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

[User]
ELI5: Why are LED light bulbs so expensive while LED diodes are so cheap?

Diodes are literally a dime a dozen, but a quality LED bulb is at least $10 in the US. What gives?

[Assistant]
In addition to the difference in cost caused by adding fixtures, structure, electronics, power flux capacitors etc to the LED, costs also increase because LED bulbs are rather new and aren't as refined as Incandescent or CFL bulbs, and probably aren't made in as large quantities.

Over time, you'll see further improvements in LEDs, costs will decrease, and they'll become the pragmatic choice for both the long term and the short term.


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

[User]
[Dungeons and Dragons] If I make an offering to my patron deity at a temple, do the priests of the temple get to veto my offering because they believe it's unacceptable?

Because I just bought this loincloth from a quick-drying material that's supposed to make for very good swimwear and I thought it'd be a nice gift for Bahamut. The dragonborn priest scoffed at it, saying that I'd probably be the kind of daft fool who'd sail the planar sea to find a beachball to offer as well and I'm thinking that would be acceptable as well.

By the way, what's a beachball?

[Assistant]
You are free to offer whatever you like in privacy of your own home, but the temple is raised and crewed by mortals, and they're the ones who have final say of what is acceptable and what is not.

> By the way, what's a beachball?

It's a powerful tool used by blitzball players throughout all the Spira. Can be deadly in correct hands.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Does the empire only hire humans as storm troopers? If so, why?

Watching Rouge one this weekend it struck me how a large portion of the rebel forces is made of non humans even some high ranking ones (Admiral Akbar) yet it seems that there are no non humans in the imperial ranks that we know of unless some of the stormtroopers are in fact humanoid. It doesn't make sense to block out such a large portion of the galaxy's population, is this a prejudice policy or is there a legitimate reason?

[Assistant]
There are a couple of factors here.

One is that the empire is xenophobic, and as such prefers humans when possible (you can see this in their choice of non-stormtrooper officers as well).

Another is that the storm troopers are based on the clone troopers, which were all human (mandalorian specifically) as they were simply clones of Boba Fett. the empire may have wanted to hold on to the reputation of the clone troopers and thus made them as similar as possible, thus being exclusively human.

The third is that the stormtroopers are extremely disciplined ('only stormtroopers are so precise') and having a consistent universal uniform and weapons allows them to generalize training, rather than having to adjust on a person to person basis like they would if they accepted non-humans.

The first reason is the actual reason, the second puts tradition behind it, allowing people to feel justified in their xenophobia, and the final allows them to give a logical reason for it to people who disagree.


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

[User]
ELI5 Wow signal detected on 1977?

I tried to read the wikipedia article, it just goes over my head, I'm not able to understand all these technical jargons. Can anybody eli5 this? Thanks.

[Assistant]
Modern astronomers don't just look at the sky using their eyes and normal lenses (visible light), but they also monitor radio emissions.

Some astronomers in particular are looking for evidence of intelligent extraterrestrial life. One hypothesis is that intelligent aliens would use radio signals at least for themselves and possibly to send radio signals to other forms of intelligent life. But there are a lot of possible radio frequencies (the radio "spectrum"), so which ones should we monitor (monitoring the whole spectrum is very expensive)?

Some believe intelligent civilizations would use the 1420.4 MHz frequency because it is related to the hydrogen atom, and hydrogen is the most common element in the universe.

In 1977, an astronomer monitoring radio frequencies around 1420 MHz found out a 72-second signal that was interesting for three reasons:

- it was pretty loud (*high signal to noise ratio* in technical terms)

- its frequency was almost exactly 1420.4 MHz

- it had a small bandwidth, which means the signal frequencies were very close around the center frequency of 1420.4 MHz.

A lot of hypothesis have been made, including natural origins, intelligent aliens, and interference from someone transmitting on that frequency on Earth (although that frequency is not supposed to be used, but that doesn't prevent someone from using it illegally). Also, a similar signal has never been detected again.


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

[User]
[Digimon] Are there any other uses for a Digivice?

Other than the traditional use for Digivolution ( whereby the Digivice itself only  acts as a conduit for the Tamers emotion ) is there another practical use for them?

Each iteration appears to be a sophisticated piece of technological hardware with buttons for some sort of operation but these other uses are not explained.

What else can you do on it?

[Assistant]
Yes, their main use is improving the health and diet of your digimon. They can scan herbs, analyze foods, send non verbal commands to digimon, they can act as radars, detect hostile monsters, track other digivices and generally are quite useful.

Some models had more advanced functions. The D3 served as interdimensional portals. Other models had dataports to let them tap into other devices (His Kingdom for a Horse) or could heal digimon (A world apart).

The D-tector let you communicate with other users, and purify spirits of darkness.

They had a lot of uses, depending on the device.


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

[User] [40k]What is daily life throughout the social strata like in an Imperial hive world compared to a Tau Sept?

[Assistant]
No two Hive Worlds are totally alike, and so we can only speak in generalities. In addition, the differences between the highest and lowest of the social spectrum are vast, so it is hard to take an "average".

The lowest levels of the Hive Cities, in the catacombs and tunnels and hollowed out caves within the very foundations of the city, and the barren wastes that often surround the major Hive structures, are home to the most destitute, for whom life is a moment-to-moment struggle. This is a sprawling slum inhabited by hideous mutants, grotesque abhumans, terrible disease, some of the worst criminal scum in the galaxy, and Heretics. Abject poverty is the norm, and even the most successful will barely scrape by. The Arbites will rarely venture to these places, so they tend to be lawless and incredibly dangerous. Daily life for someone here is a brutal test of survivability, punctuated by malnutrition, injury, and disease.

Where you start to see "normal" people is in the lower class, in the industrial sectors and forges. This is where the majority of a Hive City's population resides, and is mostly made up of manual laborers. Here, it is a work-till-you-die arrangement for most. Many will be equivalent to slaves, but are rarely starving. They often live where they work, and get virtually nothing in the way of "leisure". They are forced to breathe the polluted air, work in overall terrible conditions, and death is common. Most will live and die within the walls of their sector, never having seen the sun or felt a breeze.

What some call the "Upper Hive" is basically your "middle class". A vast plethora of bureaucrats, administrators, politicians, traders, and skilled professions. These people will work hard, but will have time for leisure, will live relatively comfortably in the aggregate, and will feel generally safe. They may rarely venture into lower levels.

Within the Hive's Spires, projecting miles into the sky, high above the pollution and the clouds, reside the upper echelons of Imperial culture. Life will be incredibly comfortable for these people. While they technically oversee a majority of the City's functioning, or its interactions with the wider Imperium, they will have dozens of aides and subordinates to do most of the work. Life is probably like the ancient depictions of Kings and Queens, when Holy Terra was still known as Earth.

Within the Tau, on the other hand, the social strata is much more evenly distributed in general. They utilize a caste system that places the needs of the many above the needs of the few. Even your lowest ranking individuals will live relatively comfortably. They understand that a healthy populace yields greater overall results for the species as a whole. Even laborers and low ranking soldiers will be treated relatively well and will be pretty well taken care of. Daily life here is largely dependent upon your position within your caste, but in the aggregate you will still have time to actually "live a life", as it were.


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

[User] Why don't wireless chargers interfere with sensitive electronics like processors, sensors, and radios?

[Assistant]
Wireless chargers work by passing alternating current through a coil to create an oscillating magnetic field. This is similar to how a radio transmission antenna works, but the charging coil is specifically designed to be an *inefficient* antenna. In particular, an efficient antenna usually needs to be on the order of 1/2 a wavelength of the emitted radiation. Qi wireless chargers are only a few inches wide, but they operate at a frequency of a few hundred kHz, with a corresponding wavelength measured in kilometers.

The coil itself, when combined with the right charging circuitry, forms a resonant system in which energy oscillates back and forth between the electric and magnetic fields surrounding the coil. But because of the frequency and dimensions, very little of that energy is lost as radiation. When an appropriate receiver is close enough, it couples strongly to the magnetic field and absorbs some of the energy. Only a small fraction becomes "far-field" radio waves, and electronic devices are already designed to deal with reasonable amounts of interference in that portion of the radio spectrum.


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

[User] [Inside Out] What's happening up in headquarters when someone is struggling to keep themselves awake?

[Assistant]
Observation of the inner workings of the brain show that when the body goes to sleep most of the workers go to sleep as well. There is a night shift which clears out and sorts memories and handles dreams and such.

When there is a deadline or other pressure to stay awake despite the need for rest the system becomes inefficient.  The workers from the day shift struggle to keep doing their jobs without making mistakes, memories get mis-sorted or dropped.

Both the day and night shift are trying to work at the same time so dreams are being produced and imagination is running as normal but the broadcast is getting interference from the dayshift still trying to create new memories and finish tasks.

Everyone from the dayshift is getting cranky because they need sleep too and things are getting screwed up that will either have to be fixed the next day or may never be fixed. The nightshift is upset because they cannot do their jobs properly with the dayshift in the way.  The body as a whole starts to lose focus as the arguing ensues and they get cranky and confused reflecting the arguments going on with the system inside. The train of thought is running slowly due to the backups at each station and a lack of steam. Sometimes the train of thought leaves the station before the contents have even been unloaded!

