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

[User]
Were socialist Albania, Russia and Yugoslavia doing well economically ?

Apparently Churchill said Stalin inherited Russia with a wooden plough and left it in possession of atomic weapons.

Rationalwiki claims that : Under his long administration, Enver Hohxa oversaw the economic and social transformation of Albania from a feudal relic which was formerly ruled by a despot named Zog to a relatively modernized state.

Rationalwiki also claims that : Yugoslavia tended to enjoy a better quality of life than its Warsaw Pact neighbors with significantly better access to consumer goods (both foreign and domestic) and generally had fewer restrictions on its citizens.
_________
I dont get it. I though that socialism caused economies to collapse ?

Are those socialist dictators actually hated for the brutal repressions under their regimes, and not for their economic policies ?

But then, if their economic policies had been applied by a non-dictator person, like Alexander Dubek, could have socialism turned out better ?

[Assistant]
They were all different cases.

Albania: it had nothing in 1945. No roads, no brick buildings (except in some city centers), no industry. The whole economy relied on subsistence farming. The communists industrialized it, but then broke their trade ties with other communist countries. The economy stagnated after 1960s, though growth between 1945 took it from an economy that relied on good weather to not have mass starvation, to an industrialized economy. So there was rapid improvement, followed by a long stagnation. For 1960 that was good, but for 1990 not enough.

Yugoslavia: easily one of the success stories until 1985. Overall, Yugoslavia was quite open, since they had a special form of socialism and were not closed to trade with the west. Their main plague was nationalism which resulted in ethnic discrimination. Some regions were not allowed to industrialize until the 1970s.

USSR: until 1965 or so, they were on par with the US in many areas. But their production was very wasteful, which led to stagnation once full employment was reached. There is a big literature that explains this phenomenon.


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

[User]
Dealing with people who have bad mouthed you and your work

I'm looking for some advice about handling a person in my department who has gone around bad mouthing me and my groups research.  I'm sure this isn't a unique situation, so I'd love to hear how other people handled the situation.

So in a nut shell, a new student entered the graduate program in my department this past year.  For some reason, this student thought it was a good idea to begin to bash my research and my labs research in pretty public settings.  He started off by saying loudly at several recruitment sessions that we didn't know what they are doing and that our data was crap.  The thing that has really annoyed me is that he has been directly bad mouthing my project.  He went as far as to approach several other incoming students and tell them to not go near our group, we have no idea what we are doing (In more specifics language to our research).  Things ended up getting back to me and my labmates and everyone was pretty annoyed.   It wasn't an isolated incident either -- things kept coming back to us for the last 8 months.  Outside of getting annoyed, no one really did much about it because we are a very successful research group and don't have much to prove to a 1st year grad student.  However, it turns out that this student is now lobbying hard to join a lab that we collaborate very closely with. This would mean I would have to work closely with this person who has been bad mouthing me and even train them.

How would you approach this situation?  Would you confront them?  Try to block their entry into the sister lab?  Ignore it and stop being a baby?

I appreciate the advice!

[Assistant]
> However, it turns out that this student is now lobbying hard to join a lab that we collaborate very closely with.

Is that a close enough collaboration to call them up and say "hey, this dude is an asshole"?


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

[User] [STAR WARS] Why was everyone in the senate so onboard with Palpatine creating the Galactic Empire?

[Assistant] Increased security measures. Like a standing military that was centralized instead of relying on local militias.  Trade practices standardized and preferential treatment of the core worlds. Relaxed restrictions on exploiting worlds in the mid and outer rim.  Streamlining the process of government.  It took years of planning but palpatine made the Senate feel like they were suffering under republic rule and that he was the one to get things done instead of months of debating and dealing to find solutions.  The republic had just seen a simple trade dispute turn into a massive rebellion that was put down thanks only to palpatine bringing the grand army out of hiding and waging a war against the separatists that publicly was credited to palpatine not the jedi.  And it took nearly 19 years before the senate was losing power.  All they saw at the time was removing the need to have an elected leader of the Senate and having an authority that could come in and decide any issues without need for a Senate debate if it was needing a speedy response.


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

[User]
[Game of Thrones] Why didn't Wun Wun have a weapon at the Battle of the Bastards?

Seriously, the Starks had a great weapon in Wun Wun to use against the Boltons, but they didn't utilize him well enough. Why is that?

[Assistant] Even something simple like a tree trunk or large rock would work. I'd be more concerned with giving him armor and a shield. Barehanded he can still clobber men and horses, but just giving him a crude vest of wood plates would greatly increase his survivability, he'd be able to close ranks without getting skewered by arrows and spears.


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

[User] ELI5: how can fire be different temperature?

[Assistant] Fire is a chemical reaction between an oxidizer and a fuel source. Different combinations all combust at different points, so the intensity of the  thermal radiation produced by the chemical reaction will vary.


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

[User] What is vacuum energy and what is the "vacuum catastrophe"?

[Assistant]
Vacuum energy is an energy density associated with empty space.

You may have heard of 'zero-point energy' of quantum mechanical systems, where the state of lowest energy--the ground state--doesn't have zero energy but instead slightly above zero. For example, a classical harmonic oscillator (think mass on a spring) has zero energy at rest, but a quantum harmonic oscillator has hbar*omega/2 of energy at minimum (where hbar is the reduced Planck constant, and omega is the angular frequency of the oscillator).

When you apply quantum mechanics to relativistic particles (quantum field theory), you find that each particle type (field) acts like an infinite number of harmonic oscillators, one for each possible momentum of the particle. And each of those harmonic oscillators has a zero-point energy. And a finite number times infinity seems to give an infinite contribution to the energy density of empty space! This is the 'vacuum catastrophe.'

But, all is not lost. This sort of thing happens all the time in quantum field theory, and it's actually not a big deal---just an artifact of the way we like to describe the system mathematically. When you work hard enough to only describe *observable* quantities, all of the infinities (including the vacuum energy) go away and become finite. This is called renormalization.

However, all is not won, either. The tradeoff for renormalization rescuing us from infinite vacuum energy is that the *actual* vacuum energy depends very sensitively on the highest-energy particles in the theory. This is not what we like in physics, where we want to describe low-energy physics independently of what's going on at higher energies; planetary motion doesn't really care about the top quark, for example. But the vacuum energy cares about the *highest* energies that we can't even access directly. Naively, then, it should have a value comparable to the Planck scale, where quantum gravity renders quantum field theory incomplete. Or maybe optimistically it should be comparable to a scale just above the reach of the LHC (10 TeV or so) where physics *could* (probably doesn't, but could) change dramatically. Instead it's milli-electronvolts, comparable to the tiniest particle masses we know about.

Who cares what the energy density of empty space is? Gravity does--vacuum energy causes an accelerating expansion of the universe, which we know we live in! So that's good. Except the value we've measured (meV^(4)=10^-12 eV^(4)) is 120 orders of magnitude smaller than what we expect (Planck mass^(4)=10^108 eV^(4)). What. This is the cosmological constant problem, which is the modern version of 'vacuum catastrophe.' Widely considered the biggest problem in theoretical physics, nobody has any good ideas for how to solve it (besides arguing for a multiverse with 10^120 possible universes).


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

[User]
[General] I'm an Undercover Agent Who's Spent Months Gaining the Villain's Trust, Should I Sleep with His Mistress?

I've been deep undercover for several months, working my way up in the criminal organization and building a reputation. Now the villain trusts me like a son and I'm learning everything about his plans and connections. Normally at this point I'd start a relationship with his mistress, bringing suspicion on myself, and getting her killed, until the whole thing fell apart in a blaze of gunfire. I'm wondering if there's a better way?

[Assistant] And how else are you supposed to assert yourself as alpha? Everyone knows the mistress is just a tool you use to demoralize your opponent. Shit her parents didn't even bother to give her a proper name, who names their daughter Ahol Lottapossi and expects her to live?


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

[User]
Why doesn't the moon have a dust trail like comets do?

Being that the moon is rather close to the sun, and it has no protective atmosphere, why don't the sun's solar winds cause a long dust trail like that on a comet?

[Assistant]
1) the moon is made of rock, and rock do not turn into vapor easily, and so no vapor trail, whereas comets are frozen dust and ice.

2) the moon has significently higher gravity than a comet, and can hold on to its mass much strongly than a comet.

3) it is too far from the sun and so its really cold, unlike the comets which sometimes flypass into venus' orbit where its very near to the sun, and very hot, so hot it turns the ice into clouds of comet dust.


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

[User]
[Original Karate Kid] Where did Mr. Miyagi get all those cars from?

They are crucial to the plot for the "whacks on, whacks off" scene, and Daniel even asks where they're from, but Miyagi gives him a snarky answer, "Detroit!" and it never comes up again.

How did a Japanese immigrant, war veteran, handyman/superintendent by trade, accumulate all those cars?  Is he hiding something?

[Assistant]
>"whacks on, whacks off"

That's magical.

He has oil pumps on his property.  Daniel even asked him if he was in the oil business when he saw them.  Sold that black gold to build out that pimp crib and collect all those cars.


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

[User] ELI5: What is a slide rule, and why was its invention such a big deal?

[Assistant]
Multiplying numbers is harder than adding them.  You need to do a bunch of smaller multiplications then add them up, and there's plenty of scope for error.

Maths has a trick (invented by a Scot called John Napier) that lets you turn multiplication into addition.  There's this thing called the logarithm, and if you take the log of two numbers and add them together, it gives you the same answer as multiplying the two numbers and then taking the log of that.  In other words log(A)+log(B)=log(AB).  This means you could convert the numbers to logs, add them together (easy) and then convert the answer back.

