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

[User] ELI5: Keyless entry; what's stopping someone from hitting unlock on the door as I walk away but am still in range of the car?

[Assistant] Well, the range for keyless entry (if you're talking about the kind you keep in your pocket and touch a button on the side of the car to lock/unlock, and not the type that you have to have in your hand and push a button to lock/unlock) is small. Very small. A few feet small. So any attempt by a stranger to hit unlock on a door would be so close to you that you could physically stop that.


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

[User]
ELI5: A company going into voluntary administration.

Also, what a receiver and administrator are and their functions in this case.

[Assistant]
This happens when a company is in financial difficulty and is unable to pay what it owes, and there is not enough income or expected income for it to be able to do this in future.

An external party (administrator) is then called in or appointed. Their job is to get things either wound up or restructured so that it is viable. This may involve closing some parts of the organization, selling some assets, negotiating with receivers (the people who are owed money, such as suppliers, banks, employees, etc.).

This negotiation will prioritize who gets money first and likely involves receivers accepting less than the total amount they are owed. This follows the principle of "getting something rather than nothing". When people talk about the receiver getting less, they often say something like, they got 80 cents on the dollar which means for every dollar owed to them, they got paid 80 cents ($800,000 rather than a million)


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

[User]
Is it possible that all (or all but one) elements exhibit radioactivity in all isotopes?

Bismuth was thought to be a stable element for a long period of time until it was found to be very weakly radioactive.  Although the decay rate is more or less insignificant for all practical purposes, it still exists.  Is there any physical law that states that certain isotopes will never decay, or is it possible that all elements are radioactive (or decay to the simplest element possible), but their decay rates aren't detectable?

[Assistant]
Every element has at least one radioactive isotope. Some heavy elements have no stable isotopes. But there are some nuclides (about 300 of them) which will truly **never** decay, to the best of our current knowledge.

There is no law against them decaying per se, but we've never observed them decaying, and have no reason to believe that they do.


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

[User]
How does the single human prion protein (PrP) cause a number of different diseases (vCJD, fatal insomnia, kuru, etc) as it changes from PrP(C) to PrP(Sc)?

As far as I can tell, the protein is the same (both in terms of the normal and disease-causing isoforms), and the mechanism is the same (misfolded protein converts normal protein in a chain reaction that leads to protease-resistant plaques). So why are there a number of related but distinct diseases associated with the human/mammalian prion protein?

[Assistant]
The differences in disease symptoms and pathologies are likely a product of where in the brain the prion originates and thus how it spreads. Basically what parts of the brain it damages and in what order.

Other than that vague answer we dont really know but, as everyone else is saying, if you work it out there may be a Nobel prize on your way!


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

[User]
[SHIELD/MCU] Why does a secret spy organization like Hydra have a logo and why do they put it on everything?

I mean way to give yourselves away.  And who came up with the symbol?

[Assistant] Symbolism traditionally inspires. Red White and Blue is synonymous with America and it's ideals, the swastika was used as a propaganda tool for the Nazi's, Crosses are generally used for Christian based faiths. Hydra does it for the same reason. To know you shouldn't be screwing with them.


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

[User] What would happen to my body if I were somehow physically prevented from urination/defecating?

[Assistant]
I will cover the urination side of this question.

There are two main categories of urinary obstruction. There is acute urinary retention (all of the sudden not being able to pee) and there is chronic obstruction (narrowing making it harder to pee for a long time).

In the presence of acute urinary retention (such as with someone with an enlarged prostate that has cut off the flow of urine), you will see an acute swelling of the bladder such that it can be easily felt through the skin on a non-obese person. Eventually, this can result in a back-up of urine higher in the kidneys. This can be seen on imaging such as ultrasound or CT scan and is called hydronephrosis. A kidney in this setting can lose some of its ability to properly filter solutes such as sodium. This can lead to disturbances in the solutes in the body. The kidney can also become compressed by the fluid in its central portion.

Chronic obstruction (such as with benign prostatic hyperplasia or a urethral stricture) can result in a deformed bladder which has many folds. This occurs due to the bladder having to push against a higher resistance for long periods of times and is adaptive similar to how a heart changes when it pushes against a deformed valve. This can result in problems in the one-way valves that urine passes through to the bladder. Again we can see dilation of the kidney and the tube that carries urine from the kidney to the bladder (ureter). Kidney problems can again occur.

Interestingly, a fetus can have urinary obstruction as well. The amniotic fluid that surrounds a fetus is formed from the fetus's urine. Without urine, this fluid is not present as much as you would want it to be (called oligo- or anhydramnios). Amniotic fluid helps with lung development, so babies with this problem can have poorly functioning lungs. Also it is a buffer against the uterus, so babies can have deformed faces. The back-up of urine can also permanently damage their kidneys. One such disease that leads to this is posterior urethral valves.

Also interesting, is that severe constipation can lead to urinary obstruction.


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

[User] ELI5: How do people add colour so accurately to black and white photos?

[Assistant]
It's basically painting a transparent picture on top of the black-and-white, and the B/W image provides much of the shading.

In the days before photoshop, you had actual transparent inks with limited tints to choose from, and that's why old hand-colorized photos often look more cartoony.

Now, you can pick from a vast range of colors until it more or less matches what you would expect: a white person with fair hair will probably have skin in X color range, unpainted wood furniture is going to be a shade of brown, jeans are almost certainly blue, a military uniform from that era is going to be this particular color, etc.

Plus if you have experience with B/W photography you might have a sense for how some colors will translate to film; they often have a particular range of grey due to the characteristics of a given film.

So accurate colorizing mostly comes down to digital painting skill and having a sense for how things would look.


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

[User] [MCU] Did Odin prison Hela because he couldnt kill her or because he wouldnt kill her?

[Assistant] She was his daughter and ultimately he couldn't kill her because her sins were his sins. He may have been able to kill her once but after turning away from their campaign of conquest she was too powerful. He could imprison her but killing her wasn't a sure thing and wouldn't be right since she had only followed his orders.


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

[User] Repeated attempts to turn Xenomorphs into a biological weapon have been met with frustration, mainly because they end up killing all the humans. Are there any other species in the universe whoucl would be easier to train, and remain just as desirable?

[Assistant]
Nobody was ever interested in the xenomorphs just to use them as a bioweapon. Sure those applications are there but the company was mostly interested in the full spectrum of profit to be gained from these creatures.

Their genetic adaptability held significant promise for medical and bio pharmaceutical applications.


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

[User]
Eli5 Where does money come from?

Im 16 and maybe thats why Im asking such a dumb question...

Lets say person A makes 1 dollar. If he gets taxed 20%, he has 0.8 dollars and when he spends that money, it gets taxed even more, and to me it just sounds like money slowly goes to the government.

Where does money come from...?

[Assistant]
In theory the government creates money. Some of this is in the form of notes and coins - physically created for the government. That's the simple part. What complicates things is that the majority of money these days is electronic and is created by banks, based on rules set by the government. How this actually works can be hard to get your head round.

As for money the government takes via tax. Generally the government spends it. That money goes back out to pay for benefits, pensions, health and social care, police, the army, etc etc.. It goes to all the people who work for the government, who receive money from the government, all the companies that supply the government, and so-on.

So money that the government takes from tax doesn't go out of circulation, it just gets spent again. (Except in very rare cases when governments do reduce the amount of money in circulation, taking money and 'destroying' it.)


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

[User]
ELI5: If urine color indicates hydration level, how is it that you can pee a large quantity but still have it be darker color?

Assume this is a person drinking water, not soda or alcohol or something.

EDIT: To be clear, my urine color is not concerning me.

[Assistant] Because the color of urine is not a reliable indicator of hydration status. Your body could be needing to get rid of a little bit more of the things that color urine. Or, the kidneys could be retaining more water to keep you hydrated. But in this case, the urine volume in the bladder will build up over time to the point that you pee a lot all at once. There are problems (such as bile duct issues) that can cause your urine to become abnormally dark (like dark tea or even coke dark).


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

[User]
[MCU] Loki succeeds in mind controlling Tony before the Battle of New York. What happens next, and how does it change the MCU?

Would mind control Tony count as bloodlusted? Does he just fly up to the team and try and death laser them all to death? If he does, what happens?

Or, alternatively, does Jarvis recognize the mind control and shutdown the suit? Can Jarvis do that? Mind controlled Barton still acted like Barton, and wasn't just a mindless drone. Would Jarvis have enough agency to go against the wishes of a fully cognizant Tony who wanted his AI to obey, and had full knowledge of any backdoors/contigencies/etc... he would have installed in order to prevent a Skynet situation? Or does Tony trust Jarvis so much that contingencies like that don't exist?

If Jarvis is fully compliant, how much damage does Tony manage to do before someone manages to hit him hard enough to 'reboot' him? Barton had to be knocked out, and I can't remember a time MCU Tony ever got knocked out wearing the armor, and he's taken some pretty hard knocks.

[Assistant] Tony's arrogant about his creations, which means he likely wouldn't think one of his own creations would ever turn against him (at least, not until the whole Ultron fiasco). So, probably no back doors in Jarvis, which means if Jarvis recognizes in time that Tony is under mind control, he can probably stop the suit. However, Tony is incredibly smart, so even without a back door he can probably shut down Jarvis pretty easily. He just has to do it before Jarvis realizes something is wrong.


