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

[User]
We generally count in base 10, computers use base 2 and hexadecimal, is there some orderly relationship among the various constants of physics that suggests nature has a preferred "base"?

Part of the motivation for this is the question "Are we living in a simulation?"  If so, we might expect some indication of the physics engine's architecture to show up in our physics.

[Assistant] No.  The base used to represent a number is just an arbitrary choice.  The number itself has its own meaning, independent of how you choose to represent it.  If you'd like an imperfect analogy, it is like writing a word in one typeface or another; the choice of typeface does not change the word.


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

[User] [harry potter] nowhere in the world, was there a wizard (or a group) strong enough to defeat voldemort?

[Assistant]
In a contest of Magical Skill? No, there wasn't.

Voldemort was the most dangerous, if not the most powerful wizard in the world, with his closest equal being Dumbledore, who himself considers Voldemort to be superior, despite him wielding the Elder Wand.

This means a lot, since Dumbledore was established as the only Wizard in the world capable of defeating the Dark Wizard Grindelwald, despite Grindelwald being the wielder of the Elder Wand then.

As for a group of powerful wizards ganging up on him, that would almost certainly end in failure. During the Battle of Hogwarts Voldemort has shown himself capable of defeating a larger number of poweful opponents, when he was easily keeping up with duelling Slughorn, Kingley and Mcgonagall at the same time and winning, despite Voldemort wielding a unfitting wand and his opponents being protected by the magic of Harry's sacrifice, which is the only reason they survived the fight.

Despite this Voldemort is also extremely cautious, showing himself unwilling to engage powerful wizards in battle, without sufficient preparation unless absolutely necesarry.

Like he showed himself completely unwilling to actively engange Dumbledorein Battle, despite Dumbledore considering himself weaker and the one confrontation we see between them almost resulting in Dumbledore's Death, if his phoenix didn't take a killing curse for him. He also immidiately left their duel when Aurors were about to arrive, since they could actually give Dumbledore an edge.

Likewise he refused to engage  Scrimgeour(the Minister for Magic and previous Head of the Auror office) in a fair duel and instead made sure to have his Death Eaters use the imperius curse to take control of the Head of the Ministry Departments first so they can surround Scrimgeour with their own people before Voldemort strikes.

We also know that he often just assassinates powerful wizards in their own homes without really giving them a chance to fight him, like he did with James Potter who didn't even have a chance to reach for his Wand or Amelia Bones(the Head of the Department of Law enforcement).

According to Hagrid Voldemort has also killed several of the most powerfull living wizards during the Last War.


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

[User] ELIF: How does a desert oasis work? What causes them and how do they last so long?

[Assistant] usually formed from a below ground aquifer or river and eventually make it to the surface. im not entirely sure how the plants get there but i do know that the ones that grow are important in protecting the water source from shifting sands and other environmental events that could cause it to dry up.


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

[User]
Is there anything alive in the soil 100 feet below ground level?

Let's say you're drilling around 100' deep. Is there going to be any bacteria in the dirt/clay thats brought up? Is it completely sterile?

[Assistant] Bacteria have been found *kilometers* below the surface. And that is not a limit of life - it is a limit of how deep we searched systematically. Some of them live from radioactive decays, as long as there is liquid water once in a while and the temperature range is fine they can survive, no contact to the surface necessary.


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

[User]
CMV: Israel doesn't have a right to exist

Israel is an illegitmate state built upon the ethnic cleansing of an entire nation , it doesn't have a right to exist :

* The argument of "jews were there" doesn't work because land is not racially inherited (this is assuming Jews can verify their israelite ancestry)
* The argument of "God gave us the land" doesn't work because it is a religious book and God is not a real estate agent (no offense)
* The argument of "Palestinians didn't exist back then" is also unvalid because even if we assume they weren't their own unique nation (which is true , most thought of themselves as a contiuation of Arabs or Syrians/Levantines) they still lived there for centuries
* The argument of "Israel is the only demoracy in the middle east" doesn't work because land rights are not determined by how democratic a country is
* The argument of "Palestinians did X" doesn't work because both sides commited atrocities and Zionists commited much more massacres than Palestinians
* The argument of "They won the wars" doesn't work because winning a war doesn't make it morally acceptable to do whatever you want , by that argument you can justify the Holocaust and the Armeanian genocides (and probably all atrocities) .

[Assistant]
Couldn't you use the same arguments to say that Palestinia doesn't have a right to exist either ?

* Land is not racially inherited, so Palestinian were there argument does not work.
* The argument of "Allah gave us the land" doesn't work because it is a religious book and Allah is not a real estate agent (no offense)
* The argument of "Jews weren't there for a long time" is also unvalid because even if we assume they weren't their own unique nation, they still lived there for centuries initially
* The argument of "Jews did X" doesn't work because both sides commited atrocities and Palestinians commited much more massacres than Jews compared to their capabilities. If they had the military power / technology, they could have done way worse than Jews.

Basically, given your rules, no state have a right to exist. Fine, but then what ? Should all states disappear and people start using "survival of the strongest" to rule themselves ?


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is it that you naturally become drowsy when exposed to warm water for an extended period of time?

I've known about this phenomenon for basically all of my life but haven't ever received a proper explanation for why it happens. Any helpful responses are greatly appreciated! :)

[Assistant] The human body naturally gives off heat to keep itself at a comfortable temperature, and gives off even more heat during physical activities. When faced with hot surrounding temperatures like warm water, the body (which is now unable to get rid of its excess heat due to being in an already hot environment) will tell itself to further reduce its own physical activity to prevent from overheating. Thats why you feel sluggish and dont want to move much when in a hot bath or jacuzzi.


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

[User] ELI5: Why can some overweight people lose weight with no excess skin, but others skin doesnt go away?

[Assistant] It depends on how fast the weight loss is, how long the person was overweight, the method of weight loss, and then genetics. If someone was seriously overweight for 30 years before finally getting lipo, they'll have excess skin. If someone was seriously overweight for a short period of time but lost weight through dieting and exercise (a more long term solution versus lipo)  then that person will probably not have excess skin. Also as height mentioned, age is a factor (edit)


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

[User]
[MCU] Correct me if I wrong but they cannot return the stones back once they have taken them right? re:MCU time travel rules

I thought I got this but I don't think I quite agree/understand the whole thing so please correct me if I am wrong (which I probably am)

The golden rule of MCU time travel is essentially "you past is the past, once you travel back in time, you are creating a branched timeline where your actions has changed it future"

So given this logic, once they have taken the stones they have created a different timeline where events are happening differently in the prime MCU timeline (re: Loki TV series). But when they return these stones, wouldn't they also create another new timeline since they are making another change in the past? i.e. by returning the stone, there would now be another timeline where the stones are *not* returned. since every time you go back to the past and did *something or anything* you are making alternate realities.

my logic can be wrong but unless traveling to the future of the alternative timeline (relative to when they have taken the stones) is **not** included in the rule stated above I don't see how they will not generate a new timeline in which the stones are not returned.

Sorry for the long read.

[Assistant]
With the power of Pym they can basically get right back to the 'same' alternative timelines that they took them from and in the same instant they left, so for the purposes of that time stream the stone never left.

So when hulk gets the time stone, for example, he walks over away from the Ancient one and vanishes and Captain America appears in the same spot and hands her the stone back.  She probably watched the whole thing and the stone was only out of her hands for 30 seconds or so.


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

[User]
If sucrose has a lower enthalpy of combustion than octane, why can't we / don't we use it as a fuel?

I understand there might be some technical difficulties with running engines on sugar, but if our bodies can utilize the energy why can't mimic their processes to run engines on sugar?

[Assistant]
There's 3 main problems with this and I'll try to address them one by one.

1) it's only lower on a per mol basis. If you were to take equivalent masses of sucrose and octane, the octane would produce more energy, which is what's important when designing engines

2) octane is a liquid at room temperatures. This is going to make it easier to use in an internal combustion engine since it can be pumped and moved around much easier.

3) sugar is about twice as expensive per unit energy as gasoline, currently

Now, a lot of smart people have thought something similar to what you have and have come up with a workable solution. Sucrose and other sugars and starches can be converted into ethanol via fermentation (just like you would do to brew beer), and ethanol can be used in engines pretty successfully. It's liquid like gasoline, and puts out a similar amount of energy per mass (although still less). Ethanol is still more expensive to produce than gasoline, though, but the US government heavily subsidizes it to help bring down the cost. Whether or not you think this is a good idea probably depends on whether you're a farmer in Iowa or not. Still, lots of smart scientists and engineers are working towards cheaply producing fuels from biomass, and a lot of progress has been made in the last 20 years.


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

[User]
If you placed a recently dead body in a completely airtight container, how would it decompose?

Like very recently, within minutes after death you put a cleaned corpse in a completely clean, sealed, and airtight container. After 100,000 (whatever number) years and you opened it what would you find inside?

Bonus Question! What if you did the exact same thing but you put the body in a vaccuum?

[Assistant]
Your body is approximately 70% water by volume.  Anaerobic decomposition would slowly break down most of the solid compounds over time, leaving you with a liquid sludge.

Bonus:  If you maintained the vacuum (or had a large enough container), the body would desiccate.


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

[User]
Is it true the fastest exit direction from our galaxy is toward Polaris?

