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

[User] ELI5 why many cultures have developed the practice of carrying large burdens balanced on the head - how is this better than carrying them in the arms?

[Assistant]
It's quite efficient energy wise for the body as the vast majority of the weight is supported by bones instead of muscle exertion.  If you're carrying a heavy load with your arms in front of you, you are using a lot of arm and back muscles to balance.  This could do you harm if done for a long time.  With your bones doing the work you can carry the load a lot farther.

Another advantage is that the arms are free both for other tasks and for helping with balance.


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

[User]
When Europeans settled America, why didn't ~90% of the settlers die from Native American diseases? Why did Europeans have the stronger immune system and not vice versa?

I just read an article that explained that the Europeans brought the diseases that killed tens of millions of the American Natives. Yet Columbus and Giovanni lived to tell of their discoveries. Surely there were deadly diseases that the Natives had, right?

[Assistant]
The European settlers were from closely packed cities which is a good way of spreading disease. The disease came from the domesticated animals that many of the Europeans were in close contact with. The Europeans had diseases that wiped out many (Black Plague for example) but they also had a chance to build up antibodies to the diseases.

The American Natives had no previous exposure to the diseases of the Old World. That meant the diseases could strike them down without any resistance. The New World peoples did not live as closely nor have domesticated animals.

IIRC, however, the Americas did introduce one particularly deadly disease to the Europeans. That was syphilis. Seems appropriate for some reason.


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

[User]
Explain Aspect Oriented Programming like i'm five

Couldn't wrap my head around it even after Googling it numerous times.

[Assistant]
Let's say you want your code to log every time it enters a function and every time it leaves a function, for every single function in your codebase. How can you do that? Obviously, you could tediously write those statements at the beginning and end of every function. You could look carefully for things like early return and make sure to log in those places as well. But that's a lot of work and a huge maintenance headache.

AOP provides a way to declaratively say that you want to add those logging statements at those locations, and it will automatically rewrite your code to do that. It might be done as part of compilation or it might be done as your code is loaded into the running process. So you get the benefit of the logging without the maintenance burden of having a ton of logging statements at the start and end of your functions.

Logging is perhaps the most obvious case because of its extremely cross-cutting nature. AOP can also be used for e.g. authorization checks. You can indicate that certain functions should, before executing, verify that the user can actually perform the desired action. If they can't, then the function should throw. Again, this is a cross-cutting concern that you would prefer to centralize in some way.

That's what AOP is good for. It's good when you want to apply the same logic in many disparate places of your codebase. AOP lets you "declare" the rules and then let the aspect weaving system apply those rules in all the right places.

AOP has the downside of being "magic" that isn't clearly present in the code that the developer sees. To understand the behavior of the system, the developer has to be aware that the aspect weaving is taking place.

So AOP is a tradeoff. It can reduce the maintenance burden of the code, at the risk of potentially making the system harder to understand and certainly making the build or load time behavior more complex.


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

[User]
Preparing for a 19th-century philosophy course.

I'll be taking this course on 19th-century philosophy next semester, focusing on Hegel, Marx, and Nietzsche while emphasizing on their conceptions of history. I'm just a minor in philosophy and the only philosophy class I've taken thus far is an introductory philosophy class.

What should I know beforehand to prepare for the class? I heard that Hegel is quite a tough read. As far as I know, the texts we'll be reading include portions of Hegels Phenomenology of Spirit and Nietsche's Genealogy of Morality.

[Assistant]
Probably Kant. You should be familiar with his ideas anyways, but reading the SEP and IEP articles on him and perhaps some introductions to him will help.

Hegel had Kant in mind when doing most of his work. And Marx responded to Hegel.

Nietzsche wasnt a big fan of Kant or Hegel but they were giants in the 19th century.

And overview of Hegels lectures on history might be valuable to understand him at a more concrete level.


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

[User] ELI5:how do you get cranes on to the tops of skyscrapers?

[Assistant]
You send a small crane up, and use that to lift the big crane.  They break down into smaller pieces.

Also there is a method by which a crane builds the structure *underneath itself*, lifting itself up with jacks as it builds the structure.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why aren't humans regularly de-wormed like pets are?

Wouldn't it make sense to do this just in case?

[Assistant]
In industrialized nations, parasitic infections are rare. Between wearing shoes, not stepping in poop all the time, washing hands, cooking food thoroughly, and other changes of modernity, it's harder to get worms than it used to be.

In the rest of the world, people have parasitic worms, and that's a fact of life. Antiparasitic campaigns, which can include regular de-worming, have been attempted in the developing world with some success. Like any public health intervention, it comes down to risks and benefits--some parasites are pretty harmless, and antiparasitic medicines aren't always harmless (consider the rash of ivermectin overdoses in the U.S. recently.)

Interestingly, there's a fair case for RE-worming some humans. Our immune systems are well-adapted to having some worms on board and keeping them in check. In the modern world, a lack of parasites to help calibrate the system seems to be part of why allergies and autoimmune disease have increased dramatically in the West over a short period. Purposely giving people a relatively harmless worm, AKA helminth therapy, may be an effective treatment for autoimmune diseases like Crohn's and ulcerative colitis.


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

[User]
Would a grandfather clock keep time in an elevator?

The pendulum will be heavier accelerating up but lighter accelerating down. Do they cancel out so the clock will work?

[Assistant]
Simple answer is no.  First of all, when the gravity changes during the period is very important.  If the accelerations are quick and happen near the bottom of the pendulum swing, there would be no impact on period (and large impact on amplitude), but at the top of the swing it would have the largest impact on period (and no impact on amplitude).  So right there, if the acceleration and deceleration were not on the same part of the phase of the swing, time would not be kept properly.

If we assume the period of acceleration and deceleration is long compared to the period (and reduce this phase impact) the answer is still no.  Let's say we have 1g of positive acceleration for 1 second.  Gravity goes from 1g to 2g.  Frequency goes by square root of g, and so it increases by a factor of sqrt(2), or about 1.4.  Now to come to rest, we need 1 second of 0g.  Assume this happens right as the pendulum stops (to prevent it whirling around and around).  It has now lost 1 second of time, but only gained 0.4 or so seconds.

  So on average, the clock should lose time, but this could change drastically depending on when the acceleration happens with regards to the phase.


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

[User]
How do you search for state of the art papers?

I am searching for a state of the art paper on the topic multiclass classification. What I am doing is searching it on Google Scholar and then from the results I check whether the journal or the conference where the paper has been published is an A\* conference or not. I am not sure whether it is the best way to do it or not. How do you search for the state of the art paper on a topic?

[Assistant]
You read them.

Honestly, your approach is pretty terrible. The best journals do not always output the best papers - Psych Science, for example, has been publishing SHIT this year. You don't have a retraction on good papers.  Same for Conferences.

Yes, checking by citation count is a basic way, but then you're not getting state of the art, you're getting seminal for the most part (unless you limit the years). Google for the most part already does sort by citations.

'State of the art' is a stupid phrase, because research is so heavily broken up that even people who all go to the same conference would probably argue over what 'state of the art' paper is this year.

The only other thought would be to look for Paper of the Year awards, but even then, you're finding one paper, judged by a very small group of people...


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

[User] ELI5: How come when saying "woman" and "women", we change the sound of the o?

[Assistant]
Why English words are pronounced the way they are is an extremely complex topic that involves the study of the evolution of languages as well as cultural and societal influences on languages.

You won't get a simple answer here.


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

[User] ELI5: What's the difference between the "degrees" of murder? Example 3rd and 1st degree murder?

[Assistant]
* First-degree murder is any intentional murder that is willful and premeditated with malice aforethought

* Second-degree murder is an intentional murder with malice aforethought, but is not premeditated or planned in advance.

* Voluntary manslaughter (also referred to as third-degree murder), sometimes called a "Heat of Passion" murder, is any intentional killing that involved no prior intent to kill, and which was committed under such circumstances that would "cause a reasonable person to become emotionally or mentally disturbed". Both this and second-degree murder are committed on the spot, but the two differ in the magnitude of the circumstances surrounding the crime. For example, a bar fight that results in death would ordinarily constitute second-degree murder. If that same bar fight stemmed from a discovery of infidelity, however, it may be mitigated to voluntary manslaughter.

and there is:

* Involuntary manslaughter stems from a lack of intention to cause death but involving an intentional, or negligent, act leading to death. A drunk driving-related death is typically involuntary manslaughter (see also vehicular homicide, causing death by dangerous driving, gross negligence manslaughter and causing death by criminal negligence for international equivalents). Note that the "unintentional" element here refers to the lack of intent to bring about the death. All three crimes above feature an intent to kill, whereas involuntary manslaughter is "unintentional", because the killer did not intend for a death to result from their intentional actions. If there is a presence of intention it relates only to the intent to cause a violent act which brings about the death, but not an intention to bring about the death itself.


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

[User] ELI5: Why are analog wrist watches so complex with so many individual components?