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

[User]
ELI5: What happens to all the sand on the beach(es) after a hurricane/storm surge comes through?

Is all the sand gone?

[Assistant] It gets dragged out by the water into deeper water.  It doesn't disappear completely (that would be magic) but it is no longer on the shoreline.  With effort, sand can be dredged back up from the deeper water and re-deposited on the beach, but this takes lots of time, money, and causes environmental damage.


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

[User] ELI5: Why are animals and fauna no longer as large as they once were? What has changed about our world that mega fauna and mega animals no longer exist?

[Assistant]
We dont *actually* know but some theories are that temperature of the earth was the major factor for mammals getting so big. If the ambient temperature is lower, the heat/energy of a larger mammal is much easier.

For insects (and maybe plants), there was a much higher concentrations of oxygen in the atmosphere that helped produce gigantic bugs (we think) and when birds were getting bigger and preying on them (we think) they started to die off (we think)


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

[User]
[Marvel] why isn't Daredevil sensitive to gun shot noise?

We know loud noises can overwhelm his senses, then why don't gunshots, which are often near his head as he fights bad guys up close, deafen him?

[Assistant] He learned to deal with that kind of thing when he was young, even before he started training. He lived in a noisy tenement building and had to block it out so he could sleep. Gunshots are loud, but he has more problems with cacophonous noises than loud noises.


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

[User]
Why are programming concepts explained with such difficult language?

I just read a page explaining concurrency programming because it seems to be a hot topic in west coast tech area interviews this month.

I did not understand half of the concepts it was trying to convey because the language was to foreign and generic. I finally understood that I already used concurrency in a script that leverages threads for api calls because the network communication was the bottleneck. (Processing won't hault just because one thread is waiting for a reply).

I had to reread the article after I understood that I already did this once to even get near to fully grasping what the author was trying to convey.

Is this intentional? MSDN docs are the fucking worst as well. I can't help but feel like these authors are trying to jack themselves off or gate their knowledge by forcing readers to speak their weird language.

What am I missing here?

[Assistant]
There is very specific language when referring to concepts, because there are so many concepts. It's ironically to prevent confusion and misinformation, by not using language applicable to multiple other concepts.

The field as a whole needs more ELI5.


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

[User] Why do your muscles ache when you have the flu?

[Assistant] The cause of muscle aches in flu are due to the release of interleukins - signaling molecules released by leukocytes that play a role in the immune response. The muscles aches can mostly likely be attributed to IL-6, which mediates inflammatory responses.


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

[User] What are some criticisms of Jungian personality types (INFJ, ENTP, etc.)?

[Assistant]
1.  MBTI types are not empirically derived, and as such, might exhibit bias in dividing individuals or miss capturing key types of variation.
2.  MBTI types are bases on Jungian theory of the psyche, and some implied assumptions may place unwarranted types of bias in the system of typology.  For example, it is assumed that strong explicit functions will have as their complement poorly understood shadow functions.
3.  Related to 2, the array of the 16 personality types assumes that the preferences for cognitive functions only group together in certain ways.  If individuals could prefer any possible set of top 4 cognitive functions, there would be 8!/4! possible personality types, not 16.

For example, you could have someone whose preferred functions, rank ordered, are:

1.  introverted thinking
2.  introverted intuition
3.  introverted sensing
4.  extroverted sensing

No personality type in the MBTI captures these preferences.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why I often begin to suddenly lose control of my bowels as soon as I'm in sight range of a toilet

I'd like to know if there's an explanation for this phenomenon. It's happened to me my whole life, and it's something that really doesn't make a lot of sense to me. I'm able to keep control during a car ride, a long walk, or through a meeting, but as soon as I step through the door to the bathroom I'm suddenly getting the squirts and about to shit myself.

[Assistant]
it is called a "conditioned response"

This has happened because for a very long time, you have walked into the bathroom, seen the toilet, and sat down and pooped.  Since your body likes to poop, when it sees the toilet now, it gets all excited and gets ready to poop before you have even sat down on the toilet.


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

[User] [Star Wars] When Jedi fail to deflect a blaster bolt and get shot, what exactly went wrong? Is it purely getting overwhelmed by too many bolts, or did the Jedi panic and lose their foresight?

[Assistant]
It could be either.  Even Jedi have their limits of concentration, and a lapse of just a second - a tiny distraction that they succumb to - can be enough for something bad to happen.

Of course, even with perfect concentration, limits are limits.  A lightsaber can in theory block two blaster bolts fired at the same time - angle it the right way, and you can always hit two (as long as they're close enough to hit).  Three at the same time would be impossible to block, unless they all happen to fall along one line - meaning the Jedi must move their body to dodge along with (or instead of) blocking.  Add in more bolts at once, and that job becomes tougher and tougher.  Past a certain point, awareness, ability, and (basically) precognition can be overwhelmed by brute force.


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

[User]
CMV: In violent rape prevention, it makes sense for women to take more precautionary measures

Every time I see new developments for women's protection such as rape alarms, apps, advice on walking together etc. Someone inevitably comes along and says the responsibility should not be placed on the women, it's not their fault. However, I don't really see how this is relevant. The people that are committing these crimes are awful people. When we want to protect our house from burglary we don't put the emphasis on educating about stealing, we buy locks and alarms. Which is perfectly reasonable. These men that commit these violent acts don't care about women and 'education' whatever that means, I don't see as an effective solution.

But I'd like my view changed. What sort of rape protection methods could be used that shift the responsibility onto men?

[Assistant]
One of the issues with these "rape prevention" strategies isn't really the assignation of blame, but their lack of utility in prevention of rape.

The majority of rape is not stranger rape-- it isn't being grabbed in the street by a faceless creep. It's by someone you know. Walking in a group is a good strategy for not getting mugged, it's not a good strategy for preventing someone who knows you from assaulting you (it doesn't keep an acquaintance who knows your address away, it doesn't keep your parents away, it doesn't keep teachers or employers away, it doesn't keep the friend of a friend who's got a weird thing for you from cornering you at a party).

People can buy all the alarms and apps they want, at most it might make online dating and hookup apps a  tiny bit safer.

Also, a note: men can be raped, women can be rapists.


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

[User]
How big can a planet physically get?

In two scenarios what would the maximum size of a planet be, under the best conditions if it's 1. a solid planet such as mars, and 2. a gas giant like Jupiter.

[Assistant]
If a solid planet gets big enough, it starts attracting gas from space forming a giant atmopsheric envelope and becoming a gas giant. The limit is somewhere between Earth size and Neptune size...there are a lot of exoplanets that are discovered in this size range but none exist in our solar system.

If a gas giant is big enough, it is a star. At around 80 times the mass of Jupiter, it starts fusing hydrogen and becomes a red dwarf. At around 13 times the mass of Jupiter, it starts fusing deueterium. This giant planets/tiny stars are called brown dwarves and it's hard to classify them firmly on either side.


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

[User]
My dream job would be to teach, but I'm starting to wonder if it's the path for me..

I really want to be a teacher/professor of some sort, the idea of keen students coming to my class, me trying out new methods of studying by keeping up with technology, making sure everyone passes etc makes me happy.

However, I've been poor all my life and hearing about the pay and job security of professors is straying me away. I live in Sweden and my dream would be to be a professor in any scientific subject and teach all over the world. Japan, Korea, USA, UK, Canada, Saudi etc.

Are these dreams of mine realistic? Would it be worth pursuing this or orthodontestry? I may seem shallow thinking about money but I'm not all about bling.

[Assistant]
There's quite a range from adjunct pay to professor pay. At the same time, to become a professor, it's not just about wanting to teach, but it's also about becoming an expert in something so specific and tiny and producing research about that one thing. You need to have the research side to enter the teaching side.

What about high school?


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

[User]
[Ip Man] Did General Miura survive his beating at the hands of Ip Man? Was he tried for war crimes after the end of World War II?

He was in charge of the occupation of Foshan and while his men may have committed some atrocities, Miura himself abided by a strict code of honor and did not endorse unnecessary violence, threatening to kill Colonel Sato for murdering Master Liu. Was he found guilty of any war crimes?

[Assistant] This is a confusing question because this is a historical fiction based on a very real person. In reality this was all sort of drama and didn't happen. But the war it was based on was particularly brutal and it is fairly likely he was killed when the opposing force took their land back.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Only a sith deals in absolutes.

This is more of a showerthought actually but I just remembered that scene from Star Wars The Empire Strikes back where Luke is on Dagobah for his Jedi Training. As Yoda trains him Luke stumbles "I'll give it a try"
Yoda responses: "No, do or do not. There is no try"
But isn't that an absolute?

[Assistant]
" Only a Sith deals in absolutes" is more a commentary on morality than some General statement about their entire way of life. Imagine, for example, a hostage negotiation. A Jedi would pursue diplomacy, they would look for any and all possible non-violent resolutions before resorting to violence. Even if it meant negotiating with a terrorist, because no matter what happens you can't take back killing someone. Opinions can be changed, allegiances swayed. An enemy need not always be an enemy.

