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

[User] ELI5: Why do governments care so much about reducing public debt if they are the sovereign issuer of their currency?

[Assistant]
Im not an economist but basically it has to do with supply and demand.

These two factors are always more or less balanced. If you pump currency into the market its value will drop.

Think of it this way. You have a basket of apples that you want to trade. Each apple is worth one orange. All of the sudden the farm next door starts supplying more apples then they used to. Theyre willing to trade two apples for one orange. You used to be able to get an orange for each apple but now, because theres more supply, you can only get half as many because people can just go trade next door decreasing the demand.

Now imagine that the apples are currency (the oranges can still be oranges). This is called inflation. Its the increase of prices and fall of purchasing power.

If the government decided to print money to pay off their debts they would flood the market with currency and crash its value.

Different governments have different regulatory bodies monitoring their currency and trying to manage debt, inflation, and purchasing power but its not an exact science so everyone is basically just doing the best they can.

TLDR: All in all its a very complicated system but the short answer is: the more money you print the less its worth.


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

[User]
[MCU/Moon Knight] Do the Asgardians have the same afterlife as Earth-based Vikings? If so, who runs it?

So the MCU have been pretty clear so far that the Norse gods are actually just aliens, and they told us that was true for a lot of cultures through the Eternals. But Black Panther has an actual afterlife, and a god Bast (though it's unclear if everyone gets to go there or just a select few). And then Moon Knight comes along and tells us that the Egyptian gods are real and run an afterlife and everything, and Tawaret even tells us that there are multiple afterlives for different faiths. So is Odin in the actual Valhalla now? Did the Valkyries actually have the power to ferry the dead there? Who's actually in charge of the place? Hela certainly wasn't doing anything of the sort.

Are there *actual* Norse gods that we just haven't met yet? And they're just cool with Odin going around calling himself their king?

[Assistant]
> the MCU have been pretty clear so far that the Norse gods are actually just aliens

This is not the case anymore. Early on the MCU went for a more grounded approach and Thor 1 explains them as advanced aliens. This has been retconned by Ragnarok which confirms they're actual gods. Further supported by the MCU's greater acceptance of gods as actual beings - the Wakandan religion is confirmed accurate, the Egyptian pantheon is confirmed to exist.

Thor, Odin, all of them are literal gods now not advanced aliens.

Hela was trapped in Hel. The Norse afterlife almost certainly does exist, bolstered by Taweret in Moon Knight confirming that there are many "planes for untethered unconsciousness" after Marc asks if the Egyptian afterlife is "THE afterlife". Odin and Loki are most likely in Valhalla.


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

[User] [A Game of Thrones]The Iron Islands are described as being rocky. Where the hell are the Iron Born getting the wood to make all those ships!? Do they summon them from the Plane of Elemental Lumber or summon entire ships from the Demi-Plane of Elemental Ships? Where does the wood come from!?

[Assistant]
There are (or at least were before Euron called for a new Iron Fleet) a lot of trees upon the Iron Islands. The Iron Islands are mostly *sea stacks*, rocky formations that form as bits of cliff by the sea are eroded away, creating arches that eventually erode away to leave rocky pillars that the Iron Islanders optimised for their own purposes.

In addition to Iron Island native trees, the Ironborn have a habit of looting mainlanders, merchant ships and natural resources of the mainland. It's stated in Telltale's Game of Thrones that the Ironborn are one of the various factions *very* interested in Forrester Ironwood reserves, obviously to utilise for their own ships.

So basically it's cutting down their own dwindling supply of trees, looting others, and contributing to deforestation of mainland Westeros.


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

[User] Eli5: why does scratching a bug bite feel so good?

[Assistant]
Bug bites suck.
There are various types from things like venom or physical bites that are different, but lets take the mosquito.

Small needle thing sucking blood, but to be more effective it does things like inject saliva while taking out blood. This saliva acts as a local blood thinner.

The body does not like this. So after the bite it swells up and has a mild allergic reaction to it.
Cells rush in and fight the foreign material inside the bite. That itches.

So now you itch. Which also sucks.
But scratching is a new controlled sensation. Mild pain of scratching is a new sensation that is less annoying than itching. The mild pain signal drowns out the itchy signal.

Same way things like local menthol rubs feel cool and can distract against soreness.

Bonus round: scratching too much can also damage the bug bite. This leads to more irritation and more itching.


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

[User]
Which non-superhuman child would be the best at the Hunger Games?

Dick Grayson? Ender Wiggin? Jon Snow? Hit Girl? It can be anyone from any world, but they have to be fully human and below 17.

The Arena is the same as the 74th Hunger Games, wealth is not a factor as only the people of the capital can send gifts. All the contestants would be exceptional children from different worlds like themselves, so they can't just wipe the floor with the competition. Who would be the ideal tribute?

[Assistant]
Kevin McCallister [Home Alone 1+2]

Pros:

- Improvisation. Can fashion effective weaponry and defenses from whatever is close to hand.

- Experience. Has spent his entire life in a hunger games environment. Bigger kids, shaky alliances, parental neglect.

- Audience appeal. An endless stream of one-liners and cultural references will win the hearts and minds of sponsors.

Cons:

- None. District Kevin will destroy all!


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

[User]
ELI5: How can alcohol withdrawal or detox kill you?

Edit: Im not an alcoholic, I just couldnt find concrete answers anywhere.

[Assistant]
Alcohol activates a receptor in the brain to tell it to be sleepy and drunk.

In long term use, the brain doesnt want to be sleepy and drunk all the time, so it does three things to maintain a normal awake/alert state:
1. Gets rid of some of the receptors that alcohol acts on
2. Gets rid of some of the normal brain chemical that says be sleepy/sedate at normal times.
3. Increases the normal brain chemical that says be awake and alert and active

When you stop drinking, you now have fewer receptors for chemicals saying be sleepy and also less chemicals saying be sleepy and also more chemicals saying be alert and active.

The result? Seizures. Lots and lots of seizures. Which are basically just too much brain activity. Which use up the sugar and energy in the brain and produce poisonous waste products in amounts too high for the body to get rid of it.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] What are some hidden gems of the EU/Legends?

I'm just curious, and also for research purposes.

[Assistant] Don't know if it's considered a gem, but Boba Fett had a long and confusing history because multiple writers had different interpretations of the character. Which lead to various different names, backstories, and personalities.


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

[User] ELI5: If birds migrate south for the winter, why do they bother coming back? Why not stay south permanently and live without travelling twice a year?

[Assistant]
To use the example of snow geese, they're able to quickly come back North to a place with little competition for food and few predators so they can safely nest and mate.

Other birds have similar reasons. They can find sources of food or safe places to have chicks without competition or predators.


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

[User]
[General Fantasy][Warhammer] What are siege tactics of goblins and goblinoids against dwarven mines?

Goblins are very evil, but also very stupid. They shouldn't be able to conquer well designed dwarven mine, let alone stronghold.

Especially assuming Warhammer's level of dwarven fantasy tech, with all the firethrowers, pivot guns and tight corridors.

[Assistant]
The problem is that resources underground are finite.  Dwarven civilizations require constant expansion of tunnels in order to survive, powering their forges and coming up with new gems and ore for their craft. They can't stop this for long any more than a modern city could close off all its roads and rails.  No one can effectively patrol or seal off the endless miles of tunnels this creates.

It is the gaps created by natural vents, water drainage, waste disposal, and ventilation that goblins are able to infiltrate.  They are crafty, evil, relentless, and very numerous.  Dwarves are constantly forced to split their focus between living their day-to-day lives and being vigilant against incursions.  It's wearying even for such a hardy race.


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

[User]
Why is schizophrenia still being used when you apply the epistemology behind the word?

>Schizo = Split
Phrenia = Mind
The word schizophrenia translates as splitting of the mind, its use was intended to describe the separation of function between personality, thinking, memory, and perception.

Japan changed this disorder's name to integration disorder
 in 2002, and South Korea changed it to attunement disorder
 in 2012. Does splitting of the mind describe the disorder appropriately enough to be used as the medical term, and how so? How would the aforementioned functions be separated in schizophrenics?

[Assistant]
One reason names for illness change is often due to treatment options changing.

Another is to make it seem less terrifying so people suffering from them are more likely to get help (which is why they did it Korea).


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

[User] ELI5: Why was the Louisiana Puschase so cheap, and why do some consider it to have been 'stolen'?

[Assistant]
It was cheap because Napoleon needed cash for his wars a lot more than he needed a big hunk of real estate in North America. The US desperately wanted to secure free passage in the Mississippi (something that had been a problem, as the Spanish had closed New Orleans to American ships for years). There was a lot of interest in settlement of the Ohio Valley, but without access to the Gulf through the Mississippi, that would severely hinder any growth and commerce.

As for stolen, other than the rather obvious issue of the land being taken from the Native American inhabitants, there was the issue that much of it was Spanish territory for years, and had fallen into French hands shortly before the French sold it to the US. But at that point, Spain was all but a satellite power to France, so the transfer of Louisiana from Spain to France likely wasn't on fair terms to the Spanish.

I remember reading that when people in St. Louis found out the territory was American, they hadn't even heard that it had been French. They thought it was still Spanish.