[Assistant] A mechanical wrist watch is using lots of tiny precision components and have only been around for about a hundred years. However it is not very complex. There is a spring as a power source, a very precise pendulum to keep time, an escapement that make sure the spring is unwound at the rate determined by the pendulum and then there is a series of gears to create the movement of the different dials. So it is not so complex but it does require some precision components that needs to fit inside a very tiny space.


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

[User]
straw poll: would you rather write and maintain 500 lines of Bash or 500 lines of Perl? Why?

I was in another subreddit and suggested that Perl, while not particularly sane, was generally considered to be saner than Bash. I got quite the push-back on that, which sort of surprised me.

Thoughts?

[Assistant] I mean, 500? Probably Perl. You can comprehensively screw yourself with Perl, for sure. But if you're writing something that needs 500 lines and you're doing it in Bash, you're gonna have some spaghetti.


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

[User] What differs in the brain/body when moving, say a finger, compared to just thinking about moving it?

[Assistant] There isnt actually a consensus on this. Everyone will agree that assuming that the action is voluntary, youve got some executive function stuff going on either way. Then there is something called motor programming, which can be thought of as a file cabinet of motor actions from which your brain draws. The selected motor program is sent to the motor cortex, and then activity there proceeds down some things called corticospinal tracts and goes to the body part you want to move. Answering your question is where it gets fuzzy. It also depends on in what way you are thinking about moving your finger. If youre imagining it, then a lot of people would argue that that motor program is pulled from the file cabinet and sent to the motor cortex, but some inhibitory activity prevents the motor cortex from asking anything of your finger. The interplay between motor programming and motor activity is still not well understood, and there is a lot less distinction than how Im making it seem.


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

[User]
Can the US just go infinitely in debt? What are the problems with debt?

I know that having debt means US has to pay interest on it. But why can't they just pay for interest with more debt as well?

[Assistant]
The short answer is, "more or less."

On an annual basis, what matters is the ratio of interest payments to government revenues. As that number gets large, then the government will be committed to spending more of its resources on debt repayment, rather than on socially useful goods and services.
In turn, this implies that debt payments can only grow as fast as government revenues -- the latter of which grows, on average, at around the same rate as the economy as a whole.

The debt itself does matter, but matters somewhat less than the (perceived) ability of the government to repay.


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

[User]
Where does the pain come from when you have a viral infection (like covid or the flu)?

I am currently under a viral infection and I honestly feel like I just have been hit by a train... twice.
So I was wondering who/what is activating all these pain receptors in my head and my muscles. Is it the virus even thought it's entry way was the lungs? Is it just a side product of inflammation? But other infections don't lead to this.
Thanks!

[Assistant] It's a side effect of widespread inflammation. Yes, even if a virus has a tendency to replicate in a particular cell type (such as those in the respiratory tract), if it initiates enough of a local inflammatory response (in terms of magnitude as well as duration) , it will get amplified to a systemic level with the goal of recruiting other non-resident immune cells and shift resources to fighting the infection. This systemic inflammation is mediated and induces the elevation of all sorts of cytokines in the plasma, some of which (e.g. TNF) are known to induce muscle breakdown (proposed teleological reason is the increase in amino acids in the blood, feeding to the liver so it can make more opsonins and other immune system components), while others induce pathways that also overlap with pain receptor activation (e.g. Prostaglandin E2), and also of course.. There are more anatomically mediated changes that cause pain (e.g. Vascular tone near the brain, congested sinuses and the pressure they exert, etc). Other infections may not induce such symptoms possibly because they don't evoke a strong enough systemic inflammation like more stealthy viral infections or those that replicate like there's no tomorrow.


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

[User]
ELI5: What happens to the physical money when doing international transfers?

Imagine you deposit $1000 cash in the US into your bank account at bank A. Then you transfer the money to your partners account in Germany at bank B and your partner withdraws the equivalent amount of money in euros.

What happens to the cash when sending money from Bank A to Bank B?

[Assistant]
In the most simplistic terms. Your bank in the US will have a contract in place with a transferring bank in the US. They will do an electronic transfer to the Transferring US Bank. The transferring bank in the US with agree a transfer with a Transferring Bank in Germany and the Transferring bank in Germany will do a transfer to the Destination Bank.

So in-country bank to bank transfers don't involve trucks driving around with bank notes and change for every transfer. The transfer is electronic and the bank will keep a electronic record of the total balance of transfers between them for all their client's transactions (in both directions) and will balance this out from time to time in a variety of methods. In the old days this used to be physically transferring gold between them. Now-a-days it is more likely to be bonds being transferred, but can be stocks, gold, options, property or balances held at other banks and also actual cash obviously.

International bank to bank is pretty much the same. The Transferring Banks will agree to buy/sell Euros for Dollars at a particular spot exchange rate. The books between those banks will get balanced from time to time but the immediate consequence for your individual transaction is that the German Transferring Bank will take an IOU from the US Transferring Bank.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do men gain the majority of weight in the abdomen area and it seems for women it's a gamble (e.g., some only in the hip/butt area, some everywhere evenly, some only in the abdomen)

[Assistant] Hormones change where fat is stored. Estrogen makes women store more fat in their hips and breasts. While Testosterone doesn't directly make men store more fat in their abdomen, the hormone Cortisol does. This hormone is most commonly released in reaction to stressful situations, and men release more of this hormone when stressed than women.


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

[User]
I don't think it's immoral to have racial preferences in one's sex life. CMV

Judging people based on their skin color is a subset of judging people based on their appearance, i.e. it isn't any different than judging based on height or jaw line. Of course, judging people based on their appearance is immoral in hiring, politics, platonic relationships, etc., but I don't think it's contentious to say that appearance can amorally be considered when choosing sex partners.

[Assistant] To clarify, you mean on aesthetics only, right?  If your reasoning was "I don't want to date a black girl because blacks always steal from you", then yeah, that would be racist, but if you just mean you're not into a particular look, then of course that's fine.


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

[User]
Can you permanently capture light?

Say you had a hollow sphere, and inside this sphere is perfectly smooth with no seams.  If you captured a ray of light in this sphere,  will it keep bouncing around indefinitely- providing 100% reflectiveness? Is there a way it can be contained?

[Assistant]
If the mirror were 100% reflective, then the light would reflect indefinitely. However, 100% reflection is impossible; any surface that exists in the real world will absorb some light, which means the light would eventually be completely absorbed.

Imagine if you tried to bounce a racquetball around in the sphere instead. Every time it hit the side, the ball would lose more momentum.


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

[User] ELI5 what does overdrive or o/d do in cars?

[Assistant]
Traditionally an automatic gearbox would select the gear based on the output speed so that the engine was turning at the speed at which it provided the maximum power output. This is good for acceleration and hauling heavy cargo. However when the car was light it was not needed and provided lower fuel mileage. An overdrive unit could be mounted after the gearbox and allow you to select an additional manual gear which brought the engine speed down to the optimal fuel consumption range. This saved a lot of fuel on the highway and wear of the engine.

Overdrive units are not so common now as gearboxes have become a lot smarter and is able to select a higher gear itself when it detects that the power is not required. However you might find overdrive being marketed and even used to label a transmission profile suitable for low power highway use.


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

[User]
Is Daron Acemoglu's Introduction to modern economic growth a good book for someone with introductory knowledge of economics and looking to study graduate level macroeconomics?

If not what other book is a level below and is better suited for someone who wants to read a macroeconomics textbook?

[Assistant]
Frankly, it isn't unless you have a very strong background in multivariate calculus and real analysis. Its highly proof-based presentation is very much for the graduate student.

Normal undergraduate intermediate economics is taught with books like Williamson, Macroeconomics (5th ed, 2014) (I used this book, though the main text was an internal preprint of Villaverde and Kruger's undergraduate equilibrium macroeconomics text). Williamson, eg, offers a much simplified version of similar concepts.


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

[User] Is a computer running folding@home a perfectly efficient heater for my room this winter, or does some of the energy go into calculations instead of heat?

[Assistant]
Two things:

1. It's pretty damn close to perfectly efficient.  It's sort of like a lightbulb in a box-- it's doing its job making light, but from the view of somebody outside the box, all we can tell is that the box gets warm.  A tiny bit of energy leaves the room via things like network connections, but they're going to be negligible.  Nearly every bit of power consumed is going to be dumped into the room as heat, whether it's in PSU conversion loss or dissipated doing calculations in the CPU.

2. It's "perfectly efficient" compared to resistive electric heat, meaning that 100% of the electricity the device pulls is turned into heat.  Heat pumps and gas heat are both substantially more efficient than that.  A heat pump can move 2-4 watts of heat into your room for every watt consumed.  A gas heater burns the fuel at your house, while electric heat sources of any type are usually powered by burning fuel somewhere else in a generator, and roughly half the energy is lost right there as waste heat.

So... if you're considering replacing resistive electric heating loads (like a small electric space heater or electric baseboard heat, for example) with a folding@home box, go for it!  Its heating efficiency is about the same, but you do some science at the same time-- that's a win.  If you're considering using it to offset a heat pump or gas heater, the folding@home box is a much less energy-efficient choice.