My dad told me this the other day and, if it is true, it seems like a remarkable fact. I haven't been able to support it with anything other than that the galactic plane is roughly 63 degrees and earth's axial tilt is roughly 28.5 degrees, which is nearly orthogonal if both tilts were in the same direction.

[Assistant]
If by fastest exit direction you mean a direction perpendicular to the galactic plane, then no.

The angle between the Earth's orbital plane and the galactic plane is 60.2.  A path perpendicular to the galactic plane would have to make a 29.8 angle with the Earth's orbital plane. But the Earth's axis is tilted 66.6 relative to that plane (not 23.4).

So, no, Polaris is nowhere near the perpendicular path out of the Milky Way.  Galactic North lies in the constellation Coma Berenices at approx. RA 12h 51m, Dec +27.1, about 63 away from Polaris.


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

[User] ELI5 - how are cuts dealt with in space with zero gravity? is it like the expanse tv show where it becomes difficult for your body to coagulate? Is it any different than on Earth?

[Assistant]
Actually the expanse got it right. NASA itself noted that cuts and bruises tend not to heal until the astronauts are back planetside. It's why everything within the space station and space craft is carefully designed to be as low risk for such injuries as possible, but they do happen. When they do they are treated like you normally would but any open cut is left wrapped and the bandage acts like an artificial clot however the natural regeneration of tissue won't occur.

NASA and various medical research scientists are working on ways to overcome the body's lack of healing response in 0g. One way is actually using very specific wavelengths of red light that encourage your cells to produce the appropriate pieces needed to heal.


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

[User]
Do humans really need to work?

 Why should global society be structured to where working is a requirement, not a choice?

Legit asking because I believe a majority of our problems can stem directly from stress over our jobs, unlivable wages, dangerous work conditions, and the daunting fact that we have to work to survive; not even work to live cause living paycheck to paycheck, not knowing if you're gonna end up homeless next month, is not living.

 So I'm curious as to how this particular concept of forced labor is something to be maintained in our society if it's having such disastrous effects (both mental and physical) on the human race. I'm open to hearing any debate/opinions (that is not judgemental or biased).

[Assistant] The little bit that I've read about John Maynard Keynes, it sounds like he predicted (back in the late 1920's) that by the year 2030, the average person would only have to work about 4 hours per day. He envisioned capitalism as being a path to developing technologies that would eventually make socialism successfully attainable.  Capitalism was not the end goal in his view. It was an un-ideal means to an end. And his opinion was that straight up capitalism *should* come to an end, because it was not an ideal paradigm for the human race.


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

[User] ELI5:How is it legal for the TPP to get passed in secret? What can I legitimately do to stop it.

[Assistant]
These threads are getting tedious. Check one of the other 300 which have been posted.

The tl;dr is this though.

1: These negotiations are always done in secret. Their exact details get opened up to the public once a set of frameworks has been finalized, and then that gets voted on by your representatives.

2: You can stop it by lobbying the government, hiring lawyers, or making petitions. Or, more easily, don't vote for people who are in favor of it.

3: This is how a representative democracy works. You pick representatives, they make decisions. It's not some evil insidious cabal, this is how it's been running for the last 200 years.


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

[User] ELI5: How come photons have no mass (0.000...), don't interact with the higgs field, but are caught by black holes?

[Assistant]
Gravity isn't just an attraction between masses. it's also a bending of the fabric of space. So even though a massless photon is traveling in a straight line, gravity's effects redefine what "straight line" means.

In the case of a black hole, if that straight line path takes it past a black hole's event horizon, the path is so bent that it never comes back out.


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

[User] Jacob Bekenstein proved that black holes grow by a Plank distance^2 every time it absorbs one bit of information. What does this mean exactly, what qualifies as "one bit"?

[Assistant]
this is not precise; the ratio is one nat per one fourth Planck area. One nat is 1/ln(2) bits, so for each bit the area grows by

ln(2)/4  Planck areas

The area in question is the event horizon area, and the information is *any* type of information that falls in. What Bekenstein actually said is that if you take a ball of spacetime, with or without BHs, the maximum amount of information in nats inside the ball is

(area of bounding spherical surface / Planck area) / 4

Additionally, the only case in which this maximum is reached is when the ball is filled by a black hole. So black holes are objects of maximum information in this sense.

Since a BH squeezes the max possible info in that given space, if you give it more info it *must* grow, so there's more bounding area and more available space for info storage. In fact, you can prove through a thought experiment that trying to cram some bits into a BH will necessarily require giving it enough mass to grow the corresponding extra horizon area.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why does spending a few hours out in the sun at the beach make you get so tired?

Or any amount of time out in the sun for that matter, but particularly the beach.

[Assistant]
Dehydration. The beach tends to have a constant breeze, so you don't notice yourself sweating as much as you actually are.

There also is very little shade, so you body overheats a little. This also means furthering dehydration, but it also throws your body out of equilibrium, exactly like having a fever.


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

[User]
Why do faucets hiss at specific levels of valve-openness, which seem random and nonlinear?

It seems really unusual - when the faucet is barely open, it doesn't produce the sound, and it doesn't do so when it is fully open. However, at about 1/4 and 3/4 open (but not at 1/2), there are two levels when it produces a loud hissing sound. How can this be explained? Why is the pattern so nonlinear? Is this something about turbulence?

[Assistant] Its more about resonance in the faucet. Consider a violin string that resonates a tone when the bow is drawn against it. In the faucet the water is the bow, the faucet parts are the string. At the right amount of flow the faucet resonates producing the "hiss" sound you hear. Its a standing wave or vibration of the assembly.  Grab the faucet when this happens. Does the hiss change or stop? You altered the mass of the faucet by adding your own, effectively lowering the resonant frequencies . Sometimes it is the faucet, other times the washers or other internal parts.


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

[User] ELI5: What does having a key to a city mean?

[Assistant]
Back in medieval times, cities had walls, and the wall gates closed down every afternoon and opened every morning. Travellers arriving after the gates had closed had to stay the night outside them in some inn.

Giving somebody the "key to the city" meant that you recognized that person's importance and you considered him trustworthy enough to allow him free passage whenever he chose (he had his own key, in a symbolic sense, to open the gate even through the night).

Nowadays it's just an honor, it doesn't hold practical value.


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

[User] ELI5: What is Entropy?

[Assistant]
Entropy is the way that everything (EVERYTHING!) keeps getting more and more random. It's unstoppable.

Take a piece of copper wire. Maybe 5" of nice, straight, copper wire. Now bend it in half. You have increased the randomness of the universe. Try and straighten it back out. You can't quite get it back to the same level of orderly straightness that it was before. You might even have made it worse (because before it had just the one bend, and now it probably has at least three from you fumbling to try and approximate straightness).

Entropy is always increasing.

It's one of the reasons why we die.

Now, go to bed.


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

[User]
[Star Trek] How wealthy is Quark?

Considering hes portrayed as if hes some type of sleazy bar owner I wouldnt expect him to be worth much, but he routinely works with the highest levels of Ferengi government, has multiple ferengi workers (who couldnt have been cheap given how greedy ferengi are), routinely deals in gray market items, and is in a major trading post in the galaxy.

What is his relative wealth compared to 20th century earth?

[Assistant]
His interactions with the Grand Nagus mostly revolve around two things:

1. Quark happens to be the only Ferengi with any lobes on what has unexpectedly become the most significant strategic location in the quadrant.

2. The Grand Nagus has fallen in love with Quark's mother.

Neither of these factors imply Quark is particularly wealthy by Ferengi standards.  Point 1 actually points to him being a bit of a failure, since before the wormhole was discovered, DS9 was considered something of a bum gig for anyone who ended up there, as evidenced by ~~Garrick~~ Garak and Bashir specifically choosing DS9 as a good place to disappear to.

He has *some* wealth in the bar and from all his questionably legal side gigs, but not enough to buy his own moon.  Net worth likely in the millions or tens of millions of dollars.


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

[User] If carboxylic acid is created spontaneously when water is left in a beaker for a day or so, why isn't the world's lake all carboxylic acid?

[Assistant]
You mean carbonic acid.

The reason is that only limited amounts of carbon dioxide are absorbed in water to begin with.    The amount of carbonic acid is limited by the equilibrium of dissolved carbon dioxide,  bicarbonate ion, and carbonic acid.


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

[User]
Will the earths core ever cool down?

Since the earth is constantly rotating wont that cause friction with the magma, creating more heat? So will the core ever reach a cool state? Can liquid even create heat through friction?

[Assistant] Yes, someday the core will cool down and solidify. Laws of thermodynamics wouldn't let the core be hot forever. Eventually the earth will bleed off even the energy of the core until is a dark lifeless solid rock.... Unless the sun expands and swallows earth first.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is that when I drink water or soda, I feel full after a while, while with beer, there's no stopping me?

[Assistant]
By the time you have drank enough to feel full [for me it is 3 glasses of water] you have had enough alcohol for the fun to start. Lack of inhibition is enough at that point to make you want to drink more. On top of that the ethanol being metabolized in your liver causes a sudden blood sugar drop. Drops in blood sugar encourage eating and drinking so you want even more. Plus who really wants to stop drinking?

TL; DR: Beer makes you dumb n thirsty.


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

[User] -Biology/Ecology- Do Ants Poop?