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

[User] ELI5: What do people mean when they say toxins are released during a massage? What are the toxins? Where so they go? What do they do?

[Assistant] What they mean is that they don't know what they're talking about.  Any "toxins" that are in the body are either processed by the liver or flushed out by the kidneys.  Massage has nothing to do with either process.


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

[User] Why are philosophy undergrads obliged to read primary texts (Plato, Descartes, etc.) whereas math and science undergrads aren't (Euclid, Newton)?

[Assistant]
I think it's a combination of:

1) Philosophical arguments are often long and take a long time to set up. You can clip a quote of Plato out and paste it in a new text, but it's not going to carry the weight of context it has earned. Math can often be distilled into a small bit to convey the information you need it to.

2) Math has inarguably made a lot of progress, and later mathematicians have evolved math in such a way that we no longer need the older texts to make people understand the context. In fact, a YouTube video showing linear algebra concepts will outdo any textbook. Philosophy, instead, has grown but does not make "progress" in the sense math does. There are few philosophers that everyone can agree to discarding. One professor of mine once said "Once we answer the question, it ceases to be philosophy - it becomes another field, like science or math".

3) Math is typically taught as a product-oriented subject. Can you DO the math you were taught how to do? In that sense, it's a tool for teaching people how to perform a process. So long students learn the process, it doesn't matter where they get it from. Philosophy is not seeking to produce anything.


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

[User]
ELI5: A full day is approx 23 hours 56 minutes rather than 24 hours. This is why we have leap years. But why doesnt that gradual daily 4 minute shift not cause our daylight hours to shift?

A 4 minute time shift daily would be a one hour shift in 15 days. So how is it that daylight is basically the same day to day outside of a minute adjustment. I would think that this discrepancy would eventually cause it to be dark at 12 noon and light. Obviously this is not the case, so please enlighten me!

[Assistant]
Firstly this have nothing to do with leap years. What you are citing is not the length of a full day but rather the length of a full rotation of the Earth. You are right that a 4 minute daily time shift would be an hour in 15 days, 2 hours in a month and 24 hours in a year. But by that time the Earth have rotated around the Sun once and you have gained another day. This makes up for the missing 4 minutes a day.

If you were to observe the sky and look at a distant star then it would appear in the same location approximately every 23 hour and 56 minutes. However because the Earth is constantly moving around the Sun it shows up 4 minute late every day compared to all the other stars. And thus you have 24 hours in a day even though the Earth rotates 4 minutes faster.


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

[User]
[General] How do mermaids have sex?

Mermaids and mermen don't have human genitals. So, do they not have sex? Do they just lay eggs or something? In that case, why would they ever fall in love when there is no purpose to that evolutionarily speaking?

[Assistant]
They dont have *visible* genitals. Given that mermaids have breasts, its reasonable to assume theyre mammalian. That means they breed in the same way whales and dolphins do. Hidden dicks into hidden vaginas.

Hell, thats not only how sea mammals do it. Sharks also have hidden dicks.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Where are the anti-Empire Dark Side users?

Surely some of the force capable the Empire wronged would embrace the dark side as a tool against the Empire?

[Assistant]
They are off doing more personally interesting things and having fulfilling lives knowing that they are strong enough to slaughter almost anyone who comes for them.

The Sith and the Jedi have been locked in a millennia long blood feud for as long as any history can remember, and in all that time the actually intelligent and not power mad dark side users have been off living their lives and making fun of the pathetic fools who are so weak willed they need ancient teachings and laws to not give in to their baser urges like the Jedi.

And even more so mocking the bloodthirsty and weak minded Sith who are so pathetic they can't even maintain a simple friendly working relationship with each other without each of them constantly plotting to off the others.


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

[User] What energy does the Curiosity rover run on, and why can't we implement this seemingly endless energy into cars or other objects?

[Assistant]
There is Plutonium-238 onboard the rover which decays slowly over a few years. This decay produces heat which provides electrical power through the use of a thermocouple.

This process is very stable (the energy output is very consistent) but the decay produces a tiny amount of power especially after conversion using the inefficient thermocouple.


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

[User]
Gluon are reponsible for the mass of a proton but the higg boson are the responsible for the mass of a gluon?

I m kinda of lost with the higgs boson, first i was thinking that the higg field was the responsible for the mass of all the particles but apparently its not? Quarks take their mass from this field but proton take only 12 MEV of their mass from quarks so 926 MEV from the gluon?

[Assistant]
Gluons are massless.

Protons and neutrons get a percent or so of their mass from the Higgs effect (which gives a small mass to the up and down quarks), and the rest of their mass from the strong force fields (primarily) that bind those quarks together (and the strong force field is made of gluons).

Finally: the Higgs boson does not give any particles mass. The Higgs effect causes certain particles to get a mass by their interaction with the Higgs field that fills space.  The Higgs boson itself and the Higgs field that fills space are both consequences of the fact that there is a fundamental Higgs field.


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

[User] If someone was standing on an asteroid in the asteroid belt, would you be able to see other asteroids?

[Assistant] The average distance between asteroids in the asteroid belt is about 100,000 km. The radium of larger asteroids is about 1km. Using those numbers an asteroid would be 1 arcsecond big (about 300 times smaller than the moon). If you did see anything it wouldn't be more than a faint twinkle.


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

[User] [Zelda-BOTW] Why does everyone Link meets and interacts with act and talk as if the Great Calamity took place about three weeks ago and not in fact one hundred years?

[Assistant]
Because The Great Calamity didn't happen a hundred years ago; It *started* then, and it's been going on ever since. Talking about the ongoing effects of the calamity is like talking about the weather.

In addition to that, Link tends to inspire confidence in people. People tell him about their fears and what's troubling them. It's just part of who he is.


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

[User]
ELI5:Why do browsers continually use up more memory the longer they are open?

Edit: Thanks For all the helpful info guys.

[Assistant]
Because the more pages you browse, the more data it has to cache.

Try this:

Keep opening new websites on the same tab. Open 15 different sites.

Then keep on clicking the back button.

You'll notice that the last 10 pages (I think) will load up instantly from where you left them. It is because they are still present in RAM, and this is the major contributor of memory usage.

There is a way to reduce the no. of pages to keep in memory per tab in about:config. A google search will give you instructions.


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

[User] ELI5: If i were to use a random number generator, and then go back in time to just before i used it, would i then get the same number, or a different one?

[Assistant] Depends on whether you were using a true random number generator that derives its number from things like atmospheric measurement or a programmatic psuedo-random number generator.  A real random number generator would give you the same value post time travel because it's derived from natural events which, assuming causality holds up through time travel, would be the same. A psuedo-random number generator could give you a different number because the program isn't derived from anything which should be causaly linked. Interestingly, if this experiment were to be done, it would answer whether free will exists or not.


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

[User] ELI5: Can some explain how poop is so effective as fertilizer? I don't understand how the waste can still be rich in nutrients, the digestion system had ONE job which is to absorb the nutrients. Are our bodies that bad at it?

[Assistant]
The body excretes a lot of stuff that it either can't use or that it already absorbed enough of.

You only need so much nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium (main fertilizer components), so your body excretes the rest. Some of the stuff your body excretes would be toxic if it didn't get pushed out.

As far as efficiency goes, your digestion and excretory systems are incredibly efficient. How many other machines go 70, 80, 90 years with minimal maintenance?

Aside from that, excrement is not just food, but dead cells. And the nutrients you ate helped build new cells as the old ones are replaced. And then of course, feces is largely dead bacteria that fed on the food in your gut. And as they fed, they broke down that food, created compounds your body could absorb, and some it could not.


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

[User] [Hitman] does agent 47 enjoy fashion and being sharply dressed, or does he wear his signature elegant clothing simply to blend in as a businessman?

[Assistant]
It's definitely got a deep value to him. 47 began wearing the suits because when he escaped from his creators, one of the first places he saw was a shop for Italian suits. It's the *only* luxury he engages in, the *only* thing he really does for himself, the *only* expression of genuine ego in a man who's whole purpose is to project a false self.

He doesn't want money. He hordes all his ICA bounties and either reinvests them or eventually loses them to disaster. He doesn't care for the thrill of killing. He does what he does because it's the thing he's good at, the purpose he sees for himself in life. He doesn't care for his social connections except *maybe* a slight and atypical one with Diana after decades of work together.

But the suits...the suits are important. They're much more than just an interest in fashion. They're the only element of his self that he lets through to the world.


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

[User] Eli5: what is inside a cpu, and how does it perform thousands of calculations a second?

[Assistant]
Transistors, basically just lots and lots of transistors.
A transistor switches electrical output.

So it can switch from on to off or a 1 to a 0.

These then make up logic gates.
They have multiple in puts and one output.
So if both inputs are 1 the out put 1. You get various types AND, OR, NAND and NOR.

These are put together to give various outputs depending on the input. Like a calculator.
So then you get CPU commands which translates what you want to do say maybe Add 2 numbers, and it then translate this in to 1's and 0's for the cpu to work with.

It really basic on the lowest level but as you add more complexity to it can get real confusing petty quick.

Basically it's magic.


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

[User] Why do the water droplets that make up clouds, bunch together into clouds instead of being evenly distributed in the air?