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

[User]
[Doctor Who] Why does The Doctor always start flying the TARDIS before regenerating?

I'm talking mostly about NuWho, as I am less versed in the classic series. Before every regeneration, The Doctor always starts flying away only to regenerate and crash. Why not regenerate outside the TARDIS, or inside but not mid-flight?

[Assistant] The Doctor doesn't have control over her regenerations. As such, a lot of energy is released and she likely wants to get as far away from other people as she can. The energy release probably messes with the TARDIS though and causes the crash.


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

[User]
[General Horror] How do I know my paranormal research is reliable?

So my best friend got eaten by some sort of freaky monster, then just showed up to school the next day like I didn't totally see him get his throat ripped out. Nobody believes me and I can't seem to prove what's going down to anybody except my goofy comedic friend and a girl who would be impossibly hot except she wears glasses and is thus a totally unattractive nerd.

Now my rag-tag group isn't sure if what we're up against is a vampire, a demon, or a Chupacabra. As such we've decided to do some research online, at the local magic shop and in the occult section of the school's library which I only just noticed for some reason. But how can I know what's good info, what's just ancient peasants making bad guesses, and what's a bunch of crazy crackpot LARPer's making stuff up? I don't want to bring a holy symbol to a werewolf fight just because some dude with the username GrimmWarlock669 said that'd work on a forum post 3 years ago.

How do I know my paranormal research is reliable?

[Assistant]
You're missing someone from your team - the Crackpot Investigator.  They're the one who's going to know what to do, so you need to find that person first.

You already know who they are even if you haven't put it together yet.  Is there someone at your school who's a bit quirky and standoffish and is maybe into dark things?  Maybe the kid who did a book report about the Salem witch trials or always talks about Slender Man?

If you don't have someone like that in your immediate circle there is no doubt someone close by.  A prominent horror author who lives in your town, a blogger who posts about cryptozoology, or even an amateur filmmaker who makes schlocky zombie movies.

Go to them and tell them what you know.  Don't be put off if they tell you you're crazy - it's almost guaranteed they will at first.  Show them how desperate you are and they'll eventually help you just to get you to leave them alone.  In doing so they'll discover it's all true.


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

[User] ELI5: If each lock has a different key how does a master key work?

[Assistant]
A normal pin tumbler lock has two sets of pins, key pins and driver pins.  When you insert the key into a lock cylinder the shape of the key lifts the key pins to their sheer line (the place where the driver and key pin meets). When all the pins are lined up the cylinder can spin.

Locks that accept master keys have two sets of key pins. One set lines up when the users key is inserted, the other set lines up when the master key is inserted.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do computers get slower?

[Assistant]
Because over time more features are added to the operating system and apps as updates. This happens because there is always pressure to add more capabilities, to stay competitive.

If you could take an older slow computer and reset its software to exactly the same as was when it was new, it would have the same speed as when it was new.


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

[User] [Buffyverse] When Buffy and other folk died they talked about where they went. When Vampires die, where do they go? When Angel died? What happened to the souls of their victims after becoming infected? Does Clement have a soul? Do any demons? Where do they go after they die?

[Assistant]
When vampires die, they simply cease to exist.
When Angel died, his soul was judged and likely went to a heaven dimension.
When a human becomes a vampire, they die and a demon takes up shop where they used to live.  Their soul leaves their body and goes to wherever it would have gone had they died of natural causes.
Don't know about Clem specifically.
Demons for the most part don't, however this isn't 100%.  Vengeance demons for example have souls.  They are made from humans though, whereas most other demons are not.  The demons that do have souls would most likely see it return to its home dimension.  In the case of vengeance demons, D'Hoffryn probably bottles them up and uses them to fuel spells.


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

[User]
Why do objects like wheels appear to spin backwards as they speed up?

I'm not entirely sure why this phenomenon occurs, but it does happen consistently.

Is it my eyes being unable to process the spinning object or my brain processing it in an odd way?

[Assistant]
It is a light phenomenon, not a brain phenomenon. It happens in movies because of the frame rate of the video (rapid series of photos) being taken. If the spokes move at the same rate as the frame rate then the wheels won't look like they are turning at all because every time you take a photo the wheels have rotated to the exact same spot they were previously. If there is a difference in rate, optical illusions occur.

This only occurs in real life when the car is under lights that blink. Many street lamps for example blink so rapidly that the blinking can't be perceived. If the rotation of the wheel mathematically aligns in a specific way, the wheel will appear to be moving backwards. The same effect can be achieved in a dark room with a strobe light and ceiling fan.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is it recommended to connect the black jumper cable to a bolt on the engine and not the negative post on the dead battery when jumping a car?

[Assistant] Batteries generate hydrogen gas when the are charging. This can sometimes explode when connecting the battery cable as there are usually sparks. Ideally, connect the positive first, then connect the ground further away from the battery.


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

[User]
[DC] Jason Todd is often touted as Bruce's greatest failure. However, Bruce must have learned some things from taking care of Dick, that he amended with Jason. So what did Bruce do RIGHT with Jason, compared to Dick?

I imagine that, when Bruce first took in Dick, he was more veagance-focused and more of a loner (Alfred nonwithstanding). That type of mindset, despite good intentions, doesn't seem ideal for raising an orphan.

Jason, however, came years after Dick. Bruce would/should have been in a better place, both as a person and as a hero. So what did Bruce do RIGHT with Jason, compared to Dick?

[Assistant] I like to think that Bruce raised Jason exactly the same way he did Dick. Jason and Dick came from vastly different backgrounds, with very different personalities. You can't raise two kids the exact same way.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do some products like TV remotes still use infrared while everything else is moving to Bluetooth?

[Assistant]
"If it ain't broke, don't fix it". IR remote control is simple, robust, low-tech and extremely widely established. It just works, every manufacturer has experience with it and has the supply chains set up.

You only change it when there is real benefit in doing so. For example, if you need to send more or more complex data than "button has been pushed". One such thing might be a remote that gives haptic or optical feedback, or has a pointer-style functionality on gyroscopic basis. All of that needs more data connectivity than IR can provide, and therefore manufacturers switch to BT.


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

[User] ELI5: How does a male animal know he's the father of offspring when there could have been multiple partners much less he doesn't know how the reproductive process works?

[Assistant]
Not all of them do and it depends highly on the animal.  There are some male birds which will "rape" female birds so that the female's mate will raise the child.  Female penguins will actually engage in a form of prostitution where the let other males have sex with them in exchange for rocks to build a nest.  Cuckoo's have evolved so that they can get entirely different species to accept their offspring as their own.

Among many other species, the males just don't care and the burden of child rearing lies on the females.


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

[User] ELI5: Why are there noble ranks? Why wasn't everyone just a "lord," why were there dukes, counts, earls, barons and the like? How did this develop and did the different levels have different powers and responsibilities?

[Assistant]
In the English (later UK) system, the different noble titles had different origins. That is, they weren't part of a unified system from the beginning.

Earl was the oldest title, and dates back to Anglo-Saxon times. The earls were originally basically royal governors of the shires or counties of England.

Baron was a Norman French title brought in by William the Conqueror.  It literally means "man," as in "the king's man"--this title was used in a generic sense for all nobles holding land from the king, but became specific to those who didn't have some other formal title (some of the English earls accepted William as king and retained their titles, while William appointed replacements for others). Thus it became the lowest title of nobility sort of by default.

Duke is from Latin *dux*, meaning leader. In the later years of the Roman Empire, *dux* was the military commander for a Roman province. When the Roman Empire collapsed, dukes became local warlords, and later senior regional leaders for kings. The old Roman hierarchy left little impression in England after the Anglo-Saxon invasion, but *dux* was sometimes used as the Latin translation of earl.  William the Conqueror was Duke of Normandy (in France) before he became King of England, and for a long time the Duke of Normandy (as an additional title held by the King of England) was the only duke around in England. The title of duke was introduced to England in the 1300s as a grade of nobility senior to earls. Eventually duke became a title mostly used for members of the royal family, e.g. brothers or sons of the king.

The titles of marquess and viscount were introduced into the English nobility even later. Viscount originally meant vice-count (count was the equivalent of earl in continental Europe), and was originally a kind of deputy to a count. By the time the title was introduced in England, though, it was just because the king wanted to be able to grant a title more dignified than baron but less dignified than earl. Similarly, marquess (marquis in continental Europe) was introduced in England merely as a title to go between earl and duke, but originally it meant a marcher lord, i.e. the count of a march province. A march province was a province on the frontiers or borders of a kingdom, and a marquis was considered more important than an ordinary count because they held a more strategically important position.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Why did the Emperor discontinue the use of the highly-trained, effective clone army when the Galactic Empire was born? An army programmed to be loyal to him and trained from birth seems way more optimal than conscription and open recruitment of civilians.

And we all know how well the storm-troopers worked out...

Seems to me like continuing to use clones for his armies would be ideal.

[Assistant]
The main reason is that the Emperor realised it was morally wrong to breed clones with short lifespans for the sole purpose of brainwashing them and sending them to war.

Just joking.

There's a few reasons.