Eventually all of the day processes drop out of exhaustion, the train of thought completely stops running for lack of fuel, and the subsystems begin shutting down and falling asleep wherever they are in their work. They are still in the way of the nightshift but at least they aren't actively screwing anything up at this point.  Meanwhile all those required nightly processes are backed up and dreams aren't getting watched on time so have no purpose, memories have backed up and are sorted wrong or lost, the cleaning crew is too busy dodging the daycrew's sleeping bodies to finish all of their work.

The next morning everyone is still tired and upset and memories are stacked up to be sorted. Nothing is running right and what is really needed is an extra sleep cycle or two for the night shift to clean up the mess but the daycrew has to make sure the body is ready to function.  The body is groggy and slow to respond to stimulus and daydreaming as the backed up dreams from the nightcrew finally start filtering into the consciousness instead of the subconscious.

If it continues like this the crews will eventually adapt to the situation but will never work at maximum efficiency.  Even when they get extra sleep the night crew doesn't know what to do anymore with the extra time.  It takes a while for the reality to set in and both day and night crews to adjust to a "normal" schedule again.


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

[User] ELI5 Why are train tracks surrounded by tonnes of loose stones?

[Assistant]
It keeps the rails in the right place.

Absent any kind of substance around the rails, they'd eventually move around due to the extremely heavy trains going over them all day, so you need something hard that keeps the track from sinking or moving side-to-side.  It needs to be something that doesn't expand or contract when the temperature changes, because that would cause the problems you're trying to solve.  It needs to allow good drainage, because otherwise the rails would rust and the ties would rot.  It needs to be inhospitable to plants, otherwise they'll grow on the tracks and eventually eat the railroad ties or their roots would cause issues with alignment.

It turns out that stones are the best solution they've come up with that fits those constraints, and it's relatively cheap besides, which is a nice bonus.


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

[User]
CMV: The United States needs to either have a fully socialized or fully free market healthcare system.

The hybrid system is in my opinion the root of cost problems because you have Medicare and VA health insurance being administered by private insurers that also administer private plans. This leads to inconsistent pricing and incentives.

Cost controls from the government are ineffective because the Insurance companies that are administering the plans have another avenue by which to make a cost adjustment to overcome any coercion from the government to lower pricing for anything in particular.

Theoretically speaking, a socialized system is not perfect, but it would be better than what we have now. Free market system be great as well, but there are issues of people being uninsured and not having any coverage for medical care.

[Assistant]
The problem with free market healthcare is that it's a captive market - you don't have much choice about whether or not to purchase it.

Also it's inherently noncompetitive if you live outside a major population center, as medical equipment/facilities/supplies/personnel are very expensive and most places can't afford to support more than one hospital or etc. within reasonable travel distances (especially in an emergency).

There's also huge information asymmetry between a doctor and a layperson, far more than in most other industries - it's almost impossible to know whether a doctor is recommending something because you need it or because they can charge for it, or to tell whether the price they're asking is reasonable or not.  Think about all the stories of car mechanics recommending fixes and replacements people don't really need, then imagine those situations happening in a doctor's office to desperately sick and afraid patients.

Health care simply can't function well as a proper free market, the peculiarities of the industry undermine several of the basic assumptions that make free markets efficient and useful.


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

[User]
ELI5: What is a posterior wall fracture?

Tua Tagovailoa sustained a dislocated hip and posterior wall fracture. I need a medical professional's explanation as to what exactly occurred to satisfy my pea brain.

[Assistant]
It's probably referring to the posterior wall of the acetabulum, which is the medical term for the hip socket (comes from the Latin for "vinegar cup").

The hip is a ball and socket joint. The top end of the femur (thigh bone) has a ball on it which fits into the acetabulum (socket). In a dislocation, the thigh is pulled away from the pelvis so strongly that the ball comes out of the socket and can't get back in. At the same time the posterior surface - the back surface - of the socket has cracked. Sore.


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

[User] What does a bad code mean to you?

[Assistant]
Unreadable code is worst then slow and inefficient code.
Extremely long functions are bad but so is putting every line in a separate function.
Be consistent and comment everything with a high level "what does that thing do", and comment non-obvious operations.


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

[User]
Are price control good in a crisis like the coronavirus outbreak ?

Prices on mask,soap,paper rolls etc... Have skyrocketted.

Is it wise for the government to set a maximum price on those products ?

[Assistant]
Generally speaking, no. Price controls are effective in the face of monopoly or pricing power by sellers (or buyers).  But for such goods that are sold in a relatively competitive market, price controls encourage hoarding,lead to allocative inefficiency, and disincentivized sellers from upping production to meet demand. They also result in non price allocation mechanisms like long lines to allocate in cases of shortages (when the quantity people wish to buy exceeds the quantity being sold)

So what are we to do with increased scarcity?  Should only rich be able to afford these things during crises?  These are valid ethical questions.  Economists largely see price controls as counter productive to achieving those goals however. The travesty isnt that toilet paper is expensive, but rather that people are unable to afford it and there isnt enough of it to go around.


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

[User] ELI5: How did the Christian Church become established after Jesus' death?

[Assistant]
Lots and lots of missionary work and being implanted right in the middle of the Roman Empire. A lot of people attribute the Roman emperor Constantine as being the catalyst the really pushed Christianity forward to become a world religion.

Happy Easter!


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

[User] ELI5: Why does your voice turn robotic while speaking into a fan?

[Assistant]
Speak into the air, and then speak with your hand in front of your face. It'll sound different.

When you speak into a fan, it's switching between the two really fast! That's what makes it sound "robotic".


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

[User]
[Fallout 4] What would be different if everyone in vault 111 survived?

Let's just say that some how everyone in vault 111 survives and get thawed out at the same time the sole survivor does.

Shawn stills gets kidnapped (Spoilers for the first 20 minutes of the game).

What would be different?

[Assistant] He wouldn't be called the Sole Survivor, and that's probably about it. The odds that anyone else in the vault had the level of military training that SS have are pretty slim. If the others  had survived it probably wouldn't have been for long. The raiders in Concord would have killed many, even with the help of SS. Not to mention the Deathclaw. You have to be pretty cool under fire to deal with that.


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

[User] How are new ant colonies formed? Do a group of ants just decide to leave one day and start anew?

[Assistant]
The queen ants and the male ants are both born with wings. There is a mating season every year where all of the queens and males fly away from their colonies and look for a mate.

 After a queen finds a mate and is inseminated, the male dies and the queen finds a good place to start a new colony. After finding a suitable place the queen removes her wings and digs a small burrow and starts laying eggs which results in a new colony being formed.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why are airlines allowed to overbook their flights?

Was on a plane this weekend that was overbooked by 16 seats. The wife and I made it on but a shitload of people had to be bumped and had no idea until they showed up to the gate.

Edit:  Thanks for the responses all.  I guess I see the point why they do it, I just don't like it.

[Assistant]
In law there is something called an efficient breach of contract.  Imagine you are a chair maker.  You have a contract with someone for a nice chair that they are to pick up on Wednesday.  On Tuesday someone runs into your shop, announces they are holding a vital meeting for a million dollar deal, and require a chair no matter the cost.  You sell them the chair for ten times its value and when your customer comes in on Wednesday you appologize that you do not have a chair for them and pay whatever damages they have - probably their damages are limited to the loss of use of the chair for a few days so a few dollars.  This is an efficient breach - the chair maker is better off, the customer who was supposed to have a chair has been fully compensated, and the guy who desperately needed a chair gets one.

Same thing with over-booking a plane.  95% of the time it is win-win for everyone involved.  The airlines make more money on the planes which allows them to reduce prices generally (airlines are fairly low margin businesses), the customer who didn't show up is no worse off, and the guy who got the extra seat gets to where he is going.  In the 5% of the time when someone actually gets bumped they make it up to them (usually they do an auction going into the plane asking who will get off for 200 bucks or something - i.e. trying to find someone who would profit by the bump and volunteer to be paid for their delay).

Very occasionally they have to bump someone against their will, and very occasionally the chairmaker's wednesday customer desperately needed the chair, but overall society works out much better with efficient breaches than without them.


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

[User]
Why does rock salt help with thawing sidewalks, yet it's used in ice cream makers to make the ice cream even colder?

This is something that has absolutely confused me since I was a fetus.

[Assistant]
Here's why: the scientific principle is identical for both purposes. Adding salt to water allows it to remain at the liquid state at a colder temperature, usually the coldest possible temperature is -25 degrees Celcius. The use is obvious for thawing snow or ice in the winter, throw it on the ground and it melts. When it's used in an ice cream maker, they don't put it in the ice cream, but on the ice around the ice cream barrel. This allows more of the water to contact the barrel at a lower temperature, thus increasing the heat transfer rate from the ice cream to the ice when making the ice cream.

Edit: the temperature listed (-25) is a rule of thumb that is used when salting your sidewalk up here in Canada. If it's colder than that, it's considered a waste of time and money to throw salt down.