[Assistant]
Oh certainly. Almost all insects do - all insects do, if you include all stages of life. Some insects have non-pooping larval or adult stages. Some don't live long enough in their adult stage to poop. Some insects store their poop during their larval stage then puke it out (kind of) as they pupate. This last tactic makes sure their larval habitat doesn't get all shitty.

An interesting follow-up to do ants poop? is do ants *eat* poop? which is a big yes! In fact, many species of ants have amazing symbiotic relationships with other insects, mostly aphids. These aphids suck sweet plant juices but can't deal with all that sugar water so poop much of it out. This honeydew (just like the bible says) is so delicious to ants (and humans, frankly) that the ants herd the aphids around, keeping colonies in a restricted location where the ants can protect the aphids from predators and parasites. In return, they "milk" the aphids occassionally, stimulating the aphids to take a delicious shit right into the ant's mouth!


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

[User]
[DC Comics] What stops the Martian Manhunter from interfering with Batman villains?

I don't see any reason why J'onn J'onzz wouldn't stop Batman villains like the Joker, Scarecrow, Poison Ivy and even maybe Bane who frequently cause disruption and destruction in city-wide scale.

He can rid of them probably within a few minutes for good (these villains have a huge tendency to pop-up every once and then even after their defeat by Batman).

Is it his preference to be diplomatic rather than referring to more violent means? That doesn't make any sense because it doesn't help stop these criminals.

If you say Gotham would replace the terminated villains with new ones, no problem. Which one of them would have the slightest of chance against J'onzz?

Does he respect what Batman does so much, he just lets him do it?

Why do you think Martian Manhunter doesn't just clean out Gotham?

[Assistant]
Well for one thing J'onn has other things, probably more important issues to deal with, rather than blitzing one city that already has batman doing everything he can. Gotham problems are at worst usually city wide, and batman can handle it.

J'onn has his own stuff going on, it's the same reason superman doesn't do it. A
Superheroes are busy people, why do you think there are so many of them.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do galaxies look like they spread out in a single plane (ie, why do they look more like frisbees than spheres)?

[Assistant] Everything in the universe is spinning, including galaxies. Galaxies start out as big spheres of gas. All those particles are orbiting around the center of the sphere. Some of them might be orbiting almost vertically, while others are orbiting more horizontally. Over a very, very long period of time, these particles crash into each other, and when they do, they cancel out the different directions that they were going in and start going in the same direction (conservation of angular momentum). So eventually, most of the things in the galaxy end up going in the same direction, because the stuff going in different directions crashes into each other.


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

[User]
CMV: The mainstream movement for trans rights is rife with misogyny.

I'd like to start out by saying that when I say "trans rights activism", I do NOT mean all trans people. There are both trans and cis people perpetuating what I see as misogyny within trans rights activism. There are also trans people who march to the beat of their own drum, and don't seem to be perpetuating these misogynistic attitudes. This CMV is solely about my view of the mainstream movement for trans rights. With that said, I'll dive right into the reasons why I hold this view.

Using a throwaway because I don't want to be harassed, threatened, doxxed, etc. on my main account for expressing these views.

- Female anatomy is taboo...again.

These days, anytime I see a depiction or reference to female anatomy--especially if it is connected to feminism--I see hundreds of comments disparaging such a thing as "TERF-y". The best example of this is the backlash against the "pussy hats" at the Women's March. It should be obvious to anyone that the hats were a reference to Trump's "grab 'em by the pussy" quote, but tone-deaf activists ignored that fact and chose to be offended by the mere suggestion that vaginas and women are related things.

Interestingly, even though there are both trans women who don't have vaginas and trans men who don't have penises, vaginas/ovaries/uteri/etc. are the only sex-specific parts deemed "trans exclusionary". I find this fishy, to say the least.

In feminist discourse, we enjoyed maybe...five minutes of thinking that female anatomy was something we should teach people about and not be ashamed of. I guess it was nice while it lasted.

- Erasure of sex-based oppression

Women worldwide are oppressed based on BOTH gender roles/stereotypes AND their biological sex. The trans rights movement would seek to erase the latter from the category of "women's issues", presumably because acknowledging this is "invalidating" to trans women. But this is ridiculous. There are plenty of women's issues that don't affect all women. For example, FGM is a women's issue. Women in first-world countries usually don't experience it, but that doesn't mean they aren't women.

This mentality is especially damaging at this point in US politics, when reproductive rights for women are hanging in the balance. Pushing this issue to the margins to spare some people's feelings is not worth the damage that will be caused if those rights are stripped away.

- It reinforces harmful stereotypes about women.

This is a big one.

One of the more ridiculous claims I've seen come out of trans activism as of late is the idea that trans women get periods. Not bleeding, obviously, but the claim is that they get a "time of the month" where they become bitchy and moody, "just like cis women". It may surprise them to learn that only 20-30 percent of cis women report emotional symptoms consistent with PMS. Perpetuating the belief that ALL women get PMS is helping no one. This belief is one of many harmful stereotypes about women that leads to women being discredited, mocked, and not taken seriously. Some people even believe women are not suited to hold positions of great power or responsibility due to PMS making us "overly emotional".

There is also the belief that male and female brains have significant, fundamental differences, and that trans people's brains "match" the brain of the sex they identify with. This idea that there is such a thing as "lady brain" has been used against women dating back to the time of Darwin and beyond--but there is a growing body of evidence that human brains are not as gendered as we thought they were. "Inferior" by Angela Saini is a great resource if anyone wants to learn more about specific studies.

Finally, many of the testimonies I've seen, especially those of the "non-binary" subset of trans people, rely largely on gender roles and stereotypes to explain why the individual does not identify with their birth sex. Things like "I like makeup", "I play video games", "I like math and science", are used as reasons why an individual identifies a certain way.

My (least) favorite is when a female person gives the reason that it feels wrong to be treated as a woman, therefore they must not be a woman at all. NEWS FLASH: being treated as a woman sucks.  The implication that anyone who identifies as a woman is comfortable being treated as an inferior is insulting and harmful.

There are several other reasons I hold this view, such as the "cotton ceiling", allowing unfettered access for everyone into female-only spaces, etc. but I don't want to make this post any longer than it already is.

I look forward to having my view challenged! Thanks in advance for your thoughtful arguments.

Edit: fixed formatting issues.

[Assistant]
It seems like a big jump from pointing to a few controversial issues that involve a seemingly small number of people, to your claim that the mainstream movement for trans rights is "*rife with misogyny*".

The most common definition of misogyny is **hatred of women**. Do you think that that is warranted? Those people just want feminism to be more inclusive. Their motivation is not some ingrained prejudice against women.

And since trans women *are* women, isn't your view a contradiction in terms?


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

[User]
[MCU] Who finances Shield?

In the movies we have seen Shield build at least four Helicarriers, each one crewed by at least a couple thousand men.

Also, they clearly have thousands of soldiers and hundreds of researchers working full time. And let's no get started on buildings and facilities.

Shield hasn't replaced regular militaries since the US Air Force is still a thing. So the US government budget has its massive military spending AND untold billions for Shield?

Who is paying for all of this? Are the citizens of several nations required to pay a Shield tax?

[Assistant] The shadowy council of vagueness that runs the show in *The Avengers* seems to be made of various nationalities. That infers that SHIELD is a multi-national effort, with each participating nation financing the agency.


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

[User] [General] Why, in battles for the balance of Light & Dark/Good & Evil/Positive & Negative/etc., does the end result always seem to skew in favor of the "good" side, rather than an actual balance?

[Assistant] I think the other answers miss your question. Good tends to triumph because a balanced cycle is a purely good cycle. The most straight forward example of this is the Force from Star Wars. They don't try and seek a balance between the light and the dark side, because the dark side is an unnatural corruption. The light side is the natural balanced state of the force.


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

[User]
[Mass Effect] What could possibly make a husk or any other grunt equivalent a high value target?

We just got intel from HQ saying that this mindless husk that has no exceptional qualities and is just as indiscernible from the rest is a high value target. Uh... why?

[Assistant]
Scans showed that the targeted husk was formerly a family member of a high-ranking official at HQ. Said official put in a request that if possible, that husk be eliminated. There's no tactical purpose or advantage, it's purely a personal matter.

But between you and me, soldier, husks run real weird and kind of scare me. The less of them on the battlefield, the better.

Budget Hackett out.


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

[User]
[40K] How can dark eldar tech help to save a golden throne?

From mechanicum codex:

"The Tech-Priest custodians at work in the Emperors Palace uncover irrevocable failures in the mechanisms of the Golden Throne. A dozen contingency expeditions are immediately launched, including a Xanthite war procession sent through the Exhubris Portal. The Xanthites fight through Harlequin Troupes and Daemon hordes alike before reaching their intended destination. In the grave-cold oubliettes beneath Commorragh, a dark bargain is struck."

So, what dark eldar technologies/sorcery could possibly help to save a golden throne?

[Assistant]
The Dark Eldar once stole an STC that could cure all disease, potentialy extinguising Nurgle's grip on humanity.

Why did the Dark Eldar steal this? Litteraly a contest to determine which Dark    Eldar was the most dickish of them all.

Either this STC or other technology stolen from the Imperium could be of great benefit in restoring the golden throne.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do doctors recommend 8 hours of sleep, and not 7h30 or 9h

From what I understand, its best to wake up at the end of a cycle, and each cycle is 90 minutes, right?