[Assistant] Cloud droplets form in areas where air is cooling, causing water vapor (humidity) to condense into liquid.  Usually, this happens because the air is rising: air cools as it rises into lower pressure.  So the big puffy white clouds on a summer day are actually plumes of moist air rising up from the ground: the air between them is where dry air from higher up in the atmosphere is descending to the ground.


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

[User]
How we know that how kreb cycle actually happens in the cell?

How do scientists study microscopic biochemical mechanism at cellular level like Na/K Pump, glycolysis, kreb cycle etc. In cycles products keep changing/converting so how do they keep a track of all of them? Considering they are so so minute and so so less in amount in comparison to average lab samples and experimentation.

[Assistant]
One powerful technique is isotopic labeling - a compound that is known to be part of a process is labeled with either a stable isotope or a radioactive one, then the label is tracked through the various transformations. For instance 13C or 14C labeled pyruvate could be fed into the citric acid cycle, producing labeled citrate and subsequent constituents over time. Varying the position of the label can show which parts of molecules are being transferred through the cycle.

In the mid-20th century radioactive labeling was particularly useful because the compounds could be detected through simple techniques like thin layer chromatography, whereas we can observe stable isotope labels in a much more fine grained fashion now using LC-MS/MS.


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

[User]
Leaving PhD after first year

I'm a few weeks into my second semester of a science PhD program and I'm thinking seriously about leaving. Personally, I think I'm just not a good fit for academia. The things most other students are excited for--e.g., going to conferences, doing fieldwork, socializing with colleagues on Fridays, etc--are the things that I don't really want to do, and it's starting to really take a toll on me. The politics of it all is also proving to be an issue, and certain things are increasingly hard for me to swallow.

My plan right now is to wait until the end of the semester and see how things go over the next few months. However, I don't want to waste any more of my program or professors' time or money. I feel horrible and guilty that this program has invested in me and now I may be leaving. I don't even know how I'd start to explain why I'm leaving to them--especially my advisor and the director, both of whom have been supportive, generous and kind to me thus far. Who do I tell first? What's the best way to go about telling them that "it's just not for me"?

EDIT: follow up question put in the comments.

[Assistant]
Academe is inherently political, as would be any workplace that is at least ostensibly a meritocracy with peer managers. Relationships and the balance of power between people are critical to its function and to individual success. This is a *serious* problem for junior faculty who don't understand that, and a significant mentoring issue for those of us charged with guiding them through the tenure process.

If you don't like the politics of grad school you'd *hate* the politics of the faculty, where huge battles occur over things as disparate as the brand of coffee used in the faculty lounge and the search for a grand unified theory.  There's nothing at all wrong with realizing you don't want to work in such an environment and taking your leave of academe-- much better to do it early than later in fact.


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

[User]
How to give a suggestion to a Professor about online teaching

I'm currently an undergrad student in Canada. I'm just wondering how I would politely go about giving a professor a suggestion for online teaching. I was going to suggest an app they could use so they can write on their PDF slides, instead of using two separate apps and flipping back and forth, so it would be much easier for us to follow along when they screen share on their iPad.

EDIT: The app is Notability! It's a paid app (\~$13.55 CAD with tax) but it's been a huge help for this year and it's super easy to use.

Would you find it rude or out of line if a student gave a suggestion like that?

I don't want to come off as selfish, entitled, rude, etc. as I really do appreciate them making the best of this situation. Thanks!

[Assistant] I'd want to know! Just send an email, be courteous, compliment the class if you can and acknowledge the work that goes into online teaching. Then just mention "Have you heard of this app? It sounds like it could make it easier for you to do this". There might be a reason they aren't doing it, but maybe they don't know of it!


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

[User]
[LotR] Would the Dwarves eventually have found the Erebor keyhole, even if they missed the "Last Light of Durin's Day?"

Imagine that Thorin's company arrived one day too late.

Was the keyhole magically hidden, so that the dwarves would have to wait a year, until the next Durin's Day, to find it?

Or, was the keyhole simply arranged so that the geometry of the moon would point to a keyhole that was very well hidden by non-magical means?

[Assistant]
They would have had to wait a year. It wasn't simply a well-hidden keyhole; the Dwarven craft that made their doors appear invisible when shut was something that a Hobbit would have called magic (a meaningless term, since they apply it equally to Dwarven craft, Elven skill, and the deceits of Sauron).

It is possible that a skilled enough Dwarven craftsman could have found the keyhole, but the knowledge behind the craft was lost to Thorin's company.


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

[User] [MCU Wakanda] How long has Wakanda been as advanced as shown in Phase 3?

[Assistant] They have been far ahead of the rest of the world for centuries, but THAT advanced? Probably not actually that long. Many of their most impressive technologies were invented by Shuri and shes not that old, so... a few years at most?


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

[User]
[General Spaceships] WTB: new spaceship, BEST shields possible!

My transdimensional spaceship salesman is helping me pick out a new ship, and my primary concern is defense/shields. Please sell me your shields by giving me a brief rundown how they work in your universe, and pros and cons (and any other details of note, like do I need a member of your race to operate, or cannot function while cloaked, etc etc.).

[Assistant]
Imperial Mining Vessel, very well shielded. Spacious owner's quarters. Very expensive, requires a few thousand to crew (species not important, though made for humans).

Small thermal exhaust port weakness. Unlikely to ever be an issue.


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

[User]
Why is "turn it off, turn it back on" the quick fix for just about everything electronic?

I've just wondered what's the reason behind doing this, and why it seems to work for everything.

[Assistant]
Let's say you were playing a chess game, and suddenly noticed that somehow, a few moves ago, both of your bishops ended up on the same color. Now, neither you nor your opponent remember the moves that ended up with that position, so you can't "undo" them. However, you can't just keep playing, because the board is in an invalid position.

So you guys get stuck trying to figure out what to do until one of you suggests just starting a new game. Taking all the pieces off the board and setting them up again in the starting position *would* fix the problem of your bishop being in the wrong spot, but you also lose the game in progress right now.

That's - more or less - how rebooting your computer to fix a bug goes: it gets you out of the invalid position, but at the cost of everything else going on.


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

[User] [Halo] How fast do the Forerunners slipspace drives go?

[Assistant]
Asking 'how fast' is probably the wrong question. The Forerunners had (and still have, if we consider Engineers as Forerunner leftovers) an extraordinarily intimate understanding of slipspace, allowing not only travel but also the use of slipspace bubbles for stasis, permanent portals, and 'it's bigger on the inside' pockets inside shield worlds.

Speed is likely a foreign concept to pure Forerunner slipspace travel- it would be more accurate to say that their slipspace ruptures were closer to doors, where they simply piloted  through and emerged on the other side, described as near instantaneous. Remember the portal to the Ark in New Mombassa? There was no travel time for the ships to move from Earth to somewhere in extragalactic space.


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

[User]
Is the skin under your foot naturally tougher than that of your body? Or is it toughened by walking?

I did Google this, but couldn't find a relevant search result.

Basically, are you born with feet that have naturally tougher skin, or does that tough skin (The soles) come from conditioning your foot through walking?

If I were to have never walked since birth, would the soles of my feet still have a tougher, thicker skin than the rest of my body?

[Assistant] Both! The palms of your hands and soles of your feet have an extra skin layer (stratum lucidum) that isn't found anywhere else on your body. However, the skin will also thicken in response to stress (walking barefoot, excessive rubbing) to protect itself.


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

[User] ELI5:What does it mean to liquidate someones asset?

[Assistant] To sell it. Basically all liquidating means is turning into cash. It gets the name because cash is very fluid in how you can use it so thus you are taking someones hard assets like a house and "liquidating" them into a much more fluid asset...Cash.


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

[User]
[Warhammer 40K] What happens with my soul after I die?

I'm honest, God Emperor-loving citizen living on small agriworld and I've spend all my life growing crops. I've never saw any of that "Chaos" things you are constantly talking about. Am I going to serve Emperor in His heavenly realm after death?

[Assistant] According to the Imperial cult if you are a loyal Imperial subject you join with the Emperor in the warp who protects your soul from the Chaos Deamons and neverborn things that dwell there. If you're not loyal or are a xenos or heretic your soul will be devoured, which might happen anyway if the Imperial cult are wrong. So A) heaven with Space Jesus or B) eaten then properly dead.


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

[User]
ELI5: What the numbers on my camera lens mean ?

I'm very amateur photographer . I'm use differents lens : standard , wide angle , zoom lens , macro ? But ...**what the number on my lens mean ?**

By way of illustration :

-Canon EF **100-400mm** f4.5-5.6L IS USM
-Canon Fixed Focal Length EF **24mm** f/1.4L II USM
-Canon EF **300mm** f/4.0L IS USM

**Edit :** I'm very happy for all the answer , is dinner time here in Ireland . After my dinner I going to spend time reading **every post** here in ELI5 . Thanks a lot and if you **want to see** some of my picture //goo.gl/oOO8Ay
 [ I'm 100 % amateur ]

[Assistant]
The numbers in mm refer to a focal-length in millimeters. This is a measure of how far from the lens (in mm) the light converges to a focused point (on the sensor, for a properly focused image). For a telephoto lens, the number is high (and the lens body longer), and for a wide-angle lens the number is low (and the lens body shorter).