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

[User]
[Marvel] Why does the average person care about the difference between a mutant and someone who got their powers later?

Surely people would react to hero's Spiderman and the Fantastic Four with the same fear as they do to the X-men? How they do know heroes who keep their identities secret aren't mutants? Shouldn't every news source treat Spidey the same way that J. Jonah Jameson does?

[Assistant]
Why does the average person care about the difference between any race? The entire problem with mutants is that theyre *different.* They arent just regular humans. The Fantastic Four were astronauts who had an accident. Captain America was a war hero. Tony Stark is a diva.

The Daily Planet isnt the only place that hates Spider-Man, but the thing is, most are aware of him running around saving people. Most mutants arent street level heroes. Most of the issues that mutants get wrapped up in are mutant issues. Spider-Man is catching purse snatchers, Cyclops is fighting a race war. Cyclops is fighting mutant terrorists. Cyclops is fighting insane mutant scientists. Spider-Man is stopping a bank robbery. If Spider-Man was constantly fighting in mutant fights on the side of mutants, it might be different. But he isnt.


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

[User] [Mad Max] How are these giant, gas guzzling monstrosities that folks try to pass off as cars in any way viable?

[Assistant]
Conspicuous consumption is the basis of any civilization.

Just the sight of a giant tank with a flame thrower/guitar is going to give any enemy pause.

Immortan Joe was kind of a genius, he picked a spot with water and  a working oil well to set up his empire.


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

[User]
ELI5: What happens to water after I drink it, but before I pee it out?

Also, about how long does the process take?

[Assistant]
The water is absorbed by your intestines into your blood, where it forms the majority of the mass of your blood. It circulates through your body. For any cells, it also serves as the fluid that, among many other things:

* Provides cells their filler
* Allows cell membranes to form
* Provides a medium for chemical reactions to occur
* Works as a lubricant between cells
* Serves as a coolant (via blood or sweat)
* Helps deliver oxygen/nutrients and remove waste (again, via blood)
* Carries materials in lymph system
* Serves as a medium for ions in nerves/muscles (allowing you to think/move)

and finally

* serves as a carrier to urinate out toxic waste products.

How long does water stay in you? Until you die. (It's not really reasonable to say "this water goes here and stays for X time," since it's always mixing. You could theoretically have some of the same water you had since you were born.) You literally use water in every single process of life. Without water, **EVERYTHING** starts failing.


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

[User] What are some unsolved problems in Computer Science?

[Assistant]
The biggest and probably the most famous problem is the P-NP problem. It concerns decision problems (problems that can be answered with a "yes" or a "no"). There are two important classes of decision problems - P and NP. P problems are those which can be decided in polynomial time. NP problems are those whose solutions can be verified in polynomial time. It's simple to see that P is a subset of NP - if you can solve a problem in polynomial time, you can verify a solution in polynomial time just by solving it. The big question is, is P a proper subset of NP - in other words, are there decision problems whose solutions can be verified in polynomial time, but cannot be solved in polynomial time?

Another famous problem is the RSA problem - can a semiprime (a product of two distinct primes) be factored efficiently (in polynomial time)? This is related to the P-NP problem, but it's not a decision problem, so it's a bit different. It's called the RSA problem because the RSA cryptosystem relies on semiprimes being difficult to factor. If an efficient factoring method was found, RSA would be easy to crack, which would be bad.


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

[User]
[Kings island in Ohio] What does the beast look like and what's it's story?

The beast that lives in the woods that surrounds the wooden coaster that is named after the beast.

[Assistant]
I think you have your facts wrong, the ride isn't banned after the beast, it *is* The Beast. The Beast was a giant centipede-like creature that inhabited the whole area. It was a bright red color and somewhere around 150 feet long. It has a fairly large hunting area of about 400 acres and its hundreds of legs could propel it at speeds of over 65 miles per hour.

In the mid-1950s, it was finally caught and killed by Hulbert Taft, nephew of President WH Taft, after a grueling chase through the hills of Medina. Its body was taken on sideshow attractions for about 20 years before being bought by Gary Wachs. He had its carapace hollowed out, filled with seats and wheels and recreated the hunt that finally killed it.

But don't be fooled about the Son of Beast, there have been no findings of another Beast anywhere in the area. While the park was being cleared out, there were multiple clutches of eggs, but no other live Beasts found. It was just a marketing ploy made in 2000 to resurrect interest in the history of the area.


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

[User]
Is there anything that is completely unpredictable?

According to our current understanding of the world, is there any event or occurrence that will end in an unpredictable outcome, even if all variables (air resistance, gravity, someone looking at it funny, etc.) are accounted for and known?

[Assistant] Quantum mechanics is full of these. It is *entirely* unpredictable where the position of an electron will be. Taking the interaction with the environment into account will tell you that it should be *some* definite position, but nothing will tell you which. Quantum mechanics is full of things that are completely--even in principle--unpredictable.


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

[User]
[Marvel] It's been established that without his mutant healing factor, the Adamantium in Wolverine's bones would kill him. So, what about Bullseye?

Bullseye's bones were laced with Adamantium too, but without the healing factor. How is he still alive?

[Assistant]
He isn't fully bonded with Adamantium like Wolverine, he just has some laced through his bones to make them stronger. Presumably not enough to poison him. That, or the process has been refined since it was last done on Logan to make it safer.

Also, contrary to his appearance Bullseye was a VERY wealthy man. It's possible he was paying for treatments and medical work to reduce the effect of adamantium poisoning, at least until he joined the Thunderbolts and got Osborn's nanites.


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

[User] ELI5: How is blue cheese a safe "mold" to eat?

[Assistant]
Same reason the Amanita caesarea mushroom is safe and delicious but Amanita phalloides will kill you dead.

Molds are not one species. It's an entire group of organisms. Some are toxic, some are not. Cheesemakers are very careful that the ones they introduce fall firmly inside the former camp.


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

[User] [Harry Potter/Doctor Who] It was specifically stated that the Time Lords didn't like magic so they removed it from history. If the wizarding world was part of the original timeline what exactly did the Time Lords do to change everything?

[Assistant] Earth and its magical occupants would have been an insignificant blip to Time Lords. Their efforts would have focused on events that shaped the fundamental nature of the universe, either unmaking or containing the events, objects and individuals that allowed magic to operate as a fundamental part of reality. Undoubtedly the specific nature of that undertaking is a closely held secret, both to prevent its reversal and because such tinkering with the substructure of the cosmos and implicit editing of the timelines of universal civilization is, by some standards, an unforgivable crime.


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

[User]
[Lord of the Rings] The shire and wood elves

Shortly after Frodo and Sam depart, but before they meet up with the other two hobbits, they spend the night and see wood elves marching.  I assume their still in the shire.    But earlier, one of the crotchety hobbits at the bar talk about how goblins and what not are mystical creatures and how Bilbo is crazy.

Would the average shire citizen be aware of elves? Or even enough to know wood elves vs other elves?  Frodo identifies them as wood elves and knows where they are going, but I guess he could be more learned than the average hobbit.

[Assistant] Frodo was indeed more educated than the average Hobbit. He was quite likely the most "cultured" hobbit in the entire Shire. Bilbo told him stories that turned him on to the outside world and enlisted a curious, learning attitude in him at a young age. Most of the Shire citizens would have been well aware of elves, goblins, dwarves and other races outside the Shire though very few would have ever seen or interacted with them. Many different races came through Bree which was about half inhabited by Hobbits and there was consistent trade with that area to the Shire. The hobbits of the Shire generally had no interest in meeting any of the other inhabitants of Middle Earth and were quite happy with the quaint life they lived.


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

[User] ELI5: How does accutane exactly work, what does it do with the body system, and why do results vary from person to person?

[Assistant]
The Accutane molecule is similar in shape to Vitamin A. It stops sebaceous glands from working. Think of it as turning off the faucet that pumps the gunk into the acne. It doesn't work for everyone because it doesn't work for every time of acne. It works best for the big nodular acne, because that is mostly caused by overproduction from sebaceous glands. Other types of acne have different causes.

I don't quite understand what you mean by it affecting the body system.

I hope this helps.


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

[User]
ELI5: How are two notes that are an octave apart "the same note" if they have different frequencies.

I get that notes that are octave apart aren't really the same exact note, but how can you play a piece an octave higher and it still sounds the same?

[Assistant]
notes one octave higher have exactly twice the frequency and have the same "sound" to humans.

One of the earliest diatonic scales (similar to the modern do re mi....) have notes generated by using frequency ratio of 3/2  for each fifth note. (a fifth note to musicians is the interval between C and G for example) by multiplying this ratio repeatedly you can generate a circle of fifths (all the tones and semitones) Modern tuning adjusts this a bit to be less discordant so that you can transpose music from one key to another and yet sound fairly harmonious.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why when going to sleep can you be starving, but when you wake up the following morning you are no longer hungry?

This happens fairly often to me but I've never understood why.  Very interested to hear responses!

[Assistant] I believe it has something to do with the hormonal systems being somewhat deactivated while sleeping, due to the brain's prioritization of key biological functions while asleep. Also, your stomach shrinks and expands on a daily basis. While asleep, your stomach shrinks, which is often why it is easier to eat a large dinner than a large breakfast - stomach expansion during the day from meals.


