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

[User]
[The Mummy 1999] Why did the Medjai not just kill Imhotep? Why sentence him to Hom Dai which gives him a chance at becoming an even greater threat?

In the film we see his disciples are mummified, but Imhotep suffers from Hom Dai, which is supposed to be the worst of Egyptian curses.

Why then does this "worst" curse give the user almost godlike abilites if unleashed? I mean, I guess the caveat is that he HAS to be awakened again, but why even take the risk? Its akin to saying "Hey we're gonna punish this dude by burying him alive but make sure he doesn't get out or it's our ass."

I don't get the logic.

[Assistant]
One word: hubris.

The Medjai of the time believed firmly that they would never lose the ability to guard his tomb. They would remain a formidable force forever, and Imhotep would never escape,  thus punished to suffer for eternity.

They were wrong.


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

[User]
ELI5: What is the science behind Children who's parents are closely related end up being born with birth defects?

I really have no good reason to ask this other than i saw a article on king tuts birth defects and the fact that his parents were most likely brother and sister.

[Assistant]
in order for recessive traits to be expressed (to show up), you need to have two of them; otherwise the dominant trait will be expressed. when parents are closely related, they are more likely to have the same recessive traits, increasing the likelihood that their offspring will inherit two of them. since defects are often recessive, they tend to appear more frequently in the offspring of closely related parents.

the moral of the story is that genetic diversity is good!


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

[User] ELI5: Where am I safer during a thunderstorm with lightning: NEAR the water (shore), IN the water (swimming) or ON the water (boat)?

[Assistant]
There's no doubt that being IN the water is very dangerous because water (not pure water) is an electrical conductor. The energy of lightning strike dissipates within several metres and being in that area can be lethal. One way to survive is to dive but you probably won't be able to hold your breath long enough.

Being on the shore can be as dangerous because lightnings strike land more often than water and usually there are no high things on shores that lightning can strike. What is more, the step voltage on land can have longer ranges so lightning can kill you within dozens of metres.

Boat is definitely the safest place to be during a thunderstorm (remember that lightnings strike water less often than land and you are not IN water) but it would be safer to have some metal around you (but do not touch it).


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

[User] Were there changing seasons at all during the ice age, or was it like a long, harsh monotonous winter?

[Assistant] It would have depended on your latitude.  Generally speaking, an Ice Age simply means the average global temperature was lower than normal.  Near the equator, you would have still experienced seasons, but in the more northerly regions, the temperature was low enough that there was ice year or snow year round.


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

[User] [Marvel] Why does Death prefer Deadpool to Thanos?

[Assistant]
most people see Death as something evil, something that ends the joy of being alive.

Deadpool, tortured and in constand late-stage cancer sees Death more like Death likes to see herself, as pleasant release from the pains of injury and sickness. Deadpool actually wants to die, what Death has to offer, not just to impress her, he actually loves her for what she is.


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

[User]
[DC] Would testimony taken under the effects of the lasso of truth be admissible in court?

Im trying to think of the best conditions to have a good discussion so Im going to say that the lasso has never been wrong but nobody but Wonder Woman knows it will always work.

[Assistant]
Clearly you couldn't even GET that far. The 5th amendment would prevent it from being a possibility (same as a lie detector).

The 6th as well (basically a fair trial and right to confront the accusers and examine the evidence. The Lasso is, well, magic, so).

So, the answer would be no, but it wouldn't even get that far.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do we men seem to be driven away from the thought of monogamy, and marriage in general, but agree to it anyway? Is agreeing to it based on cultural standards? (I do not speak for all men. Only ones that feel the same way, openly or secretly)

[Assistant]
Biologically, a human male's ejaculation contains on average 150,000 sperm cells. Only one sperm cell is needed to fertilize an egg. Meanwhile, human females release an egg every month and, if fertilized, require 9 months of pregnancy.

From this purely biological standpoint, males only lose out in terms of spreading their genes if they stick to one female. Females benefit if their male partner is monogamous since his attention is not divided on other females.

However, culturally and economically, it's preferable to practice monogamy. Most places nowadays have a 1:1 male to female ratio (in the distant past, men were more likely to die due to fighting which skewed the ratio towards women) so equal pairings would prevent an excess of single men. Excess single men can lead to problems in terms of unrest. Plus, two parents providing for the children has more benefits than a single parent in terms of earnings and childcare.


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

[User] [Superman] How does Superman deal with flys and other small insects getting in his face while flying?

[Assistant] Kal-El has a frictionless TK bubble that protects him from a lot of punishment and allows him to perform otherwise physically impossible feats of strength, in flight it protects him from building up heat from air friction as well as redirecting insects and seagulls around his slipstream so they don't get lodged in his teeth...


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

[User] ELI5: When transferring money from one bank to another digitally, what exactly is being transferred?

[Assistant]
Its trading IOUs

All your bank account really is, is the bank saying they 'owe' you your balance whenever you'd like it. And of course, you trust them to pay you when you want it.

All this does is shift that. Lets say you transfer $100, the other bank now has an IOU you for $100, and your original bank takes $100 off their IOU to you.


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

[User]
If you were to plant a bunch of trees in a place that doesn't have a large tree count, such as England, would there be a noticeable difference in air quality?

Does planting more trees in a concentrated area provide a noticeable difference air/oxygen quality in the area?

[Assistant]
Not particularly. The vast majority of oxygen comes from oceanic algae, not trees. Atmospheric gasses also rapidly mix in turbulent air, eliminating local differences.

Air Quality is a different thing to oxygen content though, and is generally concerned with the parts-per-million (PPM) or parts-per-billion (PPB) of some pollutant.

Shanghai for example would have far worse air quality than Copenhagen, but the same gas percentages.


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

[User] ELI5: How does the weight exit your body when you're losing weight?

[Assistant] The vast majority of fat is lost through breathing.   Since fat is stored as long hydrocarbon chains, the body can break it down for energy, then the leftover bits are carbon which is shuttled to the lungs where you breath it out as carbon dioxide.