But, logs are tricky.  We can't easily do them in our heads.  So we had to use charts known as log tables.  You'd look up log(A) and log(B), add them together, then find the answer in the table to convert back.  If this seems like a lot of effort with a lot of scope for error, that's because it is!

Slide rules simplify this process.  Instead of having the numbers spaces out linearly so the distance from 1 to 2 is the same as the distance from 2 to 3, slide rules use a logarithmic scale.  This means the distance from 1 to 10 is the same as the distance from 10 to 100.  Effectively, the distance along the ruler becomes the log of the number.  And slide rules have two of these scales on them which can slide past each other.

So, when you want to multiply A and B, all you do is slide the ruler so the 1 on one ruler is beside the A on the second.  That means every number y on the first is now lined up with yA on the second, because the distances are added together (and the distances are the logs of the numbers).  Then you just look along to find B on the first ruler, and the number across from it on the second ruler is just AB.

This takes complicated, intricate multiplications and turns them into sliding a thing and reading a number!

Edit: thanks, kind stranger :)

Edit2: and all you other strangers too.  Who'd have thunk so many folk cared about the length of tools used for multiplying.  Oh, wait...


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

[User]
Why isn't there a CS discipline that goes deeper into SQL, databases, and relational algebra?

Most CS programs I see focus on the same things: AI/ML, SWE, systems, networking, theory, etc. But isn't data management, relational algebra, theory of information, almost just as important as some of these other areas?

[Assistant] There is. There are entire journals and conferences dedicated to these topics. If you're talking about at an undergraduate level, then everything at an undergraduate level is fairly shallow. You do not go deeper into subjects until you focus on a particular area at a graduate level, and particularly when you look at a specific research area in a PhD.


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

[User] [Star Wars]Are there any earth material/substances that a lightsaber couldn't cut through.

[Assistant]
It appears these other two did not read the question...

I do not think so. Some harder/more dense elements and isotopes (diamonds, perhaps) might take a while to cut through, but nothing naturally occurring on Earth will hold a lightsaber off for more than a few seconds.

Some alloys (titanium?) will last a while longer, but still eventually be melted.


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

[User]
What's the biological advantage of metamorphosis/pupating if the process is so energy-consuming (destroying the entire body in the pupa and rebuilding it again, rather than simply growing up) and vulnerable?

Not to mention leaving the pupa immobile and completely vulnerable for long stretches of time.

Why do almost all flying insects start as grubs, then mature to have wings, rather than just mature to have wings without pupating (like birds)?

[Assistant] The caterpillar has low mobility and can focus on eating plant food, while the butterfly can live on nectar and because of its high mobility the offspring can be spread in a wider area. So a single specoes can benefit from two different niches.


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

[User]
You are driving a car going 100mph and letting go of the gas. You are allowed the hit the brakes for exactly one second whenever you choose. Does it matter when you do it to affect the time before the car stops?

Would it make any difference if using the one second of brakeingtime at 100mph or would it be better to just roll until 70mph and then hit the brakes?

[Assistant] Ignoring any nonlinear frictional effects, it's best to do it immediately. Work (kinetic energy dissipated through heat) is force * distance = force * velocity * time, so for a constant time, you'll get more breaking from an energetic standpoint the faster you're going.


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

[User] Do dissolved substances in a solution affect the density or volume of it?

[Assistant]
Ab-"solute" ly :)

A great example - water + salt = salt water and salt water has a higher density than water alone. The volume is also affected but not necessarily in a 1 to 1 manner (1 ml of salt + 1 ml of water != 2 ml of salt water)


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

[User]
If the US goes to $15/hr minimum wage, what would happen to the price of housing?

Complete layperson here. At $15/hr wouldn't more people qualify for a mortgage all at once, increasing demand and then the cost of?

Like, fantastic! Now we can qualify for a house! Oh wait housing just went up 1,000,000% nevermind

I'm also thinking that at $15/hr they would qualify for low priced homes, but *these* homes seem to get snapped up by investors and flippers. Years ago there wasn't much of this and if you didn't earn much you could get a fixer upper. Now those are harder to find? Idk?

[Assistant] No, they are largely not directly related. While raising the minimum wage would have a sizable impact on earnings for minimum wage earners, it would not be large enough to cause price changes outside of markets directly impacted by increased labor costs.


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

[User]
Is there a prejudice against hedonism?

Historically, hedonism has been defended by a long list of philosophers, including Aristippus, Epicurus, John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, David Hume, Jeremy Bentham, J.S. Mill, Henry Sidgwick, and (if I'm not mistaken) Peter  Singer.

Despite this, whenever I read of hedonism in philosophy encyclopedias or dictionaries, it's not treated very seriously. One said the future of hedonism "looks bleak" and another said it's a philosophy most philosophers view as initially plausible but not on closer inspection.

Can I put these remarks down to the bias of the authors who wrote them, or is hedonism actually looked down upon? A quick search on Google Scholar shows plenty of papers defending some form of hedonism, and of course there's Feldman who defends it, too.

Would it be fair to say there's a prejudice against hedonism? After all, the historiography of Western philosophy, until relatively recently, is mostly populated by idealists or Christians, neither of whom is much given to pleasure as a rule of thumb. Is there a historical prejudice against hedonism which continues to cast a shadow?

[Assistant]
I think it's a massive stretch to view Socrates as a hedonist, but that's irrelevant.

The dominant strains of Greek, Roman, and Christian philosophy were opposed to hedonidm. So there is a historical bias.  But the word 'bias' makes it sound irrational, which it isn't.  Read any of the great Platonists, Stoics, Aristotelians, Pythagoreans, or Christian philosophers and you will find arguments against the clsim that pleasure is synonymous with the good.

Most of the names you listed are modern thinkers, which makes sense.  Hedonism has seen a revival among post-Scholastic philosophy.

The number of hedonist philosophers is probably at a relative high in the history of Western thought.


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

[User]
Why doesn't glue harden in the bottle when air is introduced inside after its use?

When you use glue, air enters the container... In this case lets assume  crazy glue or a wood glue.  Why doesn't it harden?

[Assistant]
Glue is a cohesive/adhesive material dissolved in a solvent.  When you apply a glue to a surface, it is wet and will not have cohesive/adhesive properties because the "gluing" material is still dissolved in the solvent.  But when the solvent evaporates, the glue hardens.

You can introduce a small amount of air into a container, but only a very small amount of solvent will evaporate because the small amount of atmosphere in the container will quickly become saturated with dissolved solvent and the evaporation process will reach equilibrium.  Some small amount of glue probably hardens (or at least becomes more viscous) but you still have the bulk of the "wet" glue in your container.  Expose the glue to more air and more will harden.  Cut open the container and all of your glue will harden because the glue/solvent system will have (essentially) an unlimited amount of atmosphere to evaporate into.


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

[User] Why is the speed of light the upper limit of speed? What is special about light?

[Assistant]
The upper limit is not defined in terms of light specifically (despite the name), rather the speed of light is the speed that any massless particle will travel (historically, light was the first massless particle we became familiar with).

Additionally, the actual value of the speed of light is arbitrary and has no real physical significance. In everyday units and intuition, a speed is a quantity with units (distance / time), which makes it seem that the fact the the maximum speed takes a particular value in these units is important. However, if you take special relativity seriously you realize that it doesn't make any sense to measure time and space with different units, since they're inextricably linked in the more general concept of spacetime. In particle physcis, and many other areas of physics where relativity is important, we usually measure time and space in the same units, in which case the speed of light is just 1. In other words, there is some maximum speed, and all other speeds are some fraction of that speed, but speed itself should rightly be thought of as a unitless (i.e. dimensionless) quantity.


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

[User]
[Loki] The logistics of the show's central problem

I didn't want to give anything any in the title so I kept it the spoilers as vague as possible in the title.

Anyways, in Loki, Nathaniel Richards invents a way to travel to alternate realities and claims that some versions of himself wanted to be conquerors and take over other realities.

My question is, how would he do this? What does it mean to "take over" another reality? How would the inhabitants of these other realities live under Kang's rule and what would change in their day-to-day lives?

Similarly, the whole reason for Kang to destroy other realities is to prevent the Multiversal War, but again, what are the logistics of this war? It seems to me that the universe in the MCU is smaller than ours in size but still unbelievably gigantic. Wouldn't this Multiversal War take place light years away from like 99.99999999% of the universe's inhabitants? Because if that's the case, wouldn't it be better to have an on going Multiversal War than to destroy ENTIRE realities to prevent it?

I'm just wondering if there are any Marvel stories that go into the logistics of super villains conquering universes or entire realities - like how do they do that?

[Assistant]
Imagine being smart enough to not only discover alternate realities, but also cross over from your own into this new universe at will. Gotta be pretty damn smart eh? Smarter than anything Tony Stark has ever demonstrated at least. Tony's greatest scientific achievement was being able to travel within the 4th dimension of his own reality. Kang is effectively 5th dimensional. He can not only design tech to move him through time, but through alternate possible times.

Now take your "order of magnitude more genius than Iron Man" genius and make copies. Lots and lots of copies. Not quite 1 per reality but close to that. Some percentage of these Kangs are not only giga-geniuses, but also criminally, homicidally insane. Some are upright, valiant heroes. And some are somewhere in between the two. But virtually ALL of them are capable of engineering and technological advancement that makes Tony look like the slow kid.