The f-number refers to the minimum aperture. It is the ratio of the focal length to diameter of the aperture (wide-open) of the lens. The lower the number, the more light gets in to the sensor. Low numbers are good because they mean that you have a wider range of possible exposure and you can work in lower-light conditions. Zoom lenses have a range of f-numbers because you physically change the distance of the lens from the sensor while zooming (so the ratio changes).


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

[User]
Submitting same project to several funding agencies

When you write a grant application, you are asked whether this project is/will be submitted to any other funding agency. If you are willing to submit to a couple of funding agencies in parallel - how does this influence the decision to fund the project or not? Does anyone have such experience?

[Assistant] The main reason this question is asked is so that if both agencies love it and want to fund your work, you need to work with the program officers to cut the budget so they are not funding identical work twice (double dipping).


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

[User] [DBZ]Why did Dr. Gero design Cell to look so insect-like rather than just a regular humanoid form?

[Assistant] I think it had less to do with him designing his shape, to cell making that shape based on what the majority of his dna was like. Hence the reason the more humanoid creatures he ingested, the more human he became.


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

[User] [DC] How would you ground Clark Kent?

[Assistant]
Be one of his parents.

No, for real, Clark has always been a stickler, Boy Scout type, and even though he easily could rebel, he still has too much respect for Johnathan and Martha to disobey or question their authority.


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

[User]
I believe that if you know exactly what you want to study in college, then gen. eds should not be a requirement. CMV

This is a bit of a rant since I am just very up set with having to take gen. eds that have no relation to my major at all, but here it goes. There's also a TL;DR at the bottom for those who'd prefer it.

Ever since high school I knew I wanted to study Audio Engineering, more specifically, live sound. I got into the perfect school for this and it has excellent live sound classes that I love taking. I was actually upset when my first live sound class was over for the day, because I was enjoying it so much. However, I feel like I'm loosing potential knowledge and experience by having to take gen. ed courses. I'm a Junior in college and I'm still having to fulfill gen. ed requirements because there are so many. Thankfully after this semester I will be done.

I've had to take Math, Physics, Religion, Philosophy, English, Government, Political Science, History, Phys. Ed, & Psychology. I feel that all of these classes were simply a waste of time to me. I could've been taking classes that were related to my major instead, thus better preparing me for my career.

I know it's a good thing to be well rounded and what not, but College is the time when you figure out what you enjoy doing and you study that in order to be better prepared in finding a job in your career path. I took almost all of those courses in high school already. Why do I need to repeat them? Why do I need to know pre-calculus, calculating the friction of a box or about Plato's beliefs? They have no relation to my major. (And no, my physics course hasn't even covered anything remotely close to audio engineering, i.e. sine waves. It's all kinematics and forces)

I'm terrible at these things, but I'm good with live sound and audio stuff. Why should I be forced to waste my parents and my money (I help pay for college too) on courses that will not better prepare me for a job in the audio engineering field? A potential employer would not look at my college transcript and say "Even though you got straight A's in all of your Audio Engineering classes, you didn't do well in Religion, so I'm sorry but you don't have this Live Sound job."

Lastly, I understand that gen. eds are put in place to allow students to possibly find what they want to do as far as a career, and I think that's great for students who are unsure of what they want to do after college. However, I feel that it's unfair to those of us who have already found our passion and just want to take as many classes about our major as we can to better prepare ourselves.

TL;DR Bullet point version:

* Loosing potential knowledge, because one isn't able to take as many classes related to their major.

* A waste of money because gen. eds do not relate to one's major or provide help in it.

* College is about finding what you want to do and focusing on that career. It shouldn't be a repeat of high school.

* I shouldn't focus my time and energy on making my weaknesses go from "suck" to "not as bad", when I could just make my strengths go from "great" to "Best".

* Gen. eds are in place to assist those who are unsure of what they want to do, but they hurt those who have already found their passion and just want to learn as much as they can about it.

EDIT: Thank you all for the wonderful new perspectives. While I still don't like gen. eds. my view on their purpose has been changed mostly. I guess I'm just wishing I could take more audio classes, because I always have fun in them compared to gen. eds.

For those who've been harping me about not knowing what a Liberal Arts degree entitles; I had honestly never been told what the different degrees were or what they meant. No one in high school talked about them, no one at college visits talked about them, my parents never talked about them, I'd never really heard the term before. How could I have asked what I didn't know?

[Assistant]
1.  Employers who are hiring audio engineers are going to be primarily concerned with your grades in relevant courses - your grades in gen ed courses will not be as much of a factor.  So don't worry so much about that.

2.  Gen ed courses can indicate your strengths or weaknesses regarding various important skills or abilities.  Science and math courses may be used by employers as indicators of your intellect.  English, History, and Philosophy courses may indicate your proficiency with basic level writing - an important skill for any working adult.  Comparative Religion, Government, and Political Science can indicate that you are capable of understanding how adult society works, and that you are capable of thinking about things from other people's perspectives - which is an important skill when trying to resolve conflicts with coworkers, subordinates, clients, etc.

3. You have wanted to be an audio engineer since high school, but many people think that they "know" that they want to be, and end up changing careers.  Many people change jobs and/or entire careers.  Having an exposure to a broad array of classes gives college students a broader perspective on career paths - including career paths that may have been previously unknown to the students.  In other words, without mandatory exposure, some people would never discuss a career path that would be very good for them.


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

[User]
What qualities of quantum fields account for their differences?

My understanding of quantum field theory is that all particles are now seen to be disturbances in a field - the electron field, the electromagnetic field (photon), the gluon field, and so on. To me this sounds like saying that everything is made of one *kind* of stuff: a field. But the way these fields behave seem very different: one is influenced by massive bodies, one is influenced by charged particles, disturbances in one produces one kind of particle, another produces a very different kind of particle. But isn't a "field" just a number assigned to every point in space? What qualities do fields have that produce such different behaviors? How can a field be said to be different than another field, other than its strength at a given point in space?

[Assistant]
Each field has different properties than the others. For example, different spins. The photon field is a vector field, the Higgs field is a scalar field, the electron field is a spinor field, the graviton field is a tensor field, etc.

So at the very least, particles with different spins/parities cannot be said to come from a single field.

Then each kind of particle has its own mass, and its own couplings to the various other fields. It wouldn't really make sense to say that these are all the same field, at least not without altering the formalism in some way.


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

[User]
[Superman/DC Comics] Superman with Prep Time?

Last I checked, Superman had the Fortress of Solitude, which supposedly contained the knowledge of several alien worlds. He also has superspeed, and super intelligence (possibly because of his brain working faster due to super speed?). So why don't we see Superman using prep time? He can effectively use it, and there are enemies powerful enough to use it on? (Ex. Brainiac, Darkseid, etc.)

[Assistant]
He *does*, when he needs to. He's used his Kryptonion tech, knowledge and even weapons efficently when he needs to- most notably, tricking enemies into the phantom zone on several occasions

It's just that, well, he's Superman. He can already shatter planets, stand in stars and outrace light. Generally, he doesn't need plans or prep time or complex solutions. The number of problems he can't solve with his literal bare hands is pretty low.

He can create complex plans but generally, if somethings a real problem, he can just pick it up and put in the sun. The simple solution is usually the best, and superman can generally solve most problems with the simple solution of "is superman"


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

[User]
Is there any evolutionary benefits other than sexual selection in having blue or green eyes instead of brown?

And other than Caucasian is there any examples known other than those of mixed race with Caucasian that have had the mutation that causes blue or green eyes?

[Assistant]
Like skin tone, lighter eye color is simply a reflection of lower pigmentation (less melanin). As with many genes, if those genes that influence eye color can mutate to less active forms without dicouraging the survival of a given organism, they may continue to mutate to less and less active forms. This means that if higher pigmentation isn't all that advantageous to some animal, lower pigmentation may result.

There may be a selective factor at work, however: lighter skin tone was favored for north-dwelling human ancestors because it generates more vitamin D (which, closer to the equator, would have been supplied by the abundant sunlight). Because some of the genes that govern skin and eye pigmentation overlap, lighter eye color may have been coincident with lighter skin color.


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

[User]
ELI5: what the difference between octane 98/95/91?
how does it effect the car/mileage/engine?

[Assistant]
In a gasoline engine, the gasoline is meant to be set on fire by spark plugs at a specific time. But because the inside of the engine is very hot, and the gasoline is under pressure, sometimes the gasoline will catch fire before it is supposed to. This is called knocking, and it is bad for the engine. It is also bad for performance and mileage.

The octane rating of a blend of gasoline tells you how much it resists knocking. The octane rating you need depends on your engine, and as long as you are using gasoline with the right octane rating, you won't get better performance from a higher rating. If you have a car that was not made to go very fast, then you probably can use the cheapest gas. If in doubt, read your car's manual.


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

[User]
Publishing in journals or conferences

I'm just starting my PhD and haven't published yet. I know that papers could be published in either journals or conferences so I wanted to know what are the main differences:

* Generally speaking is it easier to publish in a journal or a conference?
* Does the publishing process in one take more time than the other?
* Is one of them seen by the academic community as more important than the other?
* What are the unique characteristics (challenges or benefits) of each?
* Which one do you prefer ?

PS: In case the answer to any of these questions depends on the field I'm working in, I'm working in computer science (AI/ML).