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

[User] How is matter added to the singularity at the center of the black hole if the singularity is just a tiny point? Why wouldn't it just orbit really fast?

[Assistant]
>How is matter added to the singularity at the center of the black hole if the singularity is just a tiny point?

We don't really know what happens under these conditions -- there is good precedent for believing that quantum effects become significant at this scale, and we don't have a working theory of quantum gravity which can make accurate predictions under such extreme conditions.  It is likely that there is no such thing as a singularity in nature.

>Why wouldn't it just orbit really fast?

Because inside the event horizon of a black hole, *all possible paths* terminate at the singularity.  In order to orbit near the singularity, you would need to reach speeds greater than the speed of light, which is not possible.


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

[User] If metals are such good conductors of heat, how does my cast-iron pan's handle stay relatively cool when the pan is heated?

[Assistant]
Cast iron is not that great of a conductor of heat. That's one of the reasons it takes a long time for the pan to heat up. This is also why it's great for cooking. It will also retain that heat once it has it.
Your handle stays cool because of this

Aluminum is a great conductor of heat and it loses its heat rapidly too making it a not so great cooking material.


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

[User] ELI5: how are cured meats like salami and pepperoni safe to eat without being cooked?

[Assistant] Cured foods are highly dehydrated, using salts, heating, or other processes. That lack of water keeps bacteria from growing on cured meats, making them able to last an extremely long time, especially when stored in sealed packaging.


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

[User]
Why are high end salaries in the US so high?

Maybe I'm mistaken, but it appears that in pretty much every other developed country salaries >250k USD are nearly unheard of compared to the US where many bankers, doctors, lawyers, engineers, and managers are making that much.

[Assistant]
There is a lot of interesting work done on this. Good Economics for Hard Times by Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee discusses ballooning salaries as the result of very low top marginal tax rates after Regans presidency and tax reforms. Additionally, many of those top salaries are in the finance sector, and since many of those jobs are in located in New York and London those high salaries would also be located there. Low top marginal tax rates is a large factor in why those salaries are uniquely American, and are not present in other OECD countries.

Claudia Goldin and Lawerence Katzs book The Race Between Education and Technology is another good source in the increase in salaries of high skilled workers, but wont directly address your question.


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

[User]
[Matrix] Why do the agents miss their shots?

Any hacker worth their salt can make an aimbot.
What up?
Is it all a ploy to get Neo to the architect?

[Assistant]
Agents can bend the rules but not break them. Pistols arent terribly accurate at range and hitting a moving target is hard. Or rather its hard to hold a pistol accurately. If theyre held in a clamp theyre accurate up to hundreds of yards.

Copied from somewhere else, Im no expert:
The Model 1911 .45 semi-auto, in its unmodified form, was rated by the Army as having an effective range of 50 yards. The Army definition of effective range was the range at which a soldier of average skill, trained with the weapon, could hit an enemy soldier anywhere on his body, with half his shots, if the enemy soldier were standing still in the open.


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

[User] ELI5: What makes a CD an EP and not an LP or album?

[Assistant]
EP and LP are terms that originated with the technology of vinyl records.

An LP is a 12" vinyl record which when played at 33-1/3 rpm gave you ~22 minutes per side -- they were able to stretch that a little bit but not too much.

A 'single' was a 7" vinyl record with a bigger hole in the middle (it was developed by a different company who originally wanted to sell a different player) which when played at 45 rpm gave you a single song on each side of 3-5 minutes (later stretched when singles got longer).

An 'EP' was in the middle.  The format varied but often it was a 7" record but played at 33-1/3 RPM instead of 45 RPM so you could fit perhaps 10 minutes on each side.

In the industry, the format ceased to matter after a while, an EP became synonymous with a 3-6 song release.  Whenever a group is inspired enough to write more than a single and its B-side but not inspired enough to write a full album they could release something in the middle and call it an EP.


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

[User]
CMV: There's no "wheel broken" in the ending of Game of Thrones.

Obvious spoilers of course.

>Daenerys Targaryen : Lannister, Targaryen, Baratheon, Stark, Tyrell they're all just spokes on a wheel. This ones on top, then that ones on top and on and on it spins crushing those on the ground.

>Tyrion Lannister : It's a beautiful dream, stopping the wheel. You're not the first person who's ever dreamt it.

>Daenerys Targaryen : I'm not going to stop the wheel, I'm going to break the wheel.

I actually liked this quote from the show and I thought she was going to institute an absolute enlightened monarchy with dragons just like how they did with canons during Renaissance. Just like Jaehaerys I did and Aegon V failed.

Then the show ends with elective monarchy in the end. Tyrion interprets this as breaking the wheel. But wouldn't high lords still play their game of thrones? Wouldn't it be worse since they strive to be high king by bribing and political intrigues? Don't they still have hereditary birthright except high king? Wouldn't they still exploit the smallfolk? I think this would go worse now since the power of monarch is weakened and no longer a birthright.

I can interpret it as dawn of new era, but not exactly breaking the wheel. Didn't work well in Holy Roman Empire and Poland-Lithuania Commonwealth... Someone please change my mind.

[Assistant] It's plausible that it's broken.  After all, Bran is King and Three Eyed Raven.  The last Three Eyed Raven lived over a thousand years.  This one might too, making further elections by the thereocracy unnecessary.  With his thousand eyes and (eventually) Master of Whisperers he can see everything and end humanity's oppression of the forests forever.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do actors/actresses in their late 20s and their 30s play high school kids in movies?

I've never understood why they cast people who are way older than teenagers to play high school students in films.

[Assistant]
Because dealing with actual kids is a lot harder than simply pretending that the adult actors are kids.

In addition to the lack of experience that come with younger age you will also have to deal with all sorts of regulations intended to protect children from exploitation.

Finally there is in some cases the problem that children tend to grow up. A 15 year old kid can change their appearance dramatically over a few years while a twenty something will have much more consistent looks.


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

[User]
Will a water balloon with an air bubble break more or less easily than an "airless" water balloon?