- Clones are extremely expensive to produce. You have to pay to breed them, pay to accelerate their growth, pay to equip them, and pay to train them. With non-clone Stormtroopers, you cut out the first two, which cuts out a lot of the cost. Sure, they're not as effective, but you already own the galaxy. Quantity is more important than quality at this point. It's also worth remembering that clones had significantly shorter lifespans, meaning you're not exactly getting a long time out of them. You can source directly from the Empire's trillions of citizens, cut most of the cost, and get more use out of them.

- Having an entire army made up of clones makes them susceptible to sabotage, especially if you find the source. The clones had inhibitor chips that were added to make them completely compliant with things like Order 66. If they could be hacked/sabotaged, you could effectively reprogram the clones to turn on the Empire. Although volunteer soldiers would be more likely to individually defect, it's less of a problem than say if your whole clone army defects. This also covers the problem of if the technology was stolen, allowing other factions to breed clone armies of their own.

- Having a military made of your own citizens would overall increase the stability of the Empire. People start to have a personal stake in the Empire's success, rather than if they were being protected by a clone army that existed purely to wage war.


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

[User]
ELI5:existentialism

I just watched 2001: Space Odyssey (finally). My friend said I would like it if I was into existentialism, but I never really was able to understand that word.

side note: I did like it, a lot. Pretty weird though, because I was high and watching it with my parents.

[Assistant]
Without an absolute morality and consciousness, everything becomes relative to the individual.  Whatever moral system or meaning that you give yourself, it is up to you to fully commit to it.

Basically, you are alone in the universe and although what is right and wrong are human constructs, you are ultimately responsible in your own search for meaning.


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

[User]
Are there any other animal species showing signs of advanced intelligence like humans?

I don't know exactly how to word it, and I don't want to mislead someone to answer thoroughly but be off the meaning of my question. I know evolution takes a long time compared to a human's perspective, but have species been recorded to show particular evolutionary progress similar to humans? I understand certain ape species use tools, and hunting in packs etc, but are there any species that are showing that NEXT step?

Do we have the capabilities to track historical data on this? Or would the time scale be way too much for us to even consider given current technology?

[Assistant]
Dolphins, certain apes, elephants, crows (and similar birds), pigs, pigeons, squirrels, and rats are all considered highly intelligent creatures. But they don't tend to plan ahead in the way that humans do, which has been a big stipulation in determining human level intelligence.

There has been one chimp that's been hiding rocks that he plans to throw at visitors to his zoo enclosure. But until now that behavior was thought to be exclusive to humans.


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

[User]
Do different tire threads actually increase traction/range/fuel efficiency etc. or is it mainly a marketing trick?

We just got winter tires and I was just curious as to if they, along with "performance" and "off road" tires, really make a difference and if so how much?

[Assistant]
It absolutely makes a difference. The tread geometry is one factor, another is the composition.

Treads are deformed under load, so the party of the tire on the ground is "squished". Depending on tread design, you have a different surface area and pattern that contacts the ground, which changes your traction - more significantly, it changes your traction under different conditons, too. Simple things like rolling direction, whether you're turning or not, all change the forces the tire must withstand, and how the tread is deformed. It if there's water in the road, you want the treads to force as much water into the channels as possible, so that as much tire as possible makes contact with the road itself. There's quite a lot of tread design in these optimizations, or for instance in increasing traction on snow or ice for similar reasons.

Now, winter vs. summer vs. all-season tires have another huge difference. The rubber itself. Rubber materials have different properties at different temperatures. As it gets cold, they become harder and less flexible. Conversely, they become softer at higher temperatures.

So, in the winter, a summer tire will be harder than is ideal, meaning it won't press onto the roadway as well, reducing your traction very significantly. In the summer, warm weather will mean winter tires are softer than ideal. The tire will make more contact than ideal, increasing the rolling friction that the car fights against (similar to a pumped wheel vs. a partially deflated one). If the rubber is too soft, it will be worth down faster also, so using winter tires in warm weather will also decrease their lifetime. In principle, tires become hard and brittle at low temperature, and could crack or chip. Realistically, you'd never see that side of the spectrum though.

Moral of the story - if you have Winters that get cold enough for snow, you need summer and winter tires in the respective seasons. If the whole year is fairly moderate, all seasons can be acceptable. If you're in the tropics, stuck with summer tires, and in the Arctic of course winter ones.


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

[User]
[ASOIAF] [SPOILERS] How much of what was going to go down at the Red Wedding would the average Frey soldier known of?

(Spoilers for A Storm of Swords and Game of Thrones Season 3).

So obviously the Red Wedding was planned long in advance between Tywin Lannister, Walder Frey and Roose Bolton. The plan was executed almost perfectly with the massacre in the hall being near simultaneous with the Frey and Bolton soldiers turning on loyal Northern soldiers in the camps. It seems as if every man knew his role. However, the Bolton (and less so they Frey) common soldiers would've fought side by side by their brothers in arms. While Roose Bolton and big man Frey himself are clearly terrible people who would easily give this plan the ok if it benefitted them, would not a single soldier or captain in the massive number of people involved in this plot have had doubts or perhaps even warned someone?

[Assistant] Same reason Tywin Lannister's men were all OK with gang raping a 14-year-old. Like Tywin, Walder and Roose made sure every one of their men that was present was OK with the massacre. And this is Westeros - it's not like there's a shortage of monsters.


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

[User] ELI5: How do scientists predict when Northern Lights will appear days or weeks in advance?

[Assistant]
The Northern lights are produced when ionized particles from the sun get trapped in the Earth's magnetic field and sucked down into the atmosphere.

The sun is constantly emitting a low level of these particles, but it also lashes them out in violent bursts from solar flares and mass ejections.

When astronomers see the surface of the sun start generating warped magnetic fields that precede these events, we know a solar tantrum and the resulting auroral lights are imminent.


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

[User]
Why are many philosophers politically rather left oriented?

In the past year I really started to enjoy philosophy a lot. A few weeks ago then I stumbled across the the youtube channel "the school of life" which is quite cool because it give me a quick peek into a lot of the theories from different philosophers I often heard about but never knew their work.

I noticed that a lot of the important philosophers of the last two centuries seem to be politically rather left wing oriented and tend to criticize capitalism a lot.

What is the reason behind this? Is it, that capitalism after all is the dominant form of economy in the west and since it sometimes seems that philosophers suffer in our society and thus tend to think about it more deeply it is only inevitable that they criticize this very defining part of our society?

[Assistant]
There are two very different questions you could be asking here:

1. What are the sociological reasons driving political philosophy to be mostly made up of leftists?
2. On what grounds do many political philosophers hold (i.e. justify) their left-leaning opinions?

Which of these are you interested in?


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

[User]
[Star Wars] How much office politics is required to get on the Jedi Council?

We've seen them make some political calls like expelling Ahsoka or keeping knowledge of Dooku's role in making the clone army secret.

[Assistant]
We know that the reason Qui-Gon was not made a council member because he didn't like to play ball with the rest of them.  They seem like a clique only begrudgingly letting Anakin in (the Order not Council) because Qui-Gon *just* died and shutting out his would be new apprentice would look bad.  The way they handled the Asouka situation only reinforces that.

Edit: Order.


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

[User] Angler fish lure their prey using light emitting bacteria, but why would the prey which spends its entire life in total darkness of the ocean depths be even lured to such an obvious trap? Do only "lost" living organisms from the upper layers get tricked like that?

[Assistant] Bioluminesence is the most common form of communication in deep-sea animals. It's also often used as a defensive manouver - to distract, deter, and even mark others. A glow might signal prey trying to communicate, but also a commotion where prey is likely to be found.


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

[User]
What is anti-matter/dark matter? [ELI12]

Can anyone offer a simple explanation?

[Assistant]
It works like this: Anti-matter is like the opposite end of a magnet, it has the exact opposite charge of an atom. So the protons which are usually + are now -, and the electrons that are normally - are now +. The problem with anti-matter is that it doesn't really belong in our universe (there could be other universes in the multiverse made entirely of anti-matter). So, when an anti-matter atom comes into contact with any regular atom, they cancel out in an explosion. Anti-matter is very very expensive to manufacture, and we can only make a few atoms at a time. If we could create a teaspoon of anti-matter, it would bankrupt every country of the world. (Reply to this if you want me to explain how anti-matter is made)

EDIT: Well for the anti-protons, they have to take atoms and collide them at near-light speeds, and very seldom they get an anti-proton (which must be handled with great care due to its explosive nature). Anti-electrons, or positrons, they are naturally emitted by the sodium-22 ion. They just pair them together and you have anti-matter.

EDIT 2: It has been theorized that anti-matter is actually matter flowing against time (i.e. going backwards in time) and that is the reason why the antimatter-matter explosions are so large is because they are cancelling each other out of the time stream.