Now imagine what fighting that guy would be like. You can't know where or when he'll show up in your reality. If you're lucky he won't show until after your dead but what if he shows up before you were born? What if the first humans in your reality to climb down from the trees and walk the plains were immediately greeted by a god who told them to obey him? Hard to stop an invasion from a guy who invaded before civilization was founded.

But even if he takes it easy on you and shows up to your reality roughly right now. You can't know how many of him will show, or whether they'll be on Kang's side or yours (because some of him are good and do fight to protect the multiverse.) But all of them can build doomsday weapons out of scrap metal and chewing gum and no matter how many you kill, more keep coming. How do you stop that?

Sure the universe is huge but once you have time travel, space travel is trivial. Just step one dimension up from the 3rd and come back in wherever you want.

Kang is essentially Rick Sanchez but with ambition. He can go anywhere, any time, and is smarter than basically anyone ever. If he finds your reality, he CAN dominate it.


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

[User]
If you could remove a golf ball sized portion from a black hole mass would it retain its mass or evaporate?

This is something I have been wondering recently... is there a minimum or maximum mass limit that is required for a black hole to form or to stay formed?

[Assistant]
You seem to think a black hole is a blob of stuff. It's not.

In its own reference system, all the stuff in a black hole collapses *all the way in*; it becomes a mathematical point, zero-dimensional - the singularity. You cannot remove "a golf ball sized portion" of something that measures exactly ZERO meters across.

Or, if you think the black hole volume is the volume inside the event horizon, wrong again. Inside the event horizon there's just empty space, it's not a line drawn in sand. A spaceship could orbit inside the event horizon of a giant black hole, no problem. It just can't get out.

Now, from a reference system infinitely far away, the black hole does not appear to collapse, it appears to be frozen for eternity at the moment the event horizon was created. But you can't remove "golf ball size portions" from infinitely far away - once you get close enough, you enter the other reference system where the black hole is a true singularity.

However, if you do manage somehow to remove energy from the black hole, it becomes less massive and the event horizon shrinks. This happens all the time with the Hawking radiation that black holes naturally emit. But it's radiation, not golf ball sized chunks. The more energy you remove, the more it shrinks, but the Hawking radiation also becomes more intense.

Once the BH is small enough, the outbound radiation *really* picks up and the microscopic black hole becomes a very bright object, radiating mostly hard photons and other nasty stuff, becoming even smaller, radiating even faster. It's a vicious cycle which ends up in the black hole releasing all its final energy in a giant bang - something like a Star Wars sized nuclear weapon. You don't want to be anywhere near when it evaporates completely.

There are proposals to create interstellar drives using black holes, kept just small enough to radiate a lot, but not too small as to blow up. You could feed them any crap the starship finds in its way. It would convert all mass into energy - 100% efficiency. Just like an antimatter drive but without the inconvenience of having to manufacture lots of antimatter. You do have to make or capture a small black hole, thou'.


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

[User] ELI5: What happens to inmates serving life sentences when they become too old to look after themselves in a prison?

[Assistant] There are a couple of scenarios that can play out. They may just spend the rest of their lives in the prison infirmary, or they can be granted a compassionate release if they are terminally ill and death is imminent.


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

[User] What are some of Newton's less famous discoveries?

[Assistant]
Although he his best known for his theoretical and mathematical work, he did some of the most rigorous optics experiments to date, leading to his book Optiks. These typically involved scattering light through prisms and lenses and the like, but he also stuck a knitting needle into his eye socket to see if he could alter his perception of colours.

There is an urban legend that he invented the cat door, but apparently it's apocryphal.


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

[User] [Pokemon] What makes a Great Ball stronger than a Poke Ball, an Ultra Ball stronger than a great ball, and a Master Ball completely inescapable? Not to mention all the other kinds with different effects.

[Assistant]
Well going off the assumption that pokeballs are basically cages or rooms that are locked from the outside, then each one has a different lock. With the master ball having the best lock money can buy, and Poke Ball having an average lock.

For stronger Pokemon, you want to weaken them badly, and maybe paralyze them with spores to make it hard for them to escape before you lock them in in your normal lock that takes a bit to close. While master balls are locked the instant a Pokemon is forced in and are too hard to try and break out.


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

[User] ELI5 Why are teeth alive if they're just bone and can't regenerate? Why do they need blood flow and are able die?

[Assistant] If you look at bones, they are filled with marrow. Check out a cross-section photo. This is filled with stemcells and allows the bones to grow bloodcells. Bones are alive. All bones would rot if they were left in open air and exposed to rotting foods and sugars for years. Most are encased in live meat to protect them. For instance, the rotting tooth does not start under the gum. It spreads there.


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

[User]
Why is the FED hiking interest rates if inflation is being led by inelastic goods supply problem and not money growth?

Most of inflation from data seems to be from energy /supply problems which isn't due to money growth. Is there data I'm misreading or something?

[Assistant] Because easier credit access (via more money supply or lower interest rates) increases demand for goods, exacerbating inflationary pressures. They know they can't fix the supply side, so their only option is to tamp down demand somewhat to try to put a lid on inflation.


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

[User]
[DC comics] Whos the current US President?

And how long have they been in office?

[Assistant]
Usually it's the president in our world, as seen when the League has arguments with Reagan.

Though we do know they had or will have at least one president not accounted for in our history- Mr. Prez Rickard (or, depending on the continuity, Beth Ross). Because of the sliding timeline it's a little hard to say if he WAS president or WILL BE president; stories are a bit inconsistent.


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

[User]
If photons take millions of years to reach the outer surface of a star, do we see stars the instant they are created?

I know it takes time for the light to reach earth, but I'm not taking that into affect.

[Assistant] That is the average length of time a photon will take.  Some might propagate to the surface in seconds while others take thousands of years.  Furthermore, some photons are created right on the surface itself.


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

[User]
How exactly do we get used to capsaicin?

A few years ago, my idea of spicy was something along the lines of cayenne pepper sauce. As I'm typing this, I'm enjoying a cheese sandwich spiced up with a Madame Jeanette chutney. What happened to my body to allow me to sit through this sandwich with enjoyment rather than burning screams of agony?

[Assistant] Another tangential question: if you hold water in your mouth when your tongue is burning from spice, the burn is completely gone.  But as soon as you swallow the water the burn comes back.  What's going on here?


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

[User]
CMV: The same lens of racism cannot be applied across the world and some terms referring to person's skin colour can be acceptable in a non-American or non-Western context

This thought comes from a recent controversy where a West Indian cricketer (a cricketer from the Carribean, not the western part of India) was very upset that in his years playing in the Indian Premier League (a cricket league in India), he was often called "kaalu", which literally translates to blackie.

I'm Indian myself. I would never deny that Indian society is racist - in fact Indian society is quite racist and colourist (if that's a word. Basically practicing colourism). India has a massive fairness cream industry and fetishes fair skin to a great degree. (I'm glad to say that these are slowly changing off-late and some celebrities are refusing to endorse fairness creams)

However, the word in question here is very commonly used in India and does not constitute "racist abuse". It cannot be compared to words like the N-word or other derogatory terms used in American contexts since those words have huge historical baggage and was used exclusively to put down people of a certain race and skin-tone. The word carries with it this gruesome history.

Let me say that the skin-tone of the cricketer in question here, Darren Sammy, is not very untypical for Indians. Indians range from quite fair to quite dark-skinned. We Indians a have a lot of nicknames based on physical features. In my mother tongue and most Indian languages we very often and sportingly call each other words that mean "shorty", "fatty", "baldie" and yes, blackie. I'm slightly fair-skinned by southern-Indian standards and in my mother tongue for some reason, there exists a term "white cockroach" that I have been called, just as a friendly nickname.

None of these nicknames have a history of being used by a set of people to perpetrate any kind of discrimination or atrocities. I understand 2 things - 1) Dark-skinned people are not treated as well as fair-skinned people in Indian society in general today. 2) People could be affected quite seriously or offended by constantly having others point out certain physical characteristics, such as height, girth, hair density on head or skin-tone and we must stop if they are not ok with it.

My main submission however is that in India, Darren Sammy being called "blackie" is not racist abuse and since it does not come with local historical baggage, casual usage of this term is not to be unexpected. It should be condemned as strongly or weakly as say the usage of a term like "baldie" or "fatty". And if the cricketer in question is uncomfortable with being called by this term, he should certainly not be called this term. But let's not make too big a deal out of this.

If we reverse the lens and look at it as well, Indian society practiced (and continues is some pockets to this day) the inhuman practice of untouchability. Maybe if "untouchable" is a way to call someone in some country, to insult them lightly in some way or even in a friendly way (it's hypothetical), I would expect an Indian to brush it off. In India, however, calling someone untouchable should be and is completely unacceptable and out of bounds. Even an Indian calling another Indian this in some other country would never be acceptable according to me.

[Assistant]
Yes colorism is a thing. It's basically being racist about skin colour.

And yes being called blackie is a racial slur. When people ca the cricket player blackiebthey are doing so in order to point of that he is "other" and is different from them, not worth what they are worth because his skin is darker.


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

[User]
[Marvel]Can The Hulk be Killed?

Just to clarify I don't mean what is the best way to kill the hulk, (that seems to be tranq Bruce Banner and then take him out before he hulks out... or whatever) My question is if Bruce is already hulked out can he actually be killed, it seems almost like a paradox the more you can actually hurt the Hulk the angrier he gets and thus the stronger he gets so you hurt him less and less.