When thrown against a solid object like, say, a little brother's face, which type of water baloon will break more easily (assuming the exact same balloon, filled to the exact same volume at the exact same temperatures and thrown at the exact same speed):

1) a balloon filled with water and an air bubble

...or...

2) a baloon filled completely with water, and no visible air bubble?

[Assistant]
Did nobody here do the thing when you were kids in which you take a water balloon and then fill it half with air?

The air acts as a shock absorber and it's actually *super* hard to get it to pop by throwing it against a surface, even throwing it hard just causes it to bounce. Good way to freak people out without actually getting them wet.


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

[User] ELI5: How does the sun give us vitamin D?

[Assistant]
It doesn't, people just say it does as a shorthand way of talking about it.

Your body naturally produces it... most of the way. But it takes ultraviolet light to trigger the last chemical reaction that makes it biologically viable to the body.


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

[User]
[Fiction] Would anyone remember language or anything after being alone for millions of years?

So in Stories I've seen many times where a Character has been alone or in a void or something for millions of years or thousands & when our main characters meet them they understand English very well, but is it realistic for someone to understand anything after being alone for so long??
I mean i think staying alone for that long will make anyone crazy as hell

Spoilers for Attack on Titan
But in that show there's a girl named Ymir who has spend many many millions of years alone, but she understands whatever our main characters say to her.

[Assistant]
Depends on a few things.

A human left alone for a few decades will be pretty well insane. If they dont kill themselves first.

If you have some form of stimulation you might be able to stave off insanity, if you have stimulation like media in any form  youll still be exposed to language in some form.

Additionally we dont know what memory capacity looks like, can a baseline human still form new memories after a millennia? Does the brain just keep overwriting old connections to make new memories? Will the brain stop making long term memories and you just live with a short term memory to protect your own mind from shitting the bed?

As for non human intelligences who the hell knows.


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

[User] ELI5: How do people know how many people watched an episode of a show?

[Assistant]
In the US, a company called Neilsen gather the information either through users manually recording their viewing habits, or using a box attached to the TV to measure usage.

Obviously not everyone has these boxes, so a bit of statistical jiggery pokery goes on to get the final result: the numbers are not exact.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is dead weight (unconscious person) so heavy when the person's weight doesn't change?

[Assistant] When a person is alive and with-it, they "participate" in being held by making sure weight is distributed to your core.  Getting a floppy body to have its weight distributed to your core muscles is hard and this makes balancing difficult and causes you to engage relatively weak muscles.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does the West Coast of NA have coniferous forests and East Coast have deciduous forests?

[Assistant] We actually have conifer forests in the eastern part of the US, some communities such as spruce/fir  forests are climax type. Most of the East Coast would be considered second growth, with a lot of maples and oaks coming back after intensive agriculture in the 18th and 19th centuries.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do people in the military often wear their uniform to formal events like weddings?

I guess I'm specifically wondering about this in the US, but since it happens in other countries to perhaps there is some common background behind the practice.  Are military personnel required to wear their uniform to their own wedding?  Are they allowed to wear it whenever they want, and they just choose to wear it at weddings and other formal events?  And when did this tradition start?  Is it some relic of long long ago?

[Assistant] Because it's often the nicest suit of clothes that we own, and we're required to keep it in good shape and appearance anyway.  It's there, it looks good, and you already paid for it, might as well use it.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why the Euro would crash if Greece exited it

I still don't understand why Eurozone countries would rather bail them out (at significant costs). Is the cost of them quitting the Euro worse? I don't get why.

[Assistant]
To a five year old:
You and a bunch of friends are sitting at a lunch room table at school. You are all real close, share a lot of history together, and everybody sees you as a group rather than a bunch of individuals. One day, your friend Winston accidentally craps himself while giving a history presentation. Now the entire school will no longer talk to you, or your friends because you are all associated with Winston craps-his-briefs.

Your group of friends is Europe, Winston is Greece, crapping his briefs is defaulting, and nobody talking to you is the world refusing to loan you money because one of the Countries in your association couldn't pay back its debts.


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

[User] CMV: Indiana's "religious freedom" bill isn't as bad as people are making it out to be.

[Assistant] Just to set aside the "Religious Freedom" part of it for now, your main argument is that a business owner should be allowed to refuse service to a customer based on moral reasons, but doesn't that allow for discrimination based on race? If you replaced "gay" with "black" or "same sex marriage" with "interracial marriage" in your argument, would you still argue that it's not as bad as people say? Perhaps in this particular instance it may not have as much impact as people are saying, but it sets a terrible precedent for what excuses discrimination and for that reason it is just as bad as everyone says.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why does combustion engines need multigeared transmission while electrical engines can make due with a single gear?

So trying to figure out why electrical engine only needs a single gear while a combustion engines needs multiple gears. Cant wrap my head around it for some reason

EDIT: Thanks for all the explanation, but now another question popped up in my head. Would there ever be a point of having a manual electric car? I've heard rumors of Toyota registering a patent for a system which would mimic a manual transmission, but through all this conversation I assume there's really no point?

[Assistant]
A combustion engine only works in a fairly narrow range of rpm. They usually need at least 1000rpm to be able to generate enough power to propel a car.

The reason is that piston movement is directly proportional to rpm, and you can only fit a certain amount fuel+oxygen in each cylinder. So the amount of fuel you can burn, and the amount of power you generate is limited by rpm. There are ways to push that limit (e.g. by compressing and cramming more fuel+oxygen in), but that only goes so far. For more power, your engine needs to turn faster.

An electrical engine does not have that limit. You can supply more or less as much current as you want (until your wires start melting), regardless of whether the engine is turning or not.

So electrical engines work at lower rpm.

It also goes into the other direction though. Electrical engines have far less moving parts (no piston, valves, no mechanisms that convert piston movement to rotation, ...), and thus can potentially work at higher rpm before falling apart.


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

[User] [Harry Potter] Does a Patronus Charm serve any purpose besides anti-Dementor duty? What else can it do?