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

[User]
[The Hunger Games] HELP! I've been selected to be a tribute in the Hunger Games, what are my best changes of actually surviving this thing?

Sponsors? Just hide and pray? Or would it b best to end my life as soon as it the game begins?

[Assistant] The games are horribly rigged by the producers so the key is to make the game makers want you to win.  Look like you are willing to play ball with the capital and become an asset to them.  Courting sponsors is a big part of that.  Do your best to be interesting without rocking the boat too much.  Beyond that you still need to survive so stay out of the big melee at the start of the games.  Grab a ranged weapon if you can and take people out at night when they are sleeping.  Just don't look so underhanded that the Game Makers think you are losing the support of the people.


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

[User] ELI5: How does what we eat and drink eventually become so much different stuff like skin, brain cells, hormones etc.? Are our fingernails really just remnants of dinners gone by?

[Assistant] What we eat is essentially building blocks for our body. When we digest the food, our body breaks the pieces apart into individual blocks. Our body then reassembles the building blocks in a different order to create the parts it needs. Some of the food is used as energy for this reassembly to occur. But yes, you are essentially made out of the food that you eat.


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

[User]
If you had one molecule of water, how would you determine its state?

I guess if you had it in a vacuum, it'd have to be a gas, right? Because of the pressure. But let's say it's at an unknown temperature and pressure and there is no other matter around for it to interact with (like air). Is it a solid, liquid, or gas, and how do you tell?

[Assistant]
A single molecule doesn't have "state."  A state of matter is only meaningful when you describe how that molecule interacts with the molecules around it.

It's like asking an only child how they get along with their siblings.  There's no answer.


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

[User] Eli5: How do bones and other organs know what shapes to grown into?

[Assistant]
This topic may be too complicated for ELI5.  There are a lot of genes that produce growth factors, and many of these genes are expressed only at specific times and in specific places.  The location and timing are controlled by other genes making other transcription factors or inhibitors or whatever, also at very specific times and places.

Sometimes growth depends not just on a growth factor being produced somewhere, but on that factor diffusing outward through nearby tissues, producing a concentration gradient.  The gradient gives a sense of direction to the tissue growth.

Sometimes the shapes of growing organs are affected by the shapes of everything growing around them.  Sometimes the growth of one tissue layer is faster than another, which causes them both to fold or bulge or take other shapes.  Sometimes even the stretching and straining of tissues being pulled around by other growing parts triggers these tissues to make their own growth factors.

This is tangential to your question, but sometimes the shape doesn't even come from growing, it comes from dying.  Fingers work that way - your hand starts developing almost as a flipper, and the cells in between where your fingers should be undergo programmed cell death.


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

[User] [Google Chrome Dinosaur Game] Why are the birds/pterodactyls flying straight towards a charging T-Rex twice their size?

[Assistant] They had to resort to desperate measures to stop the T-Rex onslaught because no reasoning, bargaining, sanctioning,  or conventional defense measures worked on him, so they decided to gather brave volunteers for the defense of the bird/pterodactyl federation and deploy them in the divine wind operation, the kamikaze fighters.


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

[User]
Could You Blow a Small Speaker (e.g. an iPhone Speaker, Computer Speaker) By Covering It Up Air Tight while Playing It at Full Volume?

I was out golfing with my friend the other day and I was playing some music on full volume on his iPhone 5 when we started to come close to the guys ahead of us. So to be courteous I plugged the speaker with my thumb to cut the music off and then I turned the volume down and took my thumb off. He then got all pissed at me and told me never to do that again because he thinks it can somehow blow the speaker by trapping the sound waves? I don't know, his explanation didn't make any sense to me, and his phone speaker was alright, so that's why I came here to ask science. Can you blow a speaker by covering it air tight while it's playing at full volume?

[Assistant]
I think he believes that the increase in air pressure generated by the speaker would be enough to rupture the membrane that makes the sound.

When in reality, the maximum change in air pressure associated with a sound wave is very small. A jack hammer at 1 m from the source, which is about 100 dB, has a pressure rise of only 2 Pa. That's on the order of 1/50,000th of atmospheric pressure.

An iPod speaker will produce a much smaller amplitude sound wave.

Putting your finger over the speaker won't hurt it. Speakers normally blow out because they're driven to displace the cone farther than it was designed to. This won't happen with an iPod since the maximum volume should have been set such that the speaker can handle it.


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

[User] [ELI5] What actually happens when we feel our heart pounding? Does it physically pound harder, does our heart rate increase, or do we just feel it and nothing physically is happening?

[Assistant]
There are a number of possibilities:

Your heart might be beating faster.  Your body is pretty good at ignoring things that remain constant (when was the last time you noticed the feeling of the shirt you are wearing?) Your heart rate generally stays within a range, and when it beats much faster than that you become aware of it because it is different than what your body is accustomed to.

It may be beating harder.  If you have an adrenaline rush, or you are dehydrated, or are exerting yourself your heart not only beats faster, but also harder.  Again, your body is used to your heart beating fairly consistently, so if it deviates too far it becomes noticeable.

You may be more attuned to your own heartbeat.  If you are anxious, or if you are in a setting with minimal sensory input (dark, quiet) your body may be able to focus more attention on things that are usually ignored, such as your heart beat.

It could be a combination of any of these.

Edit to add:  could also be a skipped beat, causing a single beat with increased filling of the heart, which makes the heart become temporarily more full, subsequently requiring the heart to beat harder on the next beat to push out that increased volume.


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

[User]
CMV: Most economically far-left people are highly ignorant and have no idea about what course of action we should take to end capitalism

Im from Denmark. So when I say far left, I mean actual socialists and communists, not just supporters of a welfare state (we have a very strong welfare state and like 95% of people support it).

First of all, Im not well versed in politics in general, Ill be the first to admit my ignorance. No, I have not really read any leftist (or right leaning for that matter) theory. Im unsure where I fall myself. Please correct me if I say anything wrong. I also realize my sample size is heavily biased.

A lot of my social circle are far left. Constantly cursing out capitalism as the source of basically all evil, (jokingly?) talking about wanting to be a part of a revolution, looking forward to abolishing capitalism as a system.

But I see a lot more people saying that than people taking any concrete action to do so, or having somewhat of a plan of what such a society would look like. Its not like the former Eastern Bloc is chic here or something people want. So, what *do* they want? It seems to me that theyre just spouting this without thinking, that capitalism is just a buzzword for thing about modern life I do not like. All of them also reject consuming less or more ethically source things because no ethical consumption under capitalism. It seem they dont even take any smaller steps except the occasional Instagram story.

As for the ignorant part, I guess Im just astounded when I see things like Che Guevara merch, and the farthest left leaning party here supporting the Cambodian communist regime (so Pol Pot). It would be one thing if they admitted yes, most/all former countries that tried to work towards being communist were authoritarian and horrible, but I think we could try again if we did X instead and avoided Y. But I never even see that.

As a whole, although the above doesnt sound like it, I sympathize a lot with the mindset. Child labour is horrible. People having horrible working conditions and no time for anything other than work in their lives is terrible, and although Scandinavia currently has the best workers rights, work-life balance, lowest income inequality and strongest labour unions, in the end we still have poor Indian kids making our Lego.

Their... refusal to be more concrete is just confusing to me. I think far right folks usually have a REALLY concrete plans with things they want to make illegal and taxes they want to abolish etc.

So if you are far left, could you be so kind as to discuss this a bit with me?

Edit:

Im not really here to debate what system is best, so I dont really care about your long rants about why capitalism is totally the best (that would be another CMV). I was here to hear from some leftists why their discourse can seem so vague, and I got some great answers.

[Assistant]
I think this starts from a well-observed point of departure, which is that people who want to go farther in reforming or abolishing capitalism than standard-issue social democracy no longer have a clear idea about what that alternative system might look like concretely.

The reason, as you infer, is that many people on the left, both old and young, are now painfully aware that simply empowering the state as a complete replacement for capitalism does not work, for two reasons. First, that even in the best-case scenario, conventional bureaucratic structures are completely incapable of managing an economy in real time--that any functioning economy requires some measure of decentralization right down to the level of individual consumption and production. Which usually leads to the worst-case scenario in a centrally-planned state socialist economy, which is not only inefficiency but corruption and absolutism that is as bad as capitalism. Second, as Trotsky and many other leftists have realized since the 19th Century "revolution in one country" doesn't work--that in a world where capitalism remains substantially dominant, a single country cannot effectively delink from the global economy and establish a genuinely socialist alternative.

The problem you are trying to think about is certainly one that leftists are keenly aware of, and it has divided the left since the French Revolution. Namely, what does the alternative to tyranny and capitalism actually look like? Broadly speaking, this question is one that has especially distinguished socialists from communists/Marxists. Socialists since the 19th Century have often tried to concretely plan out or envision the institutions of a socialist society, and not all of them looked to the state. At the turn of the 20th Century, "market socialism" was a significant concept on the left (the historian James Livingston has written some about this somewhat forgotten moment)--e.g., the idea of using market mechanisms and signals while getting rid of corporate capitalism.