A Sith, on the other hand? They'd probably just bust up in there and kill them. It's, after all, the most straightforward and simple answer. "They were the enemy" they'd say. "They started it." A Sith has no interest in negotiation or attempting to understand others; unless they have something to gain you are either with them or against them.


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

[User]
[Marvel] Which version of Captain America is physically the weakest, but who is still "Peak Human" and gifted super stamina due to the SSS's effects on endurance/aerobic strength and lactic acid?

It definitely isn't the MCU helicopter-curling version. It can't be the 616 or Ultimates versions where they blow up tanks by throwing the shield through it/"see faster" (and other bs like that), or survive a drop from a massive height directly onto concrete like it's nothing (I understand heightened durability as perhaps being a byproduct of being a peak human but that's nuts).

There's gotta be one version that is still a peak human in every sense of the word (matches or only very slightly exceeds real world strength, athletic, or general physical feats) while having super stamina but is less absurdly OP compared to 616/other versions of Cap.

Also I apologize if Ultimates version is the most accurate.  I seem to remember him being OP but haven't read it in years!

[Assistant]
MCU Captain America could lift about 970lbs, evident by him curling a Eurocopter in Civil War and lifting Iron Man's suit at the end of it.

616 Captain America could consistent lift about 800lbs, with recorded maximum lifts about 1000+lbs

Ultimate Captain America is the insanely strongest of all the big three. Consistently lifting at about 2-5 tons and Nick Fury once said Capt could bench press a Toyota.

Most iterations of Capt based them on 616-version. Therefore, MCU Capt is relatively the weakest of them all.


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

[User]
[Marvel] Why is Iceman a omega-level mutant?

Isn't his power pew-pew ice and ride on ice.

[Assistant]
He controls heat the same way Magneto controls magnetism.

The take is that Bobby Drake always thought of himself as the youngest and weakest X-Man and never fully exerted his powers.  A rough equivalent would be a smart kid who holds back in school because he's afraid of being teased for being a 'teacher's pet.'  iirc a psychic link with the White Queen went deeper than anything Prof. X ever tried [because we know Emma has a problem with boundaries] and got Ice Man to unleash his full power.


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

[User]
Is my car engine more efficient on hot or cold days?

Let us define "Hot" and "Cold" to be in the vicinity of 80^o F and 30^o F respectively.

[Assistant]
It depends on how long you're going to be operating it for, and if you live in the real world.

Cooler intake air will be more dense and have higher mass flow per piston-cycle. Getting more mass of oxygen into the cylinder will allow more fuel to be burnt, making each cycle produce more power (but also use more fuel). Cooler intake air also reduces knock (premature explosion of the fuel-air mixture due to heating via compression).

Cooler temperatures will also make your various lubricants more viscous and thick. Proper engine oil shouldn't be affected by this at such mild temperatures listed in your query, but can be affected when things drop below -30 centigrade. Oils are engineered nowadays to have the same viscosity within a wide range of temperatures. The real losses come from places that are lubricated with grease, like wheel bearings. These warm up relatively quickly though.

Starting out, your engine block will be cold, the intake air will be cold and the exhaust gasses will cool rapidly within the cold exhaust ducting. Rapidly cooling exhaust gasses is unwanted since you'll observe greater back pressure. This reduces engine air flow, and thus efficiency. All of these systems warm up as you drive. As they warm up, your efficiency will increase.

So, if you're driving 5-10 minutes to the shops, your efficiency will be worse.

If you're driving 30 minutes on the highway to work, not in stop-go traffic, your efficiency will be better at cooler ambient temperatures than warmer.

Carnot efficiency (as outlined in another reply) is only a small part of the equation.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] Are witches or a wizards really just a mutant?

How can 2 muggles have a witch or wizard as a child?  Can a witch and wizard have a non-magical child?

[Assistant] Wizards and witches have non-mugical children occasionally. Mr Filch, the janitor of Hogwarts is an example. Since most wizarding families are quite ignorant of smuggle science, and don't want to lower themselves to using it, no one has mapped the magic user gene. While a muggle born witch like Hermione may be a mutatation, it is more likely both her parents had a wizard ancestor than tel he same mutation would happen so frequently.


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

[User] ELI5 How does a single degree(C) make such a large difference when it comes to fevers?

[Assistant]
Lots of natural processes are substantially affected by small differences in temperature. Water won't freeze at 1C, but will freeze at 0C, for example.

It might seem odd that small changes can make such a big difference, since a difference of one degree in the air temperature doesn't usually feel like a huge difference. But, consider that part of the reason one degree doesn't usually feel like a lot is because your body has a ton of mechanisms that are working 24/7 to keep your core body temperature where it needs to be, compensating for whatever temperature swings are happening around you. If you didn't have your body's internal heating and cooling systems, trust me, one degree Celsius would feel like a huge difference.. Life and death, even.


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

[User]
How many photons does a star produce?

I just had an idea that almost fried my little brain. Here it goes, I'm sorry if I make any mistakes in explaining the idea: a star is a sphere that sends out photons in every direction from the surface of the star. When you move out a billion light years and you look at that star, once the photons have caught up, you will see the photons reaching you from across all that distance in space.

My problem is: you will see the light from the star from a billion light years away, in every direction. The star has then sent out photons that cover a sphere with a radius of a billion light years. That's got to be a stupefying amount of photons. If photons are particles, it seems to me it would be impossible to send out quite that many particles in all directions, it would make more sense if the photons then were a wave, because a wave propagates in all directions.

So, are the photons then a wave or particles?

I don't even know if this is the right kind of question.

[Assistant]
The total power output of the sun in the form of radiation is about 4x10^26 watts.  Dividing by the energy of 1 photon at the sun's peak wavelength (4x10^-19 Joules), you get roughly 10^45 photons per second, which is a pretty large number.

But again, Ruiner has a good explanation for why they don't act like shooting billiard balls.


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

[User]
Why do supermassive black holes merge in galactic collisions?

Since interstellar space is mostly empty, when the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies merge, stars are unlikely to collide.

Even things as wide as supermassive black holes will likely miss each other.

How do they end up merging?

* It's highly unlikely they'll be aimed right at each other in the merger.
* They'll almost certainly have mutual angular momentum leading them to orbit each other in big galactic-scale orbits
* But they won't be close enough for gravitational waves to radiate away more than a negligible amount of angular momentum and energy, as would be the case in the final stages of black hole or neutron star mergers

Is it all the virial theorem, with the scattering of stars disbursing energy and anguish momentum?

[Assistant]
>Is it all the virial theorem, with the scattering of stars disbursing energy and anguish momentum?

Pretty much - it's called "dynamical friction". If you have a compact massive object moving through a medium made up of lots of little objects, the gravity of massive object will tend to concentrate the small objects behind it in its orbit, and that creates an ongoing drag-like force. This causes the supermassive black holes to slow down and spiral towards the centre.

However, once they're a few light years apart, there's just not enough stars left for this to be effective, and they're still too far apart for gravitational waves to matter. This is known as the "final parsec problem". It's not actually clear how or even if supermassive black holes routinely get close enough for gravitational waves to cause them to lose loads of energy and merge. There may be lots of galaxies with fairly tight binary supermassive black holes in the centre, for instance.


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

[User] [The Culture] If lower tiered civilizations' citizens envy the Culture, to the point of making poor imitations of culture drug glands and such, what's stopping them from just joining the Culture?

[Assistant]
The Culture :)

They often take individuals out of lower-rung societies for varying reasons. The lady with the Tattoos in Surface Detail and Cheradinine Zakalwe, to name a few. But whole societies generally only join the Culture once they've become relatively enlightened and technologically advanced by Culture standards. There's always exceptions to the rule, but generally, that's how it goes.

They've also moved entire very lower-rung societies from their soon-to-be doomed homeworlds to orbitals, but without absorbing them into the culture. That's why some orbitals contain sporadic enclaves of 'savages' like the Eaters in Consider Phlebas.

There are even Idirans who now consider themselves Culture citizens, so there doesn't really seem to be a rule of thumb. They treat it on a case-by-case basis.


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

[User] What is lightweight code?

[Assistant] Typically it refers to code that uses few system resources or has few features. If you're talking about libraries, it typically means the library has few dependencies, is easy to add to existing software, or only solves a single problem.


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

[User]
ELI5:How did the secret to concrete get "lost" when the Western Roman Empire fell?

Was there not a single engineer or architect who fled the doomed WRE into the ERE? Or was it a closely guarded secret kept only in Rome itself and was lost when the city was sacked. I just can't understand how something like that is lost when half the Empire kept existing for a thousand years.

[Assistant] The first thing here is that the Romans did not have some super secrete concrete recipe. They built a vast amount of structures using a bunch of different concretes. By chance, some of them were quite strong and the buildings remain, and some were failures. But we don't see those anymore, so many assume they never existed. Because it was just another in hundreds of concrete recipes, we don't have the exact formulation for the ones that remained standing.


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

[User]
[FMA:Brotherhood] What stops an alchemist from stealing another alchemist's trademark abilities?

Spoilers

Just watching it again with a friend and I got to the part where they mention flame alchemy is just rare/powerful in general, and I thought... Well, why cant someone steal one of Mustang's gloves / copy the symbol and just get to town being just as strong?