[Assistant]
It can provide endless amounts of personality quizzes on the internet

On a serious note, there are a couple of other uses that have shown in *Harry Potter* media. Kingsley Shacklebolt once used his as a messaging device, sending it to the dancefloor at Bill and Fleur's wedding: when it opened its mouth, it spoke in his voice. McGonagall did the same at one point, and was proficient enough with the charm to cast three at once.

Snape also used his Patronus to guide for Harry through the Forbidden Forest without revealing himself, which would be another niche use. You could also use it as a light source in dark places if *Lumos* wasn't good enough for you.

Since Death Eaters are apparently incapable of summoning Patronuses, you could also use it as a test to prove someone was or wasn't one, if you needed to do so. Same deal with proving someone's a werewolf or not, which is why Lupin tried to never cast his. However, since Patronuses are literally the most difficult defensive spell to cast, whoever you were trying to out would have some wiggle room.

Finally, since you can only summon a Patronus by thinking about the things that make you happy, what you hope for in life and the people you love, maybe wizards could use their summoning as a form of self-care?


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

[User] ELI5: How do wrist pedometers (like fitbit) actually know how many steps you've taken.

[Assistant]
When you walk, every time your foot hits the ground it decelerates - going from moving to stationary very quickly. This sends a little shock wave of acceleration up your body that can be sensed anywhere. (Note: acceleration = change in velocity, whether speeding up or slowing down).

The Fitbit has an accelerometer, a tiny electromechanical device that can sense acceleration and generate an electrical signal. The Fitbit looks at that signal for the strong spikes that happen on each step and counts them. It's not 100% perfect, it will miss a few steps and count a few false-steps but overall they've tuned it to be pretty accurate.


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

[User]
why are philosophical texts not written in simpler terms?

Most professors advocate for students to write in simpler and comprehendible words, yet philosophical texts feel impossible to read. Is there a deliberate reason for this, or has it always been this way?

[Assistant]
If you read any article in an economics journal like QJE and compare it with an undergrad paper, you'll see totally different levels of difficulty. Its hard to parse QJE papers without an understanding of a lot of math, but for a lot of undergrad papers, sure.

Its the same for philosophy. Rigour is expected to be much higher in academic philosophy as opposed to undergrad philosophy, and as a result papers and books are much more technical.


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

[User] ELI5: What happens when you tune a radio? How do the frequencies change?

[Assistant] The station frequencies don't change, but by tuning you are adjusting the receive part of your radio to become sensitive to a certain frequency you want to hear. Inside the radio are parts (capacitors, inductors and resistors) that allow this resonance frequency to be set.


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

[User]
[Doctor Who] Are the Doctor's future regenerations built into his genome?

If we fully sequenced the Doctor's DNA (if he even has it), could we predict the appearance/personality of his next regeneration? Do we even have a biological explanation for regeneration?

[Assistant]
The change is dependant on subconscious and situation. You can control regeneration with practice and meditation (as mentioned with Romana, and as Master statedly turns into a younger version to reflect Tennant's Doctor).

Doctor could have some control over regeneration, but the way he handles these crisises (acute immediate death seconds away) doesn't leave much time for thought. It might also be that Doctor isn't particularly focused (as Romana implies) and rather relies on subconscious.

Which is why #10 spoke like Rose and #9, #10, #11 were all younger than the previous incarnation. Bad Wolf indicates this to be a wish to escape the guilt and life-experiences of the War Doctor.  As #11 succeeds in getting rid of the guilt, #12 is again older (closer to the "long term average") and not looking like a doctorate-student (like Matt Smith).


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

[User]
Gas moons?

Is it posible for planets to have gas moons?
And a follow-up question: How small can a gas planet/moon be? - *the smalest gas spheres?*

[Assistant]
A gas moon at any radius will experience tidal deformation-- basically the planet's gravity pulls more strongly on one side of the gas moon than on the other, stretching it out-- which will cause it to rapidly spiral in and be ripped apart.

Besides that, it is very difficult to set up a scenario in which a gas moon could form. Put large amounts of gas around a planet and it will either be blown away by the solar wind or captured by the planet faster than it can coalesce into any decent-sized object. Generally, small amounts of gas do not have enough mass to hold them together against their kinetic velocities.

In short, gas moons are not at all likely.


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

[User]
ELI5: When launching a rocket into space, why is leaving the atmosphere at an angle more convenient than going straight up the entire way?

It seems that all rockets go straight and then readjust to leave the atmosphere at a 45 angle. Is it a better maneuver to escape Earth's gravity?

[Assistant] Because getting into space is less than half the battle. If you go straight up 100,000 miles, you will still come back down, even if it takes a while. Gravity doesn't magically disappear when you get up far enough, there is still gravity on the ISS. What they are doing is essentially "falling" at an angle which makes them constantly miss Earth on their fall. In order to get into orbit, you must be going fast enough that, as you fall, you keep missing the planet below.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is it that often when I'm sick, only one nostril is clogged or runny?

[Assistant]
The body uses one nostril at a time when breathing. It shuts down the other nostril and conducts 'maintenance works'. Clears out debris and secretes mucus to help dislodge stuff into the back of your throat.

When you are ill, you notice the congestion more due to the fact that ne nostril is already closed for maintenance while your 'breathing nostril' is having to breathe AND get rid off excess snot.


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

[User]
Fracking. What is it? What is the scientific consensus (or current research/thinking) on its environmental impact?

There is a lot of information out there on fracking and I am somewhat confused by it. So what exactly is fracking? And, what is the scientific consensus or what does the research say about its environmental impacts (i.e. groundwater contamination, earthquakes etc.)?

[Assistant]
Fracking is the process of injecting high pressure fluids into certain types of rock in order to fracture them, allowing trapped natural gas to percolate through and be recovered at the well. Without the artificial fracturing the rock is not permeable enough for the gas to be recovered.

As far as environmental impact there's 2 major concerns raised - the first is seismic activity, the second is groundwater pollution by the fluids they inject to cause the fracturing.