Communists/Marxists, on the other hand, have mostly followed Marx's lead in being hazy about what specifically comes after the overthrow of capitalism, and it's not because they're being evasive or dishonest. It's literally because in the context of how they perceive the forward motion of history, there is an intrinsic veil between how people will eventually live under communism and how they are in the present because the overthrow of capitalism will make it possible for some of the basic premises of "human nature" as we imagine it to change--that what we take to be natural or normal for human beings (say, that they are driven to maximize their individual utility) are instead distortions of human possibility that arise from and within capitalism. So we can't fully envision living in a postcapitalist society for the same reason that the two-dimensional shapes in the book *Flatland* cannot describe three-dimensional spaces even if they're lifted up above the plane they inhabit. If you want a closely parallel analogy, imagine what it would be like, really like, to live in a post-scarcity society. Shows like Star Trek have sometimes claimed to be envisioning "post-scarcity" with replicators and so on, but it's plain that this just is not the actual situation in the Trek universe. We really can't imagine what it would be like to be human in that context, and yet post-scarcity is at least technologically somewhat possible to envision.

I suppose one parallel might be what people mean right now in the US when they say "abolish the police". Some mean that completely literally and comprehensively, but mostly they mean "redistribute the vast funding given to policing to many other agencies and organizations and narrowly reconceptualize what we mean by policing" with the implication that maybe if we did that, much of what we take to be inevitable and intrinsic might fade away to a great extent. (E.g., we think crime is an immutable and inevitable problem, ergo some think that you must have a vast police force. But what if the vast police force is what causes and reproduces crime?)


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

[User]
ELI5:What is the difference between Jews, Christians and Muslims when it comes to the soul and afterlife?

If the goal is to be a good person and you get to live forever with god in heaven, don't they all agree? They all believe in a soul that lives forever don't they?

[Assistant] There are distinct differences between each. For a Jewish person, they will certainly get to "heaven" (there is no concept of hell) and because of this, they thank G-d by obeying him. Christianity is similar; although Christians do believe in hell for non-believers, the rationale is because God has forgiven you and you believe, you no longer want to disobey. Conversely, Muslims are the most action-based believers, as they strive to obey the laws set by Allah as there is a real threat of going to Jahannam (hell) if they do not. However, it is still greatly faith based with the first pillar being the Shahadah, a declaration of faith.


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

[User] [Harry Potter] When people are walking into platform 9 3/4 or from platform 9 3/4 how do they avoid walking into each other? There's no way to tell if others are walking the other direction.

[Assistant]
Magic.

On a more serious note it's more that there is no reason for people to be going back and forth like a normal corridor. Students and their parents all go to platform 9 and 3/4 through the magic wall, then after the students leave, the parents wither apparate away or leave through the magic wall again.

There is little reason for there to be back and forth traffic, as the platform is almost exclusively used for The Hogwarts Express.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why are animal young so conscious of their safety while human babies are the total opposite?

I live in the countryside so see lots of farm animals and always notice that the young are always aware of the dangers presented by any situation. Meanwhile my sister has tried to run in front of a car twice today. Is there some biological reason for the difference?

[Assistant] "Animals" are not. At birth, animals range on a full spectrum from completely helpless to basically just smaller versions of adults. Humans (who are animals too) are near the helpless end of that spectrum. Our huge brains obviously come with a lot of advantages, but the main disadvantage is that they take a *very* long time to develop. Furthermore, we are born "early" in that development, because our big heads simply couldn't fit through the birth canal if we waited until we were as developed as a typical mammal at birth.


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

[User]
If there are nutritional labels on all of the food we buy, including water, why is there not a nutrition label on liquor?

Why no nutrition labels on the liquor bottles we buy? Isn't it important to know about what we are drinking?

EDIT: For everyone saying there is no nutritional value in liquor, yes you are correct. However it still has calories. They put nutritional labels on bottles of water and that has no nutritional value or calories.

[Assistant] In the US food is regulated by the FDA. They are the government body that forces companies to put the labels on all food and beverages. The FDA does not regulate alcohol, alcohol falls under the purview of the ATF. The ATF doesn't require nutritional labels.


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

[User]
ELI5: why does rain fall in storms and not a little throughout a day?

Why does rain seem to fall all at once in storms and not just slowly drip down a few drops at the time throughout a day?

[Assistant]
Warm air can hold the moisture indefinitely, but when it collides with a mass of cold air the moisture falls as rain.

Some places do have a near-constant mixture of warm humid air and cold dry air that will produce long, slow rain systems.

Most of the rest of the world will only experience this periodically - youll either be under the humid air or under the cold air, not directly under the boundary where the storms are.

These boundaries can persist for days and sweep across entire continents as one air mass overpowers another, but theyll only be over any particular location for a few hours.


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

[User] ELI5: Why don't North Koreans revolt?

[Assistant]
Because they don't know who they can trust - anybody they talk to about this could go and talk to the secret police about it, and then they and their family would have a very hard time of it.

Because they don't know they deserve better than they're getting - it's like if you only ever got sprouts to eat and never ice cream and chocolate, and didn't even know ice cream and chocolate existed. How would you know that there was better-tasting food you could ask for? They've only ever known hardship, they don't know how good the South has it.

Because they don't have the weapons. It's very difficult to go up against people with guns and tanks when all you have is everyday objects like hammers and forks and fists. They could do "Human Wave", which is basically "everyone runs at the guns until they run out of bullets and then everyone left takes down the gunmen", but that needs a lot of people to be very sure that they want to do this, and it's a scary and bloody thing.

Because even if one town did manage to throw out the government, the rest of the country would never know, because the government controls the news. Nobody would dare ask where the tanks and soldiers were going, because otherwise they're clearly Western spies and deserve to be shot.

Because a lot of them are quite scared of us. Their government tells them that the rest of the world wants to destroy their country and raze it to the ground and hurt the women and children, because this makes them look like a better option than us. The people there aren't sure whether or not to believe them a lot of the time, but they're certain that they're at least alive on what they have at the moment, and the chance of bringing hordes of Western monsters to eat them and their family is not one they're keen on.

So to sum up: They don't know they should, they don't know who would help them, they don't have the weapons, they wouldn't know if anyone else was doing it, and they certainly don't know what would happen next.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does some ice appear clear, whilst other ice appears frosty? What's the difference, and what causes said difference?

[Assistant] Air bubbles and the size of the crystals as the water freezes. If water is agitated as it freezes, or if it's frozen quickly, it'll form smaller, tighter crystals, and keeps bubbles of air from forming, which will leave it clear. If you want to have nice, pretty clear ice cubes, boil the water first.


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

[User] ELI5: Whats the difference between internet browsers. Aside from appearance and customization, what causes the mechanics of different browsers to work better on certain websites?

[Assistant] So, technically the components of websites (HTML, CSS, and JavaScript primarily) are standardized, but it's still up to the browser makers to actually implement those standards. These standards are being updated all of the time, so some browsers that are quicker to update and designed to be fully featured (e.g. Chrome, FireFox, Edge) will support these updates while older browsers or ones designed to be light won't support these updates. A web programmer has to know what sort of features are supported while writing code in order to support their target web browsers. Sometimes programmers will target a specific browser and not update their website to work well with other browsers.


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

[User]
[Avatar: The Last Airbender] What about the Air Nomads lifestyle made them nomads?

From my understanding after watching the show, the Air Nomads were spiritual monks that lived at one of the four air temples. If they lived in one place and farmed their food at the temples, what made them nomads?

[Assistant]
The air temples are more akin to bases for them then cities. Most airbenders are wanderers, but the bases are the places that can go to rest, resupply, reconnect with their culture and be safe (note that when we see them, they mostly contain the elderly and children- those who would have issues wandering the world.)

The Air Bender Genocide started with the temples, but tracking down the remaining air benders continued quite a while after that.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do guns on things like jets, helicopters, and other mini gun type guns have a rotating barrel?

I just rewatched The Winter Soldier the other day and a lot of the big guns on the helicarriers made me think about this. Does it make the bullet more accurate?

[Assistant]
There are two benefits to a minigun-style barrel.

First off, the barrel is a failure point for a weapon. It gets hot from bullets firing. If you try and shoot too many bullets through it too quickly, it can overheat and fail pretty catastrophically. By rotating barrels, you are only shooting a fraction of the bullets through any barrel, giving them a bit of time to cool off between each bullet, increasing the time before it has to stop firing due to overheating.

In addition, with most guns, you need to load a bullet, fire it, and then unload the casing before it can fire again. With a minigun, you can accomplish these tasks in parallel -- you can be loading a bullet in barrel 1 while firing one in barrel 2 and unloading one in barrel 3. This can speed up your effective fire rate quite a bit.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do police (or in older times, military) horses not panic when in a dangerous situation?

Edit: Are horses also specifically bred for these kinds of scenarios?

[Assistant]
They are trained not to. If you put a normal horse in a crowd of screaming people then it would be very nervous and panic, much like a person might. If instead you train that horse to be unconcerned by a lot of people screaming nearby, such as by gradually introducing it to loud sounds and nearby movement, then it won't panic.