Dark matter on the other hand is matter that does not have any physical form, but we know it exists because we have detected gravity where it is. Gravity is much like a tarp. If you put a heavy object on it (like a sun) it will bend, and other objects on the tarp will circle it (planets) because it creates such a dip. But with that, you can see that the sun is causing the entire tarp to dip. With dark matter, it appears as if the tarp is dipping by some invisible force. There are several theories about this, but the most predominant one is that dark matter is actually matter from other universes in the multiverse that are in different dimensions. More to the point, gravity has an easier time bleeding through dimensions (imagine the dimensions as pieces of paper on top of each other), and that's why a great deal of our universe is filled with dark matter. Hope that helps.


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

[User] [Star Wars] What kind of public persona/presence did Emperor Palpatine have?

[Assistant]
A lot of that depends on who you were and where you lived.

As seen on Rebels, when the Emperor makes public statements, it is always accompanied with a "photoshopped" image of him as he looked like before his disfigurement.

For someone on the core worlds, Palpatine would look like a hero of the Clone Wars. He may have been strict, but he provided prosperity and security. The dirty secrets of what happens to non human beings are rarely discussed.

If you were non human, than the Emperor would look like the tyrant he truly is. But fear of his Imperial forces would keep them from getting too out of line. And perhaps for some the safety that the Empire provided ment that they could bear the impositions.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do I stick my tongue out when I'm concentrating really hard?

I've done this since I was really little and have never been able to stop. I know its not just me as I see it on TV and other people all the time. What is the reasoning behind this? Why would sticking out my tongue help me focus?

[Assistant] Your tongue uses up a lot of brain power, specifically from your motor cortex, which is used for planning, sensing and executing physical movements. Sticking out your tongue stops it from moving so your brain doesnt need to think about it and you can devote more concentration towards whatever it is you're doing. The motor cortex also plays a role in language and planning, so sticking out your tongue may help, even if it isn't a physical action that you're focused on.


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

[User]
When talking about brain waves, what actually are these waves?

What are the waves representing? Is it simply a function of brain activity? Does activity occur in waves? If so, why does it occur in waves and not a steady stream?

[Assistant]
Let's start with the technical description:

"Brain waves," or the **electroencephalogram** (**EEG**), is fluctuations over time of electric potential difference measurable at the scalp due to summed activity of excitatory and inhibitory post-synaptic potentials of large pyramidal neurons in the cerebral cortex.

Breaking it down:

1. Neurons in the brain communicate with one another with trains of **action potentials**, also called **spikes**.
1. When a spike reaches another neuron, they don't have a pure electrical connection like a wire on a post. Instead, the spiking neuron releases a neurotransmitter into the thin space between its fiber and a fiber of the receiving neuron.
1. That neurotransmitter, among other things, may serve to **excite** or **inhibit** the activity of the receiving neuron.
1. The spiking neuron is the **pre-synaptic neuron** and the receiving neuron is the **post-synaptic neuron**.
1. Excitation and inhibition work by inducing changes in the cell's membrane voltage; they do this by causing channels to open which allow electrical currents in or out of the cell.
1. These currents cause transient changes in the charge distribution in the area between neurons, resulting in **dipole moments** which have electric fields projecting through the skull and scalp.
1. If a large number of neurons is relatively synchronously excited or inhibited at one time in a confined area of the brain, the sums of these dipole moments creates a measurable electric field and electric potential difference (or "voltage") at the scalp.
1. Since brain activity is constantly in flux, the voltage at the scalp changes over time.
1. If you plot the amplified voltage difference measured between pairs of scalp electrodes over time and by electrode-pair, you get a voltage-time tracing of the electroencephalogram.
1. The EEG activity can be thought of as the local oscillatory activity of large groups of neurons as they receive and send signals from and to other areas of the brain.
1. The main clinical use of EEG is in clinical neurology, where abnormalities of the EEG may correlate with changes of brain function, including the propensity to epileptic seizures known as **epilepsy**
1. The EEG is also studied as a marker for brain activity, including things like transient states of connectivity between different brain regions.
1. Certain reproducible signals of the EEG known as **event-related potentials** (**ERPs**) can also be studied for the insight they give into brain processing. For instance, the presence of ERPs known as **bereitschaftspotentials** can signal an intent to move a limb before such an intent can be consciously understood.
1. The EEG signal is on the order of tens to hundreds of microvolts and is hard to detect unless you use electrodes with a low-impedance coupling to the scalp (abraded and attached with a dielectric gel), a differential amplifier with a high common-mode rejection ratio, and (nowadays) a medium-resolution (~16 bit) analog-digital converter.
1. EEG changes are detectable at sub-millisecond time resolution, although spatial resolution is limited by electrode density, electronic gear constraints, and issues with the brain's curved and folded surface.


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

[User]
ELI5:Why did Germany respect neutral status in WWII?

Just curious why they respected the neutral stance of Switzerland and Spain while obviously not caring for any position of the other countries they blitzkrieged through and occupied during the conflict.

[Assistant]
Spain was in itself fighting a civil war in which the ultra-right group led by General Francisco Franco won.  It would have been seen as another potential ally for the fascists and Nazis.  Hitler and Italy actually provided some minor support to his Nationalists during La guerra civil, which lasted from 1936-1939.  Not only that, but Hitler realized his army was needed elsewhere, and preferred to to focus on lands closest to Germany that he could invade, including lands he felt he had the sufficient upper hand in.  The spaniards would have seen experienced fighting because of the war.  Also transport through the Pyrenees would be difficult, meaning he'd have to assault from Sea or Air.

Hitler had at one point desired to conquer Switzerland and bring it under the Grodeutsches Reich.  Operation Tennenbaum was the plan developed to eventually invade Switzerland but was postponed the because of more pressing matters AND because it would have been a logistical nightmare to invade Switzerland partially because A. the mountainous terrain would make transport difficult and B. the Swiss population was quickly mobilized in terms of army reserves and supplies to prepare for an invasion.

The military strategy of Blitzkrieg is only successful when you can catch your opponent off guard, it would have been fairly difficult to invade those two countries after seeing Hitler attack Poland, France and the Netherlands.


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

[User] ELI5: What will happen to us if that voice inside our head will disappear?

[Assistant]
You'd be surprised to learn that there are people who never got a voice in their head.
They were the deaf people. For a long time people thought the best way to educate them was to teach them only to read lips and words. The results were pretty bad, that voice in your head is acting as scaffolding for alot of your thoughts, you can use that voice to store and manipulate information. For example you might review a sentence in your head before sending it to your fingers to type it out.
So for the longest time people thought that deafness caused mental disabilities.

Fortunately for the deaf, sign language is enough of a language to act as the voice in the head. Instead of "hearing" words in their heads, they "see" hand signs in their head. Now-a-day's they are taught sign language from a young age and their mental outcomes have improved.


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

[User]
ELI5:: Why don't we use Morphine for lethal injection?

There have been a lot of botched lethal injections in the past, and the chemicals used are very difficult to acquire. Why don't we use morphine or cyanide to kill someone? We know they will die, and the chemicals are much easier to get a hold of.

[Assistant]
There are many pharmaceutical companies that explicitly state "If you want to buy our drug, you have to promise not to use it to kill people."  This is the reason that the US has had so many issues with lethal injection drugs recently; some cocktails have been disallowed by the manufacturers, and some of the new mixtures haven't been as thoroughly tested and aren't having the expected results.

This is a guess, but I'd say the morphine manufacturing companies slapa sticker on the bottle that says "No executions, thanks!"


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

[User] Why is there mirror-like symmetry on the outside (limbs, face, etc.) yet a lot of internal systems are asymmetric (location of the heart, digestive system, vein structure in opposite limbs, etc.) ?

[Assistant]
First, why *are* we bilaterally symmetrical? Our left/right halves are mirrored, but there's a distinction between front/back and top/bottom due to how selection would favor differentiation between these. Consider an animal that moves with its belly facing the ground (a worm, a fish, a rhino, whatever).

The animal kingdom is fairly unique in that animals are mobile. As such, a general animal that is seeking food will naturally have a front end that encounters food first. As the first end that encounters stuff during movement, it makes sense for sensory structures to evolve at this front (cranial, head) end, giving a rise to a distinct front/back end.

In a similar fashion, the top/bottom face different selection pressures. On land, the bottom is either in contact or closer to the ground, while the top is facing the open environment. Even in water, where gravity is less of an issue, top and bottom face different selection pressures. A fish viewed from above will be against a backdrop of the ocean floor; viewed from below will be against a backdrop of clearer water lit from above. This can explain why many fish are camouflaged with dark colors on its top side, and light colors on its belly.

So, while top/bottom and front/back have been differentiated, there is no reason why an animal would experience different things to its left or right. Sensory organs and limbs are thus symmetrical along this left/right plane, as asymmetry along this plane (the same direction as movement) would make locomotion difficult, or make animals less perceptive of one side of them, or some other maladaptive outcome.

Internally, movement and sensory organs don't have the same selection pressure and are free to evolve in non-symmetrical ways if it's advantageous. And once just one thing becomes asymmetrical, the others have to as well, to fill the remaining space efficiently.