[Assistant]
Definitely: The end of the universe. Considerable amounts of Xanax. Like, an ocean of the stuff. Start firing darts at Banner - he'll go hulk before he realises they aren't toxic, and hopefully enough of it will manage to get into his system before it is burnt through by his regenerative capacity.

Possibly: The Scarlet Witch, before she accidentally (purposefully) depowered herself. Galactus and other similar 'concept' beings could jump all over him. He's strong, and has infinite potential, but there's a point where they can just overwhelm him - Galactus is hunger personified. Rogue's powers offer the potential; but it depends what happens first: Hulk's life force is sucked away, or Rogue's 'pool' fills up and she explodes. Or whatever.

Would remove but not kill him: Throw him into a black hole, the center of a star, etc. You'd have a few billion years hulk-free!


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

[User] ELI5 what exactly happens on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange and how is it different from electronic trading?

[Assistant]
Mostly press photos these days. Real trading hasn't been done there for ages.

The actual trading happens electronically in the NYSE data centers in NJ.

What you're seeing in photos is called "open outcry" trading. Which is quite literally people shouting out what they're buying and selling. There was a whole lot of noise, so there were collections of hand gestures to communicate. It's interesting, but kind of stupid to try and do these days with computers around. There's no way the humans can keep up!

When Bloomberg built fancy computers to do the trading electronically, it was almost instantly faster, easier, and more efficient.


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

[User]
(MU and MCU)Why don't advanced alien races deploy Iron-Man-like suits with their troops?

Stark in *Iron Man 2* said his Iron Man tech was about 20 years ahead of any other tech on Earth.

But aliens in both the comic book and cinematic universe are centuries if not thousands of years ahead technologically than Earth.  Wouldn't they have the technology to not only develop their own Iron Man-like powered battle armors, but find ways of manufacturing them so they could be produces in quantity at affordable prices for said highly advanced society?

If one Iron Man suit with Earth-level tech could be so devastating to so many foes, including many aliens who have fought the Avengers, then why wouldn't aliens invest in similar tech?

And though Stark is an acknowledged singular genius, hundreds of alien scientists and engineers working with much more advanced tech should be able to come up with something of similar capabilities.

I know in the comics there were occasionally aliens with power suits.  I'm just saying, given how effective Iron Man has proved that tech to be even with relatively low Earth technology, wouldn't most advanced races seek to develop and deploy that kind of tech en masse to their military early on?

[Assistant]
They have. Stark's suits, to many races, are rather primitive and bulky, even if they're still powerful. Many of them have personal force shields as a regular thing, the entire Nova Corps has space suits and the Nova Force, the Accusers all wear powered armor as well as their Universal Weapons (which dwarf the Iron Man's armors in every conceivable way), the Space Knights of Galador have taken it one step further than even Tony dares, Shi'ar shock troops wear powered armor, the Kree's wear the same...

Many of the spacefaring races have armors like Iron Man's. It's just that some of them are so advanced, it looks like regular clothing.


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

[User] ELI5:Why do people who work in an office who never leave the office and are never seen by anyone other than coworkers required to dress up?

[Assistant]
What you wear influences how you feel about yourself and how other people feel about you. Which means that what you wear has influence about how you behave and about how people behave towards you. What you wear sends out signals to yourself and to other people.

That's part -- *part* -- of the reason why a judge wears a robe, a doctor a white coat, a nurse scrubs, a "professional" a suit and tie, a christian a cross, a person from the country a camo shirt, someone who identifies as a redneck a shirt with sleeves cut off, a cop all his or her various adornments, etc. How we appear sends out signals about who we are to ourselves and to other people.

When you're representing a company and supposed to be professional and interacting with clients then it's clear why you might have to wear a suit and tie: to signal to the client that you are a professional.

Client or not, you're going to be interacting with your co-workers and vice versa. As a general rule businesses think that it would be a good thing if all y'all employees interacted with each other in a professional way. Having to dress professionally reminds and encourages all y'all to behave professionally and treat each other professionally.


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

[User] ELI5: When somebody dies of cancer, what exactly is the actual reason the body stops working?

[Assistant]
Cancer is a general term we use to describe any disease where cells in the body begin to divide in an uncontrolled fashion, often fast and with a very high mutation rate (so the cells begin to not look or function like those from the area of the body where they started). Cancer can be confined to a small area, or break off, travel through the blood stream, and lodge elsewhere to grow (we call that "metastasis" or "spreading").

Cancers kill by growing a bunch of the wrong cells in the wrong place. They can physically tear up organ tissue, block blood flow, cause internal bleeding, stop usable blood cells from being made... They effectively choke out organs to the point where the organs can't function and dies off. If the cancer has spread through the body, then many parts of the body will be failing at the same time.

Cancer death is typically due to organ failure, but the specifics of how it grows, the parts of the body affected, how it develops, etc. all depend on the particular type of cancer.


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

[User] What school of economics do you belong to?

[Assistant]
"Schools of thought" are no longer particularly relevant in modern economics. These days it's basically everything from all schools that works thrown together and what doesn't work tossed out and economics isn't guided by lines of thinking as these schools represent any longer.

So if you want to know what the answer to that for the vast majority of "professional" economists is, it's "none".


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

[User]
[Avatar TLA/LOK] Would it be possible for an Avatar to create a subcategory of bending that requires multiple elements? If so what could be some possible sub-elements?

For example we all know the Four main elements have different sub-elements within them

Fire - Lightning, combustion
Water - Blood, spirit
Earth - Metal, Lava
Air - Flight

So since an Avatar can control all 4 elements can they combine Earth + Water and create WoodBending?

[Assistant]
That's essentially what Lava and sand bending are. Lava bending is mixing fire and earth together. Hell you could argue lava bending shares a water style form in its fluidity. Meanwhile sand benders are earth benders who utilize Airbender styles to imitate the wind using sand.

I would also think a skilled metal bender could blood bend using the Iron instead of the fluid in human blood.


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

[User] Besides Carbon Dating, what are the other techniques to determine the age of objects ? Organic or inorganic?

[Assistant]
There are a huge number of dating techniques. To list some of them:

*Dendrochronology

*Sclerochronology

*Varve-chronology

*Radiocarbon/Uranium Series/Etc. (many, many dating techniques in this group)

*Cosmogenic Isotopes

*Fission Track Dating

*Thermo-luminescence and Optically Stimulated Luminescence and Infrared Simulated Luminescence

*Amino-Acid Racemization

*Obsidian Hydration and Tephra Hydration

*Rock-varnish cation ratio and development

*Lichenometry

*Soil chemistry chronology and soil profile development

*Rock and mineral weathering

*Scarp Morphology

*Depositional and deformational layering (seasonal layers in ice sheets, for example)

*Geomorphic position

*Calcium Carbonate dating

*Stratigraphy

*Paleomagnetism

*Tephrachronology

*Paleontology (huge field)

*Stable Isotopes dating (whole ton here)

*Tectites and microtectites

*And of course human historical records

Radiocarbon gets a lot of press, but it is very far from being the most reliable dating method, and it is not used nearly as often as most laymen will tend to think it is.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why colonize the moon or Mars instead of inhospitable Earth locations?

There is more and more talk about colonizing the moon or Mars. I get it, it would be great to explore space. And maybe we need to be prepared for the worst-case scenario should our planet become completely inhospitable. But it seems to me that Earth would have to be really, really bad for Mars or the moon to be a better option. If we "colonized" the Sahara desert or the north pole, it would be way, way more comfortable than Mars. With the oxygen and all. And if we were to settle in places like that, it would be a very long time before we ran out of room.

So why seek to settle on another planet?

[Assistant]
> So why seek to settle on another planet?

Because it's there. To explore space. To develop and refine the technology of off-Earth living. To give the human race a lifeboat.

Why colonize the Sahara or Antarctica? We aren't running out of room in more livable places.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does poultry need to be fully cooked to a specific temperature when it's safe to consume beef that's basically half cooked or 'rare'?

[Assistant]
Birds and cows have different types of muscle tissue. Several common pathogens can penetrate bird tissue completely, but only reside on the surface of cow tissue. Cooking kills them. This means that cooking the surface of say, a steak, is all you need to render that steak safe, while for poultry you need to cook the entire way in.

It's also why it's *not* generally safe to eat raw mincemeat/hamburger. You need to cook that stuff the entire way through, because the surface has been mixed with the interior.


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

[User]
ELI5: What are the main reasons for the lack of state-on-state warfare today?

With few exceptions (e.g. Iraq and Georgia), there has been very limited direct state-on-state fighting in the last couple of decades. What are the big reasons for this? Is it the sheer power of militaries like the USA's  that makes fighting against their allies  (who make up a big chunk of nations) unthinkable, or is it more to do with things like dependence on the global market and threat of isolation?

A kind of extra point: when I read about modern armies, it seems a lot of equipment we spend lots on would only be used in a conflict of two advanced states, like anti-ship missiles. Why is so much spent on this, given I can't imagine it's been used since something like the Falklands? I'm assuming people will say it's because of this investment that these wars don't happen (deterrence), but even without the very latest torpedoes, aren't the massive sanctions, etc, enough of a deterrent to stop a state-on-state war?

[Assistant] South western Africa has been in a brutal war for decades. You don't hear all about it except through documentaries. Its mostly warlords fighting over diamonds, gold, silver, and other precious metals.