Seismic activity is inevitable in fracking, as if you're fracturing rock, you are by definition creating seismic events (an earthquake is the vibration caused by brittle failure of rock). However, almost all the seismic activity is of negligible magnitude (i.e., you can detect it with a very sensive seismometer, but it's not noticeable at the surface). There is some evidence that fracking can trigger larger events, but it's worth noting that the strain being released in these cases would have been building up anyway - you are simply triggering an event which would have occurred at a later date with a larger magnitude (albeit in a different location).

The groundwater pollution is a significant risk, and there is a good deal of controversy about the fluids the fracking engineers use, as the exact composition of the fluids is proprietry. Proper legislation is catching up, but there's always the chance for things to go wrong.

The major advantage of fracking is the huge potential to recover truly enormous amounts of natural gas.


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

[User] [General/Mermaids] What kind of sports would mermaids play? How would they compete?

[Assistant] They would perfect the art of Blitzball. Each player would have different strengths and those that are magically attuned, as most Mermaids are, would be able to infuse their shots, passes, and tackles with added effects to hamper the opposing team.


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

[User] [Stargate] Do the Tauri (humans of Earth) have the technology to build their own Stargates?

[Assistant] Well there was that one episode, where an Ancient one who decided to become a mortal for an episode got stuck on Earth and managed to scrounge a some semblance of horribly unstable wormhole generator, so it looks like that Earth has bare minimum of components on hand, but not hyperadvanced knowledge of hyperspace tunnels.


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

[User] [Harry Potter] Why is the Monster Book of Monsters even a thing?

[Assistant]
Why is a school right next to a forest full of monsters a thing? Why is the fight to the death school sport event a thing? Why is a sport that hurls cannon balls at its 11 year old players a thing?

The wizarding world has *no* concept of health and safety. Frankly, by the standards of the wizarding world, a book that might take a finger is pretty tame.


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

[User] Why do bananas and other fruit rot so much faster when they are in an enclosed space with one another?

[Assistant]
Ethylene is a fruit hormone that is naturally produced by fruits. When green bananas are kept in a brown paper bag, they will ripen faster!

Rotting would be related to the concentration of ethylene in the surrounding gas. Also bacteria that causes rotting can easily proliferate to other fruits when they are kept closer together.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why can't cellular radio waves be divided for unlimited data carrying?

Since the EM spectrum is analog, couldn't an infinite number of digital channels be created to carry data?

I'm thinking about these news stories about how the Internet is getting clogged up like a freeway at rush hour with only a few lanes. If we take any given carrier spectrum, why can't it be divided into a near-infinite amount of channels to send data?

[Assistant] The narrower the channel, the less information you can send down it reliably.  Using your freeway example, you could take a 3 lane highway and give yourself 24 bike lanes but nobody'd be getting anywhere very quickly.


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

[User]
No teacher I've ever asked could answer this question: Why do atoms "want" a full valence shell of electrons?

Throughout high school I've been told "God made it so," and I was wondering if there really is a reason that atoms will go to such lengths to fill their valence shell. What makes it more stable to have 8 (or 2) electrons in that shell? What would happen were there not 8?

[Assistant]
It's all about minimising energy. Actually, *everything* is about minimising energy...for instance, things falling is because this minimises their gravitational potential energy.

In the case of atoms, electrons have allowed wavefunctions that solve the equations of quantum mechanics. These rules happen to allow for 8 electrons in the valence shell in the case of most elements. When you calculate the energy, it turns out that having an extra electron to fill the shell may decrease the total energy. As above, this makes the state preferable.


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

[User]
When does a bullet reach its maximum velocity?

I was wasting my time on youtube watching gun videos and this got me thinking. The bullet has to reach Vmax from standstill in some time, then is slows down due to air drag. It should be somewhere in the barrell, but is there a way to know when and where?
Also is this related to the force the gun kicks back with?

[Assistant] Probably right as it leaves the barrel. For many cartridges, firing the same bullet from a longer barrel will result in higher velocity because it doesn't "waste" as much of the gas expansion.  Imagine a very snub nosed revolver: there's a huge flash of fire out the barrel *around* the bullet, and all that gas expansion is "wasted" (it doesn't push the bullet any more)


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

[User]
Why does animal skin have so many calories?

I was talking with a friend about calorie counts (or kilocalories for the non-USA folks, I believe) and we both remarked how strange it was that eating the skin adds so many calories than just the meat.  For instance, a chicken breast with the skin is 193 calories, whereas meat alone makes it 142.  The skin, mostly very light, adds a significant amount of calories.  Is it like this in humans and other animals, as well?

So my question is why does the skin have so many calories?  Is there a biological reason so much energy is packed into it?  Is it just a higher fat content?

[Assistant] Yeah, just fat. A lot of animals store most of their fat just under the skin. It's generally better than keeping it in the muscles or somewhere else, though there is fat in other places just not as much.


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

[User] Can an atom be made of only from protons and electrons? Why are neutrons needed?

[Assistant]
The only such atom is the hydrogen-1 atom. There does not exist any other bound nucleus consisting only of protons. Every other bound nucleus has at least one neutron.

The reason is that the nuclear force doesn't allow all-proton or all-neutron systems to be bound (and protons have it even worse because of Coulomb repulsion). For low masses, the most stable configurations of nucleons tend to live near the region of (proton number) = (neutron number).

At higher masses, Coulomb repulsion becomes important and stability shifts toward larger N/Z.


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

[User]
Why are wifi, cell phone, radio and satellite television waves not constantly running into each other?

I'm know interference happens, but given the growing number of items that put out waves, even of the same frequency, how come we don't see more instances of waves colliding and breaking signal?

Is this possible, or am I way off?

[Assistant] Electromagnetic waves don't collide. An EM wave can go through another one as if it wasn't there. It's due to the linearity of the equations of electromagnetism: if you add two solutions, it's still a solution. They just superpose, and then you can filter the waves you want according to their frequency for example.


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

[User]
Does increase in individuals investing in financial markets impede GDP growth?