[Assistant]
This varies very strongly by field. In some engineering disciplines conference contributions are a major, and prestigious, vector of publication of new results, with peer review and indexed proceedings volumes. In other fields conference talks are just that, and as a rule a byproduct of you regular research and publication activity. This is with a lot of variation, depending on you particular disciplinary niche.

Across the humanities and elsewhere this may again look differently.

So yeah, CS people should chime in.


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

[User] ELI5:ELI5:What is the difference between the "IRA" the "Real IRA", the "Provisional IRA" and the "Continuity IRA".

[Assistant]
The Irish Republican Army fought against the British during the Irish War of Independence. The war concluded with a treaty in 1921 that established the Irish Free State, but left Northern Ireland under British rule. Members of the IRA that were against the treaty fought civil war against the Free State, which they lost in 1922, and continued to fight a guerrilla war against Northern Ireland thereafter, keeping the "IRA" name. They viewed themselves as the legitimate organizational successor of the group that had fought for Irish independence originally.

In 1969, the movement split based on ideology. The "Provisional IRA" retained the traditional Catholic/nationalist perspective of Irish independence, while the "Official IRA" were Marxist.  The "Continuity IRA" split off from the Provisional IRA over a dispute about political participation: the Provisional IRA had long supported the concept of absenteeism, which is that Irish nationalists should be elected to the Republic of Ireland's parliament but refuse to participate, as a means of undermining it. In the late '80s, the Provisional IRA wanted to end its support of abstentionism (as part of a path to a less military approach), but the Continuity IRA continued to support it.

The Provisional IRA called a ceasefire in the mid-'90s, which permitted the negotiations that led to the Good Friday Agreement that ultimately saw the end of most attacks in Ireland and a destruction of weapons, as well as the release of IRA prisoners and formal British recognition that the Irish people should have self-determination. But the "Real IRA" split off from the Provisionals opposed the ceasefire and agreement, and continues to advocate for guerrilla war as the path to united Irish independence.

When people say "*the* IRA" in reference to the Troubles, they usually mean the Provisional IRA.


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

[User]
Would a decrease in the supply of all goods basically create inflation in the economy?

Im not an economist but if supply decreases and demand stays constant the price should go up right? If that wouldnt happen, what would be the effect of a scenario like this?

[Assistant] It would absolutely create inflation. You don't even need a decrease in the supply of all goods, you just need a decrease in the supply of one major good. The most serious case of inflation in recent times was in 1973 when OPEC cut oil production in response to Western support for Israel during the Yom Kippur War.


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

[User]
CMV: Promises made in a relationship are instantly void when that relationship is broken up.

Long story short: My boyfriend and I promised each other that we would not talk to our exes. About 5 months ago we broke up for one day. I proceeded to catch up with an ex (two texts, superficial small talk). We got back together and I never brought it up, being somewhat ashamed and the fact that he previously told me he doesn't like me talking about my exes and me.

Today, 5 monthsish later, he asked me if I had reached out to an ex during that time. I said yes. He is very upset with me (which I understand) and said I lied to him by not telling him (which I hesitantly agreed with). He insists I apologize for "breaking my promise" though. I see it: When you break up with someone you don't have a set time frame where being loyal is a necessity. Everyone for themselves.

I want to make up with him but he says he sees me in a different light now and that I broke my promise. Please try to make me understand that so I can honestly apologize to him for that, I don't want to lie to him.

[Assistant]
Not trying to be insulting, but probably unsuccessfully, none of this sounds like a healthy, mature relationship?

Promising not to talk to each others ex's, breaking up for a single day then getting back together, loyalty tests or timeframes or whatever.

I think the problem isn't that you all have differing opinions on the statute of limitations on promises, but is actually that you think such promises are meaningful or nessecary to make in the first place.


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

[User]
Why didn't the human ribcage evolve to to completely surround our torso?

Our backside seems well protected, but our stomach and other organs don't have that protection. What gives?

[Assistant] Evolution doesn't perfect living beings, it just optimizes them for reproduction. Basically, if a better ribcage doesn't result in more babies, it doesn't get passed on. An unprotected backside results in fewer babies, so those with protected backside pass on those genes.


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

[User] ELI5:Why can't fish that live in salt water survive in freshwater?

[Assistant]
Osmosis is a process in cell membranes under which water goes from areas of low solute concentration to high solute concentration.

Organisms generally can't live with lots of salt inside them, so saltwater fish have low levels of salt inside themselves, but are surrounded by water that has high concentrations of salt. So they are constantly losing water through osmosis. As a result, they are built to constantly "drink in" more water (and have their kidneys filter out the salt).

Freshwater fish generally have a higher level of salt inside their bodies than in the surrounding water. They are constantly taking in water through osmosis. They are therefore built to constantly "pee" out excess water.

Since most saltwater fish are built to deal with osmosis in a way that is *opposite* from the adaptation they need, they cannot survive in fresh water. They do not have the same adaptions to rapidly get rid of water from their bodies, since they are used to water naturally leaving their bodies through osmosis.


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

[User] After the big bang, the universe underwent hyperinflation. Currently, our universe is expanding at an increasing rate. Can someone explain how the expansion of the universe was fastest immediately after the big bang, slowed down (?), and is now increasing at an increasing rate?

[Assistant]
There are different mechanisms at play.

Inflation in the super early universe arises when the universe is in an initial state with the fields having some value, but the vacuum can reduce its energy by a field shifting to a different value.  The process is somewhat like happens when a ball rolls down an inclined plane to get to a stable minimum.  This produces the exponential expansion of inflation.

After that, we have a competition between two mechanisms.  The universe is expanding outward, but the gravitational attraction among things tends to slow that expansion down.  However, there is an additional effect -- consistent with what's called a cosmological constant term, and generally just called dark energy -- that causes a negative pressure term, which promotes the expansion of the universe.  As the universe expands, the matter is denser at the beginning and then gets more spread out, so the relative size of the attractive term compared to the cosmological constant/dark energy term decreases over time.  As a result, there was a period when the gravitational attraction dominated and slowed down the expansion, followed by the epoch we are now in, in which the cosmological constant/dark energy term dominates.


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

[User] [Ghostbusters] I'm a librarian who recently died on the job and became a ghost. I just want to keep to myself and read books to pass the afterlife but I've heard the Library has hired the Ghostbusters to get rid of me. Is there any way I can negotiate with them to leave me alone?

[Assistant] If you were female librarian in your more corporeal state, I'd recommend waiting until Dr. Ray Stantz is alone in the library. There is evidence that female ghosts have been successful in "negotiating" with him.


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

[User] ELI5: Why are Brass Knuckles and Blackjacks illegal, but not other weapons? I know they are concealed weapons, but then there's knives and guns.

[Assistant]
Because of their unique history as weapons associated with organized crime. There are not illegal in every state, but are almost always in states with particularly brutal Mob histories.

Note, sawed-off shotguns are banned for the same reason.


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

[User]
ELI5: how do boomerangs work?

Why does it return? What about it, physically, makes that happen?
Can you change the curve to alter the trajectory and still have it return?

[Assistant]
What you're referring to are "returning boomerangs" - in fact the first boomerangs used for hunting by Aborigines were non-returning boomerangs. Anyways, in relation to returning boomerangs:

1) As the boomerang spins through the air, the wing at the top of the spin is moving through the air at a faster rate than the wing at the bottom, because it is moving in the direction of the throw while the wing at the bottom is going the other way. The result is that the top portion will generate more lift than the bottom portion as it cuts through the air.

2) The difference in lift between the top and the bottom then creates a torque which ends up tilting the plane of rotation slightly such that the boomerang ends up flying in a curved path through the air. Since the torque applied here is going to be reasonably constant through the short flight of the boomerang and the angular momentum likewise stays relatively constant, the boomerang will fly in something of a cone pattern; thus, if thrown correctly and wind or the like doesnt interfere too much, the boomerang will come right back to you.


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

[User]
What prevents clouds from freezing solid falling as a solid chunk of ice?

Is there something that prevents the water molecules in clouds from bonding?

[Assistant]
A cloud is made up of liquid water droplets. A cloud forms when air is heated by the sun. As it rises, it slowly cools it reaches the saturation point and water condenses, forming a cloud. As long as the cloud and the air that its made of is warmer than the outside air around it, it floats! No there is nothing that prevents the water molecules from bonding, they bond with particulate and chemicals in the air constantly. The vast majority of clouds you see contain droplets and/or crystals that are too small to have any appreciable fall velocity, even when "bonded". So the particles continue to float with the surrounding air.

Upward vertical motions, or updrafts, in the atmosphere also contribute to the floating appearance of clouds by offsetting the small fall velocities of their constituent particles. Clouds generally form, survive and grow in air that is moving upward. Rising air expands as the pressure on it decreases, and that expansion into thinner, high-altitude air causes cooling. Enough cooling eventually makes water vapor condense, which contributes to the survival and growth of the clouds. Stratiform clouds (those producing steady rain) typically form in an environment with widespread but weak upward motion (say, a few cm/s); convective clouds (those causing showers and thunderstorms) are associated with updrafts that exceed a few meters per second. In both cases, though, the atmospheric ascent is sufficient to negate the small fall velocities of cloud particles.

