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

[User]
CMV: All companies should permanently give their employees the option to work remotely if their role permits and the proper infrastructure is in place

We had a recent company-wide poll recently on this subject and it got a lot of us thinking about the future of the workplace. Some companies like Twitter and Facebook have already begun the shift to allowing their employees to permanently to work from home - if they choose. Employees would still have the option of periodically coming into a workspace/office if they choose and this would save a lot of overhead for companies from renting more space and having certain vendors in place.

Thinking about it further, my coworkers and I couldnt really think of a reason why it should still be mandatory for employees to come into work every single day if they have the capability to work from home. There are obviously situations where being in the office would be better and being in the office could be better for an employees visibility but that choice should be left up each person and what their situation demands. Personally, I feel like a half and half home/office situation would work best for me but maybe this sub can enlighten me to as to why the option to WFH permanent shouldnt exist.

Note: This would only apply to jobs where one has the capability to work from home/remotely and the proper infrastructure is in place for the employee to do so.

[Assistant]
I think the biggest issue is a change in expectations around working hours and availability that the US already doesnt do well with. A friend working for a company who recently instated one of these policies said that they noticed big productivity increases when WFH was implemented.

Why? Because workers want to prove theyre responsible when theyre at home, so they are constantly checking IMs/emails. If they take some time to make lunch, they may then feel obligated to add extra time to their day to make up for it. They are also more likely to be using personal devices to WFH, so now all the apps that work uses to contact you are on your personal laptop and phone, and since theres no work-day/home line, when youre contacted you answer.

Working in an office is good for separation, and in the US we already do a shit job of separating work and home. Without a huge cultural shift (that doesnt appear imminent), WFH is going to bring us back to the 100 hour work week.


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

[User] ELI5: If plastic was made in 1907 how do they know it may take up to 1000 years to decompose?

[Assistant]
Let's say you see a piece of wood.  And a bunch of termites are chewing away at it.  Each day, you can measure how much material is being eaten by the termites.  You also have information on other, smaller pieces of wood that have been COMPLETELY eaten by termites so you know HOW the termites eat wood (do they eat the same amount each day?  Maybe they eat a little bit at first, eat a lot later, and then slow down, or maybe they eat a small amount initially, but gradually eat more, and more each day, etc.).

Using this information, you can mathematically predict when that piece of wood is going to get completely eaten.

It's the same thing with plastic, except instead of that piece of wood, it's plastic, instead of termites, it's the summation of all the natural processes that break down plastic.


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

[User]
Why should getting a health insurance ever be a profitable decision for the consumer, when the profitability of all insurance companies depends on paying less on claims than whatever they bill in premiums?

I get the value of insurance for farmers and merchants because it amortizes breakage over millions of people over decades, so one sunk ship or one bad harvest don't drive people to bankruptcy. But health insurance seems different.

For me to benefit from health insurance, I should get more in healthcare value than any dollar value I lose in my monthly premium. But for the insurance company to benefit from my subscription, they should deliver less healthcare value than the dollar value I pay to them + overhead + profit margins. And that's assuming all insurances companies act in good faith and pay what they promise and in time. And if you count the penalties against pre-exsiting conditions, it seem like health insurance can only pay off if you will suffer from unexpected health conditions after signing the contract, which is a really poor way of "turning profit".

So why should insurance ever be more affordable than paying out of pocket? It seems like insurance is  a gamble. You bet you're going to get sicker than what you pay for, and the insurance company bets you're going to be healthier than what you pay. Being that any bet the insurance company makes against you (anything they quote you is bet they feel confident making) is backed by more data and analytics than you will ever be able to match them. Sure some people can profit, but in practical terms, the house always comes out on top. So why is it ever beneficial to have a health insurance?

[Assistant]
Consumers are assumed to be loss-averse, so their utility from losses and gains are assymetric, as such they're willing to pay a premium to avoid the possibility of a loss.

Let's say the expected value of your annual health-care costs are $1,000, but could be zero or could be $100,000. Depending on the shape of your individual utility function, it could be reasonable to pay $1,200 per year to avoid the possibility being bankrupted by the $100,000 bill.

The problem with health insurance though, is you have asymmetric information, leading to adverse selection i.e. if you're healthy and unlikely to claim, you're less likely to buy insurance than someone who knows they're sick. Insurance companies respond by pricing the insurance to cover the claims of sick people, which makes insurance even less attractive for healthy people, setting off a vicious cycle.

In order to function effectively, insurance markets need the probability of buying insurance to be independent from the probability of a claim. Hence, auto insurance works fairly efficiently, as its mandatory, as does property insurance, where there isnt the same degree of asymmetric information.


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

[User]
Can Banks Literally Create Money and Profit Off of it?

So, I recently learned that banks don't need to have the money on hand to lend it. This seemed reasonable to me given that they had reasonable confidence in future payments being able to cover the cost of the new loans, but then I learned that banks will literally create money in this process. Specifically I'm talking about Australia and USA here.

So, when a banks lends let's say 300k out and receives 360k back, does this mean that the bank profited not 60k (the difference) but rather 360k because the 300k never existed in the first place?

As an additional side note, what are the consequences of this 'new money' if this is true. This seems like it would be a driver of inflation to me.

Thanks for the responses.

[Assistant]
When banks create money out of thin air for loans, they create an asset and a liability on their balance sheet.

An asset, because the debt is something the borrower has to pay back, and a liability because of course the bank has to pay out that money to the borrower as well.

So if the principal of the loan is paid out, the bank "loses" the loaned money, if the loan is paid back, it gains that money back. Point being, there is no *net* gain from the principal of the loan.

>As an additional side note, what are the consequences of this 'new money' if this is true. This seems like it would be a driver of inflation to me.

Yes, that's kind of the point. Central bank control interest rates, through that they control the price of loans, therefore the supply of loans and how many loans get made, therefore the money supply.


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

[User] [Spirited Away] How did Chihiro know that none of the pigs presented before her were her parents?

[Assistant] Chihiro, by that time, had learned to see past herself and others, to the truth beneath their outer layers. When she looked at those pigs all she saw were pigs...her parents were not inside any of them. Thats how she knew. Her entire adventure was all about learning to look past first appearances.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do 4chan raids work?

When I went to their website, it said that you're not allowed to post raids or  "call to invasion". If so, how do people have their opening posts stay up long enough to recruit enough people? And what part of 4chan are they posted in? /v? /PI/?

[Assistant]
1) They don't. Like 99.8% of the time anyone calling for a raid is told to fuck off and that it's not their personal army

2) The raids that do actually happen are usually coordinated elsewhere. Someone keeps spamming a link and everyone goes there into a chat or whatever and the people actually interested in doing it figure out what they want to do

3) If it somehow makes it out of that phase, which it usually doesn't, people just swarm whatever it is they're swarming with numbers. Maybe it's voting in a poll, or joining a free game and shitting things up, or whatever.

It can happen at any board but they're a lot better at shutting that down than you think. Some boards have like no mods, but at the same time like no population. The general rule is /b/ or /v/ are the places to go because they have the youngest audiences.


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

[User] When downhill snow sledding, would being heavier make you go faster (because of gravity's pull) or slower (because of friction)?

[Assistant] Gravity does not accelerate heavier objects at a faster rate. The only case where higher mass leads to a higher acceleration is in a case where there is a mass-independent force resisting the acceleration (for example air drag). In the case of sledding, air resistance is likely negligible. The only question is the behaviour of the friction against the snow. Friction is directly proportional to normal force, which in turn is directly proportional to mass. So mass should not affect the sliding rate at all. In reality, effects like crushing the snow or something might alter the coefficient of friction in a way that depends on mass, but this is probably a small effect.


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

[User] If all of a female's eggs are created while she is still in utero, why does the probability of having a child with a chromosomal abnormality (like Down's syndrome) rise with age?

[Assistant] The answers so far leave out the very important, obvious answer that the "egg" that is inseminated is not the one created early on.  There are different terms for the mitotic and meiotic forms of the "egg" and that the follicle maturity, health, and hormonal presence have a lot to do with it.  It can literally be a semester long course, but it's worth it to study up.


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

[User]
[General] Why don't we see more kamikaze attacks in settings with warp technology?

Setting aside the possibility of cost in terms of resources and crew, is there a reason besides dramatic tension that warp-capable vessels are not the ultimate weapon?

I can imagine the Battle of Endor being fairly swift if two Mon Cal cruisers warped into Endor's shield generator and the DSII's core. It may have been expensive, but the Battle was a high-risk scenario with high casualties regardless. Or what if Starfleet (or perhaps a more nefarious power... the Dominion, the Romulans, etc) built a few dozen warp capable vessels that would detonate inside planets, starbases, etc?

[Assistant]
In Star wars at least this won't work, any kind of large gravity well forcibly pulls a ship out of hyperspace, the empire also has interdictor-class star destroyers which have gravity well generator to stop ships escaping or travelling through hyperspace.

as for other universes, sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't depending on the science.


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

[User]
CMV: Omnibus Bills Should Be Illegal

It's clear as day that one of the greatest problems in American politics and threats to democracy is the way our laws are written, introduced and debated. And in reality it is an extraordinarily simple task to pinpoint one thing that could theoretically easily be changed if the political will existed and we demanded it.

