are outside of the US you are outside of the jurisdiction of those laws. ie, if you're a 19 year old US citizen and you're drinking in Australia then you're not breaking any law - simply because there is no law against 19 year old US citizens drinking whilst in Australia.

There are, however, exceptions.

The US government can - and has - passed laws which include a jurisdiction outside of the US. The most well known of these is the "PROTECT Act of 2003", which makes it illegal for a US citizen to partake in illicit sexual conduct abroad with someone under the age of 18.


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

[User]
What do tumors and cancers actually do thats so deadly?

What is different from like a cyst growing in the same place?

[Assistant]
A cyst is like a little sac of fluid. If it gets very large it might push on the tissues near it, but that's unlikely. In any case it's just a single, well-contained thing. If necessary it can be drained or surgically removed.

Some cancers are benign, and act similarly. They stay in one spot. At worst they cause some problems in the immediate area.

Malignant cancer is very different, in two ways.

First, a malignant cancer tends to grow without limit. This causes major problems in most of your organs. A tumor in your lung can displace healthy lung tissue, impairing breathing. A tumor in your colon can grow into the internal space and obstruct your bowels. A tumor in your brain can slowly squash the rest of your brain against the sides of your skull.

The second major difference is that malignant cancer does not just stay in one spot. Cancer cells split off and drift through the bloodstream, eventually settling into some other organ, where they begin to multiply and grow new cancer. This is called *metastasis*.

That's one of the things that causes danger even from cancers that may sound harmless. For example, melanoma is a kind of skin cancer. You may think that a growth on the skin isn't likely to interfere with anything life threatening. But if melanoma isn't treated early, its cells are likely to spread to places like the liver, lungs, or brain, causing new cancerous disease there.

Metastasis is also one of the things that makes cancer so hard to treat. Even if you cut out all the cancer you can find in the original spot, there may be a few cells that have spread outside that region. You need to use more widespread treatments like chemotherapy or radiation to eliminate the stragglers, and if you don't get them all, there's always the chance for one to land in a favorable spot and start the problem over again.


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

[User]
Does getting a body piercing (in mouth/nose/bellybutton/other non-ear piercings) stress the immune system in any way more than ear piercings or having no piercings?

I heard someone say that piercings put stress on the immune system, making it weaker. I gave it a google search and the sources seemed kind of weak or indefinite. Is this negligible with the right precautions? Is this true and research-backed? Is it not well-researched?

[Assistant] Stress on the immune system is vague and somewhat meaningless. If it gets infected, that will be a stress on the immune system. Sidenote: tongue piercings are a risk factor for cardiac infections. True story.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do language learning apps make you play the guessing game instead of teaching you?

Is there some sort of science behind them doing it this way that allows you to learn faster?? I dont understand how you learn from guessing?

Treat me like I'm 5, please.

[Assistant]
Success and failure are good learning tools - this is the core idea behind "test and retest" as a way of learning.  You're not "guessing", you're failing to get the right answer which you won't like and you'll then encouraged to remember and get it right the next time.  But...mostly this is born from the recent idea of "gamification" - it's trying to created games as a way of learning to keep you engaged and to keep you "playing" because being in a "play" mindset is known to be good for learning.

If it annoys it it's probably not working well for you!


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

[User]
[Marvel] What are Sandman's limits? If he were in a vast desert, could he control ALL the sand?

And is it even possible to kill this guy for good without removing his powers?

I don't read comics so I'm just curious.

[Assistant]
So Sandmans powers are a little complicated but TLDR: his consciousness is held inside one grain of sand and he controls the rest of the sand. At the moment theres no known limit to how far his control can stretch. In the past hes taken control of entire beaches and turned himself into a full sized sand castle. Hes even turned into an eight story tall version of himself before.

As for being able to kill him it is incredibly difficult but theoretically possible. You would literally be looking for a single grain of sand on a beach, except the beach is actively fighting against you. Once you find that one grain of sand you just need to completely destroy it. Like tearing the nuclei of the silicon atoms apart.


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

[User]
ELI5: why sometimes my pen writes on my hand but not on paper

Sometimes at work a pen will seem to "dry out," and it won't write at all on paper. I can scratch a piece of paper for a good minute and nothing happens but as soon as I try to write on my palm, the pen works almost immediately. What's going on here?

[Assistant] Ball point pens literally have a small ball inside them. When you write, the ball rolls along happily, smearing ink in its tracks. Every now and then though, the ink dries just a tad around the ball, and it gets stuck. When it comes to ball point pens and your skin, it's like rubber gripping; it pulls it along easier than dry paper.