Or any other kind of specialized powerful alchemy; What's to stop another from using it?

Is it just a kind of "I want to be unique" thing or are there copyright laws of sorts?

[Assistant]
Alchemy requires the alchemist to understand what they are doing while they are doing it, it isn't just the circle itself.  Its the reason that certain circles can be used to do various things.  Armstrong's circles, for instance allow him to make a stone projectiles or a stone wall or turning Roa's hammer into an Armstrong statue. For another example, when Scar tried to use his deconstruction alchemy to destroy Ed's arm, he fails because he thought that Ed's arm was still made from steel, which it wasn't.  He had the right symbol to destroy Ed's arm, but he didn't use the alchemy in a way that would destroy the arm. Actually using a circle requires you to know what you are doing, not just having the circle itself.

All that Mustang's gloves contains is the circle for flame alchemy, it doesn't give you the knowledge needed to actually use it.  The big tattoo on Riza's back is what actually gives the knowledge needed to use flame alchemy.


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

[User]
[Marvel] What exactly does Galactus's digestive system look like? What happens to all the matter he eats and how does he generate energy?

Isnt he also supposed to be storing a lot to kick start the next iteration of the universe?

[Assistant]
Galactus is not a biological creature. He is an abstract. This means, he is a kind of dream or thought taking shape. Our brains interpret his presence as a huge man-like creature. But that isn't what he is.

The energy he consumes becomes part of his being. Thats it.


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

[User]
How does a bullet perfectly follow the path of the barrel, rather than bounce and vibrate against the sides?

Wouldn't each firing have enough variance that the bullet would start ricocheting off the sides of the barrel and slow the bullet down dramatically?

[Assistant]
A bullet fits very snugly inside the barrel of a gun, enough that the rifling cut into the barrel causes the bullet to spin as it passes through. It really can only be pushed straight out of the barrel.

If the bullet is significantly smaller than the barrel, gas will be able to escape around the bullet and you'll get a low muzzle velocity, as well as poor accuracy due to the bullet moving around in the barrel and the rifling not doing its work.


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

[User]
How can a modern processor draw 130 watts in power at 1.1 volts or so?

If you do the math you will end up with am amperage of around 100 amps or so. Which I find it hard to believe, maybe the processor draws multiple voltages and the higher ones contribute to most of the power.

[Assistant]
It really does draw 100 amps.

If you look at the pinout of a modern processor, you will see that there are hundreds of pins dedicated to power and ground - so no one pin has to carry all that current.


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

[User]
CMV: Long term technological unemployment is unlikely to happen in the foreseeable future

What I mean by "long term technological unemployment" is a scenario where significant portions of the population cannot find work due to technology, and that this persists for a significant period of time(100+ years). This is in contrast to short term technological unemployment, which is when people lose their jobs to technology, but their are still enough jobs for the next generation, due to growth in other fields/new jobs being created.

I think that short term technological unemployment is going to happen a lot in the next 100ish years. Established industries will be disrupted and their workers will struggle to find jobs as robots will be cheaper/better than them at those jobs. But I don't think that this will be a sustained effect.

Humanity has basically experienced 2 huge changes in employment in our history. The shift from hunting/gathering to farming, and this shift from farming to industrial/service jobs. Neither of these past technological revolutions caused large portions of the population to stay unemployed for hundreds of years. These new technologies created new jobs/opportunities to employ the next generation of workers, and most people who wanted a jobs could still get one. I see no reason why the current technological revolution (driven by automation/machine learning) is any different. Some jobs will go away, but this new technology will enable jobs that we currently can't even imagine, and most people who want a job will still be able to find one.

[Assistant]
>Neither of these past technological revolutions caused large portions of the population to stay unemployed for hundreds of years.

Not really true. People used to work much more before these innovations and had much more leisure time after them.

Their work beforehand might not have been seen as 'labor' in the capitalistic sense, but if you define 'work ' as 'doing things you don't want to do in order to survive/raise your quality of life,' then the amount of work the average person does in a day dropped precipitously due to those advances, and has continued to do so.

Right now we consider a 63% labor force participation rate at 20-40 hours a week to be 'full employment', but that's massively less per capita work than we used to do.

We should definitely expect the total amount of available work to continue to decrease with new technological innovations, while the total amount of leisure time available continues to increase.  The question is whether our economy will continue to absorb these changes while maintaining some stable state which we choose to call 'full employment' (maybe with more people dropping out of the labor force or the workweek decreasing or etc), or whether we run into some disruptive catastrophe where employers refuse to pay enough for society to function and the economy falls off a cliff due to lack of demand.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why does restarting a computer often fix any problems with the computer?

A lot of the time restarting a computer will fix any issue with it.
Why?

[Assistant]
In really oversimplified terms, most of the ways software can crash come from conflicting operations; in other words, the computer trying to perform two or more different tasks at once that interrupt or contradict each other.

Rebooting the computer essentially lets it give its head a shake and start over from scratch, since reloading the operating system during a reboot will clear out any conflicting instructions and begin again from a stable configuration.


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

[User] [Back to the Future Part 2] - What was the business proposition Needle gave that Marty participated in and ultimately was fired for because the Jits was monitoring the transaction?

[Assistant] Credit card fraud. They were going to use Marty's corporate-issued card in some sort of scam to generate illegal money for Needles (and probably just a tiny cut for Marty since he's a chicken) while remaining under the company radar. Of course, they were being watched the entire time, so the venture died before it began.


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

[User] ELI5 - Why are body controlling parasites so common in insects, amphibians, etc., as opposed to humans?

[Assistant]
Mammal brains are enormously complex and control a lot of delicate behaviors and functions.  Its a huge task to rewire it without just killing the host.

Insect brains are much more simple nerve clusters that only have a few basic behaviors pre-programmed in.

Its like trying to steal a bike and trying to steal an aircraft carrier.  Any doof can ride your bike away, but youre gonna need to figure out how to spin up a nuclear reactor before that ship will move.


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

[User]
[Minecraft] ...Who are the non-villager zombies?

Do I want to know?

[Assistant]
The world of Minecraft is littered with ruins, shipwrecks, abandoned mineshafts and dungeons. The civilisation that built these structures disappeared long before the events of the game and the Minecraft protagonists, Steve and Alex, are the last surviving members of this advanced civilisation (let's refer to them as builders).

As for the non-villager zombies, they are zombified builders. Since the zombies can only survive in dark environments, it's possible that the builders accidentally triggered a zombie outbreak as they dug deeper into the Earth. The outbreak destroyed the builder's civilisation and any survivors (other than Steve and Alex) fled into the end, where they built the end cities before turning into the Endermen.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do humans tend to have bad postures when we should be instinctively predisposed to keeping our backs straight?

I've had bad posture all my life, and when I notice I'm standing badly I try to change it. But it's just all the time, I get focused on something or stop paying attention and my posture returns to being kind of slouchy.

Shouldn't we naturally always stand up straight?

[Assistant] Homo Sapiens evolved in an environment in which they rarely sat and ran for hours every day to survive.. Today's humans are standing less running less squatting less and sitting a lot more than they've ever been able to.


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

[User] ELI5: What is the difference between the 3 different types of gasoline at a gas station? Is one supposed to be more efficient, and if so, which one is the best value?

[Assistant]
the difference is "Octane", which in simple terms is an additive that makes gas LESS flammable.

You might think that sounds like a bad thing, why would you pay more money for less flammable gas?

Well, the trick to a car engine is getting the gas to burn *precisely* when you want it to.  Which is generally right after the piston hits the top of its rotation.  It does this with a spark plug.

The problem is, engines are hot and violent, and when a bunch of air and gas are highly compressed in such an environment, it may detonate before the engine intended.

In which case that means that the explosion is actually pushing against a piston still trying to travel up.  Not good for an engine...  its often heard as a "knocking" sound (and thus is known as as engine knocking).  Also bad for efficiency and power.

So you can design the engine to have less compression in the cylinder, make the fuel mixture less likely to self ignite, but that produces less power.  So higher end engines instead call for higher octane fuel so they can be sure the gas will not ignite until they say so.

Many modern engines will adjust themselves to tolerate any grade of fuel, producing a bit more power with the "better" fuel.

There is some efficiency to be gained here as well, but it will basically never offset the price premium of the more expensive gas.  If your concerned about cost over power and your car will accept either (check your owners manual) you will be better with regular fuel.


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

[User]
[Highlander] I am an ancient Celtic Druid that happens to be an Immortal. Is there any place were I can fight?

One of the rules of immortals is that they cannot fight on Holy Ground, to a Druid technically the whole Earth is Holly Ground. Does that mean I'm protected everywhere on earth and no Immortal can attack me?

[Assistant]
The whole Earth isn't Holy Ground. For something to be sacred, something else must be mundane. So places on Earth must be divided into sacred and mundane. This means only the holiest places are "Holy" enough that the rules be followed. Sacred groves and standing stones and the like.

Everywhere else is fair game. This must be the case as it matters not who holds the ground sacred. A Buddhist may not fight in a church, just as you may not fight in a mosque.