Individuals can either spend on goods/services, save, or invest.

1) Spending on goods/services directly increase GDP.

2) More savings allow banks to lend out more capital to businesses/individuals looking to invest or consume more. Assume the economy is not demand-constrained.

3) For investing in secondary financial markets (stocks/bonds/crypto), don't the money just stay in the brokerages not being spent or invested in future growth?

I hope my question makes sense here.

[Assistant]
3...
 No. When you invest in any of those things, you're buying the stock / bond / crypto from someone else, who is then doing something with your money. For example,  if you buy a share of TSLA, that share may come from another investor who could then use the money to buy something, or it may cone from Tesla who could use the money to build a factory.

Spending on things like factories or new technologies increases GDP more than consumer spending. If you spend $1000 on a TV, the only thing that gets produced is a TV. If Tesla spends $1000 on concrete to build a factory, the concrete gets produced, so we're already equivalent to the TV scenario, but cars also get produced in the future, so overall GDP growth is greater when people invest.


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

[User] ELI5: How Does Waterboarding Not Drown Someone?

[Assistant]
the victim is tiled back so the water just pools in the nasal cavity, with a towel over the face making it harder to breath. This gives the sensation of drowning without actually having water in the lungs.

I had a friend do this to me as i was curious about how back it would really be, it is fucking horrible.


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

[User]
ELIF: Why do things sound deafeningly quiet after a loud noise stops?

Ive noticed that right after something like a vacuum or some other loud machine stops, the remaining silence seems quieter than usual & in a way so quiet its loud. Im wondering if theres a name for this and how/why it occurs.

[Assistant]
You brain dynamically adjust for the volume of sounds.  So long as you can hear the sound well and it isn't overpowering, it will registers about the same, unless you are specifically paying attention.  Your brain will also adjust to loud background noise, to the point where it doesn't really register anymore.

That means where your brain has adjusted to load noises, quiet noises seem extra quiet.  The opposite is true as well.  If you are trying to keep quiet and someone starts talking in a normal voice, it will sound overpoweringly loud.


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

[User]
ELI5: Money stopped representing gold in the 1970's (I think).. So What does it represent now? Does this mean the goverment can just make infinite ammount of cash?

Money is just digits nowadays, it doesn't represent the total gold the state has. So can banks and goverment just change the digits?

[Assistant]
Governments could theoretically change the digits but it wouldnt actually change the value of things. If the US government decided to add two digits to the dollar so $1 is $100, the price of everything would just rise by an equal amount.

Ultimately, what gives money value is everyone agreeing it has value. A dollar is worth a dollar because we all accept dollars as payment. But a more tangible reason is that everyone needs it to pay taxes every year. It doesnt really matter if the government takes dollars, gold, or seashells. If you have to come up with $10,000 in seashells or go to prison, seashells have value.


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

[User] ELI5: What exactly happens if air trapped in a needle is administered into the bloodstream?

[Assistant] A few bubbles of air won't harm you, but a sufficiently large  amount can cause an embolism. An embolism is when the air blocks blood flow which can cause tissue death. If this happens in the heart, lungs, or brain, you die.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do search engines like Google search through so much data so quickly?

Honestly, this isn't from a completely ignorant perspective when it comes to programming, so feel free to go into great detail (If you'd like!) with your explanation.

[Assistant]
Suppose you have a very thick reference book that discusses gardening, and you wanted to find every page in the book that talks about roses.  How do you do it?

Well, in the worst case, you have to go through every page in the book, read it, and see if it talks about roses.  But in the best case, the book has an index in the back, which makes it easy; you find "rose" in the index, and it tells you which of the pages in the book talk about roses.

How did the book's index get made?  Well, some people went through every page in the whole book and wrote down what topics are mentioned in which page.  They might have used one index card for each topic; as they went through the book, when they found a page that talks about roses, they took the index card for "rose" and added that page number to it.  Then at the end they wrote down the contents from all of the cards at the end of the book, and that's the index.

So making an index is slow and takes a lot of work, but after that's done, using the index is easy and fast.

Well, Google works basically just like that.  Google has two parts: the "crawlers" or "robots" that visit all of the pages in the Internet and make an index of all the terms and phrases that appear in the Internet, and which pages each of them appears in.  Then there's the search page that you see and use, which looks up your search terms in the index.  The robots's work is slow and hard, but you don't normally see it unless you have an unpopular website that you update frequentlyin which case you notice that it may take a day or a few before Google notices the changes to your website (it hasn't incorporated your latest changes into the index).


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

[User] [Tolkien] When Elves die they go to the Halls of Mandos. When Men die, they pass on forever. What happens to Dwarves when they die?

[Assistant]
Depends who you ask.

The Elves believe that, upon dying, the Dwarves revert to the earth and stone from which Aule created them, and that is their end.

The Dwarves believe their souls go to the Halls of Mandos, in a place set aside for them, and that after the end of the world they will aid Aule in reshaping it.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is Italy rarely as mentioned when talking abiut ths Axis Powers?

Whenever I hear things about WW2 its always about fighting the Japanese or German but almost never  Italy.

[Assistant] The Italian people revolted and ousted Mussolini from power when the war turned against them, and afterwards helped support the Allied war effort against Germany.  As a result, they tended not to get demonized as much in post-war propaganda as Germany and Japan did.


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

[User]
Do photons decay?

Particles decay at a rate inverse to their speed in terms of light, so, if photons move at the speed of light, do they not decay? Do some bosons decay and other bosons not decay?

[Assistant]
Photons don't decay because they have no rest frame in which to decay. In other words, there would be no way of determining *when* a photon should decay.

Also, it's certainly not true that "particles decay at a rate inverse to their speed." For examples, protons don't decay (or have a decay timescale far exceeding the age of the Universe) no matter what their speed, while relativistic particles like muons decay very quickly.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is there a Springfield in every state?