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

[User]
Free online Turnitin alternative to make a pre-check of a thesis

I am currently working on my thesis. I was told by my professor that my paper will be checked by Turnitin for plagiarism. I am looking for something like turnitin but free.
My uni uses Turnitin, but I personally do not have the access to it and cannot perform the check before I submit my thesis for evaluation. Obviously, I have not plagiarized and I also don't want to sound paranoid, but I have heard that Turnitin used to give false positives, so I want to make a pre-check on my own. My professor supports this, as she is not too big on Turnitin.
So, my question is: have you pre-checked your thesis before submission and what alternative to Turnitin did you use? Please suggest an accurate and if possible free online tool.
Thanks a lot.

[Assistant]
I wouldn't bother, honestly. If you didn't plagiarize you'll be fine, and most universities know that Turnitin isn't 100% accurate. They'll only get skeptical if you reach a certain percentage of "plagiarism."

Cite thoroughly and you'll have nothing to worry about.


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

[User]
Why are cars so expensive in Europe?

I came across various articles saying that profit margin for car companies are the highest on European sales. Why is that so? What are the relevant diffrences compered to the US or China?

[Assistant]
> What are the relevant diffrences compered to the US or China?

European Union imposes 10% tariff on cars produced outside of European Union (source: _A picture of the EU car industry_ by Library of the European Parliament, 2013). US imposes 2.5% tariff on personal cars. Reduced competition increases profit margins of producers.


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

[User] ELI5: How can divers dive seemingly as deep as they want from the surface, but scuba divers have to slowly resurface?

[Assistant]
You know how you can look at a soda bottle and there's no bubbles, and then you pop the top and the bubbles start rushing out.  It's like that with nitrogen in scuba divers.  If they rushed to the surface, all those bubbles would appear.

Now crack the soda bottle very very slowly, slow enough that by the time it's open all the way, it's "flat".  That's a scuba divers decompression stop.

Nitrogen builds up in your bloodstream at depth because each breath is compressed air containing lots of compressed nitrogen that gets mixed in your blood as miniscule bubbles.  Those bubbles get big when you have less pressure around them.

With Free Divers, they only take one breath. That breath then compresses as they go down to depth, then back up.  All the dissolved nitrogen bubbles start small, get smaller at depth, then come back to small.


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

[User]
Navigating the inclusion of a maiden name in new publications

Hi All,

I've seen some threads about the decision to choose maiden name vs. married name here. However, I haven't found one on changing after publishing a few papers. (If one exists, please share!)

I am a doctoral student with 5 papers under my maiden name. I've been married for one year, and I've just been lazy/worried about pushback about choosing my married name. I've always disliked my maiden name and am STOKED to use my married name in academia.

All this to say, I'm trying to determine if I should include my maiden initial with my middle name, remove my middle initial and use my maiden name, withdraw using my maiden name moving forward, etc. This is the option I'm leaning towards:

\[First name\] \[Middle Initial\]\[Maiden Inital\] \[Married Name\]

Advice? Recommendations? Does the inclusion of maiden name really matter in the end?

Update: thank you so much for the helpful feedback! Based on the consensus, I've decided to drop any mention of my maiden name when publishing, highlight it in my CV, and link past papers using GoogleScholar and OrcID. That should cover any 'identity' issues...

[Assistant] It doesn't realy matter. If you link all of your papers to yourself in your ncbi bibliography or orcid or whatever you want to use, people will know its your paper. Do what you like (so long as it's reasonable; the options you are considering are).


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

[User] [Fallout New Vegas] Exactly how long is Long Dick Johnson's dick?

[Assistant]
Hella long, hence the name.

Though if you buy the fan canon that "Cannibal" Johnson of >!the Enclave Remnant!< is the same person as "Long Dick" Johnson, having effectively overwritten his old nickname with his later stunt, then it likely falls within human norms in terms of length and girth, since he has no issues moving around or abnormal disturbances of his wardrobe.


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

[User]
[Greek Myth] How does Cassandra's curse work?

Possessing the gift of prophecy with the caveat that no one will ever believe you sounds pretty rough. But how does it work? Does the curse affect listeners and force them to disbelieve her? Could Cassandra find a middleman who didn't know her identity and write out the prophecy or something, get around the curse, and use him to get the message out? Does it apply only to mortals or could she enlist some minor gods in the aforementioned capacity?