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

[User]
[Death Note] Even though he fancies himself a god does Light still know he's a regular human who could easily die via conventional means or was he truly that far gone?

For example, is Light aware that despite the Death Note some drunk driver could just run him down on the sidewalk by mistake and end his vision for a new world right then and there?

[Assistant]
He's seemingly aware, yes- his actions don't really make sense except in the context of knowing there's a risk someone might kill him.

"God" here is in the sense of "ultimate authority" not "omnipotent being".


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

[User]
ELI5:How are older TV shows from the 80s/90s "remastered" from (4:3) into HD (16:9), and why are only a select few available in HD form?

Why are some select popular TV shows reformated from 4:3 to 16:9 (HD) such as the X-Files which is widely available on Netflix etc. but other shows are neglected? Does it have to do with popularity of said television show or how it was filmed, or because the way it was filmed it isn't possible? and how is it done?

[Assistant]
First of all, "HD" is not the same as 16:9.

Most TV shows were shot using 35mm film. Some used 16mm. Either way, very few programs were shot using video. *ALL* film has detail in excess of a 1080p image - practically speaking 2K or 4K at least, if not more.

While they were shot, some shows shot in such a way that a 16:9 presentation was protected as well as a 4:3 picture - meaning that the director made sure that a 16:9 version or a 4:3 version would both work. Not *ALL* shows did this. Even though picture information was captured in the film, they might have microphones and equipment visible in the 16:9 frame that would be cropped out of the 4:3.

Some shows are being "converted" to 16:9 when they should not be. This is mostly because layman perceive that they are being "cheated out" of the picture because of the black bars, so they will accept a zoomed in picture, or shots not composed right, or even equipment visible. It's possible X-Files, especially the early seasons, should NOT be converted to 16:9. Buffy The Vampire Slayer was *NOT* shot for 16:9 and they have done a bad conversion anyway, much to the frustration of the show's producers.

Old, old shows were also shot in film, but they were shot in full frame 4:3. Even older movies were originally 4:3 also. There's not very much 'extra' information on the film frame to make a widescreen presentation from. If you make a 16:9 version out of this, you'll be chopping people's heads off.

The real reason some shows are being put out in HD and some are not is expense. Scanning original negatives and restoring them is expensive. It's a manual, time consuming process.

To add to the complexity, some shows were SHOT on film but then edited on video - like Star Trek The Next Generation. All the edits, sound editing, special effects composites, and everything else - would have to be re-done from scratch using the original negatives resources. They'd do this for Star Trek, but they might not do this with other shows. Star Trek The Next Generation maintained the correct aspect ratio of 4:3 because the elements and footage were intended for a 4:3 presentation.


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

[User]
If a fly is hit by a train, do they feel the same force on each other? And what is that force?

Hey! So I've been studying Physics for a bit, and ran into this problem that left me with more questions than answers. Say a fly and a train collide with one another. The train is moving with some acceleration "a" and a mass "m", which is much larger than the mass of the fly. The fly is also accelerating towards the train at a much smaller acceleration.

Now, according to Newton's third law, at the moment of impact, the force that the train imparts on the fly is exactly equal to the force that the fly imparts on the train. Also, according to Newton's second law, the force is equal to mass times acceleration. As such, the train hits the fly with a massive amount of force, equal to the acceleration times the mass of the train.

Now I'm confused, does the fly respond with this same force? Or is it some different force? I discussed this question with a physics major and he told me that the force that the fly feels and responds with is not equal to the mass of the train times it's acceleration, but all that the fly can respond with (its own mass times the new acceleration that it has after it is hit). Is this the case? Can someone explain this to me so I can conceptualize it more easily? Thank you.

[Assistant]
Your error is here:

> As such, the train hits the fly with a massive amount of force, equal to the acceleration times the mass of the train.

The force on the fly is the acceleration of the fly times the mass of the **fly**.

The force on the train is the acceleration of the train times the mass of the train.

These two forces are equal, which tells us that the acceleration of the fly is much larger than the acceleration of the train.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does the body vomit when spatially disoriented? What benefit is there from losing your lunch when the floor is moving?

[Assistant] The sensation of "motion sickness" is really just your brain getting conflicting information from your sense of sight and your sense of balance. Surprisingly we use our sight quite a bit to help our inner ear. For example, think of how it's harder to balance a bicycle if you look down rather than straight ahead.   One theory I've heard as to why this causes us to vomit is that this motion sickness, or the sensation that the room is spinning, is a common side effect from eating toxic materials and poisons. For our evolutionary ancestors, they might accidentally eat something like poisonous mushrooms. The toxins cause motion sickened and throwing up may be your body trying to get rid of something dangerous you ate.


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

[User] ELI5: How is code scrambled in a corrupt file on a computer? What causes the code to be deleted or moved?

[Assistant]
Files can be corrupted in a lot of different ways.

* the file transfer/ download was not finished and the file is not complete

* there was an error in the packet stream of a download, or a man in the middle was playing with the packets

* a block on the hard drive / solid state drive where the data is located failed, and could not be recovered

* a solar flare caused a higher level of magnetic radiation to reach the earth, and was not stopped by the magneto sphere, the magnetic radiation causes some bits to flip. (yes this happens but the bits are always recovered so you never see any data get compromised because of this.)


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

[User] Do all salts taste 'salty' i.e. Like sodium chloride? What about other sodium salts? Other chlorides? Alkali metals? Halides? Etc...

[Assistant]
The perceived taste of a substance is due to the brain's interpretation of signals from taste receptors on the tongue. In order to trigger these receptors, a substance (usually) must bind properly to or pass through a protein receptor/channel on its surface. The *salty* taste is the simplest mechanism: Na^+ ions directly enter the cell and depolarize it (change its charge, causing an action potential/nerve signal to be sent to the brain).

So, metal salts consisting of other positive ions that can trick the channel into thinking they're sodium should also depolarize it, which the brain will interpret as *salty*. These would be the others in the same column, the alkali metals, which will be similar in size and their +1 charge in solution. But, since the ions will be somewhat different in size, they won't pass through the channel as easily/often, which means the ions will taste less *salty*. LiCl and KCl will be saltier, while RbCl and CsCl will be less so because of their larger sizes.

If you change out the anion in the salt (Cl^- ), there is less effect. Sodium bromide (NaBr) will taste salty. But you get more complicated effects if you start changing both ions: KBr changes taste with concentration due to differing sensitivities of receptors for the two ions, the weaker saltiness of K^+ not always overpowering. Anything that produces H^+ ions, (i.e. an acid compound) is also going to taste sour, as that ion is the trigger for *sour*. Pick something with wild organic groups like Pb(CH3COO)2, and it could even taste sweet.

Edit: K^- to K^+


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

[User]
ELI5 - remapping a car??

Remapping a car gives better fuel economy and improved performance, why is this 'map' not as standard from the manufacturer? Do they purposely make vehicles underperform and fuel hungry?

[Assistant] The map from the manufacturer is designed to get the car through various economy and emissions tests.  These tests (depending on country) will run the car at different RPM, temperatures, etc.  The map is also designed to work for a specific fuel octane rating.  On cars without turbochargers, there is limited improvements that a tuner map will provide.  The power curve might be moved around a bit, and you might get better economy at a different speeds, but in the end you will not be getting a huge gain.  Turbo motors, however, see great improvements.  Tuner maps allow the turbos to spool up longer, and increase power dramatically.  But, there is no free lunch.  You will burn more fuel, and have higher emissions.


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

[User] [Doctor Who] We know Timelords are highly resistant to energy damage but what about melee damage? Stabbing, shooting, slicing damage? Does that heal quickly? Slowly?

[Assistant]
They seem to sustain damage just as easily as humans do. The Seventh Doctor was caught in a shootout, and sustained injuries that an American hospital recognised as typical gunshot wounds.

The *difference* is that Timelords recover from these wounds a lot faster. Whether or not this is due to a two-heart biological system, residual regeneration energy or other Timelord DNA is unclear, but suffice to say that Timelords have similar resistances to humans (besides much *much* greater air filtration capabilities, radiation resistance, energy resistance and psychological defenses) *but* have a greater pain tolerance and enhanced healing factor that repairs damage (without full regeneration) faster than a human would repair damage.


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

[User]
[Pokemon] Who rules the world of Pokemon? Is there a government? Are there countries? Are the Gym leaders essentially warlords/chieftains running their town under the watchful eye of their Elite Four Overlords?

Essentially.....what is going on in Pokemon world?

Are the Elite 4 the heads of government supported by various gym leaders/warlords who only allow the strong to join their ranks?

Who funds the Pokmon Centres? Do the elite four fund them to encourage fighting and to make the new generation of leaders battle hardened?

So many questions!

[Assistant]
We know government and nation-states both exist; the Pokmon world has mayors, uniformed police, armed forces who go to war, and Pokmon Centers exist even in regions where there is no League system (Orre), implying they're government-funded.

Since any serious trainer is walking around with a belt of serious portable firepower, and trainers are everywhere, conflicts can arise rapidly. There is a cultural understanding that strong trainers are responsible for intervening when other trainers abuse the power of their Pokmon. This usually means Gym leaders and the Elite members, but on rare occasions a roaming trainer of extraordinary skill steps up to the plate.


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

[User]
[Terminator] How did knowledge about Skynet, not the U.S, launching the nukes spread?