[Assistant] Basically because people used to name cities after other cities, like how a lot of cities in the New England area are named after cities in England.  The first Springfield in the US was Springfield, Massachusetts, itself named after Springfield, Essex.  During the Industrial revolution, Springfield, MA became somewhat of a big deal, and other cities took its name.


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

[User]
ELI5; Why did Blackberries stop being popular?

They were among the first of the smartphones and seemed to have everything going from them, but not anymore. Why?

[Assistant]
Blackberry was focused on the business market. Originally it was only a business that could justify the expense of a smart phone so the apps were focused on the concerns of businesses. Apple came along and decided that hardware prices have come down enough that justified a consumer level smart phone. Apple focused on the general public and their phones were successful. Very successful.

Blackberry stuck with the idea that there were going to be 2 markets, a business market and a general consumer market because business contract are very lucrative. The problem is that many business discovered that an Iphone more than met their needs and they switched. It's been very hard for Blackberry to switch gears and it's been a slow decline ever since.


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

[User] ELI5: How does "glow-in-the-dark" stuff work?

[Assistant]
Glow-in-the-dark stuff contains materials called phosphors that absorb light energy and releases it slowly over time as visible light (this is called luminescence).

Edit: To clarify a bit more scientifically: These materials absorb light energy, and when they do the electrons in that material absorb that energy and jump to a higher energy level or 'state'. Electrons do not stay in this higher state for very long, because they like to be in the lowest energy state possible. When an electron jumps down from a higher energy state to a lower energy state, THAT is when energy is RELEASED. The 'height' of the jump determines how much energy is released, which determines whether you get infrared light, visible light, ultraviolet light, etc. Typically this jump is done in a very short amount of time (nanoseconds). In glow-in-the-dark materials, the electrons take longer to make the jump from the higher state to the lower state, which is why you see still it giving off light in the dark.


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

[User]
CMV: People too often advocate national pride without justification.

To be quite honest, I dont have a *fully* formed opinion on this yet, but I wanted to have a discussion on this topic.

Since I was a child, my mother and other relatives always told me how I should be proud of my country and I heard many people say similar things.

I never understood this because it seems a unreasonable to me to expect someone to be proud of the country of their ethnicity/upbringing. If I bring this up to anyone, most of the time, he/she will be flabbergasted that Im not proud of my country.

However, looking at it as objectively as possible, I feel as though your ethnicity or hometown is just a dice tossed when youre born. I feel lucky that I was born and raised in countries where I have freedom, opportunities to be successful, access to education, etc. I respect the people in the past who have made this possible today and the people who continue to fight for the rights of current and future citizens.

But I dont feel pride. Why would I feel pride for living in a country that I did absolutely nothing to be born into? I can appreciate the country and be happy to be part of it, but I wouldnt feel pride.

Some people say its pride of your culture and your upbringing  of the way you grew up. But again, this isnt something you chose to be a part of. You are born into wherever youre born into. You are born to parents that you cant choose. You didnt do anything to be part of this culture, so why should you feel pride?

Now, if I were, say, George Washington, and I helped to pioneer the way to a democratic nation, then I would be proud of what I helped accomplish. But in todays world, especially in America, I feel as though too many people push for national pride as a societal thing (i.e. its just the right thing to do) without justification.

[Assistant]
If your brother broke the 100 meter dash world record, wouldn't you be proud of him, even if you had nothing to do with it and were just coincidentally born to the same family?

Pride (i.e, pride in something external) isn't about what you did to associate with or assist an accomplishment, but about how much you value the achievements of something or someone you already associate yourself with, for whatever reason.


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

[User]
[Discworld] So... are the elephants actually feeling, sensing beings that are forever stuck on A'Tuin's back carrying the disc? Or are they more like flesh-statues or something?

If the elephants are actually living beings, with the intelligence, curiosity, and sensitivity typical of an Asian or African elephant, I'd imagine that their lives supporting the Disc on top of A'Tuin's back would be a fate worse than death.

Or are they not really elephants, but more like semi-autonomous appendages of A'Tuin's body? (I think the *The Light Fantastic*, the baby turtles have baby elephants on their backs (and still-molten discs) as soon as they hatch from eggs.)

Or do they spend their time in deep contemplation with no need for external stimulus?

[Assistant]
They are 100% real, living animals. These aren't just normal Elephants, they are *World* Elephants with blood made of mercury and bones made of gold. Their names are Tubul, Jerakeen, Berilia and Great T'Phon.

They are only vaguely aware of the universe around them. They don't mind at all about holding up an entire world for countless epochs, although they apparently complain of back problems from time to time.


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

[User]
ELI5: What causes someone to forget something they use basically on a daily basis, such as a phone number, debit card pin number, etc?

I use a gas card for work, and after using the same card with the same pin for 3 years, I completely forgot what it was. Could not for the life of me remember it.

[Assistant]
Think of that information as a destination. That memory has a physical location in your brain. To get there, you must follow a neural path. For whatever reason, that path is blocked one day. The memory still exists, you just have to find another way to get to it.

This is where mnemonics are helpful. It's like a detour on that road. You have to go a further distance (like having to remember the mnemonic device on top of the info) on the detour, but it still leads to the same place. The more paths you have to the destination, the better off you are.

Neural paths are actually a lot like real paths, the more you use it, the easier/faster it is to traverse it.

The hard part is figuring out why that path was erased for you. It could be that you learned something similar and the paths physically interfered with each other.


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

[User]
[MCU] Why did Hela not use the Space Stone?

She passes by it and says "that's not bad" but then completely disregards an infinity stone. Her goal is power and conquest right? But she doesn't capitalize on having an infinity stone? And furthermore, she then says her plans are dependent on getting the Bifrost sword to move around. What?? You have the SPACE STONE.

[Assistant] Having a thing and being able to USE a thing are different. She may not be able to fully utilize it, and happens to be one of the few people smart enough to realize that you do *not* fuck with an Infinity Stone unless you can *really* make it worth your while. Like, she was in the middle of a giant coup of her nation. Basically inviting Thanos' attention at that point would seem pretty short-sighted.