[Assistant] The 8hrs of sleep thing was taken from (I believe) a small number of studies. People were asked how much sleep they need a night. Some said 6, some said 8, some said 10, etc, so they just averaged it out to 8 for everyone. Its kinda like how some people need more or less than 2000 calories to be healthy. It all just depends on the person and their genetics.


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

[User]
[Alien Covenant] SPOILERS

 Why did David decimate the Engineer's planet?

Why didn't the engineers have some sort of docking  security procedure whereby they would communicate with their old ship that unexpectedly arrived home, confirming it's friendly intentions rather than blindly welcoming it with open arms?

Did any engineers who were off planet when David deployed the pathogen respond?

If the engineers were mad at us before, won't they be really mad now, and try to exterminate us post haste?

How exactly did David become a genocidal psychopath?

[Assistant]
He saw that they were no better than humans and that the Engineers would pose a hindrance to his isolated life on Paradise.

Not to mention that he may have some programmed bias on finding out more about xenobiology.

We're still not sure on the context of the whole thing with docking with David's ship. The Paradise Engineers seemed more primitive. Perhaps they saw that one of their own ships (after being missing for 2000 years) showed up. Perhaps the military base succeeded in annihilating those pesky humans? Better ask the Engineer pilots of that ship what went down. If they returned, they were certainly war heroes.

Whoops, looks like there's a... human? And he's watching the weapons load...? Oh noes, it all launched. RIP Engineers.


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

[User]
[Pokemon] What happens to a criminal's Pokemon when the criminal is arrested?

If the criminal committed a crime using that Pokemon, is the Pokemon also guilty of that crime as well?

Is there a Pokemon jail? Or would it be a pound? Or do you put it down like you would with an aggressive dog?

[Assistant] Most Pokmon have shown that they arent evil, they just love their trainers and are willing to do what they want them to (I think TRs Grimer and koffing state as much outright).  Im sure there are plenty of people willing to adopt Pokmon. A Pokmon professor would potentially have room/use for them.


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

[User]
What do I need to LEARN to become a successful computer programmer?

I've tried searching this question on Google, but all I get in the search results is "How to become a computer programmer," or "What you should study in school to be a programmer," and stuff similar to that.

I have already gone through school and I got my bachelor's in math. My question isn't how I should start, because I already know some computer languages, like HTML, CSS, Java, Python, etc. I have no problem learning things on my own, because I learn very easily.

My problem is that I have no idea what I need to learn. I've got some languages down, but that's pretty much it. I don't know how to make a program, or do anything practical; just how to code.

My question is what should I teach myself before I begin applying to jobs? I know every job requires different things, but what are some absolute must haves in every programming/software developing job?

If anybody happens to have an answer, I would tremendously appreciate it!

[Assistant]
You *cannot* learn to be a successful programmer by studying, only by doing.

To be a good programmer, you need to know a bit about algorithms, data structures, software engineering best practices, and some math. But personal experience is crucial. Plenty of people watching the super bowl understand the aspects of the game: the rules, the strategy, analysis of each player's performance, and even the politics of the sport - how many of them could be described as football players?

The trick is - what do you want to do enough to practice it? Do you want to be a mobile apps developer? Write a few mobile apps - Android has a free SDK with tutorials and documentation. Games? Unity or Unreal Engine are both a good place to start. Don't know?  Try mocking up some small demos in Python with PyGame or what have you. Your imagination, curiosity, and drive will have to sustain you through a process of writing, confusion, and enlightenment that you can't get by trying to study programming the same way you might study biology or history.

Which kind of companies do you want to work for? Depending on what your goals are, there may be tutorials out there that could get you started.


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

[User] ELI5: How do Atomic bombs work? Is it just one atom torn apart?

[Assistant]
There's an ideal ratio of protons to neutrons for an atomic nucleus to be stable.  Even when their protons and neutrons are at the right ratio, big atoms have a nucleus that is kind of wobbly and unstable to begin with.  Over time those big atoms, left to their own devices, will tend to split into fragments.  This is called *radioactivity*.  Exactly what fragments an atom splits into depends on what kind of atom it is (which is determined by how many protons and neutrons were there in the first place).

When a big atom gets hit by a neutron, an already-unstable atom has its proton-to-neutron ratio suddenly be "wrong."  Which causes it to become extremely unstable and split into fragments almost instantly.  A bunch of binding energy is released which causes the fragments to fly apart, like what happens when you cut a tight-stretched rubber band.  How fast atoms are moving determines *temperature*, so when an atom is split, it creates heat as well as fragments.

Leo Szilard, a Jewish physicist who left Germany when Hitler became chancellor, realized that if we could find some atom that splits into fragments that include multiple neutrons, you could create a *chain reaction*.  In a chain reaction, one atom breaks and releases two neutrons, which breaks two more atoms, which releases four more neutrons, which breaks four more atoms, which releases eight neutrons...Szilard convinced other influential physicists, including Einstein, to advise the US government that this was possible and might be able to be used to create a powerful bomb.

If you have only a small amount of the right kind of atom, the chain reaction can't get properly started -- too many neutrons escape off the edges of the sample.  But once you have enough atoms -- a condition called *critical mass* -- the chain reaction will be able to sustain itself.  If you're just over critical mass, the sample will start to heat up and get hotter and hotter until it melts itself and its container, this is called *meltdown* (the flow will eventually spread it out enough that it stops being critical and cools down, but before that it can cause lots of damage in places that are difficult / impossible to safely repair because of radioactivity).  If you have way more than critical mass,  then incredible amounts of heat and neutrons will be produced very quickly, which causes an enormous explosion.

One use of this chain reaction phenomenon is to build a power plant:  Use neutron absorbing rods which can be inserted/removed from a sample to keep it near critical mass, enough so that it heats up enough to boil water to create steam and generate power, but not to the point of meltdown. Another use is to build a bomb:  Use regular explosives to smash two samples together to create a single sample far above critical mass, which will cause a very powerful explosion.

The right kind of atom for this process, a kind of uranium, turns out to be fairly common all over Earth, but since it is unstable, a lot of it has split into fragments over the billions of years that have passed since it was formed.  The remaining amounts of useful uranium are mixed with large amounts of useless uranium that doesn't release multiple neutrons.  So the useful uranium needs to be separated from the useless uranium.

Normally when scientists or engineers want to separate things, they will rely on different properties of the things they want to separate.  For example, you can melt the sample and let the liquid settle into different layers (taking advantage of different liquid density).  Or by making the sample hot enough for only one of the mixed things to boil away (taking advantage of different boiling points).  Or by adding chemicals which react differently with the things they want to separate (taking advantage of different chemistry).  But none of this works for uranium, because the two kinds of uranium are very similar and have almost identical properties.

The best method they found for separating uranium involves vaporizing the uranium into gas and then spinning the gas really fast with a machine called a *gas centrifuge*.  The two different kinds of atoms weigh different amounts, allowing the right kind of uranium to be separated and purified.  This process is incredibly expensive and inefficient, which is a good thing.  Hobbyists or terrorists can improvise regular bombs fairly easily, but can't feasibly build a nuclear bomb in their backyard.  Even for a government, in the age of satellites it's not really feasible to hide the enormous facilities needed, so countries basically know which other countries can / are trying to build bombs, and can pressure each other not to create weapons.


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

[User]
CMV: Pro-life doesnt make sense to me, at all

Im a Muslim, and I might sound biased (i really dont know) and just to safe, Ill be speaking from an Islamic pov. Keep in mind that my views dont represent every Muslim, I simply follow the mainstream Islamic view. Also, I ***dont support either pro-life or pro-choice completely***, but if I had to choose, pro-choice because it aligns closer with Islamic values.

So. Pro-life. Which btw, there shouldnt even be a pro-life stance on this matter ffs. This opinion takes inspiration (?) from a Christian belief of baptism, and the State shouldnt have religious biases playing into it.

Second, a sizeable portion of America isnt pro-life, for religious reasons or not. Its just cruel to impose your own restrictions on people who dont subscribe to your opinions. Before someone starts slinging Iran and how female tourists have to wear hijabs at me, 1. look up pictures of women living in Iran right now, 2. thats a headscarf. A *headscarf*. Were talking about actual, human lives right now.

Third, theres more of an advantage to pro-choice; not only do pro-lifer woman actually get to keep their baby, pro-choice and neutral women can choose not to (if they want). Basically, everyone gets to do as they see fit. Is that not the core point of freedom?

Call me naive all you want, but I really just want to know why we cant have basic bodily autonomy. Im mostly looking to speak with pro-lifers, but anyone who can offer another view is welcome. This has been repeated over and over, but please keep things respectful. This is a sensitive comment, handle it with care.

edit: you dont have to be Christian to be a pro-lifer and vice versa. This is a mistake on my part.

edit 2: the pro-life argument has mostly Christian values and 47% of Catholic Christians are pro-life, hence why I misinterpreted pro-lifers as all Christians. I understand that this is no excuse for me to generalize a very diverse group of people and Im sincerely, truly sorry for this. ive also changed all the Christian terms to pro-lifers. If theres anything offensive in the text please lmk, and again I apologize.

edit 3: i have been soundly proven wrong. I feel slightly ashamed at not understanding pro-lifer reasoning now actually haha. Anyway, feel free to discuss and reply to old comments, though I may not reply back. thanks everyone :)

[Assistant]
You are wrong that you have to be Christian to be pro-life, anyone who perceives a child in the womb as being human could very well be pro-life, unless they go as far as saying that they acknowledge the humanity of the unborn but murder is fine in that circumstance.