One big player in this is the digestive system, which is essentially one long continuous tube from mouth to anus. In some animals, like worms, this really is a straight, symmetrical tube. But other animals have different nutritional requirements, and one way to increase the efficiency of absorption is increasing the length (not necessarily width) of the digestive tract. To do so, you have to start bending the tube around the body cavity in a non-symmetrical way. This initial asymmetry could have paved the way for further internal developmental asymmetries that were selected for because they made the most use out of the remaining space.


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

[User] [James Bond: Moonraker] The US conducts a military operation in orbit complete with laser-armed space shuttles in 1979. How does this effect the Cold War going into the 80s?

[Assistant]
The soviets spend even more money on orbital weapons than they already where to keep up. Putting more strain on a system already near the breaking point.

That stuff isn't cheap. The money is going to have to come from somewhere. With how hyper militarized the USSR was (they spent between 15 and 20% of their entire GDP on defense in the 80s, the US spent 5% of theirs) that cut was unlikely to come from their defense budget.

So expect even less money to get spent on basic services. People will be stuck in even more run down apartments than usual, but the party will have fancy new toys to show off every couple of months. All in preparation to fight a ww3 that is never going to happen.

On the bright side, this would help their overall technology sector and keep their engineers happy with something to work on. So it won't all be bad.


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

[User] Does extreme sleep deprivation cause hallucinations, and if yes, how/why?

[Assistant] Sleep tech here.  It does cause hallucinations, however we dont know why.  We barely even know why we sleep.  We do know the feeling of having rested is linked to the amount of REM sleep we get.  Studies have shown that rats, when allowed to sleep all they want, but are deprived of REM sleep specifically, die within a week or so.  Humans dont die, we become deranged, but again ,the reason is not yet understood.  We only know that sleep is vital to our survival b/c if it were not, we would have evolved out of it- sleeping is a dangerous prospect in the natural world.


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

[User]
ELI5: How does Google determine how busy a business is in real time?

If you've ever Googled a local business, you have probably seen a graph, indicating the average traffic (Popular Times) at a specific hour, during their normal business hours.

There is also a "Live" function, that shows how busy they are at that exact moment. How is that information updated in Google in real time? Does someone actually manually update this information regularly or is there some sort of algorithm that makes this determination?

[Assistant]
People with phones using Google Maps location services.

When you've got a smartphone with Google Maps on it Google can periodically check in on the location of the phone if more people happen to be at a certain location within a given time window Google can assume a location is busier. It's also how the live function of it works. This is also partially how Google Maps can get some data on general traffic conditions.


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

[User]
[Lost] What would have happened if the Smoke Monster got off the Island?

What did the Smoke Monster plan to do after it got off the Island?

[Assistant]
Depends on what you think it really is.  The show is purposefully vague about this.

If you believe it's just Jacob's Brother who has acquired bizarre smoke powers from being murdered and tossed into the heart of the Island, he'll probably do exactly what he says he'll do.  Leave the Island, explore the world, be free.  He might randomly murder some people because he's a bit of a dick and no-one can stop him, but it won't be the end of the world.

If you believe it is, as Jacob explains, a primal force of evil that is being bottled up by the Island, then its release will be an apocalypse of biblical proportions.  It will use its powers to read minds, influence dreams, and shapeshift into people in order to sow chaos and disorder among the peoples of the world.  The end result will most likely be Nuclear War, and the extinction of the human race.

If he lives up to his namesake, he'll probably get back in touch with the Crimson King, and begin again the great work of breaking the beams.


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

[User] [DCU] Why is Superman vulnerable to magic? With red solar radiation native to Krypton and Kryptonite being toxic residue of Krypton, I can see these? But why magic?

[Assistant]
So, the reasoning is that all his powers are ultimately "mundane". That is, while they're extreme examples of biology doing extreme things, they're not actually going against the laws of physics (or at least, no against the laws of physics in the DCU). He's a weird example of physical life, but everything he does follows normal physical laws.

While this makes him very resistant to things that rely on the laws of physics to harm people- impacts, high temperatures, etc- magic goes above the laws of physics. A death spell doesn't actually do any physical damage tough skin or regeneration could fix. It just makes you be dead, and no amount of strength stops a spell making you be dead.

As far as magic's concerned, he's just base matter. With no *mystical* protections, he's as vulnerable as anyone else on the street.


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

[User] Can an acid be as corrosive as the alien blood in the "Alien" movies?

[Assistant]
Hey, another question: wouldn't the acid in the second episode of Breaking Bad go through the hardwood floor below the bathtub? After eating through the porcelain, it just seems to "stagnate" when it hits the floor below.

Does acid just naturally deactivate after it's burned enough? If a body is properly submerged in acid, will the entire thing eventually become a homogenous liquid, or will there always be some chunks of human in it?


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

[User]
ELI5: How do anchors work?

How do they not sink or at least weigh down the boat when theyre up? How does the boat not float away when theyre down? Do they have to catch onto something at the bottom or is their function entirely fulfilled by their weight? Do they keep a boat in one spot or do they still float within a range?

[Assistant]
Anchors barely catch anything at the bottom, they bury into the sand a little bit. You definitely \*don't\* want them to catch a rock, then it might be hard to get it back up. The thing doing most of the work is the physics of the way the anchor chain and rope combine to pull 'sideways', instead of straight up and down.

The most important thing to do when anchoring is put out lots of chain. If you're in 5m of water, you'd typically put out 25m of chain/rope. If the weather is bad, you'd go up to 30-40m.


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

[User]
[Warhammer 40k] Are there chaos gods of nice things?

I imagine the chaos god of cute puppies isn't going to have legions of corrupt space marines like the lord of slaughter. But wouldn't less harmful emotions manifest in the warp?

[Assistant]
They do, but they just manifest within the big four.

 For example khorne is the god of blood and war, but also the god of honor and bravery.
Tzeentch is the god of trickery, but also of hope and change( for better or worse, change is change).
Nurgle is the god of despair and pestilence, but also acceptance and empathy.
Slannesh is hedonism/excess but also love/creativity.

All emotions manifest in the warp, what makes the chaos gods so dangerous is that they gain strength from all emotions, not just the negative ones.


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

[User] What exactly was Schrodinger trying to prove with Schrodingers Cat?

[Assistant]
Schrdinger proposed the cat thought experiment to illustrate the _problems_ with the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. It was meant as  a _reductio ad absurdum_, an argument that shows that if you take a train of logic too far, you get silly results. Specifically, the idea of quantum superposition being related to observation  maybe you think it's OK that we can't know the quantum properties of an electron without some kind of observation (e.g., bumping it with a photon), Schrdinger is saying, but if you scale up the issue to macroscopic objects, it becomes just ridiculous! Schrdinger wanted a quantum theory that dispensed with such things like observation-based wave-function collapses and superpositions of states (there are various other ways to try and interpret quantum mechanics that get rid of them). Schrdinger has hardly been the only person to have these objections, and not the only thought experiment to do something like this (e.g., Wigner's friend is another), but his example for whatever reason (perhaps it is just weird enough) is the one people know popularly.

The irony is, of course, that Schrdinger's cat has become _the_ way to explain quantum superposition of the Copenhagen interpretation; it has gone from a ridiculous argument to the easiest way to explain it to laypeople. The difference is, the story becomes a "I know that sounds crazy, but that's how crazy the world really is!" sort of story, as opposed to a "I know that sounds crazy, so it must be wrong!" sort of story.


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

[User]
[Pokemon] How does trainers distinguish Pokeballs

There are no name labels they just grab a random ball that just happen to be that one they need

plus aren't mot pokeball they have empty why don't just throw them at battlfeild?

[Assistant]
It's probably an answer that depends on the person. If you take a look at the Gold & Silver protag, he has this weird attachment where he hangs them.

If we use recent installments, different balls can be used, so that's another identifier. Some manga showed off that the balls get numbered. The anime had one trainer use stickers. And most importantly, only champion level trainers really carry 6 balls. The average trainer you battle only has 2 to 4 on their person at a time, making much simpler to remember.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do we know water is made of two hydrogen atoms and not just one?

How do we know that, for example, H2O, is infact H2O and not just one hydrogen? Further more, how do we know that anything is made of specifically these elements and not something else? And what makes molecules stay together (like in a human)?

[Assistant]
You can take pure oxygen and pure hydrogen and combine them to form water. By measuring how much oxygen or how much hydrogen is left over after all the water is formed, you can deduce the proportions that were used to make the water. When we do this, we can tell that two parts of hydrogen are used for every one part of oxygen.

What makes molecules stay together are things called intermolecular forces, of which there are a variety and rather complicated to explain. But basically there are attractive forces between the molecules that keep them together rather than just flying apart.


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

[User]
[General] What's a biological tell-tale sign that someone is a time traveler ?

Is there a way to tell that a person is a time traveler thanks to some kind of medical test/examination ? Like a blood test or something more on a par with the technology of the era. On a long scale aswell as on a shorter scale like a dude from 20something going back to the 60'.

[Assistant]
Generally it's quite difficult to tell unless you know what you're looking for. Someone being far healthier than the standard person could be a sign of a traveller from a higher base health standard future coming back, or it could just be evidence that this person is remarkably healthy.