Another way to illustrate the relative lightness of clouds is to compare the total mass of a cloud to the mass of the air in which it resides. Consider a hypothetical but typical small cloud at an altitude of 10,000 feet, comprising one cubic kilometer and having a liquid water content of 1.0 gram per cubic meter. The total mass of the cloud particles is about 1 million kilograms, which is roughly equivalent to the weight of 500 automobiles. But the total mass of the air in that same cubic kilometer is about 1 billion kilograms--1,000 times heavier than the liquid!

So, even though typical clouds do contain a lot of water, this water is spread out for miles in the form of tiny water droplets or crystals, which are so small that the effect of gravity on them is negligible. Thus, from our vantage on the ground, clouds seem to float in the sky.


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

[User]
Why doesn't ozone form as a 'triangle'?

O3 forms a bent shape, with two single bonds, each of which are double bonds half the time. Wouldn't each of them being connected in a triangle of single bonds be far more stable?

[Assistant]
You would think right? But the problem comes in when you concider bond angles. To form a triangle the bonds would need to have an angle of 60 but according to VSEPR theory the bond angle on an atom with two bonding and two lone perfers to be at 104.5 (Edit: Note VSEPR is fairly simplistic but its in the right ballpark).  This creates a situation known as ring strain.

Ring strain creates instability, and the amount of ring strain in cyclic ozone makes it very unlikely to form and remain stable.


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

[User] what is happening to my vision/brain when looking at this gif?!?

[Assistant]
This is called the flashed face distortion effect.

When you look at one of both faces directly, you can't really see any features of the other face because your brain prioritises on faces that are in focus. When you look at the cross in between the faces, you can see both of them but only a bit so your brain puts an emphasis on the most prominent features of each face.

The faces in the gif are different from eachother, and the most prominent feature of each face is enhanced in your brain. Square jaws become larger, small eyes become smaller, big eyes become larger, you name it. Your brain is subconciously comparing the faces to eachother and highlights the differences.


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

[User] [LOTR] What if instead of destroying the Ring, the Fellowship just dropped it in the middle of the ocean? Would Sauron have been able to retrieve it? If so would that have bought the armies of men, etc. time to find a military solution to Sauron's armies?

[Assistant] They discussed about it in the council of Elrond (not in the movie but in the actual story). Even without the Ring Sauron would have won with his military might. And depths of oceans have creatures too and what is sea will not always be sea.


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

[User]
Why does ontogeny recapitulate phylogeny?

More specifically, what is it about the nature of development, genetics, and evolution that produces this? Is there any sort of consensus on the proximal and distal causes of this?

Briefly (and broadly!), the idea is that as an embryo develops, it seems to run through its evolutionary history.

[Assistant] So actually this is a very old concept that was useful but has been abandoned. It may still be taught some places as a teaching tool, but in the details it simply does not hold up. Evolution does not operate by simply adding stages to the end of a life cycle. Changes can occur at any stage but this may or may not affect subsequent life stages.


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

[User]
[MCU] Could Bucky have killed Peter Parker's parents?

As we all know from civil war bucky killed howard and his wife for hydra. Now in the comics peter's parents are agents of shield that do get killed but not by bucky. Ok peter is 15 being born in 2000-2001, winter shoulder takes place two years after battle of new york in which peter would be a child, now could it be possible peters parents worked some what for shield and before the battle of new york hydra ordered bucky to kill them. Maybe they were working on radioactive spiders and things got a little too deep. But could bucky have killed peters parents as well.

[Assistant]
Peter's parents have not had their professions identified; and while the MCU takes a lot of inspiration from the Ultimate Universe (where what you mentioned about Peter's parents being Shield agents is true, unlike the 616 version wherein they were CIA) we can't say anything beyond a solid "maybe" for this answer.

And while we know that HYDRA was using the Winter Soldier for missions over the course of the decades between 1945 and 2014, we only know one mission in particular, the assassinations of the Starks.


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

[User] Why do electrons form pairs if they repel each other?

[Assistant] It is due to the fact that even though electrons have negative charge they are bound to the nucleus by the attraction force from the nucleus and thus they have to somehow be around the nucleus and at the same time be in the lowest possible energy situation. This is done by pairing of the electrons which have opposite spins. The spin can either be +1/2 or -1/2 and so when 2 electrons form pairs they are as such they are of opposite spins to maintain the overall energy of the system (nucleus+ electrons/ electron cloud) to the minimum and be stable.


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

[User] ELI5: How do fish control where they are in the water? Why dont they just float or sink?

[Assistant] Fish have a special organ called a "swim bladder" which regulates their buoyancy such that they tend to be about neutral, neither floating or sinking. Various sicknesses can cause problems with this balance which is why dying fish will tend to float up to the top of the tank when still alive.


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

[User] are sound waves affected by gravity?

[Assistant]
Yes.

Sound waves need a medium to travel through (air or water as an example) and the density of those materials will be affected by gravity.

The density of a medium absolutely affects how sound travels in that medium.


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

[User]
When an astronaut in space talks to Houston, what is the technology that makes the call?

I'm sure the technology changed over the years, so I'll ask this in a two parter with the technology of the Apollo missions and the technology of today. Radio towers only have a certain distance on Earth they can broadcast, and if the space shuttle is currently in orbit on the exact opposite side of the Earth as the antenna, the communications would have cut out. So back when the space program was just starting, what was the technology they used to talk to people in space. Was it a series of broadcasting antennas around the globe? Something that has a strong enough broadcast range to pass through planetary bodies? Some kind of aimed technology like a satellite dish that could track the ship in orbit? What was the communication infrastructure they had to build and how has it changed to today?

[Assistant]
Others have talked about the old way of doing this.

The current way of doing it is with a series of satellites known as tracking data and relay satellites (TDRS, pronounced Teed rus).

They can basically forward the data around to a satellite that is near one of the NASA dishes.

They are also useful in that they can talk to a capsule - or shuttle - in reentry because radio signals going up aren't blocked by the reentry plasmas.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do video games have leftover or unused content in the data? Is there a purpose in leaving it in?

[Assistant]
Towards the end of a development cycle, caution is the name of the game.

Video games are really complex (and often somewhat haphazardly put together), so *any* change risks breaking something. If you're two weeks away from launch, the last thing you want to do is break stuff, so you play it safe, you don't make *any* change unless you are absolutely certain that it is (1) safe, and (2) necessary. So assets that turned out to be unused? Eh, leave them in, they do no harm that way.

This is also why games sometimes ship with entire levels removed, or with very obvious bugs left in. You're near the launch date, and yes, you know this is a bug, and yes, you're 90% sure fixing it is safe and will break nothing else. But... what if it does? You don't have time to re-test everything else, so you have to ask whether leaving in a known bug is better than fixing it and risking breaking something much more important *that you won't even have time to discover before release*. Or you found a single tricky bug in this map and you just don't have time to fix it so.... just disable that map entirely.


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

[User] Is Mathematics invented or discovered?

[Assistant]
Math and nature stand apart.  There are obvious connections as we use math to describe nature, but the catch is that all mathematics is based on a foundation of assumptions called axioms.  What you cannot say for certain is that any set of axioms absolutely applies to nature.  You can trivially come up with a set of axioms that does not correspond to nature and still do real mathematics work.

There are huge swaths of math that do not apply to nature or natural phenomenons in any way (but may or may not in the future as physics evolves).

The invented/discovered question is largely just semantics, and deciding which it is is not a particularly important distinction.  Given a set of axioms, every possible theorem is already true or not regardless if anybody has bothered to write down the proof, but the path to finding a proof isn't anywhere as obvious as sailing to a new island or spotting a brand new bird.


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

[User]
[Warhammer 40k] What's the smallest 20th century weapon that could kill a Space Marine?

Greetings;

I am posting this query to the public communications forum in hope of an answer.

I am a Techpriest serving with a Space Marine chapter, The Immortal Hearts, en route to suppress an orc Waugh in a neighbouring sector, but this is irrelevant information.

There is an irregular occurance whenever we enter the Immaterium; a fluctuation occurs in the Gellar Field and a random Space Marine vanishes into a void. Gathered data was input to a Logic Engine and it is estimated that the marines are sent to the year 2000, give or take a decade.

They are sent back without any weapons, armor, equipment or any other such gear. It is my duty to educate my companions on the dangers of such an era. I can only assume that since history does not mention any space marines coming from the future and revolutionizing society that they were quickly dispatched and made relatively little impact on history.

What should I teach them to look out for? Are their current ranged weapons a threat? Would handheld explosives like dynamite or grenades injure an unarmored Space Marine? What caliber weapons would be sufficient to harm them?

I assume their nuclear devices would suffice, as would multi ton bombs, but the more comprehensive a list I can compile the better.

-Techpriest Maldorum

~Sent from terminal Delta Primarus on the Emperor's Fury at 1436 hours

EDIT: A follow up question. Battle brothers have recently been vanishing along with their weapons and armor. How will they fare? What can they withstand, and what will they fall to? I have advised all Marines to keep a heavy load of munition and a melee weapon on them at all times, to aid them in case they vanish. How much will this change?

[Assistant]
Without the blessed plate of the Mark VIII Powered Armor the brothers of the Adeptus Astartes would find themselves susceptible to damage from nearly all 20th century ballistic weapons.