When do you believe that life begins? You have to answer that question first, in order to work out whether you are pro-life or pro-choice.


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

[User] ELI5: What are the differences between bogey, hostile, bandit etc. in Air Force terms?

[Assistant]
A bogey is an unidentified aircraft. It could be a friendly, an enemy or a civilian.

A bandit is an enemy aircraft that is not engaging or being engaged in combat.

Contrary to what movies show, you would never shoot down a bogey or bandit.

A hostile is an enemy aircraft that you are cleared to engage or that has attacked you and you are allowed to engage in self defense.


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

[User] ELI5 the business model of "All drink sizes are the same price".

[Assistant]
Several comments touch on the foundation of this practice, but no one has really answered your question.

The most common answer is *Fountain drinks are really cheap!* And, while that's true, it doesn't explain why all sizes are offered at the same price. It only shows that the business is making a profit, no matter which size you choose. In other words, no one has explained why cutting the profit margin actually helps the business.

To demonstrate, let's suppose that our restaurant starts off with drinks prices as follows:

Small: $1, Medium: $1.50, Large: $2.00.

Clearly, if the cost of the soda is super-cheap, then the restaurant makes the most money on the large drink. So, why undercut their own profit by offering the large drink for only $1?

It's because a customer can go anywhere to get an overpriced soft drink. All of your competitors are charging about the same price for a large drink. The thing is, this tactic doesn't bring any new business. It only ensures that your repeat customers are paying a premium to drink a large soda. In order to draw new customers, you need to give them an incentive to come into your store.

So, here's the long-term strategy. Price all the soda sizes for $1. Yeah, you are going to lose a bit of revenue in the short term. But the plan is to get new faces in your store. Some of these customers will become regular visitors. Over time, they will generate enough sales to make up for the lost revenue. You should start seeing an uptick in customer orders.


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

[User]
What is it like to work in academic publishing/science communication (STEM PhD)?

I'm curious if anyone with a PhD in STEM has any insider knowledge on what it's like to work in academic publishing (e.g., Assistant or Senior Editor at high impact journals like Nature):

1. **How hard is it to get a job in science communication at the PhD level? (Do you even need a doctorate to be considered? Any jobs open at just the bachelor's or master's level?).** With there being such a scarcity of TT faculty positions and lots of people heading towards industry, will science communication jobs become increasingly competitive?
2. **What is job security like?** If you landed a job as a full-time editor at a renowned journal, would you theoretically be employed for as long as you want to be there (assuming you perform well)?
3. **What is the salary range like for editors in academic journals?**
4. **What is the work life balance like?** Editorial work seems like a pretty straightforward desk job, but I imagine there would be a lot of pressure meeting deadlines, especially with a high volume of submissions. Does working as an editor allow for a 9-5 lifestyle? Or, do editors often work odd hours and weekends too?
5. **How much of the job involves independent "desk" work, and how much of it involves conferencing, presenting, extroverted people skills?**

I'm mostly interested in hearing about careers in academic publishing, but I'm also curious about less traditional routes where there is a focus on communicating scientific information to the general public in a "pop science" way.

Thanks!

[Assistant]
Im an editor-in-chief at a high tier journal. Shortish answers:

1. Its relative competitive. Not as bad as tenure track positions. If you get an interview, itll be a half or full day, they will get you assess manuscripts on the spot, talk about hot topics in the field, etc. Typically a Ph.D. is required in the field of the journal (I.e., chemistry for, say, Nature Chemistry... usually they look for a more specific area... like carbon catalysis or something... depends how big the journal is).

2. Job security is pretty good. Mostly lateral movements from journal to journal (or when new journals launch).

3. Assistant editors start around the $70K range. Depends on the journal/publisher.

4. Depends on the team. Close to a 9-5, but teams are typically spread out geographically, which leads to flexibility. Sometimes theres early morning meetings to chat with authors in China, Europe, etc. Work life balance is respected. Meet some deadlines, and no one expects to work more than 40 hours a week (approximately).

5. About 50% of the job is handling papers, from submission through peer review to publication (or rejection). Theres also the planning of events (webinars, symposia, etc.). Strategic meetings with other journals. Recently travel is waaaay down (I.e., COVID), but most journals have a healthy travel budget for conferences and site visits (travel to a university to give a talk and network with researchers). Id say 5-6 trips per year, some international, some domestic, conferences of different sizes.

Any other questions, just ask!


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

[User] [Warhammer 40K] There is no warning. No one off Terra has any idea of what just happened... but due to a massive and unexpected earthquake, the Emperor is killed. What happens next, on Terra and beyond? What are the short term and long term implications?

[Assistant]
Just as planned...

Short term, Chaos would roam almost unhindered, the Imperium's ships and astropaths would suddenly be cut off, more or less every psychically powered being would be driven insane by a sudden and unexpected darkness, as though a long-familiar light suddenly dies to leave a room in darkness.

There would not, for the Imperium of man at least, be a Long Term.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why does it feel like when you are thirsty, sugar feels like a replacement for something to drink?

Sorry for my bad english. Let me explain;
Some days when I dont drink a lot I start to get really hungry for sugary candy. After I eat it I dont want feel thirsty for a while again. I could live a day without drinking at all but not feeling thirsty because of sugar. How come?

[Assistant]
Fruits contain alot of water.
Fruits also contain alot of sugar.
If you couldn't get water directly, fruit would also give you water.
Your body hasn't learned it can get sugar in candy, it thinks you are getting the sugar from fruit.
So it thinks you got some of the water in the fruit until your fluid balance tells you other wise.


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

[User] [Dragon Ball Z] In the current timeline, Future Trunks kills Mecha-Frieza and King Cold before Goku arrives on Earth. How did they originally die in his timeline?

[Assistant] Goku sensed Frieza and daddy while en-route to Earth and used Instant Transmission to arrive on Earth and defeat them. In the altered timeline, Goku sensed Trunks and knew he was strong enough to kill them, so he didn't bother.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Were there other rebel-held planets or sectors? How did they avoid having the Empire show up and crush them? Why didn't they keep their main base in those places?

In the Star Wars movies, there's usually a "Rebel Base"...like on Yavin or on Hoth.  The Empire is quite clearly capable of showing up and crushing these bases when they find out where they are...they lose a Death Star when attacking Yavin, true, but the Rebels still abandon it later.  And the Rebels hide their main bases out in the middle of nowhere because they are trying to avoid Imperial attention rather than being confident they can defend the area.

But clearly the "Rebel Base", wherever it is at the moment, can't be the _entire_ rebellion.  They are getting ships and supplies from somewhere, which means they have access to manufacturing capacity.  And there's just got to be more going on if they expect to overthrow the whole Empire.  So what happens to those other planets?  I know Alderaan gets blown to bits for merely being sympathetic to the Rebels, but what keeps the Empire from knocking out the rest of the rebel supply line and organization?  And if there are whole "rebel sectors" that are too well defended for the Imperials to attack them, why aren't they putting their bases in those places?

[Assistant]
They had bases on Hoth and Yavin because they were remote planets in remote places of the galaxy. But mostly the leadership stayed there.

For the rest of the rebellion, the galaxy is HUGE. The sparsely populated Outer Rim is where most of the rebellion hides. It is too big for even the Empire to patrol. Most rebel supporters also orginate from the Outer Rim.

As you said, planets basically can't openly back the Rebellion, as the Empire cracks down on that, HARD. Most of the rebellion isn't actively fighting, they are just sympatizers.
For supplies, the Rebellion have got many wealthy backers, like the Organa family. Millitary hardware are plentyful in the galaxy. Particularily in the Corporate sector, they don't ask many questions to buyers. If you have the money, you can just buy it. Much of the Hardware is also stolen from the Empire.

The rebellion doesn't have the hardware to actively fight the Empire, as the Empire basically got the entire galaxy working for them. What they do is staging hit and run attacks on convoys, forcing the Empire to divert resources to escort ships.
Much of the bigger hardware is also stolen from the empire during such raids. For example, the Nebulon-B frigate is an imperial-designed escort ship, but so many have been stolen that it is just as common to see in rebel hands.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do onions compliment a dish so pleasantly when you cook them, yet overpower the hell out of everything when raw?

There's a lot of vegetables that taste different when cooked, but like, cooked and raw onions are absolute worlds apart. Why?

[Assistant]
**TL;DR**: *You're cracking open cells and turning starches to sugars when you chop and cook an onion. The first makes nasty chemicals leave or get converted to other less-strong compounds, and the second balances the flavour of whatever's left to reduce its strength.*

There's different types of onions with different amount of chemicals in them that give you a 'flavour' sensation, so let's go with a standard yellow cooking onion.

Flavour comes from three things - the taste that your tongue detects, the scent that your nose smells, and other chemicals that cause a stinging sensation that we interpret and refer to as 'heat'. (Sidebar for fun: Some of these chemicals in onions are sulfur based and react with the water in your eyes to make you cry when you cut them.)

Onions when raw, particularly strong and pungent ones, have strong crispy cell walls that contain these chemicals nicely. Pop a chunk of one in your mouth and break it down by chewing it, and instantly you get whalloped by a concentrated mix of these sorts of chemicals in direct contact with your tongue and in super-close proximity to your smell-detecting processes, and BLOOF your sinuses are suddenly clear.