[Assistant] No. Th prophecy worked because The Fates wove it into the literal fabric of space and time (as they do with all prophecies- that's what makes it a prophecy). Once there, it would be impossible to avoid. It would simply *happen*.


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

[User] ELI5: What are flys doing when just darting around the middle of the room?

[Assistant] They are looking for food/water/someone to reproduce with.  There is nothing more to it.  They are not smart enough to know that they are flying around the middle of the room, they are just flying around mostly aimlessly until they stumble upon (usually by smell via their antennae) something delicious or sexy.


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

[User]
[Warhammer 40K] Who would the Ultramarines regard as acceptable substitutes, if they had no men to spare?

That is, if there were no Ultramarines in the vicinity of, I don't know, Guiliman's used hanky that they desperately wanted to reclaim from the forces of, let's say the Eldar but it can be anyone. Are there any other chapters the Ultramarines could call in and trust with this vital mission? Who would be their preferred pick?

[Assistant]
I , CATO SICARIUS, MUST REMIND YOU THAT AS PER THE HOLY CODEX ASTAARTESS US ULTRAMARINES NEVER REQUIRE SUBSTITUTES, FOR WE ARE THE GREATEST OF THEM ALL!

COURAGE AND HONOR!

\*Ahem\*

Canonically, Guilliman had a huge amount of respect for several of the other Primarchs, including ones you wouldn't expect like Leman Russ and Khan.  But that was mostly his personal opinion. Since the Blood Angels and the Iron Hands (his other *openly* liked chapters) have kinda gone all non-Codex and possibly heretical, the obvious choice would be the Imperial Fists and successors. They get along just fine with the Ultramarines (~~and are also technically more Codex-Compliant than the mainline ultramarines are~~ **HERESY!**).


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

[User]
Why did the evergrande default not cause a financial collapse?

Why did the evergrande default not cause a financial collapse?

[Assistant]
Evergrande has been in danger of default for so long that financial analysts have been calling it a "car crash in slow motion". The thing about super slow car crashes is that you can then put massive measures in place specifically designed to ensure that the rest of the economy doesn't get affected.

Because the government regulators have the ability to make whatever policy they want, a whole battery of measures have been used to ringfence Evergrande's risk.

(1) Banks have been told to report all their exposure to Evergrande, and then share it with other banks, so that no one bank is overexposed. In fact, it has been suggested that everyone from insurance companies to hedge funds have been told they need to take on some of this risk as well so it's all spread out through the economy.

(2) Other real estate developers which don't breach the rules have been given preferential access to other sources of funding, especially onshore bonds, bank loans, and asset backed securities. They have been also encouraged to sell assets like stakes in Property Services companies, and the ones which are least likely to default have even been encouraged to buy other companies.

(3) The government has stepped in directly to negotiate extensions on maturities and standstill agreements between banks and real estate developers which don't breach the rules

(4) Real estate developers like Evergrande which do breach the rules have been placed under mandatory government-led restructuring. This is designed to prevent asset leakage and make sure the money / assets flow to creditors in the right order. The first creditors to get paid are the contractors/suppliers which prevents small companies from going under, followed by local banks with local claims over certain projects. This ensures that the projects remain in play, so the people who bought the homes don't suddenly lose the house.

(5) Some interest rate cuts

Chinese regulators HOPE and PRAY that these measures are sufficient. And if they aren't, they've still got a bunch of other measures like just nationalising those projects, directly backstopping the loans, or releasing cash held in escrow accounts meant to stop developers from using project funds to pay debt. Nonetheless, there is a real danger that this evolves into a complete shitshow. At the end of the day, a few very smart people are attempting to defuse one of the largest economic bombs the world has ever seen using precision tools that economists have never seen in practice before while political factions and international geopolitics swirls all around them. If they succeed it will be one of the greatest economic success stories we've ever heard; and it would be pretty normal if they failed (though it would cause a new financial crisis).


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

[User]
ELI5: Why did China, India, and some other countries, realize that boiling water makes it much safer, but other countries (e.g. in Europe) didn't catch on to this until thousands of years later, only in modern times?

?

[Assistant]
Imagine a world where the only way to spread news was to spend months riding, now imagine a world where there was deep distrust of the world outside nations. Now take this and add a reality with no science.

There was no requirement to boil water with the population of Europe until such time as cities became a thing - for most of the period of history water was perfectly safe as villages would have a well or river and keep their excrement away from it.