The tell-tale signs are definitely going to be obvious things like bionic/cybernetic implants, nanomachines, and more contemporary metal implants and supports. The latter you'd expect from say a 22nd century visitor to the modern day or prior, but even just a modern hip replacement would be considered anachronistic back in the 20th century (if the doctor happens to be poking, prodding, and potentially bisecting/dissecting said traveller).

If there's a certain biological event of massive proportions, the lack of that present in the body could also expose this person as a time-traveller. For instance, the Sole Survivor in Fallout 4 avoided the genetic effects of the nuclear radiation when the bombs dropped, highlighting them as extremely healthy to the Brotherhood of Steel but more specifically as *extremely* unique (alongside their son) for their Synth program.

You could also say that someone surviving a widespread disease like COVID-19 or Smallpox would be noticeable under the microscope, showing future observers (far enough ahead) that this traveller comes from far enough in the past to still have observable scarring/etc from these long gone diseases. Or contrasting this, potentially a future visitor shows that they've been inoculated and overcome a disease that's yet to be fully cured in that time.


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

[User]
If the universe is infinite, what do people mean when they say it keeps expanding?

Is it just a philosophical question?

[Assistant] Firstly, infinitely large things can expand. Imagine an infinitely long rubber band with sharpie marks every inch. Then it stretches so that the sharpie marks now occur at 2-inch intervals. The 1" mark stretches to where the 2" mark used to be; the 2" mark to where the 4" mark used to be, and so on.  This is, in fact, the sense in which an infinite universe expands.


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

[User]
[Star Trek] Where does antimatter come from?

The Federation alone must use hundreds of kgs of antimatter in a year, where do they get it from, ~~as it doesn't naturally occur in a matter-based universe?~~

[Assistant]
According to the ST:TNG Technical Manual:

>As used aboard the USS Enterprise, antimatter is first generated at major Starfleet fueling facilities by combined solar-fusion charge reversal devices, which process proton and neutron beams into antideuterons, and are joined by a positron beam accelerator to produce antihydrogen (specifically antideuterium). Even with the added solar dynamo input, there is a net energy loss of 24% using this process, but this loss is deemed acceptable by Starfleet to conduct distant interstellar operations.

"Charge reversal device" is pretty vague, but if we take the naive interpretation that it somehow "converts" matter into antimatter by "reversing its charge" (ahem, not really a worse violation of physics than faster-than-light travel)... that would be the explanation.

I.e. they "reverse the polarity of the beam".


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

[User] [Star Trek] [Star Wars] If the Borg were to assimilate Darth Vader would he still have access to the force? If so would the collective become force-sensitive?

[Assistant]
That depends on the nature of the crossover. If the Force exists by default, then there's no reason why the collective couldn't have discovered and mastered it, even without Darth Vader.

If somehow the collective had no access to the Force or for some reason none of the assimilated were sensitive to it before, then it would be sort of Dark Nest sort of situation - while assimilated, one drone (Darth Vader), has his powers massively augmented by collective will of the Borg, giving him additional power to act for the Collective in ways that were closed to them before.


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

[User] ELI5 Why does water get harder the faster you hit it (as if from cliff diving)?

[Assistant] Water does not compress. If you want to occupy the space that some water is in, the water has to move out of the way first. If you are moving in faster than the water can move out you hit what is essentially, a solid object.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is climate change believed to be false and lumped with the theory of evolution even though it has nothing to do with religion/God?

Recently read the front page article on how Alabama now has to teach evolution and climate change and was just wondering why they are put together when climate change doesn't involve religion in the way the theory of evolution does.

[Assistant]
Believing in climate change, like evolution, comes with a few assumptions/related beliefs: 1) the success of humans is thus far only a blip on the overall timescale of our planet and is by no means guaranteed; and 2) altering an environment that has allowed humans to flourish could lead to disastrous consequences.

These beliefs fly in the face of the egocentric worldview that the earth was made for humans.


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

[User]
Why must the economy *always grow*? [LI5]

Why is it a bad thing if the economy is not growing?  I somewhat understand why contraction is bad, but why is being neutral/static, or even slowly growing, bad?  Is there a circumstance in which we will be satisfied?  I realized this could be a really dumb question but I've not found anyone who could explain it to me.

[Assistant]
Because the population is growing.

If no babies were born and no old people died, and our economy had 0% growth, we would all be just as rich or poor as we were last year.

If many babies were born, and few old people died while the economy DID NOT grow, we would all have less money that we had last year.  We would get poorer.


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

[User] [Culture]did the governments of the Cultures founder races voluntarily dissolve them selves or did the just slowly loose relevance as people started viewing Minds as the ultimate authority in life, kind of like what happened to the roman senate after the 40sBC?

[Assistant]
loss of relevance.  eventually anyone with any brains realized that keeping a large space habitat running required relying on ai minds to the point where human laws stopped mattering.  Having a law against changing life support settings to be instantly fatal and government security to prevent such an occurrence proved considerably less effective than producing a moral mind and letting it handle the whole business.

also theres the mobility aspect of spacefaring civilizations, should a local government start getting annoying people will leave and go to some where it takes your signal a year to show up.  The last culture governments probably turned into sad hobby clubs, steadily ignored more and more by the jaded youth.


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

[User]
[Firefly] How does the artificial gravity work on a Firefly class ship?

Most ships use artifical grav systems that work as a utility on the ship which allows it to be turned on an off. However, on a Firefly this doesn't seem to be the case. When Serenity cuts power to all systems, the gravity seems to still stay on. For instance, that time they were looting that blown out carrier and the Alliance almost caught them I remember Mal telling Wash to shut down everything but the air. Also, the time Serenity ran Out of Gas, all the systems including the air shut down, but the gravity never stopped working. I always wondered why they didn't reroute power from the grav system to the air supply.

[Assistant]
The Firefly class gravity comes from a rotating ring just aft of the ship's midsection. It produces a gravity field using the Peristere Principle, that also acts as a momentum dampener to allow passengers more freedom of movement during all aspects of flight. (Can you imagine pulling a "Crazy Ivan" without one?)

What this means is that the grav system can't simply be tuned off or on instantaneously. It's like a big hearing coil in that regard--it takes several hours to "warm up" and many more to wind down. So when they ran out of gas or shut off the power, that included the grav, but there was enough residual effect to keep them from floating around, even after a number of hours.


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

[User]
[Fallout 4]Why is it so hard to convince Paladin Brandis to return?

I get that he's traumatized, but how is staying trapped in a cave going to help?  Why not go back to a place where he can have human contact, medical care, and basic quality of life?  It would make sense if he had built a life for himself in a peaceful farming town or something, but it seems like he's choosing to stay in a horrible situation for no reason.

[Assistant] His pride kept him from going back. Losing his squad, then the years spent alone convinced him that he was no longer worthy of being a part of the Brotherhood. And the longer he was away from his brothers and sisters, the more he convinced himself that he wouldn't be welcomed back even if he tried. Excuses like being too old, too weak, too cowardly. He even had a growing paranoia that he would be seen as a deserter if he went back. Basically, he came up with every possible reason to never go back. And thus, it was extremely difficult for the sole survivor to convince him otherwise in a single conversation.


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

[User] ELI5: What is a WEBP file, and how does it differ from a JPG?

[Assistant]
WebP aims to replace the most popular image formats.

WebP can, like JPG, use lossy image compression techniques: by discarding some information from the original image, the file size can be much smaller; the more information is discarded, the smaller the file gets.

Sometimes just slightly reducing the image quality makes a large difference on the file size, while to an untrained eye the image looks as good as the original.

Because JPG dates back from a long-gone era, there are now better compression algorithms that were developed, and computers are now fast enough use those algorithms.

WebP can also be used as a lossless format; typically replacing PNG.  It can also do animation; typically replacing GIF.

One thing to note: conversion between lossy formats (from JPG to WebP, or from H.264 to H.265, or from MP3 to AAC) is seldom a good idea: there is loss added each time there is a conversion.


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

[User]
[Warcraft] So if mages can teleport stuff and people from place to place, why are there even dock-workers and stuff?

I mean, why not just teleport all your supplies magically? Make a portal from Westfall to Stormwind to move your grain, then from Stormwind to where ever people need food. It can't be robbed, it won't spoil... Seems like there's no downside.

Does this actually happen or does it not? Any particular reason why?

[Assistant]
Mages are not really common enough for that. It seems like there are a lot because a lot of players (and NPCs players interact with) are magic users, but remember that the player characters and their associates are already exceptional. Only a small percentage of the overall population can use magic. Even among those that can, not everyone who can use magic can teleport or open portals, and not all of those can do it particularly well or for an extended period of time.

On top of that, magic users are in high demand in other areas. Magic users are needed to fight in the various wars, or to perform important rituals. Their talents are frankly too powerful to be wasted on something that can be done, albeit more slowly, by a team of horses. Every mage that is maintaining portals to Westfall is a mage that is not unleashing their power against the Burning Legion.