It's essentially how every bill that is proposed to the houses of Congress and in state legislatures is drafted these days, sneaking in legislation that has nothing to do with the "headline" of the bill. The "headline" of the bill is often something that is strongly emotional or controversial so that it becomes politically difficult to survive the optics of voting against it. It creates so many various points of contention that deadlock is almost unavoidable.

Democracy would fare so much better if our representatives were forced to vote on one bill, with one focus, at a time. Is there something I'm missing about their overwhelming benefit or the necessity of having bills written this way in a democracy? Or are they just written this way to serve the political mercenaries who draft them?

[Assistant]
You have the problem backwards.  Omnibus bills exist because more discrete bills are essentially ignored and the only way to sneak things in is by attaching it to omnibus bills that Must Pass^TM .  The most obvious example is the NDAA - the bill for funding the military is now a vehicle for every odd and end that Congress wants to sneak in.

Outlawing omnibus bills at this point would just mean that Congress literally does nothing but confirm appointees and judges.  And if you think putting them in that position will somehow compel action the way throwing someone in the deep end teaches them to swim, remember that the Freedom Caucus thought something very similar before they threw us into our current state of inaction.

They *thought* adding a poison pill rider killing Obamacare to every single bill that crossed their desks would eventually force an end to Obamacare.  They were wrong, and they managed to kill the legislative process.  Great job guys!

The actual solution is much more difficult: we need to give politicians some leeway to compromise without punishing them at the ballot box.  As it stands, they're terrified to compromise because they know their own party might primary them and the other party would rather take their seat at all costs than tolerate a moderate opponent.

They vote as they do because we punish them for doing otherwise.


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

[User]
ELI5: What happens when a native chinese speaker encounters a character they don't know?

Say a chinese man is reading a text out loud. He finds a character he doesn't know. Does he have a clue what the pronunciation is like? Does he know what tone to use? Can he take a guess, based on similarity with another character with, say, few or less strokes, or the same radical? Can he imply the meaning of that character by context?

[Assistant]
In Chinese, the characters are actually made up of even more characters. While there isn't an alphabet per se, the Chinese language has certain words that are used as sort of "foundations" for other words.

Look at these: ,, (ni, ta, ta men). Those words mean you, him, and them, respectively. If you've noticed, there's one common factor among the characters: those things on their extreme lefts. That character is actually "" (ren), and that's how  is written when it's alone, that is, without any other character beside it to form another word.  means person, and tells us that the word it's in means something with "person".

So, if someone were to come across the word "" and not know what it meant, the character on its very left is an indication of its having to do with people.

I suppose it's by context that a person is to imply the meaning of a character he isn't familiar with.

As for pronunciation, similar-looking words are more often than not pronounced similarly; they most likely just have different tones. It's mostly to do with familiarity when it comes to properly pronouncing characters.

Hope this helped.

Edit: Holy crap, thanks for the gold.


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

[User]
[Last Airbender] How would everything play out if the Day of the Black Sun Invasion succeed?

Despite Azula's warning the eclipse invasion goes as planned for the most part, Aang encounters a powerless Firelord Ozai, but refuses to kill him but still knows he can't escape so Aang insteads uses his bending and captures the Firelord then brings him back to camp.

What happens now?

[Assistant]
Viva la Fire nation resistance.

Azula and some fire bender soldiers would start a guerilla warfare against the occupation.

Earth nation reparations are so high that fire nation citizens are struggling to feed their children.

After 20 years of uneasy truce, another war erupts, as a fire nation soldier ascends the new-found fire parlament. Aang tries to call for a "peace in our time", but the starved fire nation citizens won't have it.

Since both sides suffered huge losses in the last war, both want revenge and won't forgive the atrocities that were commited.

Basically "the fire nation attackes, 2.0". Now with submarines and missiles and air planes, Korra style.

Aang's last involvement makes it look bad if he was to intervene again on behalf of the other nations.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Do all Hutts find humanoids to be physically attractive or that was just Jabbas eccentric taste?

It is pretty clear that Jabba the Hutt finds humanoid females to be particularly pleasing from an aesthetic point of view. He is entertained by a Twillek dancer, he has Leia dressed in a particularly skimpy outfit as his personal slave and generally seems to be surrounded by humanoid females wearing revealing dresses.

Is that a common traits for Hutts to be interested into species that are radically different from them on a biological level? If so are they particularly attracted by humanoids? Or alternatively, was that some sort of kink that characterized just Jabba (who was infamous even by Hutts standards)?

[Assistant] It was only Jabba that we know of. Other hutts considered it akin to a grotesque fetish that was as taboo as it was revolting. I'll let your mind come up with an equivalent in our world. If not for his superior position as head of the Hutt cartels many other hutts would have refused to work with or for such a perverted member of their society.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does it take "2-6 weeks" to deliver goods purchased via TV but you could typically get it in less than half that time if you order online?

[Assistant] A few things could be happening.  1) It could be that the manufacturer doesn't have inventory, but amazon (or whoever) does in their own warehouse.  2) It could be that the tv ad has created a surge in demand out of the ordinary.  The manufacturer aims for steady production of new supply, as it costs a lot to ramp up.  3) The TV retailer could be giving a conservative estimate, which online retailers don't do because their target customers are all about 'quick'. 4) The TV retailer could be waiting until they reach a certain number of orders so they can get a bulk discount.


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

[User]
AskScience AMA Series: We're from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and we research pumped-storage hydropower: an energy storage technology that moves water to and from an elevated reservoir to store and generate electricity. Ask Us Anything!

We are Dhruv Bhatnagar, Research Engineer, Patrick Balducci, Economist, and Bo Saulsbury, Project Manager for Environmental Assessment and Engineering, and we're here to talk about pumped-storage hydropower.

"Just-in-time" electricity service defines the U.S. power grid. That's thanks to energy storage which provides a buffer between electric loads and electric generators on the grid. This is even more important as variable renewable resources, like wind and solar power, become more dominant. The wind does not always blow and the sun does not always shine, but we're always using electricity.

Pumped storage hydropower is an energy storage solution that offers efficiency, reliability, and resiliency benefits. Currently, over 40 facilities are sited in the U.S., with a capacity of nearly 22 GW. The technology is conceptually simple - pump water up to an elevated reservoir and generate electricity as water moves downhill - and very powerful. The largest pumped storage plant has a capacity of 3 GW, which is equivalent to 1,000 large wind turbines, 12 million solar panels, or the electricity used by 2.5 million homes! This is why the value proposition for pumped storage is greater than ever.

We'll be back here at 1:00 PST (4 ET, 20 UT) to answer your questions. Ask us anything!

[Assistant] Let's say you get 1 GWHr from the grid to pump water uphill.  How much energy would you be able to return to the grid when the same volume you pumped uphill comes through the turbines?  What's the round trip efficiency?


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

[User] ELI5: They say cigarettes contain stuff like benzene, acetone, and chloroform which are all volatile solvents. How can they exist in a cigarette if they evaporate at room temperature?

[Assistant] Theyre created as a byproduct of burning the cigarette, not in it as individual molecules to begin with. Its the same reason that burning hydrogen produces water as a byproduct (because the hydrogen reacts with the oxygen in the air and produces H2O).


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

[User]
If somebody thinks he's lying but is accidentally telling the truth, do you consider it lying?

By accidentally I mean that he's passing information that he thinks is false but unbeknownst to him it's actually true.

[Assistant] Lying isn't about the truth value of the proposition, rather about an intention to deceive. If another person is trying to deceive you by telling something that is unknowingly true, s/he's still lying considering his/her bad faith.


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

[User] ELI5: How did the litre (volume) come to be? In other words if we had to start from the dark ages again, how could one replicate the volume measurement of 1 Litre?

[Assistant] The metric system is based on the distance from the North Pole to the equator, on a line passing through Paris. This distance, divided by 10,000,000 equals one metre. One metre divided by 1000 equals one millimetre. One cubic millimetre of water equals 1 millilitre. 1000 millilitres equals one litre.


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

[User] [jaws]once they attached the barrels to the shark could they have just gone home and waited for it to die of exhaustion?

[Assistant]
Locals had already caught a tiger shark and declared the problem gone before the boy was killed.  Politically, there needs to be definitive proof that the killer shark is dead.

While waiting for the shark to die of exhaustion might be an option, returning home without a dead shark is not.  The shark could disappear into open waters and die there unseen and unknown.  Thats not going to be acceptable, since in the absence of a great white corpse, the town will have to assume that the shark is alive.  So the *Orca* needs to keep on top of the shark.  And the sharks attack on the boat necessitates the crew actively killing it, because otherwise the shark would kill them first.


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

[User]
If light has no mass, when it moves, is it doing work?

If light has no mass, when it moves, or when something moves it, is it doing work?  If not, what is it doing?  Is any work accomplished to move light particles?

[Assistant] *Nothing* does work simply by moving; "work" in physics means a force applied over some distance parallel to that force. It's impossible to apply a force to light in parallel directions (since you can't change its velocity), so it's impossible to do work to light.


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

[User]
ELI5: What Actually Is Happening When a Videogame Loads? (And is loading an offline vs. online game different?)