If I remember correctly, Skynet was activated by the U.S. military. It gained sentience and launched American nukes at other countries. Those countries retaliated and launched nukes at America and her allies. Presumably, those countries thought that the U.S. launched the nukes, not Skynet. If that's so, why do we see a Russian general helping the Resistance in Terminator: Salvation and people from other nations following orders from Resistance High Command, which is composed of mostly American generals?

[Assistant]
The truth became evident after satellite imagery of American bombers hitting targets inside the U.S. was available to the remaining command structure in Russia. That and the kill-bots running around shooting humans indiscriminately.

tl;dr, They just figured it out eventually.


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

[User]
[Marvel] would a healing factor as powerful and as efficient as Deadpools or Wolverines afford them athletic, strength and other physical advantages?

I know that Wolverine has achieved a much higher level of strength than he would naturally have achieved had he not had Adamantium grafted to his skeleton, because he has adapted to carrying the extra load and his muscles repair and regenerate so quickly that he's probably been pushed beyond peak levels as a result but what if he didn't have the Adamantium?

* if people like Wolverine (without Adamantium) and Deadpool can repair and regenerate so quickly, could they develop far higher muscle density and power than without their HF because they can push themselves far harder without worrying about injuries and workout more frequently because they regenerate so fast?

* I guess the limiting factor would be access to nutrition to power the muscle growth, but if that isn't an obstacle and they can eat whatever they want in whatever quantity they need then I don't see why they couldn't become just like Captain America in a relatively short period of time, except with a much better healing factor.

[Assistant] Yes. A normal person is limited by how quickly their muscles can repair damage and add mass after a workout. Deadpool, on the other hand, could work out continuously, maxing out with ever rep, and between sets his muscles would do in minutes what yours would take days to do. Plus, Deadpool doesn't appear to need any extra food to regenerate, so he could become almost limitlessly swole in a single sesh.


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

[User] ELI5: Why are the primary colors of pigment red, blue, and *yellow* when the primary colors of light are red, blue, and green?

[Assistant]
Pigments are called subtractive. If you mix those three, you get darker colors, supposed to be black in a perfect world. Red, green, and blue are additive, they add up to white. RGB are the primary colors of light, RYB are the primary colors of some pigments. There's also CYMK for printing, and it's another subtractive system.

Why you get white for RGB has to do with white light being comprised of all colors. Where as pigment absorbs and reflects light, it doesn't emit it. So that's how your mixing is done, through absorption. The more colors you add, the more light that's absorbed, the closer to black you get. Black = all colors absorbed.


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

[User]
Where does the extra energy come from in blueshift?

Im currently doing A level physics where we are learning about special relativity and I was wondering, if an object is moving towards a stationary spectator at high speed (close to the speed of light) and the light from it appears to have a higher frequency (due to the Doppler effect) and higher frequency light waves have more energy, where does the extra energy come from.

From the objects frame of reference, the light has less energy than it does from the frame of reference of the stationary spectator but would this not break the first law of thermodynamics?

[Assistant]
The energy doesn't come from anywhere because the light ray hasn't gained any energy. The difference between the energy of an object in two different reference frames is a meaningless quantity. Energy is conserved in a given reference frame. But there is no reason that the energy must be the same across different reference frames. In fact, it's not. Energy is a frame-dependent quantity. So you may see a light ray with some energy, but someone moving relative to you will see it with a different energy.

This is not unique to light either. Driving in your car, you observe your car to have zero kinetic energy. But someone on the ground will observe your car to have some non-zero kinetic energy. Again, energy is conserved, but it is not invariant between frames.


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

[User]
ELI5: how are fruits kept fresh when being delivered across large distances like on cargo ships? Is it more than just refridgeration?

How come we cant keep fruit in the fridge for weeks?

[Assistant]
Actually have some legitimate knowledge on this one.

Odds are the fruit in your fridge has already been around for several days, weeks, or even months before a consumer gets to it. Between the fields, sorting, packing houses, distribution, and then onto store shelves it's been around a bit. Even more so if it isn't local.

Things are picked during certain ripeness windows, forced ripening, refrigeration, air freight in some cases, specific varieties, chemistry witchcraft, and quality as well.

In some cases it's possible to pick fruits before they are ripe, then store them in certain conditions where they will not be exposed to the ripening chemicals until desired. Humidity, temperature, gas mixture is all controlled for. Ethylene gas is one of them, if you've ever been told not to store other fruit near bananas it's because they give off a lot of it as they ripen which can force nearby fruits to prematurely spoil.. on the flip side the gas can be introduced closer to delivery to "finish" fruits.
This isn't as high quality as tree ripened fruit(for citrus anyway) since it's more for color than flavor or juice, but will get the color right and keep the rind intact longer. Though once gassed, the decay process speeds up rapidly. This is also how supply for fruits are smoothed out over peaks and falls from different varieties having slightly different pick times. Not every fruit works with this method, but a lot of them do, even if it is just for color. Some fruits like bananas, or stone fruit do actually ripen and change flavor from the ripening. IIRC the term is climacteric vs non-climactic.
Bananas are a great example of this. Picked green, straight into refer containers ASAP, then onto ships and gassed at receiving centers. Depending the cycle, location etc, the banana that will implode on a consumers counter in 2-3 days, is already two weeks old.

Containers can be refrigerated which helps.

If the commodity is expensive enough, it's possible to air shot it to destination. Berries are a common air freight commodity since they spoil fast but also can command a high price. Ever try to buy berries in NA during the winter and realize you're paying like $8 for a small clamshell grown in South America? Berries for people in the business are also a very high stress commodity since they perish extremely fast, are potentially a lot of profit and have tighter margins for freight times. I've heard anecdotes about brokers renting U-Hauls and driving the shipment themselves to make sure their shipments were on the plane.

Some varieties have thicker skin and lend themselves to better export markets.

In the case of apples, it's entirely possible with ~~witchcraft~~ chemistry to fully stop the decay and store them for months. Upon removal from the gas chambers the fruit begins to decay and ripen again though.

Export fruit is also generally higher quality, both to survive the trips but also to make up for the higher cost to consumer. Some of the best fruit I've ever had is export grade straight from the fields.

tl;dr- Commercial agriculture is a full science with massive chambers that control gas mixtures, temperature and humidity to control the decay. The average fridge, does not have that. Odds are also that the fruit has already been around for a while before ending up in a consumer fridge.


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

[User] [LOTR] What does Sauron look like without armour?

[Assistant]
From the LotR Wiki:

In the Silmarillion, Sauron is described as being a shape changer, and took many forms, including that of a serpent, a vampire, and a great wolf. After Morgoth's fall, Sauron appeared in fair form as Annatar, the Lord of Gifts, and maintained this appearance until the Fall of Numenor, in which he was unable to ever take fair form ever again. He is also a changeling, in the chapter of Silmarillion, of Beren and Luthien.

A few clues are given as to Sauron's appearance as the Dark Lord: Tolkien described Sauron in one of his letters as having the form of a man of more than human stature, but not gigantic, and as an image of malice and hatred made visible. He apparently gave off great heat, so much so that Gil-Galad was burned to death by his mere touch, and Isildur described Sauron's hand as black, yet burning like fire, suggesting that his entire body was blackened from fire and heat.

Gollum, having apparently seen Sauron directly, described him as having only four fingers on his black hand, suggesting that Sauron was unable to regenerate the finger from which Isildur took the ring, similar to how the wounds Morgoth took from Fingolfin never healed.

In addition to his physical appearance, Sauron also apparently had an aura of incredible malevolence. A passage in The Silmarillion describes him as having a "dreadful presence," and daunting eyes. Furthermore, his mere presence could bend all but the strongest wills.


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

[User]
ELI5:Whats the reasoning for Nordic Countries such as Denmark and Sweden actively accepting so many refugees?

Especially considering the tax burden it adds on to, difficulties with integration and high youth unemployment in general.

Whats the reasoning behind it? perhaps some long term economic benefit? a way to offset a declining population? Strict political views on current and past administrations?

[Assistant]
it's called humanity.

Scandinavian people are more concerned with who they are and what they will become then they are concerned with who others are and what they could do to them.

They see the oppertunity that people bring, not the dangers that they could create, and strive to increase the opperunity rather then obstruct it, resulting in less trouble from migrants and more positive results.


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

[User]
[Marvel] My home has just been destroyed by The Avengers. Now what?

I come home to my apartment in New York to find, well, there is no apartment. There's actually hardly even a building. I'm told that the building was destroyed during a fight between the Hulk and some massive suit of Iron Man armor. Now what?

Can I try to sue the Avengers? How good of a lawyer would I need? Will I recieve compensation from them? An apology card from Tony Stark? Does insurance cover superhero battles?

[Assistant]
Getting Superhero Insurance in New York is tough. And your apartment building probably didn't pay for it, as it's PRICEY there. But you're going to be okay.

The Avengers have a fund set up through the Maria Stark Foundation (named after Tony's mom) that handles compensation for people impacted through the actions of the Avengers. There will be a LOT of paperwork, but they will help cover what your insurance doesn't.

Damage Control is an organization that handles the clean-up and repair of superhero action, and they will likely give a once-over of your home to ensure no alien artifacts, magical crystals, or advanced technology is there before their expert team rebuilds your home.

Between the two of them, you should be able to get your life back on track.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do dogs lick you when they're excited?

[Assistant]
Here's a simple way to understand much of dog behavior:

Humans have evolved to walk on only two of their limbs, which frees up the other two for interacting with the world. We examine, explore, greet, embrace, and do just about everything with our hands and arms. So we move through the world on two limbs, and interact with the world with the other two.