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

[User]
(lotr) Why did Saruman act so cruel towards men

I understand that he was in despair and had lost all hope on defeating Sauron and therefore defected, however when he basically orders the slaughter of everyone in Rohan including woman and children that seems fairly and unnecessary cruel.
So apart from his treachery where did his cruelty come from?

[Assistant]
Saruman is in the first place a practical being.  He probably reasoned that the Rohirrim would never submit, as long as they were alive.

Also, he was only murderous towards Men he had no use for.  Remember that his primary Mannish allies, the Dunlendings, had a long history of hatred for the Rohirrim.  Saruman, naturally, whipped this into a fury because it served his purpose of taking over the Mark.


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

[User] Do Insects have a sleep schedule?

[Assistant] Yes! If we are referring to the taxonomic class within *Arthropoda*, insects are known to undergo a period of less activity, with intermittent periods of higher activity. Insects can be diurnal, nocturnal and crepuscular(active at dawn and/or dusk).


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

[User]
Why can't we use salt water in our toilets?

Would the salt erode the pipes at an alarming rate?

[Assistant]
The plumbing issue is minor, and can be countered with an appropriate choice of materials.  Boats and ships use saltwater to flush their toilets all the time since its readily available unlike fresh water.  However, on land you would need to run both a saltwater supply line **and** a second saltwater sewer line at massive expense.

This is because sewer waste is treated before discharge, and combining salt and fresh wastewater would result in brackish sewage that couldn't be discharged in normal locations.  *If* you had a septic tank, you would be salting your fields.


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

[User] [Eli5] How do things like probes, satellites and telescopes not get pelted with space debris/rocks coming from each and every direction at least at some point while out there in space?

[Assistant]
They do get hit. Some of the bits are no more than tiny specks and dont do much, if any, damage. Larger mass and higher velocity will of course increase the damage.

The real measure is the density of those particles in space, and by the very definition of space, there just isnt much out there at the scale youre referencing. The chances of getting hit by various sizes of debris can be estimated, and there is a cost associated with each. The chance of very tiny, microscopic dust is pretty good, but those are relatively easy to protect against. The cost of that protection is low and worth it. The chance of James Webb getting hit by an asteroid is pretty slim, and the cost of protecting it would be astronomical, so not really worth it. The expected lifespan, and therefore return on investment, of spacecraft is partly determined on the aggregate chance of damage from of all sizes of impacts.

The rest is a roll of the dice since you cant predict everything.


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

[User]
ELI5: How does meat not go off in the time hunters kill in the wild to the time it reaches refrigeration?

I sometimes randomly watch bow hunting videos and it seems it can be a good day or so from the time they hang the meat to the time they're able to get it out of the mountains and into refrigeration. How doesn't it spoil when I'm questioning meat I accidentally leave on the counter for a few hours?

[Assistant] So long as the animal is left whole, there is little chance for bacteria to get at the meat, the inside of the animal is a sterile environment for the most part. So long as the shot didnt puncture any bowels that is. Most of the meat around the shot is considered waste as its the most prone to any contamination and the force of the shot can damage the meat releasing enzymes that can make it go bad quickly. The biggest things are having a way to keep the meat clean once harvested and separating fur from meat it can and 90% of the time does carry fleas, ticks, dung etc.


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

[User]
[Warhammer 40k] I've just discovered I'm a psyker. What's going to happen to me?

I've just been discovered as a psyker, and I'm now being held to await the black ships.

We've all heard rumors about them, none of them good, but what actually happens once they take me? \

Edit: Let's assume I won't be fed to the emperor for a snack, what would happen if i actually got chosen to be trained?

[Assistant]
You and all the other psykers from your planet will be packed into a cavernous, psi-shielded hold for the duration of your journey to Holy Terra. This will take weeks, months, or longer depending on the vagaries of the warp. Some of you will die along the way.

Once the black ship reaches the Palace, most of you will be fed directly into the voracious psychic maw of the Emperor. This is most likely how you personally will die.

However, it's possible that you have the strength and focus of mind to be spared this fate. If you have the potential, you will become an Acolyte and eventually Chosen of the Astronomicon, where you will sacrifice your life energy to the psychic beacon that makes all warp travel in the Imperium possible.

On the slim chance that you have exceptional psychic gifts, you will be trained as an Astropath or sent to the Imperial Guard or Inquisition for further training.  Your career will most likely terminate by death at the hands (or talons) of the Emperor's enemies.

So, you have nothing to worry about! Rest assured that your noble sacrifice will serve the Empire and the Imperium of Man far better than your life ever could.