Hi All!

Was very curious what actually occurs when loading a game up to play! I also was curious if the process is the same for a singleplayer game versus a multiplayer game?

Thanks!

[Assistant]
Consider a board game analogy...

When you chose to play a game and click on the 'play' button in Steam, you are grabbing a board game off your shelf. All the files are packed away in a nice compact box that holds everything, but you cannot really do much with it.

The game then loads. This is the process of opening the box, setting out the board and sorting out all of the playing pieces. In the computers case it means copying the relevant data from its home on a hard drive into the RAM and unpacking it in a way that the computer can understand, and allows it to call up the files and information it needs quickly and conveniently.

Then you play the game.


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

[User]
Why is it so hard for many (most?) african countries to get out of poverty?

We see almost everyday commercials for charities that go to african countries (or India) and we do big events where we scrape together hundreds of millions that go to these countries (I live in sweden, I don't know how things work in other countries or if you have these big TV charity events), yet I never see the countries rise from poverty or that things get better.

So is that statement even true from me? Are they progressing out of poverty? And if they are not, what are the causes?

[Assistant]
There are a number of problems which make it difficult for African nations to break the spiral of poverty.

They pay more money to service loans. The lower the credit rating of a nation means higher the risk to invest in that country and the higher the return on the bond for the investor. Therefore they have to promise higher returns (which may not be feasible) to draw any investment and repay higher amounts within the due time or risk defaulting on bonds and loans, lowering their credit rating and resuming the debt spiral.

Added to this is that many of the natural resources to draw an income cannot be developed as they lack the infrastructure thus, in order to attract investment, they offer lucrative investment offers to nations such as China in the way of cheap royalties to extract the resources which limits their income

Given that the nation-state is as natural in Africa as tribes and clans in Sweden (ie. not very), often the structures and expectations put in place by organisations such as the WTO, World Bank, UN and first world nations may not be entirely realistic. This makes corruption somewhat endemic in these nations as those in power tend to preference tribal connections over benefits for the wider citizenry. If you are a European or Chinese investor into these nations, there is little reason to change the status quo as dealing with corrupt officials or individual tribes is far cheaper.

Poor health and education means that the population often struggles to break out of subsistence farming and saps the population of able workers through disease, many of which are preventable.

Aid is important in breaking this process and in many nations in Africa, there have been a number of improvements partly responsible through the UN Millennium Development Goals, however there is still a far way to go. These nations are unstable and often years of hard work can be ruined by civil war or unrest which is usually triggered by the poverty cycle.

There is progress, India is a good example. Mozambique in Africa is another, especially when compared to 1990 data.


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

[User]
Why is an European PhD considered shorter than an American PhD when an American PhD is really a Masters + PhD?

Most European PhD programs require a Master's degree, which takes 1-3 years, whereas an American PhD can be started after a Bachelor's degree. So even if an American PhD is typically 5 years, shouldn't it be regarded as 2+3 years, thus essentially being the same in length as a 3-year European PhD? But why do so many people perceive European programs as shorter?

[Assistant]
Because in the US if you do a Masters' and a PhD you are still expected to take 4+ years to do your PhD. And the "MSc+PhD" is often 6+ years long.

So any way you cut it it tends to be longer than in europe.


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

[User] [Death Note] This Shinigami just informed me that I can go to neither heaven nor hell. He isn't telling me anything else - do I go to purgatory? Oblivion? Do I get to hang out in the Shinigami realm? Where do I go when I die?

[Assistant]
There is 'nothing'. Or 'mu' in Japanese. What happens to your computer when you shut it off? Does it go to computer heaven until you switch it on? Of course not.

Now imagine your computer is not designed to be shut off. When it gets shut off, it quickly dissolves into slime without the power it needs. You can return the power, but all the data, all the hardware, is gone. That is the human brain.

There is nothing after death. Just nothing. No consciousness, no morality. No happiness, no despair. Just absolutely nothing. That is the message behind Death Note: All of Light's planning, all of his cunning, intelligence and maneuvering with L, it all meant nothing at all to the world and Ryuk.

In the end, Light thought himself a god, but he was merely mortal.


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

[User]
How can it be bad to be murdered for the person who is murdered?

Let's say someone kills you painlessly in your sleep. Let's (for the sake of argument) assume you enjoyed being alive and hence would now be missing out on a few "good years". But how can being deprived of those good years be a bad thing to a person who is now dead? It seems to me that dead people can have no preferences and that nothing can be either good or bad for them, seeing as they now no longer exist.

[Assistant]
It seems like you think it can only be bad to be deprived of something if you can experience the the deprivation, right?

Well? We might just reject this idea and say that its bad to be deprived - that preference violation is sufficient for badness or else incorporate such a provision into how we conceive of hedonistic happiness.  (Singers preference utilitarianism and, later, his hedonistic utilitarianism allow for this.)

Nagel has an essay called Death where he addresses the problem (some people find it a bit wanting).  Roughly, he argues that these requirements (that we need to experience something for it to be bad) dont stand up to common sense cases where were wronged while ignorant of it or else a bunch of our common sense preferences dont make any sense at all.  For instance, as a matter of course, we have preferences for things that we cant check up on even while we exist.


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

[User] [Pokmon] How on earth Lance made his Dragonite army to evolve before the level 55?

[Assistant]
While you were training a well-balanced team, lance were studying the Bagon.

Lance is a dragon type specialist. Comes from a family of dragon tamers, even, and have put in great effort into taking the art of raising dragons to new highs. He even have taught some of his pokemon moves they don't learn themselves!

If anyone knows how to get a Dragonair ready to evolve sooner than when just waiting, it is Lance, dragon type specialist, champion, one of the very best.

Oh yeah, he is also goddamn Lance.


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

[User]
[WH40K] What would happen if the Imperium won?

The Imperium exterminated all Xenos, the Chaos gods are either dead or too weak to really be any threat. This is very improbable, but what exactly would happen to the Imperium? Would they be a little less militant and allow people to have better conditions and freedoms now that there's no major threat? Would the Imperium eventually become more democratic?

[Assistant] Well, conditions would improve, but not massively. Until the Emperor either kicks the bucket or someone fixes the Golden Throne, the draconian Inquisition policies will continue. The Imperium is not known for its trusting nature. They'll probably be extremely careful to not let conditions get so good that humanity doesn't go full Eldar and creates another Chaos god, and will still relentlessly hunt down signs of Chaos corruption whether or not any corruption is actually there. It's better than the current state of affairs, but it's likely not all that amazing.


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

[User] Do primates get under arm body odor as humans do?

[Assistant] An interesting side note to that is that not even all humans get it. There's a very strong genetic influence on whether or not your sweat generates BO. People in the Far East are far more common than Western countries to have the gene which means they don't get BO. It's one of the reasons finding deoderant in the Far East is a bit of a mission compared to in Western countries.


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

[User]
[alien] How smart are xenomorphs?

I mean they certainly not stupid but can they have a society?

[Assistant]
I got the impression they are intelligent in a similar but amplified way that a colony of ants could be considered intelligent.

They do some pretty smart stuff in the movies, such as sacrificing one of their own to use it's acid blood to help an escape!


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

[User] How is IQ scored, and is it accurate?

[Assistant]
IQ is based on a scale where an average score is 100. The scoring differs by test, and some tests take into account the speed at which the test is completed. If many people take the test, it should form a Bell curve, meaning a majority of people will score near 100, fewer slightly above and below 100, and very few much higher and much lower.

Online IQ tests tend to show an average score above 100. This can be explained by noting that people with very low IQs would likely have a hard time using the internet and therefore the average score is slightly above normal.

Most well designed IQ tests are accurate in the sense that they will have a Bell distribution if many people take the test. However, there is disagreement over whether or not the types of questions asked on these tests can accurately determine the subject's intellectual capacity.


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

[User] [LOTR] Could Gandalf have children?

[Assistant]
Yes. Gandalf is a Maiar (a lesser god, spirit or angel), but his body is "real" and human like. He has to eat, he has to drink, he has to shit and he could.have sex if he wanted.

See that other Maiar had children. Melian, The Maia, married and had kids with elven king Elu Tingol (or something like that, not sure about his name). Her line eventually reaches know people, like Aragorn and Elrond!


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

[User] [Mortal Kombat 2011] Johnny Cage fought and beat Reptile. Then Baraka. He was ordered to kill Baraka but not Reptile. Why is that?

[Assistant] Reptile is Shang Tsung's personal attack dog, Tsung's not gonna off him for no reason. Baraka is leader of the Tarkatans and one of Shao Kahn's champions in his own right, Tsung was leaving him out to dry because he lost to some Earthrealm chump.


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

[User] ELI5: If temperature is dependent on the movement/vibrations of microscopic particles then why would blowing on something cool it down? Wouldn't this cause further movement/vibrations and actually increase temperature?

[Assistant] Yes, it would, all else equal. But all else is not equal: fans blowing on you (or on, say, a heated-up hard drive) are blowing away a layer of warmer air around the object, bringing cooler air into contact with it and increasing the amount of heat that leaves the object for the environment around it.