Dogs need all four limbs for movement, which means they need something else for the behaviors we perform with our hands. So unlike us, they move through the world on all four limbs, and interact with the world using their mouth.

When we're excited to see someone, we usually shake their hand or give them a hug, performing some manner of physical interaction. Dogs can't do that, since their forelimbs are busy holding them up. So they lick you instead.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do we often catch ourselves staring at other people when we zone out?

[Assistant] It's not that you happen to stare at people. In fact, it's the opposite - that you're not staring at anything. Normally, you tend not to focus on people due to social inhibitions and etiquette. But if your mind is elsewhere, your (lack of) focus will drift off to anywhere, including people.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Why don't force resistant species get extremely angry whenever a Jedi tries to mind trick them?

To elaborate on my question further, whenever a Jedi tries to mind trick a species resistant to the mind trick, they just say something along the lines of "That doesn't work on me," and they seem to say it in an extremely calm manner. That Jedi just tried to mind control you! That Jedi tried to temporarily rob you of your free will! Not to mention whatever negative consequences there would have been for you afterwards if it worked! Why don't force resistant species get pissed off whenever a Jedi tries to do that?

[Assistant] It seems to be how they each personally take it. Watto doesn't lose his cool (he *is* still trying to make a sale after all) but he does seem annoyed that Qui-Gon just tried to cheat him (lots of finger pointing and getting in his face). Jabba on the other hand is a crime boss of a huge organization. To see this little blonde pip-squeak try to mind control him is pretty funny to him. The same way we would see a little girl charging $500 at her lemonade stand. Its adorable she thought she could get away with it that we don't care she tried to empty our bank account for 8oz. There may be some who get upset, but remember the whole reason these people are immune is because of their intelligence. A high intelligence would imply patience, and understanding that anger probably won't get them much in a situation where the person who tried to screw them also has a lightsaber.


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

[User] [Star Wars] How many Jedi survived Order 66?

[Assistant]
Technically, Order 66 never ended. Order 66 became a standing order to kill Jedi on sight for the entire Empire, though mostly it pertained to the Stormtroopers. But you're obviously asking about the initial order, so I'll stick with that.

The highest estimates put the number of Jedi that survived at less than 100. In actuality there were probably less than 50. A vast majority of Jedi were at the Temple when it was sacked, and the rest were all in the field with the Clone Army. The thing is, the few that did survive became targets. Half of the Galaxy thought that they had betrayed the Republic and its people, and would have gleefully turned in any Jedi they knew of. Of the 50 or so that survived the initial purge, almost all of them were hunted down and slaughtered in the following few years.

It was eventually left with only a small number, 2 or 3 perhaps, unaccounted for. We're still not sure what happened to them, but they're likely long dead by now. It's been decades.


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

[User]
[Avatar] How has the fire nation not won tbe war simply through superior technology?

Forget fire bending, this society is cruising around with steam ships and tanks while the rest of the world is living with  renaissance era tech.

Theyve clearly been shown to have advanced metal working to the point of steam engines, possibly internal combustion engines, have enough steel amd coal to field enormous fleets of ships. We know that blasting jelly exists, so im frankly shocked that firearms haven't been invented yet. But even then, the fire nation should have the resources to simply out maneuver any army on foot or horseback/sailboat. So why do they even need fire bending? Why cant they just Blitz the entire earth kingdom?

[Assistant]
They *are* winning through superior technology.

Their opponent's bending provides enough of an edge in power and mobility that they're not cubstomping as much as they *could*, and taking over the world takes time, but they're taken down the air nomads, half the water tribe and a decent chunk of the earth kingdom.  They win basically every fight without the presence of the avatar.

Barring the intervention of a literal demigod, they're going to win. There's a reason everyone thinks the avatar *specifically* needs to help.


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

[User] Did Karl Marx really hate capitalism?

[Assistant]
It would probably be best if you provide the context within which you read or heard that Marx hated Capitalism, but the reality is that Marx realised and admitted that Capitalism provided technological advanced through rabid economic growth.

However, he also foresaw that the conditions within which this growth took place weren't sustainable, especially in terms of labour, and that Capitalism was inherently exploitative.


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

[User]
[Doctor Who] If the Doctor's TARDIS is an antique, what are newer, more contemporary TARDISes like? (Speculation allowed)

We hear a lot from other Time Lords that despite being "the most powerful ship in the universe", the TARDIS is an antique, a heap of junk, and from her own perspective, a museum piece when the Doctor was young.

When we see other TARDISes, though, they don't seem any different, other than some visual differences. So what's different about the newer ones?

Speculation/Headcanon allowed, since I don't think the show goes into much about it at all.

[Assistant]
One perhaps underappreciated feature of the Doctor's TARDIS: Able to keep (mostly) working for hundreds of years without going to the shop. No maintenance beyond what the Doctor can do him/herself.

I wonder how long the advanced features on late model TARDISes keep working when they're cut off from the civilization that built them?


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

[User]
Does this* number have a name?

I would be more specific in the title, but it would be too incomprehensible and cut-short probably. It will take some explanation before I get to my question again but it's there:

I was working on a math puzzle a while back where I had to guess the next number in a series. The given series was "1, 4, 9, 16, 25, 36, 49, __" and I had to guess the last number. I guessed correctly, but instead of intuitively realizing that the pattern was " x^2 ", I found the answer via another method.

I found the differences between the adjacent numbers in the series, i.e. 4 - 1 = 3, 9 - 4 = 5, so on, and used those to create a new series: "3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13". I then performed the same operation on that line, finding the differences between adjacent numbers and then using those to create a new line: "2, 2, 2, 2, 2".

I thought this was interesting, because by performing this differences method twice on my given series, I was able to bottom-out/hit a ceiling at the number 2*. The number 2 was useful, because I could then work my way back down/up (depends on how you write it down, I guess) to find the next number in the series: 64.

I decided to try this again on a new, related series. I made the series "1, 8, 27, 64, 125" ( x^3 ) and resolved to use the same differences method on this line. The first time yields: 7, 19, 37, 61"; the second time yields: "12, 18, 24"; the third time bottoms out at: "6, 6".

So ( x^2 ) bottoms out at 2*, and ( x^3 ) bottoms out at 6*.

I continued this with ( x^4 ): "1, 16, 81, 256, 625, 1296, 2401". The differences method yields: "15, 65, 175, 369, 671, 1105"; again, and it yields: "50, 110, 194, 302, 434"; again, and it yields: "60, 84, 108, 132"; again, and it yields: "24, 24, 24".

So ( x^4 ) bottoms out at 24*.

Finally, my question: Is there a name for these bedrock numbers that I've marked with the asterisks?

Additionally, I would like to know: is there reading material on the matter? Is there a more elegant way of finding the bedrock number that underlies a given exponent?

tl;dr:

2 underlies ( x^2 ),
6 underlies ( x^3 ),
24 underlies ( x^4 ),
and so on, for reasons explained above.
Why?

[Assistant]
>Is there a more elegant way of finding the bedrock number that underlies a given exponent?

Yes, for x^n the number you're looking for will be n!, which is shorthand for n \* (n-1) \* (n-2) \*....\*3\*2\*1.

For example, x^7 would end up with the number 7! = 7\*6\*5\*4\*3\*2\*1 = 5040

To see why:
-------
Focus on x^2 to start.

To generalize the difference between consecutive items in the sequence, we have:

(x+1)^2 - x^2

Do some algebra and get:
**2**x^**1** + 1

Repeat the process:

[2(x+1) + 1] - [2x+1]
= 2

So there's your 2.

--------
Now we do this with x^3:

(x+1)^3 - x^3
= **3**x^**2** + 3x + 1

Repeat the process:
[3(x+1)^2 +3(x+1) + 1] - [3x^2 + 3x + 1]
= **6**x^**1** + 6

Repeat the process:
6(x+1) + 6 - [6x+6]
= 6 [aka **6**x^**0**]

Making sense of it:
-------

Notice that I've bolded a few coefficients and exponents in the above section. As you go through the repetitive process, you see that your highest power term always gets canceled out in the algebra. In the x^3 example, you start with 1x^3 being your highest power term. Then you do the difference process and you end up with 3x^2 being your highest power. Then you do the difference process again and you end up with 6x^1 being your highest power. Then you do it once more and 6x^0 is your highest power.

**In the x^3 example, do you see how the highest power term goes like this as we go through all the steps:**

x^3
3x^2
6x^1
6x^0

**So the general pattern is:**
x^n
nx^(n-1)
n(n-1)x^(n-2)
n(n-1)(n-2)x^(n-3)
.
.
.
n(n-1)(n-2)...3\*2\*1

which is the formula we talked about up top.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] The Jedi care little about material goods, beyond the bare necessities. But, with the Clone Wars affecting morale and being costly, would they be averse to Jedi-themed merchandising?

Of course, most -- if not all -- of the profits would go to the war or charitable purposes. With this mind, would the Jedi be willing to partake in advertising and/or merchandising, e.g. action figures, t-shirts etc.? Even during the latter stages of the Clone Wars, Jedi could provide, e.g. voice-over work for Old Spice-esque products.

Did such merchandising and/or advertising already exist? If not, what about clone trooper merchandise? What about after the CW? Were there Empire-themed trading cards?

[Assistant]
We're talking about a galactic scale conflict in which both parties control the resources and economies of numerous planetary systems and countless trillion sentient beings...

Hair-brained marketing and merchandising ploys (besides being wildly beneath the dignity of the Jedi) would be less than a fraction of a drop in the ocean here.