If the entire Earth were held to be Holy Ground, there could be no Game.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do whiskey companies deal with the fact that the product they make today gets sold to a market 15 years in the future?

How do you respond to shifts in demand with a latency of 15+ years for the maturation of your product?

[Assistant]
If the demand is higher than predicted:

* Raise prices, of course

* Offer more whisky that hasn't been aged as long. If a distillery produces both a 12 and an 18year bottling, they may choose to release more of the 12 year right away. Of course that means 6 years later they'll have less available at 18 years. At that point they'll either make less money or try to raise prices on the 18.

* Right now, some distilleries that traditionally offered only 12 year and older are starting to release younger whisky, such as 10 or even 8 year old.

If demand is lower than predicted:

* Hold some to sell later.

* Release something called a "bastard malt". That's a whisky that doesn't have the original distillery on the label, and is sold cheaper than the branded bottles. It's not necessarily true that these bottles will be as good as the ones that carry the true distillery name. The taste of the whisky in every cask is different, so the best casks can be retained for the distillery brand.

One thing that gives the distilleries a little more flexibility is that the age on the bottle doesn't mean all the whisky in the bottle is exactly that many years old. It's actually *minimum* age in the bottle. Everything in the bottle is at least that many years old, but may be older.

\* Edit Fixed some typos that made me sound like I'd had a dram or two before answering.


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

[User]
CMV: Social media platforms are destroying us and need to be banned immediately.

Yes, I've said it and I can't believe these boomer words are actually coming out of my mouth. However, I now firmly believe that the human mind as a collective is not mature enough to handle this kind of technology and the tool that was once meant to bring us together is responsible for separating us more than ever before. Social media platforms are hijacking our tribalistic desire to belong and be part of a community of like-minded individuals to the point where it's creating insulated communities  incapable of separating reality from fiction. At a superficial level, being part of an online community that shares similar interests may not seem like a bad idea until it becomes tribal by the way of an us vs them mentality.  I am not making the argument that every online community is like this but that they are one misinformation campaign away from becoming hostile towards one another. What's even worse is that this phenomenon will only become more and more problematic as the internet and the real world continue to integrate and evolve while the human brain remains stagnant at best.

Reject technology, return to monke (unironically)

[Assistant]
"Social media platforms are hijacking our tribalistic desire to belong
and be part of a community of like-minded individuals to the point where
 it's creating insulated communities  incapable of separating reality
from fiction."

So like villages, cities, countries, religions, subcultures, castes...

We survived long past those, we'll survive long past social media.

"...human brain remains stagnant at best."

And books and writing will make so people won't remember things anymore as everything is on paper now. Kids these days don't memorize things anymore.

Again, we're fine. The brain not having to work on something means it can work on something else.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does it take a lot of time to move, let's say, 600GB of archives between two folders in Windows 10, but it's almost instantaneous to move the folder itself (with all those archives inside) to another?

[Assistant]
The way the file system works is that the windows explorer hierarchy is just pointers to the actual physical location on the drive.  And moving stuff between different folders in the windows explorer hierarchy isnt moving the actual data.  It only moves the actual data if you're trying to move it between two different drives.

It's like you have a lot of junk in your garage and you created a filing cabinet with different folders with paper that that specifies where something is in the garage.  You move a piece of paper from one folder in the filing cabinet to another folder.  That's fast right?


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

[User] Hypothetically, if you could harness the power of an atomic bomb, how much power would that give you? Could you power a city with that amount of energy?

[Assistant] A megaton (a big bomb, about 50x more powerful than the WW2 bombs) is about 4*10^(15) Joules, or about a billion kilowatt-hours (kWh).  The average household uses about 10,000 kWh (electricity) per year, so this bomb would power 100,000 houses for a year.


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

[User]
ELI5: laundering money

So I'm watching this new show on Netflix ozark and the main character in the show is laundering money for a drug dealer and hes cleaning the money by investing in businesses and buying alot of things for those buisnesses. How does this exactly clean the money? And how do they get that money back?

[Assistant]
One day you start taking your dad's porn magazines to school, you sell them at like 2 dollars a pop. Your dad is an avid collector with a boxes full of them stashed away, so he's not noticing that you're taking them. You've started to save a fair bit of money from this so you decide you want to buy a new bike with the money.

But you realized something, won't your parents wonder where you got the money? You can't tell them what you are really doing cause you'll get in trouble. You aren't doing any work or making money from chores or anything and suddenly you've got enough money for a bike? You need to show them that you're a good boy and earned your money fair and square.

You get an idea that you'll start mowing some lawns for pocket money. You ask your parents if you can use the mower and they say yes. Now mowing lawns is hard work so you decide to fake it a little bit. You mow 1 lawn a day but say you did 3. You're only getting 10 bucks for the 1 lawn so you make up for the other 2 with your porn magazine money.

Over a few weeks you've moved all your bad money through the lawn mowing business. You can now buy your bike because you earned it by being a good boy and your parents are so proud.


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

[User] eli5: Can someone explain the reason why, when writing with a pen and it chokes up and doesnt write, it still wont write when you go over the same line again even though it will write just fine off to the margin?

[Assistant]
When you write, in addition to adding ink to paper, you also "crush" the paper with downward force. This is why the old carbon copy graphite paper works, the force transfers through.

After the pen has run over a spot, you've crushed the paper down and created a smoothed, flat groove in that spot. If you were to look at it very closely, paper is fibrous and textured normally, but becomes flatter and more "polished" after being written on.

Ballpoint pens require friction with the paper, to spin the ball and dispense ink. Writing over already-crushed paper is slippery, so the ball struggles to get purchase and the pen will just slide without dispensing ink.


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

[User]
ELI5: What is the point of rising a yeasted dough to punch it back down and then rise it again?

I searched for this and couldn't find any previous threads but forgive me if I didnt do a good enough job looking.

I watch a lot of cooking videos and I've always been curious what the point of rising a dough is if you are just going to knock all the air out of it to shape it into the final shape. why not just shape it and then let it rise one time?

[Assistant] The initial rise isn't always consistent. So the dough will likely have big pockets of air caused by the yeast. Punching down collapses these pockets. The subsequent rise is generally more even meaning the final product cooks and looks better.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do doctors amputate limbs?

Do they cut off and cauterize a little bit at a time or do they just chop that bitch off and do it all at once?

[Assistant] Kind of depends on the type/level of the amputation. Typically you identify the major nerves and vascular structures and tie them off, followed by cutting all the soft tissue with the bone being last.


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

[User]
[Fullmetal Alchemist] What would an Alchemist see if they were to use a fully-formed, perfect Philosopher's Stone to pay the toll at the Gate?

The Elrics' share of the Truth was limited by eqivalent exchange- would going into the process with a Philosopher's Stone as your toll permit you to actually understand Human Transmutation without losing anything about yourself?

[Assistant]
A perfect philosophers stone is payment enough for everything beyond the gate.

But knowledge is infinite. If you were to pay such a price, your reward would be infinite too.

You would never walk out of the gate.


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

[User] How did they originally get oxygen to the International Space Station?

[Assistant]
The glib answer: On rockets.

The longer answer: It was flown up through various means (tanks of compressed air and so forth. But one of the other sources during the shuttle era was bags of water delivered from the shuttle to the ISS. The fuel cells on the shuttle produced water as their "Exhaust" which was collected and delivered in bags to the ISS. This was used for both domestic purposes (drinking, cleaning, etc...) and run through electrolysis to produce oxygen to breath. The excess hydrogen was dumped overboard.


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

[User]
ELI5: How did the term "Latin" become associated the culture of Spanish descendants if the Latins were a central Italian hill tribe?

edit: Recognizing, of course, the Latin language as the basis for the Romantic languages (French, Romanian, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese).  As Rome expanded, did the term "Latin" follow it?  If so, why was it jettisoned as a descriptor for Turkish, Italian, French, German, Greek, North African, Eastern European, Persian and Semitic peoples and not Iberian peoples?

[Assistant]
The term Latin America was first used in the XIX century to describe the part of the Americas that spoke either Spanish, Portuguese or French.

You may argue that Hispanic America or Iberian America would be better terms, but none of these terms refer to Spanish, Portuguese and French at the same time. More importantly, in the context of the fight for independence, people from the region would rather be associated with a more general heritage (the Latin civilization) instead of being associated with the countries they were fighting against (Spain and Portugal).

The term Latin America, which was used initially to describe countries sharing a common linguistic family, started to be used to describe, by extension, a geographic region (that somewhat wrongly includes English and Dutch speaking countries) and later to describe the people coming from these countries. Since most people from Latin America speak Spanish (especially those who immigrate to the USA), the term Latin has been more strongly associated with the Spanish language.


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

[User]
Why are the other apes so much more stronger than us?

The fact that the Gorilla is so much stronger than man seems obvious by appearance, though I am sure there may be more to it, but even the average Chimp or Orangutan seem to exhibit raw strength that competes with even the most elite strength athletes. Why are they so strong?

Also, why did we not retain this strength? The most obvious argument that I can think of is that we traded fast twitch for slow twitch muscle to allow more endurance, but Chimps and Orangutans seem to have quite a bit of muscle endurance also.