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

[User] ELI5: How animals like Octopus are discovered to get "bored"

[Assistant]
"Bored" is a human term, and it's associated with a set of negative behaviors.  The "cure for boredom" in humans is additional interaction.

When an octopus is in a closed area, after a while they start to take on some of these same behaviors, and they stop when they have more interaction.  Thus the term "bored" gets applied by the humans observing them.

In nature, they probably just go a little farther to explore an area beyond their normal area.  Just like humans who decide to explore frontiers.  We're applying human emotional state labels to their observed state because it makes good predictions.


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

[User] ELI5: What do they do on the ISS? What significant contributions have they made to science?

[Assistant] The astronauts aboard the ISS are constantly running experiments, mostly on the effects of zero-g on various lifeforms. Interesting things to note, can plants be grown in space, do certain germs or bacteria grow faster or slower in space, and so on.


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

[User]
ELI5: How would Puerto Rico becoming a US State work? Would the powers that be of USA want this to happen? What would the impact be to the country as a whole to gain a new state?

For what it's worth, I'm from the U.K so I know literally nothing about the things I'm asking.

[Assistant]
>>How would Puerto Rico becoming a US State work?

Puerto Rico would have a referendum and decide if they want to be a state.

Congress would vote if they want to start the statehood process for Puerto Rico

Congress and Puerto Rico's territorial congress would work together to create a state constitution.

Once that constitution is agreeable to both Congress and Puerto Rico a final vote in Congress happens to admit Puerto Rico as a state.

The President signs that bill and The US has 51 states

>> Would the powers that be of USA want this to happen?

The biggest hurdle the powers that be would have is adding Puerto Rice adds 2 senators and 4 or 5 congressmen, along with the 6 or 7 electoral votes that go along with those.  This would concern one party if the other was more heavily represented in PR also this would diminish the voting power of smaller states especially the 3 vote states.  Puerto Rico would also probably be a net taker of federal taxes but that depends on a lot of things.

>>What would the impact be to the country as a whole to gain a new state?

Day to day nothing really changes, Puerto Rico is basically a state now. There is free travel to and from the territory and free work access.  it would really only effect election time.  Taxes would increase for Puerto Ricans as they don't pay Federal Income Tax, but their tax burden may shift around to even that out, it depends on the exact way they are admitted as a state.


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

[User] [MCU] why do certain characters like the Ancient One say there is a multiverse when there should only be one universe because of the TVA ?

[Assistant]
Popular misconception here is that the Sacred Timeline is only ONE universe.

Think of the Sacred Timeline as a rope. A rope is made up of many hundreds/thousands of threads wound together but all travelling along the same path in the same direction. Likewise, the Sacred Timeline has many universes that are very similar and parallel running along the same path (the sacred timeline) in a similar fashion as the rope.

Kang's goal was to eliminate only those universes where OTHER Kang's existed. This was to prevent the multidimensional war (but you know that)

It's only when a branch timeline exists and skews off that could POTENTIALLY result in another Kang being created, does it get pruned. That's why the branches the Avengers made during the time-heist in Endgame were allowed to happen... because they didnt pose a Kang threat.

This also explains why you have variants that exist. So many different Loki's (for example) came from their corresponding universes along the sacred timeline. We KNOW none of those are OUR Loki (just by looking at their photos) but we know they exist somewhere... well that's where. It's only when they deviated off into one of these "potential-Kang" branches, that a particular Loki, and his (or her) branch, got pruned.

There was already a multi-verse... but it was controlled along the sacred timeline.


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

[User]
Why do our arms and fingers in a relaxed state have a bend to them?

Does having this trait carry an adaptive advantage as opposed to having straight arms and fingers on an evolutionary standpoint?

[Assistant] You have muscles that, when flexed, curl your fingers/arms. And you have muscles that, when flexed, extend your fingers/arms. It therefore takes effort to go to either of the extremes because you need the muscles to pull hard enough to stretch the opposing muscles. When both sets of muscles are relaxed, the equilibrium position of the joint will be partially bent.


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

[User] ELI5:Why do some car engines move a little to the side when you press the gas pedal?

[Assistant]
Some of these answers come close to correct, but not quite.

So- its not 'angular momentum', nor is it 'torque steer' (close).

It is simply, torque.

The motor in the car is turning, in one direction, with great force. The motor is mounted to the frame of the car in such a way that the mounts are able to absorb some of the vibrations in the motor (so you don't rattle your teeth out at a stop light). However, this means that the motor mounts will compress/expand very slightly as the motor is 'revved' up, causing the 'rocking' motion that you see in the engine bay.

This is normal, and is not related to faulty mounts.


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

[User] ELI5 how does desiccant silica gel work?

[Assistant] Silica gel is full of nano meter sized pores. If humidity gets into these the water will get stuck inside the pores. You can get it out with heat to dry the silica gel but in normal conditions the beads will just collect more and more humidity from the air.


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

[User] ELI5: How do people spoof phone numbers and why won't/cant the phone companies close that security hole?

[Assistant]
Because of the way the phone system was designed. If you have a multi line phone system and you're a business, you might have a need to change the outgoing number from certain extensions making outgoing calls so the caller appears to be calling from a specific number, like a main number for a business or queue.  These digital phone lines give the business customer the ability to program their equipment to specify the outgoing number.  Like sending email, you can put in anything as the sender.  The phone systems don't have any way to know or validate if a number is owned by the person initiating the call.  Keep in mind these are technologies  that are several decades old.

These digital lines aren't going anywhere for a long time, they are expensive, robust and heavily relied upon. And it's not easy to change the underlying phone signalling language used by phone systems across america that all route calls between each other.

Like email, it's an old technology and still heavily relied upon.  Things that prevent unauthorized emails and spam haven't changed the email "language" itself, but other technologies around it to help validate email and minimize the spread of junk mail  The same solutions are needed (and to some extent) are already being implemented.  But there is no silver bullet solution here because of the legitimate use cases, and because of internet systems that connect to the phone network, it's made it super easy for spammers anywhere in the world  to remotely set up and launch spoofing campaigns by either hacking and exploiting a business's phone equipment or finding a shady fly by night internet voice provider.  In order to effectively combat this solution, it would require extremely expensive upgrades for everyone from the smallest of independent telephone companies to the largest.  There's progress being made, but it will be a long time before all the equipment is replaced.  By then, who knows, we may have all but abandoned the 7-digit number we have in favor of something else.

Edit:  Clarity.
Edit 2: Added a part about cost being a problem and why we don't have a solution.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Why on Hoth didnt Yoda or Obi-wan warn Luke about the Emperors electric tickle finger attack?

wtf?

[Assistant]
Luke was never supposed to fight the Emperor.

Yoda set up the series of trials that Luke was to accomplish to become a Jedi. The last of these was to be the defeat of Darth Vader.

Presumably, after this point, the newly-minted Jedi Master Luke would commune with the Force, and meditate on how best to assist the Rebellion in taking down the Emperor. Or (more likely), Obi-Wan and Yoda foresaw that the Rebellion was already going to be able to take out the Death Star II with the Emperor on board, and that problem would simply solve itself without Luke's invovlement. But, since Vader had already escaped the destruction of one Death Star, it was necessary to make sure that he did not survive.

Luke, however, had this crazy idea in his head that Darth Vader was capable of redemption. With that goal in mind, he faced Vader on his enemy's terms, which led him exactly where he was never supposed to go. If he had simply followed instructions, no warning about the Emperor would be necessary.


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

[User] [DC/Superman] Is Kryptonite gas just tiny fragments of Kryptonite suspended in midair, or is it superheated/gaseous Kryptonite?

[Assistant] So kryptonite is a molecule, not an element, so it would be tiny fragments of molecules suspended in air, but it would be no different than a gas at that point, like water or aerosols. Chop the bits up tiny enough and anything will suspend in air.


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

[User]
[DC] Flash vibrates through a phasing Martian Manhunter

So basically Flash vibrates his molecules through Martian Manhunter as he activates his phasing ability. What happens? Are they able to interact?

[Assistant]
It is far more pleasurable than either anticipated.  First there is surprise, eyes open wide.  Out of breath, they both contemplate what just happened.

Then an awkward silence.  They avoid each other's gaze.

And finally acceptance, as their eyes meet once more, each knowing what the other is thinking.  Flash steps forward, beginning to vibrate, a small smile tugging on the edge of his lips.

Martian Manhunter swallows hard and closes his eyes as he activates his phasing ability again.


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

[User] [Hellraiser] How did Frank actually escape the Cenobites?

[Assistant] In the book, he basically waited until they were distracted/gone and slipped out. The mixture of his blood in the floor and semen from his brother was sufficient to summon him. It's described as the wall of his cell "thinning" into the wall of the attic room and he phases through.


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

[User]
ELI5: When we dream/daydream how is it we can process the dream in a visual way?

Ok, so this is kind of a hard question to phrase. What I mean is:

Let's say I'm daydreaming, and in my head I'm imagining this epic battle between a group of orcs and kittens. How does my brain process that information into an almost visual way? It's like I am watching the scene take place in front of me, even though in the back of my head I know it's all in my head.

Hope that makes sense!