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

[User]
[Lord of the Rings movies] What happened to the armor and mace of Sauron?

This armor and helm are shown to fall off and land in the ground, I'm assuming so does his mace. Did anyone ever retrieve them? I mean it would be pretty badass to return from the war wearing the armor of Sauron. Since the Ring was taken, I'm assuming someone took the armor and weapon as well?

[Assistant]
On the side of "This happened", we don't know. Just as we do not know what happened to the two Maiar who went east together and whose names are unknown beyond the color of their robes being blue. They are on a mission from Eru Illuvatar.

On the side of "This could have happened", both items were found by Men, who were corrupted by the sheer malice contained within. One became the Hammer of Sauron, the other the Tower of Sauron. It is said that both were slain by the figure known only as the "Bright Lord of Mordor"


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

[User]
Why does the immune system take so long (years) to defeat the HPV virus?

I have a limited understanding of medicine. It seems to me however that the immune system is typically able to deal with viral infections within a few weeks to months depending on type and severity. However HPV virus  sometime takes years to defeat.

[Assistant]
So couple things

1. HPV can clear it a couple week. A couple months. A couple years. Or never.

Think of you immune system not as battling it the entire time. But rather trying to make an antibody of a specific size and shape and function to kill it. It randomly keeps trying till one works.

A gross oversimplification of the immune system. But conceptually works.


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

[User]
CMV: Just Because Someone Is Older Doesn't Necessary Mean That Know More Or Are Wiser

The premise of my argument here is that. **Being of old age doesn't necessarily mean that you are knowledgeable about today's current trends, or the struggles of the newer generations going on, or what's happening in society.** For example, I was having a conservation with my grandfather who's a WW2-Vet, and how he lived through the great depression, and how society is changing and where it's heading.

My grandfather is an old-school conservative meaning he values honesty, respect for the family, honor, respect for traditions, hard work, patriotism/racist nationalism type of nonsense, and believes in the traditional family model is better for society. Also, my grandfather states that society in the past was better mostly in terms of economics and culture. Like people were better back in the day and were more honest, and it's said that more countries are throwing away their own cultures just to be more western.

I started having a conservation with my grandfather about whether, or not, I should go back to college for a philosophy/creative writing degree. I explained to my grandfather that another option was to become a tradesman like an electrician. Of note his also a retired electrician.

He tried to explain by using logical examples in the real world, and used publish data with statistics. He said "**There's nothing wrong with liberal arts degrees if that's your passion. However, it's kinda different back in my day, where if you got a degree it actually met something to the employer and showed the employer that you either were above intelligence or were insanely hard-working. Now, everyone has a degree and it's flooded the market more. So, unless you are going into engineering, or STEM what is a marketable skill. I think you should stay away from these degrees"**

Don't get me wrong, I love my grandfather. But, I just disagree with him on a lot of other issues. Another example is that he tells me that society was better back in his day in terms of economics and feels sorry for the younger generations like me Gen Z and how it's going to be even harder for future generations to even own a house, and how societies are changing, but it's in a bad way like losing your native culture, and automation becoming into play. Meaning people who built up careers and worked hard for are going to be out of employment.

He offered another suggestion like go into the skilled trades like being an electrician it's well paid and very unlikely to be automated out of existence. And, suggested play to your strengths and weaknesses. If you are good at math either go into the electrical trade or engineering.

Again, I love my grandfather. But, I just disagree with him a lot like a more progressive thinking person. Additionally, what my grandfather said was this final piece of life advice he suggested. **"Son, I love you dearly but be prepared for some of your views on things to change with experience and age. I used to be very idealistic and young as well. However, this is a very different world, I came into when I was your age. Now, you need to more cunning and adaptable to today's society and work hard.**

Yes, he's right on some things, but that doesn't necessarily mean just being older you know better. He once stated to me that, **"You, know, I may be old, but I'm not stupid, I've done my research and just looking out for you son, you'll get further in life with self-education like reading books on investing, and finance"**

I was a bit shocked he even knew the names of current generations like millennial, gen z, and gen xer, and modern-day terms. Yes, I get it even in old age you can still be adaptable.

[Assistant]
Your grandfather is pretty much correct about every issue youve raised here.

Greater more technician human capital IS required in our changing job market. Can you get a job with a creative writing degree? Possibly, will it be a better career than a STEM degree or a trades job? By every meaningful statistic no.

Is it harder for our generation economically?  By every metric yes.  Stagnant wage growth and an insanely inflated housing market and student loan market makes the big purchases in life much more difficult than when your grandfather did it.

It sounds like your grandfather is just a smart guy who understands the arguments he is making.  In the case of the empathy towards our generation his age is a great contributor to his argument.  He lived through multiple market changes and economic growth and he used that experience correctly in his argument.  Age and wisdom definitely help when you understand how to make an argument and your grandfather exemplifies that.


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

[User]
If insects can grow larger by being raised in an oxygen-rich environment, can animals like crabs and lobsters also grow larger in oxygen-richer water?

There have been experiments showing that insects grow a bit larger when raised in a high-oxygen container. Does that carry over to sea arthropods too? What would the other limitting factors be? How could an experiment be designed and performed in order to test this hypothesis?

[Assistant] There's actually a phenomenon called polar gigantism, where marine invertebrates (mostly arthropods) in the high oxygen-low temperature polar environment in tend to be quite a bit larger than their warm water counterparts. It's a really interesting subject! It's believed that the higher oxygen levels in the cold water plays a role in the size difference, but overall it's not 100% known as to why there is such a difference.


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

[User] ELI5: Why can we see better in the dark with our peripheral vision?

[Assistant] Our eyes have two types of receptors in them that interpret visible light into what you see, called rods and cones. They are spread over the retina, the inner back surface of the eyeball, but they are not spread evenly. Rods are better able to detect low light, so they are responsible for seeing in the dark. Cones are better able to detect colours in well lit conditions, so we use them most of the time. There are mostly cones near the middle of the retina, and mostly rods near the edges, which is why you can see better in the dark with your peripheral vision.


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

[User] ELI5: Why Americans use drywall instead of concrete and bricks to build houses in areas prone to natural disasters?

[Assistant]
The only natural disaster that concrete and brick houses are better at dealing with are fires.

With tornadoes most damage is done by winds so strong that they dismantle concrete, brick, or stone either directly or by throwing debris into them only slightly more slowly than they do wood. You can make a tornado bunker that is above ground with 4 foot thick walls and steel reinforcement. Homes do not do that, even in places that they make concrete homes.

Hurricanes tend to do most of their damage with flooding. Concrete and Bricks flood and mold just as easily as wood. When they are washed away the ground itself is washed away so they break just as easily too. For the extremely powerful hurricanes we have the same wind issues as tornadoes.

For earthquakes the concrete and brick homes are far worse than wood. They are too rigid unless very expensive tech and building practices are used and so they just crumble when an earthquake happens as they cannot flex.

And finally they are 3-10 times more expensive than wooden homes. Chances of you actually losing your home in your lifetime are low, and you get insurance to protect against it. So it is far better for most to spend what money they have to build a larger nicer home.

Also you seem to think drywall is a structural weight bearing material. It is not. It is the interior finishing of the wall. Wood is the structural component and wood/fiberglass is the outdoor wall slat.


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

[User] ELI5: If heat pumps are seen as a green way of heating a home, why are air conditioners seen as being environmentally unfriendly, when they're just a heat pump working in reverse?

[Assistant]
Heat pumps are seen as environmentally friendly *compared to other methods of heating,* since they dont convert energy directly into heat like gas furnaces or electric space heaters do. They instead use relatively low power to move existing heat into an area it normally wouldnt go.

Air conditioners, on the other hand, are seen as environmentally unfriendly compared to other (admittedly less effective) methods of staying cool like cold drinks, turning on a fan, or just sweating it out.


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

[User] ELI5: How do we continually observe background radiation that was created very soon after the big bang. I would assume that the light from that period would be limited in quantity and it would eventually have all passed us so it would stop being visible.

[Assistant] The idea that light from the big bang could have "passed" us implies that the Big Bang happened somewhere else and came towards us. In fact, the Big Bang happened everywhere that existed, ie the tiny point at the start. That everywhere has got bigger but it is still all the universe that has ever existed and ever will, just more spread out. So we are still inside the expansion from that point, as is all the radiation. The spreading out has just cooled it to the temperature we now measure.


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

[User]
[Back to the Future] How did Marty acting as Darth Vader from Planet Vulcan impact the referenced franchises?

For one, eventually George would have wondered about it a lot seeing as he feared for his life from this spaceman. He'd recognize the name, at least if thats what the name still was. But thats the thing, George wrote a best selling novel specifically about his encounter with Darth Vader from Planet Vulcan. Assuming this book let him become the successful man we see when Marty returns to 1985, it must be fairly well known. What happened to Star Wars and Star Trek?

[Assistant] If he saw the movies / show, it might have weirded him about a bit.  But everybody has that sometimes, you see something and half remember that maybe something similar happened in a dream?  And if it was 20 years before?  He'd chalkit up to deja vu.