To further refine your query, while even a hand held pistol of large caliber (such as of the archaic .45 caliber utilized on some of the less advanced agri-worlds) could theoretically end the life of a Marine, and some Marines in full plate do sometimes fall to relatively primitive weapons, the usage of such a weapon would require far too many rounds to be effective.  Especially when one considers the speed, strength, and tactical prowess of the average Battle-Brother.

That said, a high volume of fire from 1 to 3 Assault Rifles (comparable to a standard stubber used by Hiver gangs on some of the insufficiently pacified hive worlds) would be sufficient with flanking maneuvers.  Or a single .50 caliber sniper round delivered to the skull, a tech that is still in use today.


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

[User]
[star wars EU] Help me understand what happened on endor

So the imperial garrison there was defeated by a tribe of locals and some rebel commando's. The garrison had the empires special forces, stormtroopers as well as armored units like AT-STs and AT-ATs. How did the rebels over come all this?

How did they even take out the AT-AT?

[Assistant]
Luke said it best: "Your overconfidence is your weakness."

The Empire, having ruled the galaxy for decades with little to no real opposition, save the tiny Rebellion, assumed that all of their machines and power could hold any planet and repel any assault.

On the other hand, Endor is the home of the Ewoks. They may look adorable to the average human eye, but their entire culture is one of savage warfare. Just look at their initial treatment of the rebels when they were captured. It took 3PO posing as a god to set them free, and the god got them riled up into a literal *war frenzy* by telling violent war stories about how bad the empire is. And when the battle was over, what instruments did the Ewoks use to celebrate? The severed heads of their enemies. Ewoks ain't nothing to fuck with.

They're highly intelligent, have surprisingly dense muscle mass, and are more bloodthirsty than even a raging Wookie. And when facing the Empire, they had the advantage in knowing the terrain, the local hazards, and how to conduct guerilla warfare on their own terms.

The Empire expected a clone wars-style showdown of technology, with blaster bolts flying, explosives detonating, and fighters roaring overhead. Instead, the very ground beneath their feet sprung up to murder them. The trees crumbled on top of their walking machines, crushing them, and their soldiers were repeatedly stabbed in the vulnerable sections between their armored plates. Then they were beheaded, literally and figuratively.

Weapons and armor built to deflect energy bolts did nothing to stop the pure kinetic force of Endor and its inhabitants.


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

[User] ELI5: How do people develop tolerances to things like pain and extreme cold? What's happening at the biological level for it?

[Assistant]
The body, and more specifically the brain, is highly adaptable and quickly tries to ignore what it sees as irrelevant information. When you first sit down in a chair, you may feel aware of your butt on the seat but after a few minutes of sitting there, you stop being constantly aware of that sensation. Another example is drug tolerance. If you use heroin all the time, your body and brain adjust themselves and your neuro receptors to this new state of 'normal'. When you take away the heroin, your reconfigured physiology is not adjusted anymore and you get withdrawal symptoms.

Acclimatization takes advantage of this. Repeated exposure to something noxious or harmful causes your body to change and adapt. Consistently causing yourself pain builds up a pain tolerance. Another good example is the USA Olympic Training Center which is located in Colorado Springs. By training in an environment where there is less oxygen, athletes' bodies become more efficient at using oxygen so that when they come down to lower altitudes to compete, they perform better.

Obviously there are limits to this phenomenon and there is a wide variance of the ability to acclimate among individuals. Some people are more tolerant of pain or cold to begin with and like everything else, genetics plays a role.


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

[User]
[Star Trek] Was Spock really more emotional than other Vulcans? Or were they just bigoted against him for being half-human?

Spock has often complained that his human half makes him more emotional, and makes it harder for him to be a true Vulcan. Yet, the Vulcan race adopted Sarek's philosophy of being logical to control their emotions because they were such an emotional race that they nearly killed themselves. When an elderly Vulcan has trouble controlling their emotions, they psychically project them into those near by, overwhelming them in the process.

So... if Vulcans are actually way more emotional than humans are, just that they train very hard to keep those emotions in check, is it possible that Spock, being half-human, wasn't actually being more emotional than his peers, but that they instead, due to unconscious bias and bigotry, were just paying more attention to Spock's slip ups, expecting a half-human to be more emotional because humans as a race don't follow a logical philosophy? Did Spock get gaslit his entire youth to believe he was much worse than he really was?

Or was being half-human actually making Spock more likely to be emotional and lose control?

[Assistant]
> Did Spock get gaslit his entire youth to believe he was much worse than he really was?

Got it in one. It ended up being a self-fulfilling prophecy. Being the subject of bigotry from an early age probably had an affect on his emotional development.


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

[User] [Star Wars] What is Dagobah's relation to the Dark Side?

[Assistant] It doesn't have a particularly strong link, there's just that one spot that is inundated with Dark Side energy. At some point between the Clone Wars and the Battle of Yavin, a rogue group of Dark Jedi was broken up and its members scattered. One of these Dark Jedi made his way to Dagobah and found a curious little green creature. There was a brief but terrible battle, and that cave marks the place of the Dark Jedi's demise. The rest of the planet is just unremarkable swamp.


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

[User]
ELI5: What is a Workers Union and what do they do?

Also, why are there jokes about being unionized? Is it a bad thing?

[Assistant]
A union is basically an organization of workers that will collectively bargain in order to ensure that wages and working conditions are good, using the resources of the collective crowd that could not be attained by the individual.

The good thing about this is that it ended practices such as child labor, horrendous factory and mining conditions, long work hours with fewer days off, and low wages that were seen in the early 1900s.

The bad thing is that unions have in modern times taken that idea and pushed it far enough to where workers are overpaid, spoiled, and almost impossible to fire. A unionized janitor can be paid as much as 10 non-union janitors for doing the same job, and there are people that put on tires for 30 dollars an hour. The fact that you are put into a tenured position is also problematic because it means that you don't have to worry about quality or even doing a good job. Teachers are heavily unionized, and the ones who are tenured show a visible lack in quality.

Like any system, it proves that too much of a good thing can be a bad thing.


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

[User]
ELI5: When 2 rivers merge, what determines the name of the river below/above the confluence?

Why does the Ohio river have two rivers as its source instead of continuing to be one of the two rivers that flows down from beyond Pittsburgh? And why isn't the Ohio called the Mississippi (or vice versa), when it's actually the wider of the two rivers at their junction? The part of the Mississippi river that forms the border of Missouri and Illinios looks more like a tributary to me...

[Assistant]
Tradition, mostly.

There are two "official" naming conventions - the river system is supposed to be named after either the tributary with the largest water volume (under which the Mississippi should actually be called the Ohio River) or after the tributary with the longest course (under which the Mississippi should actually be called the Missouri River).

But those conventions were thought up by people trying to standardize everything within the last century or so.  In the meantime, the river had been known as the Mississippi for generations.  It had been on maps for hundreds of years, people had been sailing and steaming up and down it, singing songs about it, and on and on.  It'd be too much of a hassle to change the name just to suit some scientific convention.


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

[User] ELI5 Why do muscles take so little time to recover and grow compared to tendons and ligaments?

[Assistant]
The blood flow to ligaments and tendons is far, far lower than to the muscles. This means any growth and or repair is much slower, as the blood carries the vital clotting factors etc needed in the healing process.

The problem arises because the muscles are capable of generating much more force than the ligaments and tendons can withstand - that asymmetry can be dangerous when doing too much too soon. Getting strong muscles is relatively fast, strong ligaments and tendons take years to build up strength - and even longer to repair.


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

[User]
[A:TLA] Since Roku was in the center of the spiral, does that mean the Southern Air Nomads would shift all the statues after each Avatar?

With how many statues there are, this seems like a very arduous task...

[Assistant]
It might be arduous, but it's only carried out once a generation of avatars, so it's not that big a deal, otherwise the first few generations of avatars would be placed in really high spots that make no sense for the people visiting the temple.

Also not difficult for the Avatar to do it themselves with a little earthbending. Might be a traditional thing where they get the Avatar to add his statue to the rest when they visit.


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

[User] [Harry Potter] Is attending a wizardry school mandatory for all young wizards or do they have the option of private tuition or early apprenticeships as well?

[Assistant] yeah, they say in the last book that Voldemort has made attendance in Hogwarts mandatory (so that he can monitor the wizarding community even closer), and that while the majority of people usually sent their kids to Hogwarts, they always had the option to be home schooled or have private tutors.


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

[User]
Are the shapes of galaxies we see distored by the light from different parts of it getting to us later than others?

Given that a galaxy is thousands of light years wide wouldn't the light from a nearer part of it reach us sooner than light from a further part of it? Why aren't the images of galaxies smeared sideways sometimes because the galaxy is moving sideways across the sky relative to us? Or are some of them like that?

[Assistant]
The key number that determines how strong such smearing or distortion effects are is the ratio of the velocity of the object/material to the speed of light. The higher this ratio, the more the material moves in the time it takes for the light to travel, and the more the image we see (from the light emitted at a given time) misrepresents the current position of the object.