[Assistant] When we see things our eyes are simply relaying data to our brains by electric pulses.  This data stimulates our brains and we "see" things.  Our brains can simulate this when we dream and essentially trick us into "seeing" things.


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

[User]
Are quotidian events stored differently in memory?

Every day I do very similar things: take shower, put contacts in, take medicine, fill water bottle in backpack, etc.  Sometimes it's genuinely confusing to remember if I did or didn't do something, because I've done it hundreds or thousands of times before.

This seems to fall between long- and short-term memory.  I know where my contact case is in a strange hotel, even though I put it down somewhere 12+ hours before.  I can find it in the dark the next morning.  But a day later, there's no particular trace of these daily events.  I probably couldn't even describe the hotel room with accuracy.

Are these types of events creating long-term memories that are ruthlessly pruned because of no reinforcement, or are they stored differently?

[Assistant] There is some pruning going on, if you remembered every detail from your daily life you would be a rain man and probably not function "normally." It could also be mentioned that a lot of memories are stored in relation to your physical environment. For example, if you returned to that hotel room you'd probably easily recall the exact spot you put your contacts before, because that memory was stored in association with your memory of that location. As far as repetitive things like showers, it's easy to forget if you took one today because you have e a ton of competing/overlapping memories of the same thing, and your brain has to search thru them for the most relevant incidence. Not sure if that fully answers the question but there ya go. Out of date psych degree here.


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

[User]
CMV: If you celebrate sex workers and support their right to work in their chosen profession, it's ridiculous to shame people for hiring those same sex workers

I've seen this come up a lot lately for some reason. It seems many people who are extremely pro sex-worker's rights are vehemently anti customer-of-sex-worker. My confusion is, how do you expect them to make any money without people on the other end of the transaction? I have seen the argument made that it's the customers objectifying the workers which makes it different, but they are *literally selling their bodies as an object* so I don't see that as a valid argument.

Personally I support the rights of sex workers as well as people who employ the services of sex workers. I just don't think those two things can logically be separable.

Edit:

Some clarifying points - I'm talking about it being hypocritical to *celebrate* sex work while shaming those willing to employ them, not merely agreeing that they should have a right to do such work while holding personal convictions against it. This is not the same as supporting free speech for those who say things you disagree with.

Second, I'm talking about shaming for the mere act of employing a sex worker. Those who commit assault (sexual or otherwise), rob people, cheat on their significant other, participate in an activity they publicly condemn, etc. in the process are of course deserving of criticism, shame, and legal repercussions as the case may be, just as they would be if they committed those acts in any other situation.

Yes exploitation and shitty people exist. That's not what I'm talking about here.

No I won't call out individual people on my twitter feed for holding the views that sparked this post, I started seeing it a lot and got the impression it was a widely held view, maybe it's not.

I also made a poor choice of words in saying "they are literally selling their bodies as an object." Those who called me out for that were right to do so. What I meant was that selling the service of sex is inherently objectifying, not that they are giving up their rights as a human.

I believe I explained the delta I awarded, but if it wasn't clear - it was not for changing my overall views on the topic, but changing my view that someone couldn't reasonably have the opinion I dislike. It breaks down to societal opinions held about people based on their valuation of sex as a commodity, which applies whether it's in relation to sex work or not. It's a societal opinion I don't agree with, but it makes sense of the views I've seen from people. You should read it.

Please also read the comments I already responded to, it's not at all the same as drug dealer/drug user, cop/criminal, etc. See the gambling and littering examples I responded to.

Lastly, those claiming I have no firsthand exposure to the industry are simply wrong. I've been on both sides of it.

[Assistant]
> It seems many people who are extremely pro sex-worker's rights

This does not exactly mean that you're pro-sex work it just means you want them to have more rights.

The most common reason why people are pro-sex rights is so those people are less vulnerable to exploitation(pimping), sexual crimes etc.

Most of them would most likely prefer to live in a world without sex work but that's harder than to make the job save for now.


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

[User] ELI5:How is Russia able to get away with all of this in front of the eyes of the world with relative impunity?

[Assistant]
Because going to war with Russia would, essentially, mean WW3.  The possibility of enormous casualties in this type of situation is obviously quite high.  Also, Russia has nukes.

Another factor-- Ukraine really isn't that big of a deal to the powers that be.  If the UK or another "first world" power was being invaded, it would be a different story.


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

[User]
How long does water spend in the human body?

Is there a half-life to it? Given that some will pass right through, but (most?) will be absorbed into the bloodstream etc., there must not be a single answer, but all I can find online is short term answers talking about when that which passes through quickly will leave. What about the water that's more thoroughly absorbed, like that in bone marrow?

[Assistant]
This is such a fun question.

The answer for a specific molecule of water is somewhere between 45 minutes and the total age of your body.

Water is taken up fast in the stomach and small bowel (5 to 15 minutes).  It makes blood more *hypo-osmolar* and the kidneys notice this right away.  They produce more dilute urine.  This equalizes the *osmolarity* of the blood.  It also keeps the water balance in the body constant.

All in all this process takes about 30 minutes, but varies with age. An older person has more sluggish urine output than a young person.

The fun part is some cellular structures in your body are fixed at birth and don't change.  Neurons, heart cells, brain liver and pancreas all contain structures that are essentially locked down since you were a fetus.  This is probably unrealistic for bulk water, but water is part of some of those structures.

A comparative example is ethanol.  It can go wherever water does (mostly).  After drinking booze it takes about 6 minutes for ethanol to reach the brain but realistically about 15 - 45 min.

The following are some rough detection limits for alcohol in various tissues

* Blood: Up to 6 hours

* Breath: 12-24 Hours

* Urine: 12-24 Hours

* Saliva: 12-24 Hours

* Hair: 90 Days

Overall, realistically the oldest water in your body is likely to be in your hair, however, some specific water molecules may be as old as you are.


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

[User] ELI5: I always thought AC current requires 2 wires to carry the current both ways just like DC. Recently I read a post on this sub saying neutral wires go to ground. What am I missing?

[Assistant]
Any circuit requires two "wires", whether it's AC or DC...one to deliver current, one to take it away. In DC, the current is always going the same direction in both wires. In AC the current oscillates back and forth.

The "ground" in an electrical sense is just one big shared wire. The "hot" wire in an AC system is the one that actually goes back to the generator. The neutral wire isn't hooked directly to the generator, it's just hooked to ground and all the AC circuits are sharing that same ground (including the generator).


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

[User]
Nikola Tesla claimed he could generate power from earth's magnetic field, distribute it freely and wireless to anyone and even create death rays. How credible were those claims and where is this technology today?

I have heard explanation that those were either impossible, or possible but impractical, or both great inventions destroyed by Edison.

Also, my favorite Tesla story (probably untrue): A few days after he did his first experiments on a new "Death Ray" machine, news from the Tunguska event arrived to him. Believing he was responsible, he scrapped it and never tried that again.

[Assistant] Generating power from earth's magnetic field would be ridiculously impractical near the surface. Consider for a sense of scale the energy density in the magnetic field near the Earth's surface: the field is ~.5 Gauss, which means an energy density of 0.001 J/m^3. You only win if you go for obscene scaling up (like the tethers linked elsewhere, which also benefit from going through the ionosphere). And if you're building a huge thing to harvest power near the Earth's surface anyway, why not go wind or solar?


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

[User]
If statistics for gun violence in the USA exclude African American perpetrators what do the numbers become?

I ask this because I heard a gentleman I work with stated, "that unless you are black, poor or an urban dweller that your risk of being a gun violence victim is close to nil". If this is true it raised several questions in my mind about how we approach gun control in the USA.

[Assistant]
His argument is even more valid if you replace the 'or' with an 'and'.

The victims and perpetrators of gun violence are, overwhelmingly, young black males ages 18-35.

Source: MA in criminology, 2/3 PhD in criminology.

Articles if anyone reads this and wants them.


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

[User] If composite bosons such as mesons and Helium-4 do not follow the Pauli exclusion principle, how does this affect their properties?

[Assistant] Well if you compare Helium-4 to Helium-3, 4 can condense into a superfluid state at about 2 Kelvin, which is a large-scale version of Bose-Einstein condensation. 3, however, does not form a superfluid this way: it has to be much colder, about 1/400th of a Kelvin, and then the fermions form bosonic Cooper pairs, and the superfluidity is akin to superconductivity but with atoms instead of electrons. But because they're bosons, Helium-4 atoms can become superfluid at much higher energy than the fermionic Helium-3.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do we smile?

I don't mean emotional side, because that's all I can really find at google.

From what I understand all other mammals show their teeth in aggression. We know what we mean by it, we smile to the babies and show them it's a good sign when someone smiles, but when we figured that out?  When humans started smiling to each other to signal good emotions? Why did they use this signal, when others use it as a warning and aggression?

[Assistant]
Herbivores do not show their teeth as a sign of aggression.  It is a predator thing.  And humans are omnivores, not predators.  So showing our teeth was probably not an aggression thing.

Humans have much more complex communication than other animals.  We blush to show shame, smile to show happiness, frown to show displeasure, etc.

Humans are incredibly social and evolved to display their emotions clearly to their group.  When you need to display a lot of different emotions you just use every option you can, and smiling was one option.