But chop and cook that onion instead, and a lot of those cell walls get broken down, allowing the really pungent stuff a way out, where they can vaporize in the pan and give you that unmistakeable onion-cooking smell.

Cooking (or at least cooking properly) also 'caramelizes' the onion, turning its neutral-tasting starches into pleasant-tasting sugars that cause the other flavours in the dish to be balanced with a little bit of sweetness. In the same way a spoonful of sugar really gentles down the bitterness of coffee, the sugars that the cooking process manufactures will gentle down the other bitter flavours.

(edit: speling)


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

[User]
What's the cause of the breakdown between interest rate changes and inflation? Is my understanding correct?

I'm curious if my understanding on this is even remotely correct:

By reducing interest rates banks and other institutions can borrow more money for the same ongoing cost. With an increase in money available they're able to buy more stuff which create scarcity which leads to increased prices as people try to outbid each other for these things which decreases the value of money i.e. inflation.

Corporations are using these lower cost loans to invest in their companies (good) or do things like buy back stocks (not so good, though I guess the people who sold their stock can reinvest elsewhere?).

However there must be some sort of break between lower cost loans making corporations flush with cash and them making middle class more flush with cash (middle class being the bulk of the population). More production should make essentials cheaper leaving more money on hand and increasing inflation. So my suspicion is that it's a combination of stagnated wage growth over the last few decades and that that wage growth is first needed to create inflation, and that those who do have cash/the ability to take out loans primarily use it to buy houses instead of investing in other things.

While house prices going up does lead to more being built, I suspect the economic growth here is smaller per dollar spent that in other industries as much of the money is swallowed up by illogical house price increases instead of new builds (illogical as in house prices go up faster than rent so the IRR is not very good). Most of that being driven by "mom and pop" investors investing in the only thing they "know": houses.

Is this anywhere near what actual economists think? If not can someone point me towards their reasoning?

[Assistant]
No break.  Newton  f=ma does not say exclusively the force but rather the the sum of all forces.  Same goes in economics. Inflation caused by an increase in money is one force.  There are other forces at work too that are deflationary.
Right now there is a fear of lack of money, so people have been saving more.


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

[User]
[Shrek] Why did Princess Fiona's parents lock her up in a castle?

I know King Harold indicates it was for her own good, but how is solitary confinement better than living with her parents in a castle well-staffed with servants? And why isn't Fiona more pissed off at them about it?

[Assistant]
Fairy Godmother told them to. She had a thing all planned out where Prince Charming would rescue her and free her from her curse.

Her parents were okish with it because Harold was being blackmailed by Fairy Godmother and convinced Lillian that it was only temporary before the curse was broken. Fiona was ok with it because the curse did a number on her self-esteem. Also the royal family didn't want the curse to be public considering anti-ogre prejudice in Far Far Away.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter Universe] What's the purpose of the shifting stairs?

This has probably been asked before, but I didn't find anything with the search bar.

Anyway, Hogwarts is first and foremost a school, right? With mostly *children* and teenagers coming and going around the place, around a building that's probably seven or eight floors tall, and with hundreds of rooms.

So, aren't the shifting stairs: 1) A huge safety risk, and 2) Just an obstacle for students to get to class in time?

What if one of the kids isn't paying attention and drops to the ground when the stairs suddenly started moving? "Ooops, Ms. Longbottom. I guess your son *was* a huge dumbass".

What if I'm walking to class, but the stair starts moving on its own, and now I'm probably gonna be very late to class by no fault of my own? "Ooops, I guess you should've predicted that one, Potter. You'll have to stay after class."

Really, there must be a very good reason for the stairs to move on their own, then. Right? *Right?*

>"There are also many trick stairs that cause the victim to sink through a step and require another person to pull them out."

...The teachers are just taking the piss, aren't they...?

[Assistant]
Remember, it was originally a castle before it was a school. Those odd quirks are probably remnants of the original defense measures or ones that have been added over the centuries.

Yes they're a risk, but remember that wizards don't have the same concerns as muggles. The school also has a tree that will *bludgeon you to death* if you get too close, a moat filled with deadly creatures, a forest filled with giant spiders, etc etc. A kid *disappeared into a magic cabinet for weeks* and no one so much as batted an eye when he resurfaced inside of a toilet.

As for it being an inconvenience, I'd expect first years get some leeway but by second year, you're expected to know your way around the place to get to your classes on time.


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

[User] ELI5: How do pharmacies have almost all medication in stock in such a small area?

[Assistant] Despite what you might think there aren't as many common medications available. Also, pharmacies only need to keep enough of any given medication in stock as long as they get frequent shipments every few days. They determine which medications are the most highly used by local physicians and stock those up enough to last until their next delivery with a safety supply always in reserve. And if they get dangerously low all they need to do is make a special order that comes a few days early. But pharmacies are getting shipments of medications all the time so this really shouldn't be a problem. Another thing that helps is that shelf life of most medications are at least a year. So even if you have to stock some exotic medication that no one really ever gets prescribed you can keep a small supply tucked away somewhere and have a computer system track when it is going to expire and you need to toss the old stuff out.


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

[User] If your body wakes you up naturally and you feel refreshed but you only slept 5hrs, have you slept 'enough'?

[Assistant] Whether you slept enough depends only on how much time have you spend in deep sleep. You need only 1,5h(or 2h not sure) of it. So it is possible that after 5h you have it enough. But how you feel after waking up doesn't say as much about whether you slept enough, as about during what part of sleep cycle did you wake up. So its hard to say.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Is Vader stricter on his Officers than Stormtroopers?

Because I've never (in the movies anyway) seen him execute or force choke any stormtroopers.  But Officers he does it freely like handing out money (except for Admiral Piett since they are bffs).

[Assistant]
Yes, and with good reason. An army is only effective as its leader.

Stormtroopers are foot soldiers. No matter their training, they exist to fight and nothing more. Officers are supposed to a cut above them, being capable of assessing situations a normal soldier can't, adapt to events on the fly, and ready to challenge whatever the enemy throws at them.

If the military was lead by under qualified officers, Vader might as well surrender to rebels. What's the point of fighting if the leaders are too stupid to win?


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

[User]
[General Zombie Apocalypse] With all of humanity zombified, how would animal life on Earth adapt?

Let's assume for the purposes of this apocalypse that these Romero zombies, in the absence of humans to attack, will shamble and maul any animals close by. The zombie virus doesn't reanimate animals if said animal was bitten, but the virus will kill them, and will also kill the animal if zombie flesh is ingested.

As the years pass ( zombies won't normally rot because microorganisms won't have anything to do with them ) how will animals' behaviours and physiologies change?

[Assistant]
Did you have any specific species (or location, or time frame) in mind?

In general, any animals that are friendly to humans (or any predator that would prey on Zombies) would have a noticeable drop in population, until surviving members either adapt to this new member of the Ecosystem or die off. Domesticated or near-domesticated animals that have been bred past the point of self sufficiency (Pets, farm animals and the like.) would see potentially irrecoverable drops in population. Animals that are used to avoiding humans and are capable of adapting to formally human populated areas (rodents, small mammals and the like) would see dramatic increases in population. These populations would, of course, not be sustainable, but in the short term would lead to increases in the predators of these animals. The cycle continues. Life, uh, well, you know what it does.


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

[User] ELI5: The difference between 4-wheel-drive and all-wheel-drive?

[Assistant]
In 4-wheel-drive, typically the front and rear wheels are locked together and rotate at the same speed. In an all-wheel-drive system, the front and rear wheels are free to rotate at different speeds through the use of a center differential.

The only time all 4 wheels are naturally rotating at the same speed is when you are traveling in a straight line. Having the wheels locked together at all times and forced to rotate at the same speed can damage the car and cause unnecessary wear on the tires while turning. Therefore, a 4 wheel drive vehicle allows you to select whether or not to engage the 4-wheel-drive, while AWD systems are permanent . Typically, you only engage 4WD on slippery surfaces because it allows the wheels to slip on the road surface instead of causing unnecessary wear to the drivetrain.


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

[User]
Why does closer thunder sound sudden and sharp, while distant ones are more drawn out?

I thought the cause may be that different frequencies in the sound of thunder are carried at different speeds through the air, but wouldn't that mean I would be able to hear a difference in pitch?

[Assistant]
Mostly because of echoes/difference in path lengths. The farther you are away from a lightning bolt, the more chances the sound has to bounce off a few things (or not) before reaching you. The more a sound bounces around, the longer its path length, and the longer it takes to reach you. So, some of the sound goes directly to you while some of the sound bounces around a bit before reaching you. The different bits of sound from the original lightning strike reach you at different moments, so as a whole it sounds longer and more drawn out.

You can experience this same effect on a smaller scale. Stand in a very large, empty field and yell to a friend. There is very little opportunity for the sound to bounce around, so the sound either goes straight to you or gets lost out in the sky. As a result, your friend's voice sounds sharp and quick. Then go into a small canyon and yell to your friend. All the bounces the sound can take makes it more drawn out. The audio world calls this "reverb".


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

[User]
CMV: I dont get why is it unethical to genetically modify your baby

If you see the news recently, in China the first genetically modified embryo was created and a lot of scientist and governments were against it due to ethically reason, even though the only gene they modified was a very specific DNA that could prevent the baby from having HIV (cmiiw).