[Assistant]
Several possible reasons:

1) Other apes live more active lives than we do.  A particularly fit human who lifts a lot is obviously going to be much closer to other apes.

2) We left the trees.

3) We have much better fine motor control than other apes.  It's hypothesized that this is due to a change in muscle architecture that decreased our raw muscle strength.  So a tradeoff for better tool use, basically.


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

[User]
ELI5:How do they determine the expiration dates for new products? Do they just let it sit somewhere till it goes bad?

inspired by my moldy cheese.

[Assistant] Plant Engineer at a food manufacturing facility here. We know how long it takes for ingredients to become unsafe when stored under the proper conditions. These conditions are determined by microbiologists.  If a food item is made with multiple ingredients then it is the fastest expiring ingredient which becomes the expiration date of the product.


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

[User] Can one be 100% sure about anything?

[Assistant] Some people will say that it is possible to be justifiably completely certain in the proposition that oneself exists, and nothing else. But many of us worry that the self isnt anything like what we think, so that there are no Cartesian certainties.


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

[User]
Biological symmetry and DNA: Are repeated body parts coded for once or multiple times?

In the case of a starfish, does the DNA essentially say, "Here's how to build an arm, now repeat 5 times?" And if so, are mutations affecting only one arm extremely rare?

[Assistant]
You're right to think that this would be redundant. Body parts (and at much smaller levels, tissues, cells, and molecules of proteins) are not individually coded for in this way.

Rather, the genome encodes developmental genes that pattern the body from the earliest stages of development. There are many mechanisms, but in general, these proteins will be expressed in *gradients*. That is, there are more of them in some places, and less of them as you get farther away from their source. In this way, cells can tell how far away they are from specific points, and alter their gene expression accordingly.

A protein that is only expressed along the midline will help nearby cells (which will receive a lot of stimulation from it) start along the pathway to becoming vertebrae, whereas cells that don't sense so much of it will instead activate other genes, perhaps turning into limb buds. The left and the right sides will *both* be similarly far away, and so similar developmental processes will create limbs on both sides.

So, it's not about telling cells they should start making a left arm, but rather letting those cells know they're in the right place with the right potential to form *an* arm. There will ideally be other cells receiving the same message on the right side. This is why it is much more common for a genetic defect to affect both sides similarly: a defective morphogen won't work on either side. But accidents of development can occur due to chance environmental causes, and this is what's more likely to be responsible for a defect on just one side of the body.


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

[User]
Why use function pointers?

What is the use of function pointers if I can just call a regular function? When would I ever need a function pointer instead of a regular function?

**EDIT:** The language is C.

[Assistant]
For clarification: are you talking about C? C++? Some other language?

Function pointers are useful in languages that don't have "first-class functions", so that you can pass a function as an argument to another function. Or store it as part of a data structure.


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

[User]
Is it possible to combine traditional circuit components (resistors, capacitors, etc.) in a circuit in a manner that they together behave like a semiconductor component (a diode,say), while not actually containing any semiconductor?

I have recently learnt about semiconductor devices and their various properties and uses. I was wondering if components like resistors, capacitors, inductors, etc. could be joined so as to mimic a semiconductor device. Please explain why and how this is possible/not possible.

[Assistant]
At the heart this is a bit of a complicated question, but let me just answer the base question:

No. The fundamental difference between passive (pure impedances) and active devices is the latter's ability to increase information or information power, whereas passive devices can only attenuate. There is no way to build a switch, amplifier or diode from pure impedances exactly because of this reason.

That being said: the converse is not true. Semiconductors can mimic impedances, sometimes even better than purpose-built impedances. This fact is used in active filters to avoid the need for physically large passive filters with undesirable parasitics.


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

[User]
CMV: The LGBTQ+ movement you commonly see on social media (or to be more specific, anything associated with the pride flag) is nothing but virtue signalling, and doesn't actually do anything to combat homophobia.

Commonly, most of the places where the activism exists is in developed western countries like Canada, the US of A and most of western Europe. And it great that attention is being brought to issues like homophobia. However, i'd argue that everyone who lives in a developed nation like the ones listed above already knows about sexuality, and the stigma existing around it.

Speaking of, I don't see much stigma around sexuality in these places. In fact, these places have laws that protect against hate like that.

Now, to the crux of the issue. the places I commonly see the activism is in those developed countries where there is already little to no homophobia. where there does exist is the 72 countries which have laws against homosexuality. and nobody cares to point their focus there, where homosexuals are commonly persecuted (it's not a case of 'yeah it's the law but it's not enforced').

sidenote: most of the LGBT activist are liberals who also support freedom of speech on religions. However most religious scripture and ideas also contains hate against homosexuals, which is a nice shot in the foot.

Let's have a talk. i'd be interested to hear.

Edit: I'd like to clarify that my point applies to the modern day. And it doesn't reflect of the overall impact of this movement. I won't comment on it because i'm not too informed of the movement's impact.

Edit 2: this post has gotten some attention, which is cool. I'd want to clarify some things.

\- I use the USA as an example of a developed nation with gay rights and all, but that (and to my own fault) may have been a bad example. I'm going to discount the US as a developed nation with gay rights protection on the basis of it's convoluted political landscape.

\- I speak on the scale of the globe, not just the US.

\- I'm not here to discuss whether homosexuals deserve rights or not. (imo this shouldn't be up for discussion and the answer is banana xd)

[Assistant]
If the LGBT movement has done nothing since the dawn of social media why were a majority of Americans opposed to LGBT rights in the 90s (early social media) and the vast majority now in favor of them?

IMO it's one of the most successful social media campaigns in existence.


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

[User] ELI5: Why aren't there any viruses out there that make our bodies feel great?

[Assistant] Two reasons. The first reason is that viruses use your own cells to reproduce, which eventually destroys them (so Hepatitis virus will cause jaundice, for example). The second reason is because your immune system recognizes viruses as foreing and fights against them - most of what we call flu-like symptoms (fever, muscle/joint aches, malaise...) are side effects of your immune system fighting the infection.


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

[User]
What "classic/basic" Philosophy books (such as Republic) should I read before moving to less known stuff that I am attracted to?

I know that a lot of philosophy might mention things that I will not fully understand if I have not read an important book, such as Republic. I might want to read a Lithuanian book (I am Lithuanian) about nihilism, but I might not fully understand it if I haven't read Nietzche. So which books would be considered "a must", and if possible in what order?

Edit: Do know that the nihilism book was just an example. I actually have around 25 Lithuanian philosophy books that interest me. Thank you for the suggestions

[Assistant] I'd recommend reading what interests you without feeling the need to study the whole history of philosophy first. Usually, the texts will reference enough back to earlier writers they're going off of. There is no set order for reading philosophy; its a flow.


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

[User]
Particle Fever: What is the relationship between energy in GEV (115 or 140) of where the Higgs is found and lending support to Supersymmetry vs Multiverse theories?

Why does the Higgs existing at a lower energy level imply that supersymmetry would be the case and likewise for higher energy and  the multiverse theory? Are these the only options available?

[Assistant]
No these are certainly not the only options, but the movie focused on these two. probably to make it more dramatic.

One huge problem of modern physics is that we do not know why the Higgs is so light (hierarchy problem). Naively one would expect that quantum correctons would lead to a very high mass if there is no mechanism to stop this. The most popular one is supersymmetry. The radiative contribution of one particle is canceled by the contribution of the super-partner. The problem is that in supersymmetry thee Higgs must be relatively light (< 130 GeV). The exclusion bound by LEP was around 115 GeV. So it could not be any lighter than this. The found 125 GeV still fits into many SUSY models, but it is already much harder to get. At 140 Susy would not be able to explain these things anymore.

One other ansatz to explain the lightness of the higgs mass is the anthropological principle. If there is a large (maybe even infinite) amount of universes, we would be in one of these where the Higgs is light, because life could have not evolved in a universe with a Planck mass higgs boson.


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

[User]
[Star Wars Legends] Why don't Jedi and Sith use physical shields more often?

After looking at the Knights of Zakuul in Star Wars: The Old Republic, I saw that they use physical shields in addition to lightsabers.

Those shields look so damn useful in a war scenario. The surface area to block blaster and lightsaber attacks is much higher than using sabers, so why don't Jedi use them?

There have been multiple times post-Great Galactic War where Jedi have been to war in large numbers, yet they never use shields. Why not?!

[Assistant]
Shields are large and unwieldy compared to a lightsaber, which is easily carried and kept out of the way when not activated.  A lightsaber, when skillfully wielded in conjunction with the Force, is more than adequate for blocking blaster bolts and lightsabers, so there isn't a huge advantage to carrying a big shield around.

And yes, for front-line troops, having a shield may very well be helpful, but remember the Jedi were never meant to be front-line soldiers.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do I never see cheese used in Asian Cuisine?

[Assistant] Asian cultures did not historically raise cattle, and therefore few people are lactose tolerant. European culture has led to adult tolerance of lactose in a larger part of the western population. The normal human condition is to lose tolerance for lactose in adolescence. But we whiteys love us some titty juice.


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

[User]
ELI5: How did Pacific Islanders carry enough water with them for long sea voyages?