Basically every way you can shape your mouth communicates some emotion or idea.  Likewise many ways you move or position your eyes expresses something.


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

[User]
How does antimatter work?

So from what I've read scientist can create antimatter by shooting protons through a negative field and end up with an **antiproton**, scientist say that if this antiproton were to collide they would release 100% of their energy. So if this happens does that mean they cease to exist, if so doesn't that violate the conservation of mass law?

[Assistant]
What is conserved is not strictly the mass but the total "budget" of mass and energy (since they are related).
So when matter and antimatter collide they annihilate into a cascade of photons and other pair of particles, created by the usually huge (on the subatomic scale) release of energy.


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

[User]
ELI5 how do noise canceling earphones work

How does it work and how are they able to cancel out noise better than regular headphones?

[Assistant]
To elaborate on clyde's answer for active noise cancelling:

Sound waves can interfere with each other, just like any other wave. When one sound wave is telling a material to compress, and another sound wave is telling the same part of the same material to expand, the material just does nothing. It's like adding a positive number to a negative number. The more similar in size the numbers are, the closer their sum is to zero.

Active noise cancelling headphones have microphones on the outside of them, and they record the ambient noise of your environment. This never gets stored anywhere - it goes right into a circuit which reverses the sound, like multiplying it by -1. Then that sound is played alongside your music through your headphone's speakers.

Just to be clear, the sound doesn't get reversed in terms of time - what you actually need to do is shift the sound so that when the actual ambient sound outside has a wave that's going up, the 'reverse' sound has a wave that's going down. Whatever one wave tells your eardrums to do, the other wave will try to tell your eardrums to do the oppsite thing.

This way  all the ambient noise gets cancelled out, and your music is all that you hear.


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

[User]
[Marvel] How did Doctor Doom remove Latveria from the grasp of the Soviet Union?

At the end of The Second World War the USSR essentially annexed eastern European countries into satellite states. This would have included Latveria. Even with his genius could Doom have overthrown the puppet ruler and established a truly independant nation while surrounded by Warsaw Pact countries.

[Assistant]
A combination of rough terrain and separate culture made it a difficult nation to integrate in the first place.  Troops alone were not enough. When the seperatist movement began, Doom had the resources to create resistance forces that would make it costly for the USSR to hold.

That's the stick, but he also used the carrot.  His genius could provide valuable tech to the  Soviets who suffered from a chronic inferiority complex in trying to keep up with the West.  If releasing a small, useless bit of land to him could secure his good will and assistance they would seriously consider it.


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

[User] What is the upper limit to the Med-Bays in Elysium? Would they not, theoretically be able to engineer the perfect human? Would they not be able to create muscle, height, different color hair etc.?

[Assistant]
It can't do brains, which is the only technological hurdle left in turning the Med-Bay into a cloning station, and the reason that it can't revive someone from death (or just make a new copy).

But yes, it can make people more perfect - better muscles, better looks, etc. There's a reason that you don't see any fat or ugly people on Elysium. There's also a reason that the Med-Bays are in every house rather than in a centralized hospital area - they're used on a daily basis.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] How and why do both the Jedi *and* the Sith know of and use lightsabers?

Both groups originated in different parts of the galaxy right? Or did one side see the other's tool and decide that they were gonna get in on some of that laser sword action?

[Assistant]
Lightsabers have actually gone through various stages throughout history. The original ancestor of the Lightsaber is a weapon called the Forcesaber that was created and used by the Rakatan Empire. The Rakatan wielder would power the saber by channeling Dark Side energy through a focusing crystal embedded in the hilt.

Around the same time as the Rakata, the precursor to the Jedi, the Je'Daii Order, created their on version of this idea by using a complex ritual to "freeze" the plasma of the blade in place. The first of these new sabers was called, cleverly, the First Saber. These were the most basic forms of the lightsabers we know today. They were used for ceremonial purposes only, as there were still many issues with them and they were unreliable in battle. The Je'Daii did use bladed weapons like swords regularly, though.

The Je'Daii were later corrupted by the Dark Side when the Rakata invaded. The Je'Daii originally pushed them back, but then they found several of the Rakatan Forcesabers and used those against the aggressors. The Je'Daii were eventually torn apart, but their teachings gave way to the more modern Jedi Order.

These types of sabers were the norm until around 15,000 BBY, when Jedi managed to create the first true lightsaber, where the energy loops back at the end of a containment field and returns to the hilt. These models were *awful*, as they required a belt-mounted power cell to be attached to the saber hilt and it drained a ton of power. The tether restricted movement of the user horribly, but over time refinements were made and the sabers were made generally stable and mobile enough to use in regular combat, not just as a siege-type weapon.

Interestingly enough, it's the Sith we have to thank for the advancement of the lightsaber to what we have now. The original Sith Empire formed when a group of Jedi were kicked out of the order and found themselves on Korriban. They interbred with the Sith species that was present there and took their name. They also learned much of the Dark Side from them, and over the centuries became the powerful empire they were at their peak. It's because of this origin that lightsaber use among Sith is the standard.

The Sith found a way to embed a power cell in the hilt along with the focusing crystal. They also added a superconductor that fed the energy looping back from the blade back into the power cell. This made for an extremely efficient system that only actually lost energy when the lightsaber was cutting something, as the loop was broken while it was. This eliminated the tether to a belt-mounted power cell and allowed the Sith to be much more mobile and powerful with their sabers, as stability was no longer an issue.

The Jedi soon found discovered how the Sith had managed to improve their sabers, and quickly made it work with their own sabers. This led to a huge escalation in the ability for lightsaber combat on both sides, and refinements were made to the designs throughout the years. And this is how we have come to the powerful lightsabers that we all know and fear today.

Bonus fact: The Sith didn't always use red lightsabers. The color of their lightsabers is due to the artificial crystal that they tend to use (Jedi only use natural crystals), though there are a few that forgo the artificial crystal out of preference or ignorance. The tradition died out for a bit during the Great Hyperspace War, when fallen Jedi flocking to Naga Sadow's side opted to use their own lightsabers. The tradition was reinstated by Darth Revan nearly 2,000 years later.


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

[User]
ELI5: What are house spiders doing?

Can someone tell me what a house spider does throughout the day? I mean they easily make me piss myself but aside from that. I see a spider sitting on my ceiling. Not doing anything. Come back an hour later and it's still sitting there. Is the thing asleep? Is it waiting for prey? A house spider's lifestyle confuses me.

[Assistant]
Spiders are opportunistic eaters and will feed on as many insects as they can catch in one short period of time. This means there will be weeks when the insect population in their part of the world is low so the spiders have no opportunities to feed for a while. Because they are poikilothermic (cold-blooded) and inactive for much of each day this temporary loss of a food supply is not a problem. However, prolonged periods of enforced starvation will ultimately lead to death.

Spiders feed on common indoor pests, such as roaches, earwigs, mosquitoes, flies and clothes moths. If left alone, spiders will consume most of the insects in your home, providing effective home pest control.

Spiders kill other spiders. When spiders come into contact with one another, a gladiator-like competition unfolds  and the winner eats the loser. If your basement hosts common long-legged cellar spiders, this is why the population occasionally shifts from numerous smaller spiders to fewer, larger spiders. That long-legged cellar spider, by the way, is known to kill black widow spiders, making it a powerful ally.

Spiders help curtail disease spread. Spiders feast on many household pests that can transmit disease to humans mosquitoes, fleas, flies, cockroaches and a host of other disease-carrying critters.

Typical house spiders live about two years, continuing to reproduce throughout that lifespan. In general, outdoor spiders reproduce at some point in spring and young spiders slowly mature through summer. In many regions, late summer and early fall seem to be a time when spider populations boom and spiders seem to be strongly prevalent indoors and out.


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

[User] [Elder Scrolls] Because the characters are labeled as "race" instead of "species", can different races reproduce with one another? Can an Orc or Argonian breed with a Nord? And if so how are their offspring? Is there any documented lore of this?

[Assistant]
So, based on in-universe books:

"Race" is acknowledge, even in universe, as being a slightly inaccurate term, and in-universe scientists have tried to determine what's actually what.

Humans and elves *can* reproduce with each other, although the fact the child is almost always the "race" of the mother rather then a hybrid casts doubt on whether this is interfertility in the conventional sense. Presumably, by extension, Orcs (a race of elves) should be able to interbreed with humans too, although no recorded case has ever been found. But then, how many humans and orcs try?

In the case of the beastfolk- argonians, kajhiit, dragons, so forth- the name is simply the wrong term. Urban legends and folk tales aside, they cannot interbreed with humans or each other. They're separate species by every measure, and at least some in universe experts are annoyed at the inaccurate colloquial term.


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

[User]
Was gold easier to find in the past?

History tells us that ancient civilizations had hoards and hoards of gold, which seems odd considering their lack of modern mining capabilities. Was gold more easily found in the past? In the history of gold, there was surely some that was much more easily accessible, leaving only the increasingly less accessible to all future miners.

Is that right? Like gold could have just been lying around at some point. Don't know if I'm even making sense lmao.

[Assistant]
This is exactly correctit's a case of diminishing returns. We'll never run out of mined resources such as gold; they'll only become more expense to locate and refine.