On the battlefield if you want a warhorse to not react to muskets firing nearby then you need to spend a lot of time before that battle with the horse firing muskets and reassuring it that everything is OK.


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

[User] [Star Trek] Why did the Nagus get involved with Quark when Quark was just some random dude with a bar in the middle of nowhere?

[Assistant]
He started off wanting to establish business relations through the wormhole.  The Gamma Quadrant was an untapped market, Deep Space 9 was the lid on that market, and Quark was the Ferengi on site who would know how to grease that lid.

In their first interactions, Quark proved himself to be a capable businessman, so Zek continued to rely on him when he needed to visit DS9.  After several years of this, Zek acquired a personal fondness for Quark.


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

[User] [MARVEL] Could Ant-Mans Pim technology grow or shrink Mjlnir?

[Assistant] Yes. In Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe (not really a good source but it's an example) Deadpool uses Pym Particles he stole from Antman to increase the hammer to a massive size while Thor summoned it back to his hand to crush him.


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

[User]
CMV: Breasts are legally protected as genitalia and as long as they are, it should be illegal to expose them in public.

I write legal charges all day long and female breasts are legally protected as genitalia. Let me show you what I mean: if I grab a woman by the arm, the crime is Assault, but if I grab a woman's breast, it's Sexual Assault by Contact. The difference is the arm is not legally recognized as a sexual organ, but breasts are.

Here's the problem: as a man, if I expose my genitalia in public then I've committed a crime. However, there's a growing movement that women can exhibit their breasts (again, legally recognized as genitalia) in public without it being a crime. There could not be a more perfect example of a 14th Amendment violation.

Either breasts are genitalia and are protected as sexual organs and punished by harsher penalties, or alternatively they aren't genitalia and groping incidents become regular, plain assault. Alternatively, alternatively - make exhibition of all genitalia legal.

I hope you'll read this as you would A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift, that following this logic (breasts are simultaneously genitalia and not genitalia) to it's natural conclusion will produce nonsensical results.

**UPDATE** In my state:

" 	(c) In this section, "sexual contact" means the following acts, if committed with the intent to arouse or gratify the sexual desire of any person: 		(1) any touching by a person, including touching through clothing, of the anus, breast, or any part of the genitals"

[Assistant]
I think you might be confused about what sexual assault is. It's not assault that specifically includes genitalia; it's assault of a sexual nature. Non-consensual foot-fondling could easily be sexual assault, even if it goes nowhere near any genitalia. It's all about context  was the assault done with a sexual purpose? One of the leading cases up here in Canada puts it this way:

>The part of the body touched, the nature of the contact, the situation in which it occurred, the words and gestures accompanying the act, and all other circumstances surrounding the conduct, including threats which may or may not be accompanied by force, will be relevant. (*R v Chase*)

Note that the body part touched (whether or not it's genitalia) is only one thing to consider in the analysis of whether an assault is sexual or not.

So yes, grabbing a woman's arm might very well constitute sexual assault depending on the rest of the circumstances. There's no necessary connection between "things that cannot be exposed" and "things that can be the target of sexual assaults." Forced kissing is sexual assault, for example, but nobody cares that lips are exposed every day, because sexual assault is all about the context.


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

[User]
How is it that a projector can make something look bright white on a tan wall?

We use a projector on tan/off white walls at work, and they look like they're brilliant white. How does this work?
My guess is that it has something to do with the light absorption rate of the paint/wall surface.

[Assistant] Your eyes actually can adjust or "white balance" quite dramatically without you even noticing.  For example, the outdoor light is much, much bluer than indoor light, but when you look at your clothes in both environments they don't seem to change color.  Hope that makes sense.


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

[User] What prevents carbon from forming four bonds with another carbon atom?

[Assistant] Geometry. Electrons exist within orbitals around an atom which have some pretty counterintuitive shapes, not just hollow spheres.  When a carbon atom forms four bonds, the orbitals in which each of those 4 bonding electrons are found need to hybridise, or mix. Because of the symmetry of these orbitals, this leads to four bonding sites in the shape of a tetrahedron around the atom. Its easy to match up three corners on a tetrahedron with 3 corners on an identical tetrahedron, but theres no way to join the last two corners.


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

[User]
ELI5:What are the problems with the current UK government?

Everyone claims how bad the current state of the UK government is, but when I follow up and ask them what is actually so bad, I can never get a concise answer. Please help me understand!

[Assistant]
To an extent, this depends on the political affiliations of the people you're talking to. But Britain is struggling to cope with a recession, and the current government's solution has been an austerity drive, cutting services that many people depend on. That's not going to make any government popular.

Some of the issues may be:

* It's a coalition government. Because none of the parties won an absolute majority at the last election, the Conservative Party was forced into a governing coalition with the Liberal Democrat Party as the junior party. Although this sort of thing is common in countries with a proportional representation system of voting (Germany, for example), it is extremely rare in the UK. Liberal Democrat voters in particular felt aggrieved that their party had to ditch a lot of their manifesto promises.
* Out of touch. The Cabinet is largely made up of very wealthy and highly educated people, most from the same exclusive private school (in Britain these are, confusingly, called "public schools"). The perception that the government has no idea how ordinary people live (and suffer in an austerity drive) was heightened by an ill-advised tweet by a senior politician that claimed that by cutting taxes on beer and bingo, the government was allowing "hard-working" people to do more of the things "they" enjoy. The fact that the party reacted by saying they didn't know what the fuss was about only made things worse.
* Siding with the bankers. The population as a whole puts the blame for the economic crises squarely on the banking and finance sector. That the government appears to have done little, if anything, to curb that industry's excesses and instead cutting down on essential services is making the government very unpopular.
* Allegations of corruption. In particular, the Conservative Party is closely linked with the Rupert Murdoch empire, the same Rupert Murdoch that owns Fox in the US: he also controls a very large slice of Britain's tabloid press. David Cameron has been too closely associated with high-ranking figures from that particular concern, including many who were involved in a high-level scandal -- and one or two were even imprisoned -- involving illegal methods of news gathering and other flagrant violations of the law. One newspaper even went out of business as a result.
* Also part of the whole corruption thing, the expenses scandal continues to rumble on. The current government took office after it was revealed (by a non-Murdoch newspaper) that politicians of all parties had been dishonestly claiming expenses at the taxpayers' expense -- in some cases, actually in breach of the law. The new government promised to get it sorted, but fresh allegations continue to surface. In the most recent case, a cabinet minister was found to have been claiming inflated mortgage repayments on a house she wasn't even entitled to be claiming expenses on. The newspaper that printed the story -- the same paper that broke the original scandal -- was indirectly threatened by the minister's advisor with government censorship.

So as you can probably gather, the current UK government isn't getting a very good press at the moment.


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

[User] ELI5: What exactly is fire?

[Assistant]
Good question, lots of people know what a combustion reaction is, but not what "fire" is exactly. The reaction itself isn't very important to understand, all you need to know is that when something burns, it releases CO2, which is a gas. Now, imagine a forge. When the metal in a forge gets really hot, it starts to glow a redish tinge. We see this all over the place (electric stove, for example), things heat up and they glow "red hot". This is exactly what's happening during combustion. The CO2 gas floats upwards and is so hot that it glows. This is what we actually see as fire. As it rises and gets further from the reaction it cools and we see other colors before it returns to being transparent.

Hope that helps!


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

[User]
ELI5: Blowing out a fire and blowing to start a fire?

You blow out a candle but you can start a fire if you blow onto a small glimming piece of wood. How does that work? Can you also blow out a bigger fire if you blow hard enough and increase a candle flame if you blow a little?

[Assistant]
Fire wants three things to keep burning: fuel, heat and oxygen.

Fuel is already there and will not be affected by your blowing (assuming you're not blowing so hard to blow away the entire candle or the smoldering piece of wood).

The rest depends on how hard you are blowing.

If you are blowing hard enough, your breath (which is considerably colder than the flame) will take away much of the heat of the burning flame (think blowing on a spoonful of hot soup to cool it down). If the flame does not have enough heat left, it will go out.

A smoldering fire is smoldering because it cannot get enough oxygen from surrounding air to burn properly. But if you are blowing into it carefully and softly, your breath brings more oxygen in and this allows the fire to burn more intensely.

(People are often confused about how the air you're blowing can have oxygen - after all you're supposed to be breathing _in_ oxygen and _out_ carbon dioxide. But in reality your lungs cannot extract all of the oxygen you breathe in, so there's plenty of oxygen left in the air you breathe out. And the air you're exhaling also moves more air along with itself as well.)


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

[User]
Is there a national/ international database for viruses, bacteria, fungi, etc that affect humans?

Im imagining something like DNA held in a crime case. They cant find a match for it so a record is kept, and vice versa if youre convicted of a crime your DNA is now on a database for future checks.

Now back to my original question. If you present to hospital with a cough that leaves you struggling to breathe for days on end. The staff swab you, take a sputum test, even do an endoscopy to take samples. All come back negative for anything they have on file. Are records of these samples kept for future testing? Do private pathology labs have access to an international or national database? If so, is it mandatory to report everything that comes into the lab?