Now I do understand the part where it is unethical to do so because we do not know the extent of removing that very specific gene to the babys future. For all we know the embryo could be deformed when he/she is born. I agree on having extensive research on that part before actually doing it. What I dont agree is the fact that it is unethical to edit your babys gene so that you could have a better offspring. I mean lets face it, theres so many benefit on being able to edit your gene. For example if you and your SO are short, might as well make your baby grew taller than you. Your family have a history of heart diseases? Well lets change that! Before we judge someone from their inside, our first impression of someone would be from their physical appearance and if we can somehow make that into an even plane in the foreseeable future than why the fuck not.

Ofcourse this is an open conversation. I would like to know your take on this issue.

[Assistant]
>  Your family have a history of heart diseases? Well lets change that!

Only the most hardcore would have a problem with *this* type of modification. Like, if you could eradicate Down's Syndrome, most would say that's a good thing. Of course some would protest, but by and large it would be seen as a net positive.

> For example if you and your SO are short, might as well make your baby grew taller than you.

This is where you'll get the most resistance. There are some things like determining eye color that might be considered okay, but the problem will be when people start editing gender or other physical attributes. What happens in countries where having a girl is considered a failure?

There is a probability, not possibility, that genetically modifying children will lead to eugenics somewhere. That's where people get the heebie jeebies about it.


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

[User] Does the earth's velocity due to its rotation around the sun affect experiments or our perception of time?

[Assistant]
Well, one small point of terminology, the earth revolves around the sun, and rotates on its axis.

Now,  as for relativistic effects of that velocity on time experiments. There is an effect, but since any experiment would be comparing the passage of time on something like a satellite (GPS for example) or a space probe, to the passage of time at a lab on earth, the effect doesn't matter. There is no "rest point" in space that our experiments use as reference, and it's the relative difference in time between the satellite and the lab that matters.


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

[User]
How do counterweights on construction cranes not tip the crane before loads are hoisted?

I know that the tipping of cranes is caused when the torque generated by the load exceeds that of the counterweight. But if a crane were to have no load attached, i.e it is preparing to pick one up and the counterweight is attached, how does it not tip in the time before any weight is able to generate torque against the counter weight?

[Assistant] The crane is not balanced on a single point on the ground. Without load the center of mass is close to the "back" of the crane but still between the supports. With maximal load the center of mass is closer to the "front" of the crane but still between the supports.


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

[User] ELI5: Why can't we recycle the stuff that's sent to landfill?

[Assistant]
There are two reasons, both of which are applicable in many cases:

1) Things that are mixed together are more expensive to take apart.  Aluminum cans are easy to recycle because they are almost pure aluminum.  There is aluminum in food packaging, but it's bonded to paper, plastic, and other non-aluminum things in a way that's hard to undo.

2) Some things are not very valuable, and the energy that would be needed to process them costs more than the output of the process could be sold for (even when the cost of the landfill is included).


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

[User]
[The Matrix Revolutions] Why not use EMP to defend against the attacking machines?

We know that an EMP blast is more than successful at repelling and destroying the machines. So when it comes time to defend Zion from the machines, why do the humans rely on something as inefficient as mechs with oversized railguns? Wouldn't a single ship positioned at the point where the machines were drilling to activating it's EMP repeatedly be enough to greatly reduce the number of machines? Used in conjunction with the mechs it seems like a great idea.

[Assistant] They did try to do this. The fleet they sent to destroy the machine swarm with emps were destroyed when one of them went off prematurely. Still not sure how that happened. From reports the fleet was destroyed with all hands.


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

[User] [A New Hope] Why didn't the rebels figure out where the thermal port was, and drop in closer instead of flying all the way around the circumference of the Death Star?

[Assistant] Because a direct route opens them to opposing fire from the Death Star's defense towers. That's the entire reason they took the trench, because it was below where the towers could hit, providing defense while their targeting computers locked on to the exhaust port.


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

[User]
[Snowpiercer] is there any accounting for track maintenance?

I understand the train has no problem with plowing heavy snow. Its in the name.

What about collapsed infrastructure and erosion?

How does Snowpiercer deal with downed bridge on top of the tracks? How does the train deal with erosion over time, either of land beneath or above tracks?

What about avalanches?

[Assistant]
The TV series makes a bit more of a nod to this than the movie does.

- The tracks were designed with the explicit intent of successfully weathering the freeze, so they're massively over engineered compared to real world tracks, with multiple redundancies in place.

- The tracks *are* failing in certain places.  There's a bridge in Africa that gets called out as failing in one episode.

Even with all that it is not particularly realistic that a track would survive for more than a few months in the conditions we see, but a perpetual motion train is also not realistic.  Ultimately this just reinforces the idea that the snowpiercer is a house of cards, where eventually *something* will fail and everyone will die.  We're just watching doomed survivors hold on as long as they can.  >!Although the end of the series is also a bit more hopeful than the movie!<


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

[User]
[Game of Thrones] Did Khal Drogo have any intention of ever helping Viserys?

I'm an avid show watcher (Season 5)  so no spoilers from the books please!

It seems that Drogo was consistently disrespecting Viserys although part of the deal seemed to be that in exchange for a bride Drogo would help him retake the Iron Throne. Yet shortly after Dany and Drogo's marriage, Drogo doesn't seem to care about it at all. What was the deal that was supposed to be going on here?

[Assistant]
Regardless of the ethics of essentially selling your sister, Khal Drogo did not see the exchange as immediately binding. You need to understand, the Khals do not view 'deals' the same way we Westrosi do.

To them, a deal is more like a gift, with the expectation of a gift in return somewhere along the line. Although the expectation of payment still exists, the idea of being in the other party's debt does not. Drogo, because of his cultural background, did not feel any particular need to immediately fulfill Viserys' wishes, especially with Viserys being the annoying little moron he was. To Drogo, he was nothing but an irritating little boy. Since he was unproven in battle, held no real lands, and the people of the Great Grass Sea value nobility of birth but cheap, he thus felt even less obligation to help him. Once Viserys is dead, it is unlikely he would have felt any obligation at all.

He does, however, eventually seem to commit to taking Westeros after the first assassination attempt on Daenerys, as he then considers the conquest of Westeros to be a form of revenge.


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

[User]
[DC] Do people know Lex Luthor is a supervillian?

It's a little unclear in the comic's I've read- sometimes, he has a sterling reputation as a philanthropist and gets elected president. Sometimes, while his lawyers stop him getting prosecuted, everyone knows he did it even if they can't prove it. And sometimes, of course, he's leading the Legion of Doom in a mechsuit as they storm the Watchtower

So, what's the general consensus in the comics? Does Joe Bloggs, random metropolitan, know that Lex Luthor is superman's archnemesis and one of the world's most dangerous supervillians? Or is he just the cool bald guy who runs the science company?

[Assistant]
He started out presenting himself as "just" a businessman. Some people thought he did illegal and unethical stuff, some people thought he was a good guy, there wasn't any consensus. Superman knew he was bad but couldn't prove it legally.

He eventually decided to run for President of the USA and managed to do so, despite the polarizing public opinion (this happened some 16 years before Trump, no forced symbollism here).

At the end of his first mandate as President he started getting really sloppy and power-hungry, culminating with Superman and Batman publicly exposing him and beating him in a fight (Lex was wearing Apokoliptian armor). Lex faked his death at the end of the story arc and spent the following months scheming for revenge. When he finally showed himself again he was a full-blown supervillain, openly considering himself one of the biggest faces of evil in the world.


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

[User] [General Superheroes/Lovecraft] Which comic book characters would have the best chance of looking upon Cthulhu et al. without going insane?

[Assistant]
Doctor Manhattan would probably have a decent shot at it. His mind has already expanded to the point where he takes in actions that happen over the span of a femtosecond, and he sees all of time as a single moment. Adding face tentacles to that kind of cosmic awareness isn't going to break him.

The Joker's Super Sanity might offer him some kind of protection. He already thinks existence is a huge, cruel joke, and C'Thulhu would just be confirmation of that.

Stephen Strange deals with cosmic entities on the regular, and manages to not go (too far) off the deep end. Even if you interpret driving people made as an active power of the Great Old Ones, and not just a kind of shock and awe effect, Strange's magics should offer him some protection.

Professor X and Jean Grey could go either way; either their mental powers protect them, or make them *way* more vulnerable.

Franklin Richards, the Beyonder, the Silver Surfer, Galactus, anyone with the Mind Gem, the Endless, and any of the various anthropomorphic representations of Platonic ideals should be fine, too.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Why is Tatooine so important?

In A New Hope, you get the impression that Tatooine is basically the ass end of the galaxy and nothing of importance goes on there.  But through the movies and series like Mandalorian and Boba Fett, it seems that it is an important trade route, space port and hub for criminal empires.  But it has no real resources and is a pretty hard place to live.  Was Luke simply underselling it?

[Assistant]
It's on the nexus of two important hyperlanes-the Triellus Trade Route which is the main trade route across the Outer Rim, and the Correlian Run, which is the largest trade route in the Galaxy and goes straight from the Core Worlds. It's a logical transport hub that connects the Inner worlds to the Outer Rim.

There's nothing really special about the planet itself. It's resource poor, not hospitable, and doesn't have any great cultural or religious significance, but it's a useful hub.