As John McPhee writes in the context of the California gold rush (*Annals of the Former World*, emphasis mine):

*"Into the quiet country of the low Sierrabetween the elevations of one thousand and four thousand feetgold seekers spread more rapidly than an explosion of moles. Their technology was as rampant as they were, and in its swift development anticipated the century to come. In 1848, the primary instrument for mining gold was a sheath knife. **You pried yellow metal out of crevices.** Within a year or two, successively, came the pan, the rocker, the long tom, and the sluicevariously invented, reinvented, and introduced."*

*"By the end of 1848, a few thousand people, spread out over a hundred and fifty miles, have removed from modern stream placers ten million dollars in gold. The forty-eighters have the best of it in 1849, because the forty-niners are travelling most of that season, at the end of which fifty thousand miners are in the country. There are a hundred and twenty thousand by the end of 1855. **The lone miner all but disappears. To stay abreast of the sophisticating technologies, individuals necessarily form groups. Groups are crowded out by corporations. More and more miners make less and less money, until many independents are living hand-to-mouth and their way of life is called subsistence mining.** Watching companions die of disease in Central American jungles or drown in Cape storms, they have travelled thousands of miles in pursuit of a golden goal that has now turned into mining for beans. Always, though, there are fresh stories going eaststories that would cause almost anyone to start thinking about trying the overland route, the isthmus, the Horn."*

Currently, refining technology has been improved to the point that the waste ("tailings") from former mines is now valuable. Concentrations that 19th- and 20th-century operators considered insignificant are now higher than anything we can easily find in the ground.


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

[User] If we can discharge excess voltage into the Earth whenever we need to, why can't we draw a steady supply of electricity from the Earth in a similar way?

[Assistant] For the same reason that you can take a very hot (or very cold) object and put it in a large bath of water to bring it to room temperature, but that you can't take a room-temperature bath and use it to make something hot. You can, of course, draw a steady supply of charge from the Earth, it just costs energy to do so, just like it costs energy to pump heat outside of your refrigerator.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does it smell worse when you fart in water?

[Assistant]
There is also another explanation. When you fart in the air due to "diffusion" the fart and the "normal" air mix up, so that you smell less fart gas.

In water (usually in the bath tub, where you are in and your head close to the water surface) the fart gas moves up the water bubble without mixing with the air. When it comes up to the surface, directly close to your nose, the smell is more "pure" and therefore worse.


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

[User] Is it true that mad cow disease is caused by acts of cannibalism? If so, why is cow eating cows brain more dangerous than cow eating rats brain?

[Assistant]
Mad cow disease (aka bovine spongiform encephalopathy) is caused by misfolded proteins called prions. There are two types of mad cow disease: classical and atypical. Atypical is rarer, and occurs spontaneously. Classical BSE occurs when cows eat feed contaminated with BSE-infected meat and bone meal. So yes, some types of BSE are transmitted by cannibalism.

Like many other pathogens, prions tend to be restricted to the natural host species that they infect.  But just like many other pathogens, prions do, very rarely, cross species. The most well-known example would be variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, which infects humans when they consume contaminated bovine meat.


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

[User]
CMV: the global reaction to coronavirus is ridiculous

130k total confirmed cases
5k deaths
69k of confirmed cases recovered

Global population 7.5 billion.

Those most at risk are the elderly and people with pre-existing conditions. What am I missing?
Less then 0.0018% of the world is infected and yet the markets are collapsing. I lay the majority of blame on our sensationalist media and how they have been reporting this. Everyday I see headlines that suggest the number infected have jumped considerably but a 20% rise of 100 is not as significant as a 20% rise of 100 million!

Early on there were even pictures being staged of empty supermarket shelves again inciting panic.

Finally- its basically a bad flu. If this was Ebola Id be concerned but as it stands I cant see why the world is reacting as it is and wish people would calm down. Peoples pensions are going to be obliterated not to mention working peoples livelihoods.

Change my view if I am missing something??

[Assistant]
You're missing something.

The flu has a vaccine.  This does not.  The mortality rate for this is 10x greater than the flu.  So it's worse, full stop.

But what you're not seeing is that the point here is to slow it down. That's why everything is shutting down.  If 10 million people get it, then 10 million people get it.  But if they all get it at ONCE, then no health care system in the world can keep with that.  If it is spread over several months, and smaller portions of people have it at any one time, we can keep pace with it and ride it out.

The market reaction is probably a bit overblown, but the impact on the supply chain from China wasn't just some minor blip.

The fact that "only" 130,000 people have gotten it is simply because of how new it is.

There was a moment during the Holocaust when only 10 Jews had died.


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

[User]
Where does skin end, and what happens?

In orifices like mouth, ears, genitals, the skin moves to internal.  When does that transition happen, and what happens in that transition? What adheres it at those points? When is no longer skin?

[Assistant]
Skin as derived from the embryonic ectoderm ends at the pectineal line (in the anus) and  at the vocal cords (at the mouth). At this transition, squamous epidermal cells transition to more cuboid and columnar cells interposed with mucus producing goblet cells (so named because they look like microscopic goblets). This occurs all over the body, the two surface tissue types merge together in a transitional zone.

Underlying the more superficial layers of the epidermis lies the dermis, below that there is connective tissue stroma, blood vessels, muscle nerves and bone. The 'skin' ends below the dermis, there is a boundary known as the basement membrane that serves to attach the skin to underlying tissue.


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

[User]
If a human needs 2000 calories per day, could a human be said to run on 96 watts?

2000 kilocalories = 8360000 joules

1 day = 86400 seconds

8360000 joules/86400 seconds = 96 watts

I have to be doing something wrong here. We don't require on average less than a lightbulb, do we?

[Assistant]
Surprising as that may sound, you are right, the ballpark power expenditure of humans is roughly that of a 100W light-bulb running constantly. If that sounds surprising, keep in mind that incandescent lightbulbs are extremely inefficient, with less than five percent of the energy put in being converted to visible light. This is because the bulbs are black body emitters, which need pretty damn high temperatures (about 3000K) or so to emit significant amounts of visible light and most of the energy used to heat them up ends up being dissipated as heat (e.g. as infrared thermal radiation).

Edit: An interesting tangent is that lighting, because it is both so ubiquitous and inefficient is actually responsible for a huge fraction of our energy consumption, lighting eating up roughly 20% of all the electricity produced. This is why the switch to significantly more efficient sources such as LEDs may have a large impact on reducing electricity/energy consumption worldwide.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Why is Palpatine desperate to get a powerful, young apprentice - first with Anakin, then with Luke?

The obvious answer is that "If I don't turn them to the Dark Side, then they will grow to become powerful enemies as Jedi". Which is fine, I get it.

But, in a world where the Emperor wishes to set up his Rule of One, seeing himself as the culmination of the Sith, why does he NEED a powerful apprentice?

When Vader became a cyborg, surely he was perfect for the Emperor. Still exceptionally powerful (at around 80% of the Emperor's power, or thereabouts) and fully under the thumb to do his bidding. He had no need, in the Rule of One, to have someone to teach all of the Sith secrets to. Just subordinates to exercise his will.

And yet, at least in the old EU, the Emperor demonstrated nothing but disappointment that he was robbed of a powerful apprentice that 'could have been'. So much so that he kept trying to get him killed off. But a fully powered Vader may well have grown strong enough to defeat the Emperor, and therefore undo all the good work in setting up the Rule of One.

With Luke, he finally saw the opportunity to get the Anakin he initially wanted. And as mentioned above, yes, if he didn't turn him, then he would've grown as a powerful Jedi. But then he still would've faced the issue of potentially being overthrown.

The need to search for a powerful apprentice falls in line with the Rule of Two, to ensure the progression in power of the Sith. But in a world where the Emperor intended to be the final master, why?

[Assistant]
If using your power has a negative effect on you, better to have a flunky to run blocks for you.

Have the 2nd most powerful guy fight with the 3rd most powerful guy.

Then have the winner fight the next one.


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

[User]
ELI5: What actually happens to the dust and dirt that we inhale into our lungs everyday?

How does it get ever expelled if it sticks to the mucus walls?

[Assistant]
Little hair-like structures called cilia constantly sweep the mucus lining upwards out of the initial respiratory tract (bronchus). Any dirt or dust that gets caught in the mucus in this step will eventually get swept out and enter the stomach.

Smoking damages these cilia which causes more particles to remain in the lungs.

Dirt and dust that get stuck deeper in your lungs will remain there forever. Your immune system will form a fiber scar over it to isolate it from your body.


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

[User] ELI5 Why is loss of appetite a symptom of illness, if you need energy to recover?

[Assistant]
Digestion requires a lot of energy. In fact, if you eat a big meal you might notice that you feel sleepy afterwards. When fighting an illness, the body wants to focus all of its energy on the problem at hand, not waste some of it on digestion. While digestion will be needed to take more energy in eventually, the body still has a lot of energy stored already so it doesn't really need to waste that effort on new food while it is getting rid of the urgent issue of the illness.

For the short term, this is fine. However for longer illnesses, like cancer, it can lead to dangerous weight loss.


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

[User]
Did Immanuel Kant Consider Women and African Races As Irrational ?