[Assistant] Check out databases like NCBI's GenBank, EMBL's ENA, etc. Basically, if you have an previously unidentified disease of some fungal/bacterial origin, your doctor can work with a lab (or may have their own lab) to run a lot of tests that can identify the type of organism. They can also sequence the organism and then publish a case study on your disease, and deposit that sequence in NCBI (say) using a relatively standard procedure.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do people who run back into a burning building to save a pet or child survive?

Occasionally I see news stories like "man runs back into burning house and rescues beloved pet"

However, I've also been told that you will most likely die in seconds if you inhale the smoke. I've read that in a fire you have to crawl to escape. I've read that you have to sprint quickly through the flames if you have a chance (the exact opposite of crawling low?).

[Assistant]
When you run into a burning building, the heavy amount of smoke can anesthetize your throat, so you dont feel any pain and think youre fine. Its only later, when you get to a doctor or hospital, that you begin to realize the painful damage youve done.

FUN FACT: The vast majority of people in the house when a fire starts manage to escape. Its primarily the people who instinctively run in *after* the fire starts to retrieve someone or something that drive up the number of fatalities.


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

[User]
[Fullmetal Alchemist] how was it "fair" for al to lose his entire body?

when ed and al tried to do human transmutation to resurrect their mother, ed lost his leg but al lost his WHOLE ASS BODY. usually, when human transmutation is attempted, truth only takes a single body part. such as when izumi lost her internal organs when trying to revive her child.

but for some reason, truth decided to take al's ENTIRE body, even though he already took ed's leg. if ed wasn't there to "revive" al by binding his soul to the armor, al would've just been...dead.

so i ask...how is that a fair trade considering the other sacrifices made during human transmutation?

[Assistant]
Brotherhood covers that, the Truth doesn't care about fairness, it's about equal trade, Al wanted to feel the warmth of his mother's embrace, so it took away his entire body, so he wouldn't feel any warmth ever again.

It's a punishment for trying to cross a line that the Truth established.


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

[User] [DC] Do all Kryptonians have the same powers and abilities as Superman ?

[Assistant]
All Kryptonians can absorb solar energy & use it to fuel their various superpowers just like Clark.

When the bottled city of Kandor was freed & enlarged it was a major incident since there were suddenly thousands of people just as powerful as Superman overnight.

Though since he's had years of practice it's noted that Clark is much more proficient in their use. But with time that gap will close.


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

[User]
[Halo Combat Evolved] what is the practical use of the space that the warthog run takes place in?

At the end of the game, we ride a warthog through the entire length of the ship to get to an open space where Foehammer can come and pick us up, and when that fails, we go to the launch bay and get the Longsword. The first thing that doesnt really make sense is the platform out in the open, which could just be because of the damage the ship took when crash landing. But Im still confused as to what the practical use of a long corridor that goes the entire length of the ship could be. It could be a maintenance tunnel, but that doesnt really make sense either since there isnt exactly a straight path and theres tunnels in random places, and jumps in others.

[Assistant] It's a service corridor that runs the entire length of the ship. It only seems badly designed because MC was flooring it in a Warthog, rather than going at what would effectively be a spartan's walking speed in the kind of construction/maintenance vehicle the tunnels were built for.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] Why were Dementors never used against Voldemort and the Death Eaters?

If they are under the control of the Ministry, and the only way to withstand them is a Patronus that evil people can't conjure, they seem like they would be ideal for countering dark wizards.

[Assistant] Dementors feed on happiness. Voldemort promised that they could feed on all the happy wizards and Muggles they wanted if they joined him and the Death Eater. All the Ministry could do was send them after bitter, angry wizards who would not be enjoyable to feed on.


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

[User] ELI5: How can human eggs be frozen? Wouldn't they die like every other human cell?

[Assistant]
It is perfectly possible to freeze human cells without damaging them. The trick is speed and the conditions in which they are stored. Freezing an individual cell or small number of cells can be done very quickly. This flash freezing process prevents cell death and changes the size of any ice crystals that form.

It's harder to do this to an entire organism because of the mass and thermal conductivity of the body. It's just harder to pull all that heat out quickly the larger something gets. You also run into problems of thawing where it doesn't thaw everywhere at the same time, so some parts could become thawed while others remain frozen which would lead to cell death from lack of a heart beat, liquid blood, breathing, etc. You don't run into those problems with individual cells like sperm or eggs.

It's interesting that a similar process is used in the production of frozen foods. The Birdseye company that created some of the first frozen vegetables for consumers, was founded by a gentleman named Clarence Birdseye who had some experience with indigenous peoples who froze part of their food supply every winter to preserve it. He happened to notice that carefully choosing when the food was frozen had a large impact on it's taste and texture when thawed and that the colder it was and the faster it froze, the less damaged the food became. So food preserved early in the winter tended to be mushy and bland and food preserved later in winter when it got colder tended to be better preserved. The reason for this is the formation of ice crystals and the colder it is when freezing, the smaller the crystals become. Slow freezing produces larger crystals which destroy cells. Whether it was broccoli or fish, the speed of freezing and the temperature it was frozen at, affected the quality of the food when thawed.


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

[User]
How do axolotles breathe?

I know that the spikes on their face are like gills, but I was wondering more about how that works in comparison to a mammalian respiratory system?

[Assistant] The gills have tiny blood vessels and a high surface area that allow the blood to get really close to the water so that oxygen in the water can diffuse into the blood and carbon dioxide in the blood can diffuse into the water.


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

[User]
Whats logically wrong with the ontological argument?

Perhaps one of the simplest arguments for the existence of god is the ontological argument. Ive tried to sum up the argument as I understand it.

1. God is defined to be the greatest thing possible
2. We have an idea of God, i.e. he exists in our minds
3. It is greater to exist in reality and the mind than only to exist in the mind
4. God must therefore exist in reality, else there could be a greater thing, which is not possible by definition

Its a simple argument, and it feels like something is obviously logically wrong, though I cant quite pin it down. I know about how this same argument can show a perfect anything can exist, but to me, this only shows the argument is wrong, not why its wrong. Id also like to just take idea number 3 for granted, as obviously if you refute that, the argument crumbles, but that doesnt seem to be the real incorrect logic that is enabling the argument.

I think that perhaps the problem can be attacked from this point where if something could exist, it doesnt have to exist, but even then Im not too sure, so I think I need some guidance just to make things clear.

Can I get an explanation on the logical problems of the argument?

[Assistant]
If you rewrite 4. as follows, perhaps you can see the issue:

"4. God - *if* he were to exist - must therefore exist in reality, else there could be a greater thing, which is not possible by definition".

To explicate a little: you can provide a definition of God in which, in order to 'fit' said definition, he must be said to exist. But this will not prove that he *does* exist; only that, were 'the greatest thing possible' to exist, it would indeed, well, have to exist. But this still remains conditional (you can't change modalities from possibility to actuality). Basically: the ontological argument (as presented anyway) builds existence into the definition, but from a definition it cannot follow that said entity *actually* exists. Only that, to put it bluntly, *if* it were to exist, it must exist.

As for the argument, the slight-of-hand that shifts the modality from potential to actual existence is in line 2, where God is said to 'exist' in our minds. Leaving aside the ambiguity of what that could mean, at best, what 'exists' in the mind is still yet the possibility of God, but not God itself, whose existence - in any register - is precisely what remains to be proved.


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

[User]
ELI5: How does a calculator work?

How does it do all the mathematics? The computations?

[Assistant]
Numbers are represented in binary, which is made up of the digits 0 and 1 only. These two digits are represented internally by two voltage levels. Special electronic circuits called "logic gates" combine voltages (that is, binary digits) in various ways (for example, an "AND" gate accepts two binary digits as inputs and outputs a 1 only if both of the inputs are 1s). A particular combination of certain logic gates can take two binary numbers and output their sum, and so this is how numbers can be added. Building further on this gives us subtraction, multiplication, division and exponentiation.

For higher functions, such as square roots and trigonometrical functions, there are ways of computing these by repeatedly carrying out a particular combination of additions and multiplications that gets progressively closer to the answer each time it is carried out.


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

[User]
ELI5: What does it mean when a juice bottle says 10% juice? What does the rest of the 90% consist of and where does it come from?

When a juice bottle says it contains x% juice, what is the rest (100-x)% of it made of?

[Assistant] the 10% juice means 10% of the contents of that bottle come specifically from squeezing a fruit or vegetable (although not necessarily the one you expect, unless explicitly stated), or adding water to concentrate, or some combination of the above. The rest is going to be made up of the other contents of the ingredients list.


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

[User]
Why do current-carrying wires have multiple thin copper wires instead of a single thick copper wire?

In domestic current-carrying wires, there are many thin copper wires inside the plastic insulation. Why is that so? Why can't there be a single thick copper wire carrying the current instead of so many thin ones?

[Assistant]
A single wire that's thicker will be harder to bend. It will also fail entirely when it breaks.