Luke himself was also sort of underselling it. Luke lived in pretty much the middle of nowhere on the planet, and rarely ventured further than Anchorhead, which itself was still a fairly small settlement. Mos Eisely and Mos Espa are much more active, but his aunt and uncle likely never let him stray that far out.


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

[User] Eli5 Why can't bipedal robots walk like a normal person?

[Assistant]
It is because walking upright is actually a very impressive thing.

To be able to walk upright on perfectly flat terrain is easy, but to be able to immediately adjust to a thousand permutations of incline, materials, stability, etc. is actually very hard.  The human foot actually has more bones in it than any other part of the body - when combined with the number of other organs and systems we have dedicated to _balance_, the process of walking upright is an amazing interplay of systems effortlessly working together.

We are getting closer with robotics, but it is still a very complex engineering process to get right.


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

[User]
Any tips to not feel dumb during philosophy lectures?

hey guys,

I am a fourth year philosophy major, and I don't know if it is zoom lecture that is throwing me off, my Hard of hearingness, the accent of both of my professors, the fact that I am studying in a different time zone (3am philosophy lectures yay), the fact that I went from Lower division courses, to "medium devision courses", to Upper devision courses but I cannot seem to focus. Every twenty minutes I just kinda zone out and then when it comes time to time to write my paper I get confused. All my classmate seems so smart, like the professor gives a whole monologue and than my classmates are like: "well let me add something, complete analysis with terms I have never heard of". I never had major trouble with my philosophy classes before, sometimes I would not understand a primary text, but  my lectures would clear it up.

Any tips?

[Assistant]
You are not alone in experiencing this kind of thing.  In order of things you can reasonably affect:

1. Try to force yourself into a specific set of note-taking habits
2. Beg the professor for links to lecture recordings (preferably with transcripts) for use later
3. Beg the professor for their lecture notes or, at least, an outline of the lecture prior to the session
4. Beg your professor to take more inter-class breaks (especially if the lecture is for more than an hour)

ETA: If your hard-of-hearingness is documented, then there are lots of ADA protections.  It is possible to do CC in Zoom, but professors can't easily do it by themselves (as someone has to live caption).  Your college's access office would be responsible for making that happen, but if your access office is having trouble providing this option then you should for sure let your professor know that you need help here.


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

[User]
Does the heat released in a chemical reaction affect the rate of the reaction?

Every single reaction is either exothermic or endothermic and the temperature the reaction happens in affects the rate constant k and therefore the equilibrium of the reaction, so does, for example the heat released from an endothermic reaction affect the rate constant of that reaction, increasing the rate? this would mean that any calculated rate constants and equilibrium constants are only correct for a very short period time would it? Or is the heat released somehow accounted for in the rate constant?

[Assistant]
Everything you have written above is correct. So good on you for having given thought to it before asking.

Yes, often reactions are exothermic and can generate heat which increases the rate constant. This is actually a big problem for many reactions, and so often times efforts are made to keep the reaction temperature low. Such runaway reaction can lead to fires, or bring you to a temperature where undesired side products form.

How do you account for this?  Very exothermic reactions are often run with strong stirring and in an ice bath to absorb the extra heat.  Another thing which helps is diluting the reactants.  This slows down the reaction and the solvent helps absorb the heat, protecting the reaction from overheating. When rate constants are measured, the temperature is carefully controlled to account for such effects.


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

[User]
Are our fingernails attached to the skin under it? If so, how do they grow without slowly and painfully ripping our skin off?

The question came to me after a sharp pain from cutting my nail too short. Anyone out there know about this?

EDIT: Okay, so the general consensus is that nails a basically composed of keratin. Apparently there is a layer of some sort of nail matrix in between the epidermis and the actual nail. This material is what actually moves but  is so miniscule that it doesn't hurt and is not noticeable.

Another argument is that the skin under our nail is pulled off by our nail so slowly that the pain receptors are not set off and we feel nothing. This is also what people on this thread think is true with hairs, the process is so slow that our body either can't or chooses not to set off pain receptors; otherwise we'd be in constant pain.

Thank you to all the commenters, i bet my and many others' curiosities are satisfied.

[Assistant] Yes, they are atached to the skin under it. If you've ever lost a fingernail, you can see the skin underneath is frayed where it was loosely attached. It doesn't grow out painfully precisely because it is so slow.


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

[User]
Do any animals, other than humans, care for their elderly?

It doesnt make much sense for a wild animal to risk its own survival to care for its seniors. I just imagine older animals falling behind and eventually starving, getting killed or succumbing.

I guess the only possible candidates are group animals.

[Assistant] Elephant herd slow down for and defend aging herd-members, and when they die, come from miles around to congregate around the body to mourn. They dont go to the lengths humans do to keep elders alive when they cant feed themselves any longer (kind of hard without opposable thumbs) but they definitely look out for them.


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

[User] [The Wizard of Oz] Why was the Wizard in disguise as the coachman, guard and doorman?

[Assistant]
He wants to make sure the people coming to see him are gullible and to get a measure of how far he needs to go to trick them.

He's a con man who tricked people into letting him lead a country, he's good.


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

[User]
Is the UK academic system in a state of perpetual crisis?

Just curious, I just arrived a few months ago, but with the strike action, COVID, inflation, the on-going cost of living crisis, the recent restructuring of student loans, the eventual end of the tuition freeze in 2025, and the continual over regulation of the academic sector by the Office of Students - how does any of this place the academy in a positive place for the 2020s, let alone the 2030s? Is the sector just going to continue to eat itself alive until it's brought back down to a more reasonable size? I don't know, but I would like to hear other UK-based academics thoughts on this issues.

[Assistant]
Your comment on being cut down to size seems spot on. Looking on, now from the outside, British academia considers itself a profession akin to lawyers, medical doctors etc. In labour terms, it's more like McDonald's - excluding STEM.
Restricting access to funded PhDs seems to be socially regressive.
The only solution, then, is fewer but better paid permanent positions. But are the thousands of current PhD and post-doc researchers willing to accept this?


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

[User]
Is dark matter orbiting galaxies with the same speed as normal matter?

Since dark matter (seemingly) only interact through gravity, is there any reason it's angular momentum would line up with the rest of matter?

I'm under the impression that the reason all planets spin the same way around the sun and all the stars spin the same way around the galaxy center is because of collisions with has "evened out" the angular momentum to some average?

[Assistant]
Since they are both subject to the same gravitational forces, dark and ordinary matter at the same location orbit at similar *average speeds*. However, dark matter has a much broader distribution of velocities, both in magnitude and direction.

Basically, ordinary matter is able to cool via inelastic collisions, causing it to lose energy but not angular momentum. Thus it tends to settle into configurations that reduce the ratio of energy to angular momentum, like disks. Note that collisions alone don't suffice for this; energy loss is needed. Within a disk, particles have largely coherent velocities with only a small spread. For example, material within our section of the disk orbits at roughly 220 km/s, but its velocity dispersion is only in the tens of km/s. (The velocity dispersion is the root-mean-squared deviation from the average velocity.)

In contrast, dark matter has no coherent motion, instead moving in random directions with a wide spread of speeds. The local dark matter velocity dispersion is something like 270 km/s.

(It should be noted, though, that many galaxies don't have disks. Only gas cools; stars are essentially collisionless, just like dark matter. So for example, if a galaxy's mass gets significantly redistributed, perhaps due to a merger, after it has converted its gas into stars, then the stars will not reform a disk.)


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

[User] ELI5: Why do wintergreen lifesavers spark in the dark when bitten?

[Assistant]
Methyl salicylate absorbs ultraviolet light from excited nitrogen, and then re-emits the energy as a blue light.  This is fluorescence.

Crystallized sugar also emits a very faint light through a similar mechanism.  This is called triboluminescence.


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

[User] Eli5: Why do trucks/vehicles that have optional 4wd get worse gas mileage, even if the 4wd is disengaged?

[Assistant]
Added weight and more power loss in the drivetrain.

Instead of having a driveshaft going from the back of the transmission to the rear wheels, you've got the transfer case in between. You lose power due to friction in the transfer case, since you've got more moving parts involved.

The front wheels are also going to lose power to the front drivetrain components, since you've added more spinning parts there (even when in 2WD mode).

All of these components weigh more than zero, which takes more energy to move around.


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

[User] Normally in the body fluids and minerals in those fluids flow from areas of high concentration to low concentration. However the kidneys are able to remove minerals/toxins from your blood and concentrate them into urine which is much more concentrated. How does it do this?

[Assistant]
The nephron is a microscopic unit of the kidney that controls this. Its essentially a series a tubes set up in a way to allow only some solutes to pass out - effectively concentrating it. These concentrating parts are not permeable to water, so you only pump out certain ions. How does it seemingly work against a gradient? By using energy elsewhere to build a temporary gradient of another ion (not found in high concentrations in fluid used to build gradient, so you dont have to work against another gradient), and using *that* gradient to pump that solutes to very high concentrations.

Then the kidney uses that very high concentration to then draw out water elsewhere, which forms the concentrated urine. In some desert animals, they have very long nephrons that are able to build up a much more concentrated gradient, and therefore concentrate their urine that much more.

Of note, kidney is a pretty energy-intensive organ, needing to build up that high concentration gradient and all. Thats why kidneys are easily injured during critical ICU-level illness (and you see a lot of people on dialysis after long hospital stays).