Rationality is a pretty common theme in Kantian ethics however my question is according to Kant's defination what exactly counts are being rational ? What makes a person rational ?

Secondly my question is that did Kant consider women and non-caucasian races as rational beings ? I heard from a feminist defender once that Kant didnt consider women or Africans are rational beings and saw them as intellectually inferior. Is this true ?

Im not a Kantian however i am researching on Kantian ethics and I really wanna know what Kant's views were on rationality, race and gender ?

[Assistant]
I cant speak of Kants thoughts on women, but there was a great article written by Pauline Kleingeld about Kants racism called Kants Second Thoughts on Race. (In the article she claims that Kants conception of women does not undergo the same change as his views on race).

In it she argues that, originally, non-white races, according to Kant, did not hold the same level of mental capacities, but that they, by status of their humanness (which he did think other races were human) belonged to the category of Vernunftwesen (rational being). He initially posited a racial hierarchy between races, but as Kleingeld mentions, toward the publishing of *Toward Perpetual Peace*, he seems to have reasoned himself out of his former views due to his ideas of cosmopolitanism. He even denounces chattel slavery in that same work. There are still unresolved issues on the topic, such as why he endorses an inherently racist book on physiology, but the article is a very worth while read.

Edit: OP not sure if you downvoted me, but did you somehow want an article that argued that Kant was a racist and could never change his mind on the topic? Theres tons of literature out there that tries to cancel KantIm offering a nuanced view.


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

[User]
ELI5: Does airtight automatically mean water proof? How about visa versa?

For example - were space suits made waterproof for training purposes or were they already waterproof and it just so happened to work out for underwater training?

[Assistant]
Air molecules are smaller than water molecules so airtight is generally automatically waterproof. Think about it - if you have an airtight container (say, a bottle) and hold it underwater it stops water getting in and air getting out

BUT... Airtight things are usually designed to keep air *in* while watertight things are often designed to keep water *out* so it's not as simple as that because something like a submarine is designed to hold out huge pressures of water, which is a much more difficult proposition than holding in normal atmospheric pressure of air.

So airtight automatically equalling waterproof only really counts when trying to prevent air/water going the same direction and only with reasonably equal pressures.


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

[User]
[House M.D] How often does House get a case and what do his fellows do in between?

I assume House does as little as possible but do his fellows do anything?

[Assistant] Because of his reputation among the medical community he can expect about a case a month with people from across the country coming to him and his team. In between cases the team will work in different areas of the hospital from the clinic to oncology and surgery. House himself has attempted to shirk those additional duties as much as possible and has been forced to work the hours when a case isn't available.


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

[User] ELI5: How much more DNA do we share with relatives than the average stranger?

[Assistant]
Among humans, all but about 0.1% of our DNA is the same. That .1% accounts for all differences we see among humans. Every color, shape, and size.

For identical twins, the DNA is 100% the same. Siblings/parents/children share about 50% (of the .1%). Grandparents/grandchildren it's about 25% (of the .1%).

A distant cousin might share .01-3% (again, of that .1% that's different, not the total).

With a stranger, nearly none of that .1% that makes us unique is shared, but of course, the 99.9% we share with all humans would still be the same.


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

[User]
CMV: I don't think that retiring MIB agents should be neurolized

So, when an agent leaves the Men in Black they are neurolized so that they don't remember anything they used to do, as we saw at the end of the first documentary. Here is why I think it is wrong:

1. This person just dedicated a large portion of their life (likely 20+ years, based on other agency's retirement policies) to something they probably truly believed in. Wiping all of that away is just cruel.

2. Agents that have family have a cover for why they're not around any more. In the case of K it was a 20 year coma. So, he just wakes up from his coma with a sudden government pension being deposited into his account. K also suffered his entire time in, missing his wife and watching her from a distance. Personally, I would want to remember my sacrifice.

3. If it is for a security purpose, these people spent their entire career keeping the secrets that they knew. Why would they all of a sudden just start spewing the secrets? In other agencies, when you have a clearance you are still obligated by your non-disclosure agreement even after you get out, so why should this be any different?

4. As shown in the second documentary, de-neurolizing can be a real bitch should the need arise.

[Assistant]
Non-agents don't have access to current situations.  There's a good chance they might see an alien or a situation involving aliens and get themselves involved thinking that they know best, or that they have to intervene when in reality everything is fine and they're just not briefed on what's happening.  They very well could misread a situation, think someone is in trouble, that it's life or death, and screw up something delicate because they're no longer in the know.

Better to wipe their memory than risk a retired, rogue agent destroying important interstellar relationships on accident.


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

[User]
Email greetings doubts. Do I (a potential PhD student) keep calling a professor, I exchanged several emails with, Dear Professor [name] [surname] ?

I have been looking for a PhD position since some time and have been talking to various professors about it. I always start the first email with Dear Professor XYZ, and often they say: "you can call me XYZ" which is a bit of a relief since I find it awkward to keep calling a person Dear Professor all over again. But I am also taking to professors who did not say that and either I keep starting emails with their title and full name or I just start saying "hello" to avoid using the name and title ( not ideal neither) since I start to feel as if I am overdoing it with a "Dear Professor" when they say" Hi Kiwitoja".

Is there a number of emails exchange after which I can start greeting them less formally? Or is it just in my head that "Dear Professor" starts to sound weird?

[Assistant] After the first email, standard practice is to use whatever they put in their signature. If they dont use their first name in their signature, stick with Prof X or Dr Y, etc. If you use a first name and they would prefer otherwise, they will let you know.


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

[User]
CMV: Voting Day Should be A Public Holiday

In many democratic countries, the day citizens vote is a public holiday. This is not the case in the US where citizens have to vote before or after work or during a lunch break. I'm from a country where the day people vote is a public holiday. The lines are pretty long in some areas, and the whole process can take a few hours, even if you are quite early.
So it makes me wonder, why one earth wouldn't the US not have voting day as a public holiday? It seems like it stops people from voting and that it results in less ballots being cast. This is because people simply do not have the time! People have to juggle a job, family obligations, basic errands needed to survive the day as well as transport and on top of this have to still make time to vote for their futures. It seems counter-intuitive and undemocratic, in the sense that it makes the democratic process less accessible.

Also, surely the people who won't be able to vote would be from a certain social class or demographic? For example, Im imagining that a single mother holding down two jobs wont be able to find the time to do whats required of her to support herself and her child(ren) in addition to having to find the time to vote.
In the case of it being a public holiday, I imagine people will say that this will just be used as a day off to relax and people wont vote anyway. I think the only people who wont vote would be people who didnt want to in the first place for particular reasons, such as cynicism or apathy toward the democratic system, not caring about whos in charge or no interest in the political system as they dont think it has an effect on their lives.

I think people will probably also point out that some businesses will likely stay open and citizens will have to work anyway and thus be excluded from voting. In this case, the majority of citizens will still be off work, so this wouldnt be a complete argument against not having voting day a public holiday. The people who have to work on voting day, would most likely have shorter shifts as this is a public holiday and be allowed to vote. Being that this would be a public holiday, businesses would be forced to pay workers overtime. This would be an incentive to shorter shifts and it would be treated like any other public holiday.
In addition, there would be a wider viewership of news networks and other sources of information as citizens would have more time to access this information.

I understand that I come from a different country, so perhaps what Im saying isnt going to be particularly applicable to the US. On the other hand, perhaps this is the wake up call that Americans need! In any case, I am greatly interested in discussion and would welcome the chance to change my view.

Edit: Thanks for clearing up a lot of misconceptions I had about the US, which were present in what I wrote.

Aside, from picking apart my own argument, I'd greatly appreciate to hear what the arguments are in the US by people who don't want to have citizens take the day off on voting day.

[Assistant]
Not everyone gets even federal holidays off.

Look at the current holidays.  Know what we'll end up having?  Three words: Voting Day Sales.

All the people who work retail and service jobs will have to work for the extra foot traffic, and won't have time off to vote.  It will hinder exactly what you're trying to advocate.


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

[User]
How do developers get their UI to look exactly the same on mobile and inside the browser?

Forgive me for my beginner question, I dont know a lot about mobile development but I would like to learn. Ive always wondered how developers are able to make an app that has the exact same UI on a mobile device, and in the browser or even a desktop app (for example, Discord).

In addition, its interesting that the mobile apps can be look the exact same on an iPhone and an Android. I am aware that you can use flutter for this, but then, **how do they build the web application that runs in the browser and looks so similar to the mobile app? How do they go further to build a desktop app that looks similar as well?**

I would appreciate if someone could explain to me how this works. Do developers use different technologies or are they able to use the same frameworks and languages when developing for web and mobile.

Thanks

EDIT: I am not asking about the mobile-first approach (building a web app and testing it in the mobile browser) but I am instead asking how developers build web apps (browser) versus mobile apps (App store or Google Play) versus desktop apps (electron apps, QT, etc) that look exactly the same.

[Assistant] Speaking as a react centric web developer, we'll write the core app once, which takes care of mobile browsers, desktop browsers and desktop apps (via Electron), and then we'll slap a React Native view on top of it for Android and iOS. The react native parts are basically just a thin presentation layer on top of the abstract business logic so it's not horrible to upkeep.