Let's calculate this ratio for galaxies. The typical velocity of material inside a galaxy (the stars and gas orbiting around the galactic center) is around maybe 200 km/s or so, depending on the galaxy (how big it is, where in the galaxy the matter is, etc). The bulk motion (how the galaxy is moving as a whole, separate from its internal motion) is also typically at the level of a few hundred kilometers per second (e.g, the Andromeda galaxy is moving towards us at 300 km/s).

The speed of light is roughly 300,000 km/s. The number of zeros is giving us an immediate clue how this ratio is going to go. The ratio of 300 km/s (for the sake of nice round numbers) to 300,000 km/s is 0.001, one part in a thousand.

So that's the level of distortion we might expect: one part per thousand. In practice, it's generally not even this significant. In a particular image of a galaxy, individual stars will have moved by one part per thousand in the image, but the overall shape and pattern of a galaxy won't really have changed by that much -- the stars at some location will have moved to a new location, but other stars will have moved in to take their place. It largely balances out. Features like spiral arms in galaxies (which are not a fixed collection of stars and gas -- stars move in and out of spiral arms naturally over the course of their orbits around the galactic center) turn out to have even lower velocities than the stars themselves. The pattern velocity of spiral arms, going from memory, is something like 3-4 times slower than the motions of the stars, so the spiral shapes we see in galaxies are even less distorted.

An alternative calculation we could perform, to check this answer, is this: the linear size of a large spiral galaxy is something like 100,000 light years -- i.e., it takes light 100 thousand years to cross from one end of a galaxy to the opposite side. Let's consider those sides as the 'back' and 'front', from our perspective as outside observers. The typical orbital period for a star around a galactic center is of the order of 100 million years. So we can consider the ratio of these two values: in the time it takes light to cross a galaxy, the stars will have moved roughly 1/1000th of a full orbit. The stars in the 'back' of the galaxy will truly be 1 part in 1000 further in their orbits, compared to the stars at the front, in the images we see of the galaxy.


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

[User]
Why do energy saturated systems have negative Kelvin temperatures?

I'm doing thermodynamics homework, and I'm having trouble with a problem that requires temperatures below 0K. What does this mean, and how are negative Kelvin temperatures (which I thought wasn't possible) achieved?

Does it mean that energy will flow from any positive temperature system to a negative temperature one?

Thanks!

[Assistant]
You usually think of and treat temperature as a measure of how excited the system is. But an alternate definition, which is in some ways more fundamental, is that temperature indicates how much entropy increases when you add some heat.

Now, in most systems these definitions are equivalent. But in systems with a small number of discrete energy states, you can make them so highly saturated that adding more energy *reduces* the number of occupied states, and thus entropy. And if entropy decreases when you add heat, under the second definition temperature is negative.

Because of that, it's actually the *opposite* of what you say that happens. Energy will flow from any negative temperature system to any positive temperature one, because it's always entropically favorable for the former to lose heat and for the latter to gain it.


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

[User]
Is there a theoretical maximum for how fast a propeller can turn in water, yet still be effective?

If a propeller were rotating under water, at some point would the RPM be so great that it moves more quickly than the water can fill the "gap" behind it?

Or perhaps, is there some kind of theoretical upper limit as to how much force can be generated from the RPM of the propeller?

Or, is there some speed at which the kinetic energy produced by the propeller boils the water, possibly causing any loss of effectiveness? (if that's even possible).

I would be really interested in learning about the fluid dynamics that are going on here.

[Assistant] Cavitation is caused when the propeller (or impeller) moving through water (in this case) causes the water pressure to fall lower than the vapor pressure of its dissolved gases, resulting in a cavity of gas forming around the propeller. When the prop/impeller slows and water pressure climbs, the gases are then able to absorb into the water again and "collapse" with force against the prop/impeller, thereby causing a small implosion and causing stress to the prop/impeller. As such, greater depth of water, which is at a higher ambient pressure and therefore its vapor pressure is higher, results in a greater ability to increase prop/impeller speed without resulting in cavitation.


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

[User]
[Rick & Morty]Could I ask a Mister Meseeks, "Please read this detailed 60 pages of instructions and follow what is contained within?" The document would of course include extreme detail to ensure he doesn't murder me, frame me for arson, throw me in the freezer, blow up the universe ect.

Thus allowing their use for more than short-duration tasks.

[Assistant]
The Meeseeks aren't mad about living for more than a day. They only grow desperate when they are given an impossible task.

Jerry was just such a stubborn, angry little man they couldn't reach through to him and deemed the only way for him to he better would be dead.


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

[User]
Are there any materials that are plasma at room temperature?

If different materials, can have different melting or boiling points, that's should apply to plasma too, right?

[Assistant] Because it takes energy on the order of electron volts (eV) to ionize an atom and 1 eV corresponds to a "temperature" (actually kT) of around 10,000 K, there are no materials that are plasmas at room temperature without any external electric or magnetic fields. However, there is a whole category of plasmas called low-temperature plasmas, which are created when electrons are heated to a very high temperature by an electric field, but neutral atoms and ions stay near room temperature. Low-temperature plasmas are also typically low-density as well, one good natural example is the northern lights. They glow because of gases in the upper atmosphere being ionized by solar winds.


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

[User]
The Green and Libertarian Parties are a waste, and people who want to advance those causes should work within the Republican and Democratic parties instead.

The Green and Libertarian parties have completely failed to elect any significant officials, not presidents, Senators, governors, major city mayors, or even Congresspeople.

They don't get their issues on the agenda in any meaningful way.  The mainstream media just ignores them.

The US' winner-take-all political system basically makes third parties futile.  In many countries in Europe, if you get X% of the vote, you get X% of the seats in parliament, and that system enables alternative parties to have a voice and to have representation.  In the US, you have to win your state or your district outright or you get nothing.  A party with 10% support in every district nationwide wouldn't get anything for that, and the Greens and Libertarians aren't even close to that.

The Christian Right, which represents at most 10% of the country, works within the Republican party, and has unfortunately been very effective at getting its agenda enacted...while libertarians and their separate party have been totally ignored by mainstream Republicans.  It seems clear to me which strategy is more effective.

[Assistant]
The strength third parties have is threefold:

1. They can bring new issues to the political table.

2. They can draw enough votes away from main parties to affect elections.

3. They can make a big enough deal about certain issues that the main parties pick them up.

Historically, parties have had effects on both the political system and the laws it made:

The Anti-Masonic party popularized nomination conventions and party platforms, which both the Republican Party and Democratic Party now do.

The Prohibition Party got the 18th Amendment passed, prohibiting alcohol, which was a HUGE deal at the time.

The Progressive Party helped popularize the ideas of recall, referendum, and initiative in regards to politics.  They also brought attention to a lot of tax laws, social insurance, workman's comp, and woman's suffrage.  Their candidate (Teddy Roosevelt) also got 27% of the vote in the 1912 election, which is pretty impressive for a third party.

The Libertarian and Green parties have raised tons of awareness for their ideas, as well.


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

[User] ELI5: how come when other animals mate with their siblings, no birth defects are typically present, but when humans do, there is a high chance of birth defects?

[Assistant]
Inbreeding is just as much of a problem for animals. So much so that many species have evolved methods of avoiding it, such as males leaving the areas where they were born while their sisters stay closer to home. In endangered species, where populations may be very small, you often see signs of "inbreeding depression" - lowered survival and reproductive ability due to a lack of genetic diversity.

Inbreeding is also a huge concern for zoos, with their small captive populations. Zoos keep pedigrees for lot of species bred in captivity, so they can avoid breeding related individuals with each other.

You can see the consequences in pets if you think of purebred dogs, for example. Many dog breeds are likely to get specific medical issues, such as hip dysplasia in golden retrievers, due to many generations of inbreeding.


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

[User] [General Sci-Fi] What universe has the closest realistic depiction to what humanity's future will be like?

[Assistant]
we dont know the future, but some sci-fi from the past has come true.

a lot of the stuff from star trek was made reality, like cell phones.

cyberpunk isnt as popular nowadays because all the shitty parts came true but none of the cool parts.


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

[User] Why do so many flying insects have aquatic larvae?

[Assistant] Aquatic larvae allow juveniles and adults to exploit different environments and resources. This prevents competition between different life stages of the same species and allows both stages to maximize the resources in their particular environment. Additionally, larvae tend to be much smaller than adults, and the body plans of adults may not be well suited to significantly smaller dimensions, so a different body plan (in this case, one adapted to an aquatic environment) can be advantageous as the larva grows in size. Finally, separating adults from larvae may also serve to protect a population from environmental catastrophe, as terrestrial and aquatic environments are likely to be affected differently from such adverse events.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is our teeth so sensitive to cold, but not as sensitive to heat?

[Assistant] When you take your temperature below you tongue is should be around 98F, so the rest of your mouth we can say is around 90F. If you drink something hot its not going to be much more than 120F before it actually burns your tongue, where as ice cream can be as low as 10F. The difference between the normal temperature of your mouth and the extremes is greater for cold stuff.


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

[User]
How are tattoos viewed in the academe?

How does the people in the academe view the tattoos of professors and grad students?

[Assistant]
Increasingly, tattoos are seen as acceptable and mainstream among academics, especially the younger crowd.

I would suggest that face and neck tattoos are still seen as a bad idea, however. The typical view seems to be that tattoos are just fine as long as they're able to be covered up under certain circumstances.