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

[User]
[LotR] Does the Ring have any effect on someone who is unaware of its presence?

I'm imagining a hypothetical scenario where a skilled pickpocket plants the Ring in the pocket or satchel of an unsuspecting traveller, who then takes it the long road to Gondor and beyond, completely oblivious to the fact he's carrying Sauron's Ring or even any ring at all.

Frodo was able to relinquish the Ring freely and easily back at Bag End, so the corruptive Influence is not immediate. Aragorn and Boromir felt the Ring's call at a distance, but they knew both what it was and that their companion had it, so it had something to hook into in their minds. Faramir seemed to believe that the less he knew about the Ring, the less susceptible he would be to it.

I know it's very unlikely - but say this traveller had his own reason to go to Mount Doom and throw something unrelated into the volcano. If the Ring happened to be in that same pouch, would it prevent him from throwing it in without him knowing why?

[Assistant]
Frodo's ability to relinquish the Ring at bag end is nothing short of extraordinary. It is something that sets him in particular, and to a lesser extent hobbits in general, as someone who might just have the capacity to resist corruption long enough to actually dispose of it. This is almost true, Frodo only succumbs at the very end, after months of exposure and in the place where the Ring's power is at its strongest.

So its very very unlikely, verging on ridiculous that the pickpocket would resist the temptation of keeping such a precious thing as the Ring for themselves, even if they didn't know it was the Ring of power. Smeagol didn't know what it was. He saw it in the possession of another, and that was enough to break him to drive him to kill his own kinsman and claim the Ring for his own.

Boromir is not an evil man, he is a good man, brave honourable and full of a genuine desire to protect his people and to defeat the growing evil that assails them. But he is still a human with rational fears, with human frailties. The Ring broke his resistance. It would have broken Faramir's and Aragorn's too, eventually. The pickpocket will prove much more easily snared. He doesn't need to kill someone, he already has the Ring in his grasp. And so the Ring already has the pickpocket in its grasp.

Even if the pickpocket did somehow manage to part with the Ring,  and plants it on the poor traveller as you suggest, the problem has not gone away. The Ring of power is not a passive object. It has a will of its own, and power enough to work that will.

It would eventually find a way to ensnare the pickpockets victim. All the while it would draw the nazgul to the poor traveller, especially if the traveller was foolhardy enough to venture into Mordor.

There will be no great diversion to draw the enemy's gaze from the traveller.

They will find him. They will take the Ring. And he will beg for death before the end.


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

[User]
Quantum Physics from the Signal Processing perspective

First off, I'd like to apologise for what will be quite a confused post.

In signal processing, there are two domains. We have a time domain and a frequency domain.
It's a given that you should inspect any situation from both perspectives before you think you have any real insight.
This becomes quite natural. The word "transform" in "Fourier Transform" is a little misleading. The word "representation" is a lot closer to a useful description of what one domain means to the other; it's a different way of looking at the same thing, that can give us a lot of insight into whatever it is we're looking at.

We're guaranteed two domains whenever we're working in a space that has a commutative C* algebra, which is usually the case, and the domains are really representations of the point in space against two different sets of supports; one with compact supports in time (usually impulses of the Kronecker or Dirac type, depending) and another with some form of phasor (the characters) which have compact support in frequency. When we start playing with wavelets, we're mixing the two, for fun or profit.

But it's the same information in both domains, just a different representation, depending on what domain of support piques our curiosity. It goes deeper though; process something in the frequency domain, and it behaves like a wave... or in the time domain and it's like a particle.

Is this a meaningful parallel to the mathematics that underpins quantum theory?

From where I'm sitting, I can't help but be struck by "creepy" parallels, such as the uncertainty principle (or, as a sigproc guy would put it, only the gaussian looks the same in both domains).

Am I miles off track here? I've tried to find maths for quantum mechanics that line up with this kind of thinking, but failed spectacularly. Perhaps it ties to some outmoded style, or I just can't see the parallels because of the tensor notation! ;)

It seems as if there's a 1-1 mapping between the simpler low-dimensional analysis in signal processing, and the higher-dimensional analysis of quantum mechanics... and it "feels" as if there's an isomorphism here somewhere, since it looks like it gives an easy explanation of wave-particle duality, uncertainty, etc etc etc.

Are there physical counterparts to domain operators like multiplication/convolution, or involution?

Again, sorry for a long and confused post. Any advice you can offer would be magical!

[Assistant]
> Is this a meaningful parallel to the mathematics that underpins quantum theory?