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

[User] [ELI5] What happens to food that makes freezing twice a no-no ? I at least have always been told it is a very bad things to do, with no further explaination. How bad is it?

[Assistant] Freezing, it, reheating it, and then freezing it again exposes the food to the perfect conditions for bacterial growth repeatedly in short period of time.  This vastly increases the chances of food poisoning.


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

[User]
[MCU] Why didn't Thor use the Bifrost?

At the beginning of End Game when Rocket determined Thanos was on Titan why didn't Thor use Stormbreaker to bifrost everyone to Titan?  He could have teleported everyone there in the blink of an eye rather than 1+ months to fly a spaceship there instead.

[Assistant]
It's possible that Titan II was outside of the Nine Realms which means Yggdrasil and therefore the Bifrost wasn't connected to it.

Regardless, the ship was plenty fast, it definitely wasn't a month (that's closer to how long Tony and Nebula were stranded in space).


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

[User]
CMV: The Russian invasion of Ukraine is NOT justified

I realize many of you probably agree with the statement above but would implore you to put on your devils advocacy hat and try to put yourself in the Russians shoes.

I'm not looking to be convinced the Russians are in the right so much as to understand their logic. So will be awarding deltas for points that make the invasion seem more reasonable rather than needing something to actually change my position on the mater.

My Position:

Ukraine has been a sovereign nation for almost 30 years. In the breakup of  the soviet union Ukraine willingly gave up 1k+ nuclear warheads (becoming the only state to get rid of owned nukes) under promises from Russia to respect Ukraine's sovereignty.

The Russian attack is unprovoked aggression on a completely separate country. Under the guise of thwarting "NATO expansion" NATO has never waged a war of aggression in its almost 80 years of existence, and given European economic dependence on Russian energy production, the idea of an expansionist war on the part of NATO is ridiculous.

EDIT: As the point here is to put ourselves in the Russians shoes, please don't downvote anything trying to justify the invasion, as that's kind of the point here.

[Assistant]
>Ukraine has been a sovereign nation for almost 30 years.

True, but Russia has never fully recognized this. The Soviet Union fell in 1991, creating. A bunch of new sovereign nations. Russia has never fully accepted any of them and would like to rebuild the Soviet Union. In the grand scheme of things, 30 years isn't a long time.

Russia and Ukraine have been officially at war over this since 2014. (many people do not realize this).

Russia and Putin do not see this as an invasion. They see this as taking back their land and resources. 25% of the citizens are Russians.

As for the NATO excuse, Russia, China etc don't want western influence and weaponry so close to them. The US did the exact same thing when Russia put missiles in Cuba. Whether or not there has been aggression in the past doesn't matter here. It is basic national security to not want possible enemies to have footholds right on ones borders.

Edit to add: the NATO argument is pretty weak. Ukraine applied for NATO membership over a decade ago. Neither Ukraine nor NATO took steps to make that happen. Ukraine later withdrew that request. Then later took steps to allow them to become members, but again never took steps to become a member.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why does radiation destroy human dna and make human life impossible but yet trees can survive and flourish?

For instance in Pripyat, there are many trees growing.

[Assistant]
The destruction of tree DNA isn't nearly as devastating to a tree as it is a human. The main danger of radiation is cancer. Don't get me wrong, trees do get cancer, but because they are much slower growing cancer doesn't affect them in nearly the same way. Trees also don't have a blood stream so cancer in a tree isn't able to metastasize and move to other parts of the tree. (If you have ever seen those knobs on trees that look like bulges, that's tree cancer).

**TL;DR:** because of the way cancer works and kills, it doesn't harm trees in the same ways it does humans, meaning it has little impact on them.


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

[User]
ELI5: Can you alter someone's dream by touching or talking to them while they're dreaming?

And if the answer is yes, is it possible to find out how the dream can change?

[Assistant]
If you're subtle enough to not wake the person up, yes you can absolutely affect their dreams. Even while you are asleep, many of your senses are still functional. Your ears for instance never really turn off. You still hear everything around you even while you sleep and what you hear will absolutely influence your subconscious. That can translate to altered dreams.

As for finding out how it affected the dream, you'd have to ask the dreamer.


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

[User] Eli5: how can picking a lock break the lock?

[Assistant]
You'd have to break your pick.
A typical key lock involves a bunch of vertical pins in vertical holes.
A key pushes those pins to the right height so you can turn the key.
Lock picking involves pushing those pins up and turning to try to get the pins to stick in the right height.
But if you really screw up, you can break the thing you were using to push up the pin, and it get's stuck in the vertical hole.
So the pin isn't in the right position and you might not even be able to put a key in at all.


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

[User] Can plants "inbreed"? Can they experience genetic issues like generations of inbred animals can?

[Assistant]
Many plants can self-pollinate, thats how we get lab-strains for research as well as many of our monoculture crops. Theres still natural diversity due to heterozygosity (more than one of each chromosome, combining in different ways each generation) and of course mutation and natural selection.

However, there are some plants that have mechanims to prevent inbreeding, called self-incompatibility. The actual mechanisms can be vastly different for different plant species. For example, mustard species have molecular mechanisms to recognize cases of self-pollination and can activate pathways to prevent this from happening. Its an advantageous trait that has evolved in many plants.


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

[User]
ELI5 how do patches release medication (pain meds or birth control)

I used a birth control patch in high school. One of my coworkers was prescribed a patch for pain medication. How does it work?

[Assistant] The patches contain a spongy material that is coated in both your medication, and a chemical that allows it to penetrate through your skin into your blood vessels. By varying the kind of chemicals involved, their relative quantity, and the material of the patch, pharmaceutical scientists can get things to absorb at specific rates.


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

[User] ELI5: What are the fundamental differences between face lotion, body lotion, foot cream, daily moisturizer, night cream, etc.??

[Assistant] Worked as a cosmetics chemist for 2 years after school. It varies depending on the function of the lotion/cream. If its a general moisturizer very little difference, maybe a slightly different ratio for the thickener to decrease tackiness for something facial rather than something advertised for the body. However if it's something like an acne cream or sunscreen the "active ingredient" would have a significantly different ratio. For example a common active in acme creams is salicylic acid. Ones targeted for the body might have 10-25% more of the acid than facial ones.


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

[User] ELI5 What is stoicism?

[Assistant]
Stoicism is a way of approaching living with the aim of having a positive and tranquil life. It originated in ancient Rome with a philosopher named Seneca, who started a school to teach his approach to life, called Stoicism.

The basic idea in stoicism is to seek out a tranquil and positive way of living by training oneself to appreciate the things one has. This training takes several forms, when people think of stoicism they often think of putting up with misfortune without complaint, or deliberately seeking out hardship.

A simple example: Imagine your favourite toy, let's say it's a ball. Now imagine that your brother borrows your ball and loses it. This might make you sad and angry but if you think about it, there are plenty of ways for you to play without having a ball; you could run around in the park, or learn how to do cartwheels! The ball isn't really so important after all! Now because we were imagining this, you still actually have your ball - this is great because you haven't actually lost anything but hopefully have a new appreciation for your ball and how great it is to play with, but you also know that, should worst come to worst, you'll be ok without your ball and you'll still be able to have fun.

So a stoic is calm and ok when bad things happen to her, she knows that she'll be fine because she's learned how well she can cope in rough situations as she has imagined (and sometimes put herself) in bad situations as practice so she really appreciates all the important things she does have.

Hopefully, if the practice is successful, a stoic enjoys all moments fully: genuinely appreciating all good fortunes, and weathering bad fortunes with a calm joy and lack of regret.


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

[User] eli5 How did people get iron or other metals in 9th century. Did they extract metals from wherever we do now ?

[Assistant]
Mining metals has been known since likely prehistory in many areas. In both Europe and Asia, from about 5000-6000 years ago there were thriving mining operations and trade network for metals.

By the time frame you ask for, Europe and Asia were filled with iron mines and iron would have been traded widely.

Or in short, yup, they mined it.

That said, there were areas that were not mining  iron, such as the americas, Australia, the South Pacific, parts of Africa.

If youre specifically asking if they mine from the exact same deposits we do now, mines eventually go dry or arent reasonable to extract more ore, so the answer can be both yes or no depending on the mine, and modern techniques allow us to mine metals in ways that never would have been achieved by earlier people.

Add to that, a lot of the industrial revolutions early start is a result of finding better ways to mine (both coal and metals) which resulted in some early steam powered industrial engines (to pump water out of mines)


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

[User] OK, I'm enamored with all the "It's 2013 in New Zealand" posts, but what would happen if we were ALL on the same universal time?

[Assistant]
Clock time would no longer be associated with shared events like lunchtime and bedtime.

A good chunk of the world would have a annoying and potentially confusing date change in the middle of their waking day.


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

[User] ELI5: Why certain factions of Israel's leadership believe that settlements are necessary for Israeli safety.

[Assistant]
If you stand in parts of the settlements, known as Judea & Samaria, you can look over Israel completely and see the sea. If the Israelis don't have access to the settlements, then their enemies could easily fire down on the Israeli population.

So it's a security issue for many.


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

[User] ELI5: Why exactly muscles go away when the person stop working out? Can't the body just get the energy it needs from fat and carbohydrates and leave the grow muscles in place?

[Assistant]
Muscles require energy to just be there, which is why increasing your muscle mass increases your passive  calories burnt per day.

For efficiency sake, our body doesn't want to consume energy it doesn't need.