Their boats don't seem like they were very big. The Pacific is freaking enormous. At least for the discovery/ exploration phase, they didn't know where they were going. How did they manage to carry enough food and water (but especially water) to make those crossings?

[Assistant]
You want to read The Kon Tiki Expedition by Thor Heyerdahl.

Kon-Tiki carried 1,040 litres (275 US gal) of drinking water in 56 water cans, as well as a number of sealed bamboo rods. The purpose stated by Heyerdahl for carrying modern and ancient containers was to test the effectiveness of ancient water storage. For food Kon-Tiki carried 200 coconuts, sweet potatoes, bottle gourds and other assorted fruit and roots.

And the answer in the book - the traditional containers and coconuts preserved liquid better than modern tins. The rafts themselves were plenty big enough to carry large quantities of food and water.


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

[User]
[MCU] Did Thanos intentionally keep himself out of the list of potential targets of the snap? Does that mean he violated his own rule of selection based on randomness?

We see Dr Strange go through 14 million possibilities. The only time out of those that Thanos actually loses was the original MCU timeline, and even in that he survives the snap. So it's safe to assume he survives in the other 14 million timelines as well. Nobody wins Russian roulette 14,000,005 times in a row.

Can it be thus concluded that Thanos intentionally excluded himself as being one of the potential victims of the Snap? So he actually broke his own principle of choosing victims completely at random?

[Assistant] If he didnt, the that left a 50/50 chance that someone couldve just picked up the gauntlet and undone it.  He wanted to make sure he accomplished his goal which probably also included destroying the gems after he snapped.


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

[User] Do coal plants give off radiation?

[Assistant]
Yes  and the waste contributes far more radiation to the environment than nuclear power stations.The radioactivity comes from the trace amounts of uranium and thorium contained in coal. These elements have been trapped in the Earths crust since its formation and are usually in concentrations too low to pose any serious threat.But the burning of coal produces fly ash, a material in which the uranium and thorium are much more concentrated.

The exact amounts depend on the source of the coal, but are usually in the range of a few parts per million. That might not sound a lot until you realise that a typical gigawatt-capacity coal power station burns several million tonnes of coal per year. That means every such station creates fly ash containing around 5-10 tonnes of uranium and thorium each year. Multiply that by the number of such stations worldwide and the total amount of radioactive waste produced is truly astonishing.


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

[User] [Marvel] What is the difference between mutants and Inhumans?

[Assistant]
Every human line on Earth eventually will be mutant. It's latent in our biology, put there by the Celestials in pre-history.

The first, rare mutants, began activating thousands of years ago. By the year 2000 there were millions of active mutants, but millions were killed in the Genosha apocalypse. Eventually more will be born. It's an inevitability.

Something in the 20th century -- probably not atomic weapons, maybe -- vastly accelerated the pace. Maybe it was planned.
Eventually there will be no baseline humans, in so many generations.

Inhumans are another fork of humanity. ALL Inhumans are mutants, but their powers do not naturally activate. Exposure to a substance called Terrigen mist in moments fully mutates them to whatever they are meant to be. An Inhuman who lives his life without at least one exposure to Terrigen biologically functions as a normal human, but with special DNA.

It's been implied everyone in Marvel who gets powers from odd exposures to things, like the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, the Hulk, Daredevil, etc, are like that because of something unique but unknown in their own lineage, tracing back to Celestial meddling.


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

[User] [MCU] why does Doctor Strange never push Thanos Astral form out of his body? Or Ebony Maw or anyone else?

[Assistant]
We only ever see it performed on unsuspecting people and it seems to require close, if not physical, contact (something that Strange never really has with Thanos or the Maw).

It also may not work. Strange and Banner were 'stuck' in their Astral forms probably because - until that point - they had no clue what an astral form was. Once you know what the Astral form is and how to manipulate it, it's a trivial task to simply reenter your body.


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

[User] [DC/Marvel] Who are some of the most heroic villains and evilest heroes?

[Assistant]
Interesting question, but a lot of people aren't bothering to actually read it before posting.

I agree with the Punisher for Marvel.  The dude shouldn't even be called a hero.  He's done far worse than many villains.

For DC Heroic villains, I'd nominate lesser known villain Catman.  He has a sense of honor, forgives his enemies, and tried to take down worse villains.  He ended up as an anti-hero, but was relatively decent even before that.

Venom is a bit similar.  He was considered a villain at first, but mostly just because he wanted to kill Spiderman.  He never seems to be partcularly bad to your average person.  It's no wonder he eventially became an antihero too.


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

[User]
CMV: Getting your nails/hair done, getting a new outfit, etc. does not equal self-love

I'm a therapist, and the other day I heard another therapist talk about how they encouraged clients to get manicures to practice "self-love." This is not the first time I've heard suggestions like this. To me, suggestions like this cheapen and trivialize the concept of self-love. In my mind, self-love is a complex set of processes involving identity reformation and cultivation of self-acceptance, self-compassion, etc. In my mind, self-love also has to do with challenging oneself to learn and grow and become more aligned with one's values. Is all of that too complicated to explain to someone who may be in the depths of depression and self-loathing? Could there seriously be therapeutic value in just buying yourself a beauty service? Couldn't framing a beauty service as self-love even end up creating an association between self-love and needing to look a certain way, and wouldn't that be anti-self-love? Also, isn't it extremely classist to assume that everyone can afford to purchase these services and to conflate self-love with spending money?

I'm curious to hear other's perspectives/experiences on this, and I'm open to the possibility that maybe I'm missing something! If there's value in these activities, I don't want to knock/discount that. I want to be open to anything that could possibly help someone, I'm just not currently understanding how this could help.

Edit: I'm noticing many replies seem to be using the terms self-love and self-care interchangeably, or not even using the term self-love and only saying self-care. My question is specifically about whether getting beauty services can be a form of self-love.

Edit again: Thank you to everyone who responded. I was at work until late yesterday, so I apologize that many of my responses yesterday were fairly short, as I had to squeeze them in during my breaks. I did read all the comments, though, and I will try to respond to more of your comments today now that I have some more time. My main takeaways at this point are that a) getting nails/hair done can be a way of showing yourself you have value, b) getting out of the house, socializing with others, etc., is good for you, esp. if you're in the depths of depression, and c) self-care and self-love are terms that many people use somewhat interchangeably. I realized that what bothered me so deeply about what this person said the other day was the fact that he was confusing self-love and self-care. Personally, I still think self-love is a much deeper experience than could be simulated with a manicure, something I know many of you seemed to take issue with, saying "it's not that deep". For me, it is that deep. It always will be. So, while I don't think that part of my view will change, you all did help me appreciate the value that manicures, etc. have in helping a person get well, and you helped me understand why I got so frustrated with the assertion made the other day. Thank you all for contributing!

[Assistant] There's a reason for the saying that when you look good, you feel good. Self-love doesn't necessarily need to be so deep. It can just be rewarding yourself, with really anything. Of course, not everyone is buying stuff with the purpose of self-love, but when someone often doesn't buy new things or get their hair done, doing so can be an act of self-love. It's a sort of way of affirming yourself that you deserve nice things and rewarding yourself for your work when you're not feeling very appreciated. If someone often does those sorts of things, then it may not necessarily be an act of self-love.


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

[User]
ELI5:How do we know how 'old' light is?

How can we know that there is light that is 13 billion + years old? If we are still receiving it and sensing it, how can we date something that doesn't have tangible mass?

[Assistant]
We look at where it's coming from. Say, we're trying to get a snapshot of shortly after the big bang, our theory predicts roughly what it should look like, and roughly where we should see it, so if we something resembling what we're looking for in the place we're looking for it, then we can assume the light is that old.

But if you were given an individual photon and asked to identify its age without any further information, you wouldn't be able to.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] if the victim knows that there /is/ such a thing as a jedi mind trick, does that diminish the efficacy of the mind trick?

What it says on the tin^

**spoilers**

It seems like the existence of the Jedi mind trick is common knowledge? At least Watto in TPM and Jabba in ROTJ are both aware of it. And Rey is seemingly aware in TFA (or else she wouldn't have known to try using it at Starkiller base).

If knowing about the trick reduces it's effectiveness then why wouldn't the Jedi keep it a secret?

[Assistant]
It helps, sure, but not a whole lot.
The Jedi don't keep it a secret because they can't.  Bystanders can see what's going on.  The victims themselves will later realize what happened.
Also, it's not a technique the Jedi really like to rely on.  It's sort of a short-cut or method of last resort in most situations, so it's not worth going to great lengths to keep it optimally effective.


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

[User]
If Voyager were a manned craft, how much relativistic time would have passed for its inhabitants in the last 35 years?

Assuming a constant velocity of 38,000 mph (voyagers current approximate velocity,) how many years would our astronauts have aged?

[Assistant] Almost exactly 35 years (or whatever time has elapsed since launch).  The Lorentz factor for such a low speed is only 1.000000007, so it's negligible for all practical purposes.  The delta only comes out to around 8 seconds.


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

[User]
cmv: If you have a fit body than you are at least above average in attractiveness (At least in America).