It's not just a parallel. The position and momentum operators *are Fourier transforms of each other.*

But don't be misled into thinking there's a deeper physical significance here than there is. This relationship arises from the *maths* we use to model quantum mechanical systems. One should not think that there's some *deep inherent relationship* between signal processing and quantum physics, any more than there's some *deep inherent relationship* between population growth of bacteria in a petri dish and the amount of money in an interest-earning bank account. They're completely different things that just happen to be "modelable" (is that a word?) using the same mathematical techniques.


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

[User] ELI5: How do we know that worker ants are female if they dont reproduce? Do they have reproductive organs that simply dont work?

[Assistant] Ants have sex chromosomes just like other animals. So it is possible to genetically determine if an ant is male or female by looking at its chromosomes. And if you do this you see that worker ants are all females but they never get the hormones that cause them to reach puberty and get sexually mature.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Spoiler: Rogue One Question

Does anyone have an idea as to how, on Scarif, Cassian made it past the other landing pad personnel in his disguise? Presumably the other folks we see on the landing pad watched a Space-British guy board the ship and a Space-Mexican guy come out wearing the same uniform.

[Assistant]
The Empire is legion in numbers, there are thousands of millions of Imperial Soldiers.

Until the Empire does something like in Halo 4, where everone has a chip ID in them that comes up on your HUD, ain't no way your averge soldiers would rember faces, after seeing so many of them they just blend together.

They just remember what job they have to do, and the rank insignia on a officers uniform.


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

[User]
ELI5: How can a phone line be deemed secure?

Title!

[Assistant]
Most of what you see is a Hollywoodism where they declare a line to be 'secure'. There are multiple places where someone can tap a phone call.

The phone itself can have a listening device attached to the microphone and speaker, the line from the phone to the wall jack, the wall jack to the demarcation point, from the demarcation point  to the various points on the telco's network, and again all the way to the recipient's phone.

In government and military terms, access to the physical device and lines are protected, and often the phone line itself is encrypted using various digital or analog encryption technologies.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do calories work? I bike 5 miles, I lose ~120-150 calories. But a small snack can be more than that?

Trying to lose weight and putting it in numbers is demoralizing. I've started riding a stationary bike for 5 miles and then doing minor weight lifting after and I maaaaybe lose 200 or so calories. Is that not a good exercise? I've been doing this almost everyday starting 2 weeks ago. But it's starting to feel useless if it's such a minor amount of calories burnt. Is this a good trend to continue? What am I missing?

Edit: everyone here has been incredibly helpful, and surprisingly consistent with one another. I feel much more confident about what I'm doing and what I need to do. Seriously, thank you all.

[Assistant]
A lot of calories are already burned passively by the body. If you keep your intake at 1700-2200 calories a day (based on gender and height basically) those 200 calories account for 10% that wouldn't be burned otherwise. That really adds up over a longer period to get you to the weight you desire!

You're doing great and keep up the good work!!


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

[User]
Where do birds and insects go when it rains heavily?

Just watching this downpour over here and it got me thinking. Insects can probably go underground, but what if they need to eat? And birds can probably fly above the rain but not for that long.

[Assistant]
Back to their nests. Usually within tight foliage which provides protection from the wind and rain.

On top of that, within a nest you only have one point of entry or only open from the top. The structure of birds wings creates, what's is effectively a tent shelter.

Ever seen a 'survival' type show... where they cut lengths of tree branch etc create an A-Frame and layer foliage across the top. In the same way roof tiles are laid.

The birds will generally have a raised platform and from their own limbs a tiered 'roof' of the feathers on their body. Put together they have a pretty tight rain hut.

Some birds will also huddle or seek refuge in out of the wind places.


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

[User] If I had a shape made up of infinite vertices infinitesimally close together, could I create a perfect circle?

[Assistant] You can't really have a shape made of infinite vertices.  But regular N-gons become more like circles as N gets larger, and the limit of a regular N-gon, as N -> infinity, is a circle.  So in that sense, a regular N-gon with infinite vertices "is" a perfect circle.


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

[User]
Why does water start to "roar" just prior to boiling?

I've noticed that when you boil water in either a kettle or a pot, the water will start to make a low roar just prior to an actual boil, when small bubbles start to nucleate on the bottom surface of the vessel.

Is there a particular reason for this?

[Assistant] The bubbles that form rise into the slightly cooler water above them and quickly condense, collapsing with a 'click'. This happens many times a second with many collapsing water vapour bubbles, producing the roaring noise.