Multiple thin wires will allow easier manipulation of the wire overall. Also if any part breaks, it's just a few strands that break (usually the ones on the outside of the bend). The break won't affect the wire because the current still travels alongside through the unbroken strands.

Tl;dr greater flexibility and more durable wires.


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

[User] ELI5: why does MEGA download your file into your local cache and then save it, as opposed to downloading through your browser's download manager?

[Assistant]
It is *probably* because the file stays encrypted on the server. Mega downloads the file onto your computer and at the same time it is decrypting the file so when it is done downloading/decrypting, You can tell the browser where you want it saved. Then the browser simply moves the file.

If you simply download the file from the server as is with your browser, you would probably have an encrypted file and would otherwise have to decrypt it with the key that goes along with the url of said file.

Edit: The file on the server is always encrypted. It is always encrypted/decrypted on the client browser before it is uploaded/downloaded to and from the server. The server never has decrypted files.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] By the time of the Battle of Hoth, why was the Millennium Falcon in a state of such disrepair?

It seemed to be working fine during the events of episode IV, yet by the time of the battle of Hoth, it was in such a state of disrepair, Han was barely able to get it to take off of Hoth.

[Assistant] The Millennium Falcon is, as Luke so poetically put it, a piece of junk. Keeping her from falling apart at the seams is a full time job. And it's hard to get replacement parts when both a galactic empire and a syndicate of interstellar gangsters are out for your blood.


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

[User] [General Cyberpunk] What's the point/benefit of using swords or bladed weapons in the future?

[Assistant]
>When they gave him the job, they gave him a gun. The Deliverator never deals in cash, but someone might come after him anyway-might want his car, or his cargo. The gun is tiny, aero-styled, lightweight, the kind of a gun a fashion designer would carry; it fires teensy darts that fly at five times the velocity of an SR-71 spy plane, and when you get done using it, you have to plug it into the cigarette lighter, because it runs on electricity.

>The Deliverator never pulled that gun in anger, or in fear. He pulled it once in Gila Highlands. Some punks in Gila Highlands, a fancy Burbclave, wanted themselves a delivery, and they didn't want to pay for it. Thought they would impress the Deliverator with a baseball bat. The Deliverator took out his gun, centered its laser doohickey on that poised Louisville Slugger, fired it. The recoil was immense, as though the weapon had blown up in his hand. The middle third of the baseball bat turned into a column of burning sawdust accelerating in all directions like a bursting star. Punk ended up holding this bat handle with milky smoke pouring out the end. Stupid look on his face. Didn't get nothing but trouble from the Deliverator.

>Since then the Deliverator has kept the gun in the glove compartment and relied, instead, on a matched set of samurai swords, which have always been his weapon of choice anyhow. The punks in Gila Highlands weren't afraid of the gun, so the Deliverator was forced to use it. But swords need no demonstrations.


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

[User]
ELI5 Why cant we just burn all our trash?

I know pollution is most likely the answer, but Im curious on how bad it actually is and why we need to dispose of it properly.

[Assistant]
There are actually some power plants that burn trash, given some local/ state government subsidies they can be profitable but oddly enough produce less harmful emissions than coal fired power plants. Slightly worse than natural gas though.

But to answer your question, its currently not cost efficient to do this in a controlled setting without government subsidies.


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

[User] ELI5: How do antivirus programs see what is a virus and not?

[Assistant]
The simplest kind just compares against a database of known malware. If it fits, it's malware. (Probably.)

More advanced detection uses heuristics that try to determine whether an action being taken by a program or whether certain qualities are nefarious in nature. This allows for currently unknown threats to be shut down, but has a much higher false-positive rate.


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

[User]
ELI5:Why are normal downloads of .exe files (e.g. adobe flash player) replaced with small, 1MB exe files that then start and initialise the download?

Instead of letting me install the exe myself??

[Assistant]
The benefit of having a separate installer is twofold:

1. The installer can be universal, and then download and install the correct version for your particular computer architecture.  For instance, it can install either the 32-bit or 64-bit version of the program depending on your CPU/OS combination, without you having to know which one you have.

2. It prevents having outdated versions of the program floating around on the Internet.  There are lots of websites that re-host software downloads, and when the installer is separate from the program itself, then they can update the download picked up by the installer in the background, preventing installers hosted on 3rd party websites from becoming obsolete.


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

[User] When we talk about the age of universe or stars, in what reference frame are we measuring the time?

[Assistant]
We use a frame of reference where the cosmic microwave background has no velocity, which is about 600 km/s from the velocity of the Sun. This is the "CMB rest frame".

In practice, most galaxies, stars, and planets move at <1000 km/s relative to each other, so relativistic effects are so small that they're completely buried in all the other sources of uncertainty. So it really doesn't matter much, but we use the CMB rest frame for consistency.

The CMB rest frame doesn't really have a huge amount of significance. All the matter in our observable universe came from a very small region in the early universe, so small that there was not really any change in velocity from one side of the region to the other. The actual value of that velocity doesn't mean anything - it had to be *something*, but that's it. If you were able to go well beyond our observable universe, you would see this value start to slowly drift away from the local value.


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

[User] ELI5: how and when did the whole world end up using a seven day week when there are multiple calendars? It's not an obvious number...?

[Assistant]
it takes about 28 days for the moon to go from "full moon" to the next "full moon".

this is something that people allover the world could easily observe (no light polution back then). now you can separate this "moon time" into four periods:

"kinda full" / "decreasing" / "kinda not there" / "increasing".

each of those 4 phases is now 7 days.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do muscles tend to feel rubbery, unresponsive and numb for a day or so after particularly strenuous exercise before becoming sore?

[Assistant] When you do a work out, the muscles that are being worked develop tiny microscopic tears in them. Then, they begin to fill these gaps with new muscle tissue, which is how your muscles get bigger over time. The soreness is from these tears, and the numbness is likely fatigue from the workout, or lactic acid build up.


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

[User]
CMV: We should change the education system to allow for internet usage during tests or exams

This is actually something my dad said but I think I've refined the idea to a less problematic version.

Education over the years has largely focussed on memorising a lot of information about a particular subject and then proving that you understand the information by relaying it to someone who has already proven themselves. Whether that is the intention or not, many people substitute understanding with complete memorisation. Tests are set up in such a way to see if you studied, not if you understand what you studied.

I thought this would change when I went to university, and while there is a major shift in the purpose of testing between HS and University, it's not big enough and tests still want to see how well you can memorise the subject matter.

With most people in all but the poorest of countries having internet access, you don't really need to memorise anything because in The Real World(TM) all the information you need is an educated google search away.

We should instead give people the access to the internet and phrase questions so as to force people to *use* the information at their disposal to solve the problem. Intrinsic knowledge of the basics should still be important since you can't have people pulling out a calculator to figure out a basic equation or looking up the author of a book they're supposed to be reading, but it should be encouraged to use the internet to your advantage.

Obviously not everyone knows how to use google or library search engines properly, but that could be easily fixed with a compulsory class every first year university student has to attend.

[Assistant]
What's stopping someone just renting out their services and answering your questions for you?

Also, at university at least, there are many open book exams or at least exams that allow a "cheat sheet" where you can bring in relevant info you think you might need. Isn't that already a better solution?


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

[User]
Is there a finite number of combinations possible in the human genome?  If so, how long would it take before we start "repeating" people?

I was just wondering this the other day, since each person's genome is just a sequence of base-pairs, if there is a finite number of combinations eventually it should be possible that two people (not necessarily alive at the same time) have an identical genome.  Of course, this would ignore identical twins.

I have an idea for how to figure this out, but I need some help on the specifics.  We now how many base-pairs there are in our genome (just over 3 billion), so we could use that to determine how many possible combinations there are (if it's not infinite).  We also have approximate population data/predictions that goes a long way back/forward, which can be used to find cumulative population.  As soon as the cumulative population is greater than the number of possible genome combinations, we can be sure that someone has been "repeated".

What I'm thinking is that our DNA changes so often that there will always be more combinations possible.  I'm not sure if that's how it works or not, though.

[Assistant]
Crash course on combinatorics - even a few 'bits' can result in MANY combinations.

For example, encode a genome in binary, 0011010101 or something like that (it's actually a higher base than 2, but just take base 2 for now). With just 10 bits, you'd have 2^10 = 1024 combinations. With a thousand bits, you'd have 1e301 combinations. That is 1 with THREE HUNDRED ZEROS AFTER IT. As a point of reference, the milky way in meters is only about 1 with 16 zeros after it (10,000,000,000,000,000 m).

So, yes, DNA is finite, but no, you'll never ever get two of the same people. Effectively EVER.


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

[User]
Is it possible to live an authentic life while deliberately ignoring the news?

I'm a news junkie but it (combined with people's reactions to news) makes me angry, anxious and depressed.  Is it bad to just stick your head in the sand and live your life blissfully unaware of everything that doesn't directly affect you?

[Assistant] Paying attention to 'news' and living authentically have nothing to do with one another, unless of course you are describing a person who is _intentionally going out of their way NOT to be informed_ about current events. If you simply aren't interested in news because it makes you upset and/or disrupts your otherwise productive life, then ignoring it is probably good advice.