Most people in the world would agree that having a fit body is one of the most attractive features of a person. In America about 70 percent of people are overweight, and of the 70, 30 percent are obese. This puts fit people above the overweight people pretty sizably in the attraction scale. Most people are about average facially which is neither attractive or ugly. Even if you are average, if youre in the top 30 percent of people on body attractiveness, it indicates that you are now above average due to having an average face and a attractive body. Lmk if you agree or CMV.

[Assistant]
It depends what you mean by average. Studies from online dating show that women think about 80% of men are below average.

I propose when talking about attractiveness, the bar is skewed high because we often ignore people outside our dating pool. We have a minimum standard and ignore everyone below, which is a lot of people.

Picture an average looking girl/boy in your mind. What would you rate her/him on the 10 scale? For me it's around a 6, and in order to be a 6 you can't be too old, too fat, too ugly in the face, or have anything that makes you look too off. That's a minority of people out there.


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

[User] ELI5: If muscles are built by working out and making small tears in them then getting rebuilt, why do they grow smaller with lack of exercise?

[Assistant]
It's harder to imagine in our society, but in almost all of nature *calories* are the currency. Top priority is to conserve them.

What's the point in having large muscles that you never use? They're wasting your calories supporting themselves, and providing you *nothing*.

To be beneficial in evolutionary terms, the muscles need to help you do something. Otherwise it's more beneficial to scrap them. So your body builds just the amount of muscle that you need to do what you do.


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

[User]
Why can't scientists reach absolute zero?

I know that it almost impossible to reach absolute zero but what it happening that prevents us from reaching it? Also, how have scientists tried to reach absolute zero?

[Assistant]
First of all, as pointed out elsewhere, you can make an object cooler than its surroundings. The key point though, is that you can't do it for free. You need to do some work on your system to extract heat from it. If you do an amount of work W to extract an amount of heat Q*_c_* from your system, initially at temperature T*_c_*, then you will need to dump an amount of heat

Q*_h_* = W + Q*_c_*

into the surroundings, which are at some hotter temperature T*_h_*.

In thermodynamics, the entropy change associated with adding or removing an amount of heat Q from a system at temperature T is

S = Q/T

(plus for inputting heat and minus for extracting heat). The second law of thermo says that the total entropy must stay the same or increase, always. Then your process of cooling down your system will need to satisfy

-Q*_c_*/T*_c_* + Q*_h_*/T*_h_*  0

Rewriting this in terms of W,

W  Q*_c_* (T*_h_*/T*_c_* - 1)

So as the temperature T*_c_* gets closer to absolute zero, the amount of work you need to do to extract heat gets larger, asymptotically reaching infinity at absolute zero.


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

[User]
[LOTR] Did Sauron expect to die when invading Valinor?

Did Sauron believe the Numenorean invasion of Valinor would succeed or did he expect all the Numenoreans to get killed by people in Valinor? I can see either way being his expectation since he got his main rivals to fight each other. If he expected Numenor to lose, what was his exit strategy, especially to ensure the Ring didn't get lost? Did he figure out exactly how to use his spirit to carry the One Ring back to Mordor in preparation before the invasion? Was he expecting to lose his shape shifting ability when planning the invasion or was it unexpected? Did he feel content with trading his shape shifting for  Numenor's destruction or did he regret his decision?

[Assistant] Sauron himself was not part of the invasion force. He was sitting back in Numenor to watch the fireworks, fully expecting the Valar to kill the Numenorean attackers and perhaps also to inflict some sort of reprisal on Numenor itself. The direct intervention of Eru, resulting in the complete destruction of the island of Numenor as part of a process that reshaped the world itself, was beyond anything Sauron had expected or was prepared to deal with. The destruction of his physical form was therefore an unanticipated setback, but to one with Sauron's abilities not a fatal loss.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is it that dogs can't eat chicken bones, but coyotes can?

I've always heard that feeding dogs chicken bones will lead to the bones splintering and killing them. Since dogs are incredibly similar to coyotes, why can coyotes eat chicken bones?

[Assistant] Dogs can eat raw chicken bones. When chicken is cooked, the bones become brittle and prone to splintering. This is what creates the potential hazard for our dogs. They can cause a perforation in the esophagus or stomach. Dogs on raw diets eat chicken, bones and all, on a regular basis. Coyotes don't tend to dine on cooked chicken, so they're fine as well.


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

[User] ELI5: Why it's a cultural norm to say something like "bless you" or "gesundheit" after a sneeze?

[Assistant]
Way back in the middle ages, when germ theory was centuries away, all people knew was that when people were sick, they would sneeze and/or cough. And if people got sick enough, they would die.

There were lots of crazy theories why. For instance, some Italians thought that the bad air (Italian: Mal Aria, where we get "malaria" from) of a swamp would make you sick, so they would bring you into a clean room, and fill it with purfumes. Being in a clean room with clean food and clean water usually meant the healthier folk got better on their own.

Other people thought that it was evil spirits, tainting the blood and making you ill.

Either way, they knew getting sick was bad news, because treatments, even the effective ones, often resulted in previously healthy people dying.

So, in this atmosphere, if you heard somebody sneeze, if you cared about them (And even if you didn't, really, since outbreaks could and did spread pretty easily) you would bless them in hopes god would prevent them from getting sick, or wish them "gesundheit" (German, for  "good health"), or any of the many other linguistic responses wishing a person to not fall ill.


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

[User] [Pokemon] can a legendary pokemon die? What happens if they do?

[Assistant]
The idea of "Legendary" is extremely broad.

You have your extremely powerful and ancient legendary Pokemon, like Ho-Oh and Lugia. I'd assume that they most likely could be killed. (Though Ho-oh being a Phoenix might just come back to life)

You have the genetically engineered legendary Pokemon like Mewtwo and Gensect. They could almost certainly be killed.

Next up are the "forces of nature" Kyogre/Groudon/Rayquaza and Yvental/Xerneas. If they can be killed, there certainly isn't anything powerful enough to do so.

Then we have our "Gods", the Aspects so to speak. Dialga/Palkia/Giratina/Arceus. These guys are the aspects of what make our very existence possible. Pretty sure these things are the very definition of eternal.


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

[User] GPS requires microsecond clock accuracy in the satellites but the terrestrial receiver accuracy doesn't matter at all. Why is this?

[Assistant]
Think of it like a math problem where you are trying to solve for your coordinates (X,Y,Z)

If you know the current time, you can solve this by comparing the signals from 3 satellites, which have a known position and broadcast their current time.

It takes longer for the signal to reach you from satellites that are further than you, so you can compare the current time to the time the signal was set out and determine the distance.

Each satellite signal creates an equation involving X, Y and Z. With 3 equations, 3 unknowns, you can solve for all 3.

This would work if you had a super accurate atomic clock on board.

But you dont.

So instead, treat the current time as an unknown variable as well.  Now you have 4 unknowns. With signals from 4 satellites, you can solve for 4 unknowns (X,Y,Z,T) ..... where T is the current time.


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

[User]
ELI5:When static electricity shock occurs, do both objects feel shock or does only the object receiving the flow of charges feel shock?

I know static electricity is the flow of charge from one object to another, but does the object losing the charge feel shock too?

[Assistant] When you touch someone and shock them, yes you both feel the shock. Im not sure what you mean by an object *feeling* because inanimate objects dont have central nervous systems that allow them to feel.


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

[User] ELI5:Considering that MMA consists of people kicking and punching people in the head, why aren't there more deaths or injuries associated with the sport?

[Assistant] Smaller gloves, basically. They often cause a quicker end to the fight, unlike boxing where bigger gloves give the illusion that the blows received aren't nearly as bad. But that volume of strikes adds up.


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

[User] ELI5: Why did people stand side by side during battles in old wars?

[Assistant]
You are talking Napoleonic "everybody in a line and shoot"?

It has to do with the accuracy of early firearms.  Until the invention of rifling, guns were not all that accurate.  The solution was to get a bunch of them together and fire them all at once.  While any individual shot was inaccurate if you put enough bullets into the air some will surely hit the target.

That's how those formations developed.  It was an efficient method of delivering maximum firepower with the weapons of the era.


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

[User]
ELI5: What happens with the surplus energy of my bike dynamo?

Hello,

i have LEDs on my bike now and they reach their full brightness at slow speeds. If I speed up with my bike they don't get brighter, but the dynamo is getting more rotations. Where does this surplus of energy go?

[Assistant] It is dissipated as heat. When an electric device fails to "use" more energy, generally it's because resistance is increasing -- often by design. Pumping more electricity through resistors causes them to turn it into heat, which then goes out into the atmosphere.


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

[User]
[Left 4 Dead] why didn't the l4d survivors team up with the l4d2 survivors?

Wouldn't be a party of seven be stronger than a party of three or four?

[Assistant]
1. The car didn't fit everyone.

2. Nick, Coach, Ellis, and Rochelle were heading to New Orleans, because they heard there was still a military presence there.  In contrast, Francis, Louis, and Zoey were heading out by boat to the Florida Keys.  Neither side believed the other would actually make it to safety: Nick, Coach, Ellis, and Rochelle believed that their only hope was being rescued in New Orleans, while Francis, Louis, and Zoey's experiences on the military base taught them not to trust the government or the military.  With such sharply diverging objectives, the only thing to do was to wish each other good luck and then go their separate ways.