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

[User]
ELI5: "TIL that Harvard earns enough money on interest from its endowment that it could offer free tuition to all students and still make profit on the interest."

Saw this link. Can someone explain the details of this. How long could they offer tuition for free for all students?

[Assistant]
They have an endowment worth (in excess) of $32 **BILLION**.  If they earn 5% a year in interest (probably lower than they earn) that is $1,600,000,000 a year.  Assuming you take out $1,000,000,000 for the expenses of the school that is $600,000,000 at around $60,000 a year per student = 10,000 students.

Assuming no growth and steady returns (also no inflation) they could provide tuition for 10,000 students... forever.


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

[User]
ELI5 Major Depression

I am curious what depression is, the actual effects on the body, why it exists, like I'm 5 please :)

[Assistant] Feelings are your brain releasing chemicals. When you eat something tasty your brain releases happy chemicals and you feel happy. When you someone makes fun of you, your brain releases sad chemicals. People with depression don't have many happy chemicals. It makes them always sad even though good things happen to them. It makes them angry at themselves and they feel like they can't do anything right. It can make them have very little energy, too much or too little sleep, and eat too much or too little. If your parents had it your more likely to get it too. And it's a serious disease and telling someone with depression to 'cheer up' is like telling someone with a broken arm to 'get over it.' They need help from either talking to a friend, changing their lifestyle (exercising and eating better), or even sometimes pills to balance their brain chemicals.


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

[User]
[Lucifer] The big questions

A lot of our mortal characters have learned (or let's say are confronted with) the truth about Lucifer being the literal King of Hell, or Amenadiel's position in the Silver City. Why haven't they asked any of the big questions of two beings who know almost literally everything about creation? Do aliens exist? Are the Loch Ness Monster or Sasquatch real? Is Elvis dead? Do ghosts exist? Was Atlantis a myth? Are faeries real? Etc, etc, etc...maybe if Ella ever finds out?

[Assistant]
The only two people they could really ask are Lucifer and Amenadiel.

Amenadiel, despite being thoroughly seduced by life on Earth, would likely refrain from some of those questions out of some sense of duty to the Silver City.

As for Lucifer, Linda has tried to ask but he's way too selfish and self-serving to pay attention to anything that doesn't directly involved him. So even if he did know about some of those things (which he likely doesn't have the bandwidth to pay attention to in the first place), he would just avoid the question with a "Lets get back to MY problems."


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

[User] ELI5: Why are anti-virus programs pretty big in size?

[Assistant]
A lot of the older or more-established AV software are doing a lot of things.  They will have started out by doing anti-virus but over time they were competing with each other to add more features so that people will buy their product.  So now you get AV software with backup utilities, filters, website monitors, nanny software, etc.  Because they are doing a lot of things, they are now pretty big.

Related to this, tech-savvy users are preferring smaller AV software simply because they do one thing and none of the extra bells and whistles.

Larger companies tend to use the older more established, bloated AV software simply for peace of mind or force of habit or for the support, even if the features are not needed.  Because these older AV companies have the business of other companies, reducing their footprint is not an immediate concern.


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

[User] ELI5 Why do some metals ring when struck while others don't?

[Assistant]
Depends on their stiffness.

Any material,  plastic bag Vs a plastic bottle. A tight drum skin Vs a loose drum skin, will vibrate depending on its siffness. The stiffer the item the more it vibrates.

The shape of the item and how it relates to air makes the sound you hear. So a bell made of lead will ring louder than a ball of copper half buried in sand. Even though a copper bell is louder than a lead one.


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

[User] [Marvel/DC] If Magento had existed as a meta-human in the DC universe what would his history be like and would he have turned out as a hero or villain?

[Assistant]
Really hard to say because his experiences as a minority have so greatly shaped his worldview. He is a man who grew up seeing the absolute worst in humans because he was born different. Whether that be his religion, ethnicity, or race (for arguments sake lets use Mutant as a race).

Magneto is not really villainous, he is just extreme. Maybe he wouldn't be as extreme in the DC universe because he does not have the Mutant Rights cause to rally behind, but would probably still be pretty outspoken regarding Black, Gay, Immigrant, Women, rights, etc. He would probably still be married to Magda too.

I would say he would be a hero but the kind of hero everyone thinks is an asshole. Batman-ish in personality but a bit more politically inclined. Or he wouldn't be a hero at all. He would be raising his kids in Poland and teaching or something.


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

[User]
CMV: Tech companies are taking away users rights and abilities to control their software and hardware in order to give themselves more control over us, our data and our devices.

Ive been using Apple products for the last 10 years. I used to buy a MacBook pro with minimal specs and add ram and storage Id buy elsewhere for cheaper. This is no longer an option as everything is glued together now.

New MacBooks turn on when you open the lid, or press any key. Seems like a normal thing, but just why? why cant I have the power to press the fucking button when I want my device on?

You have to write a sudo command line in order to be allowed to download non-dev signed software on newer OSs.

Every social site seems to be convoluted with BS buggy unnecessary features mostly intended for stealing data to sell to advertisers.

Theres very few websites you can get news from through Google without having an Ad wall tel you to pay $1/mo or whatever.

I could keep going on and on. My main point here despite missing a lot probably, is that these companies are making it harder and harder for users to navigate there sites and utilize their hardware outside of what is specifically intended for it by them, It seems were going down a dystopian path where everything online is an Ad and everything is a separate subscription fee for X/mo.

I feel as though these companies are manipulating suggested results and using us as a product rather then a customer. They add dumb features that have nothing to do with the root of their site just to increase user time on the site for advertisers. It seems everything is geared towards a subscription services, email list or some other type of scammy model where you dont own what you buy and have to pay for what should be free information and honest search results.

[Assistant] Apple represents less than 10% of the laptop market.  You've _selected_ a minority player in the space that is exactly what you say it is - a closed system that is willing to sacrifice your flexbility for it's ideas about user experience.  It works great for many people, but not for you.  You've got options, so damning the "tech companies" seems wrong.


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

[User]
ELI5: What is wrong with the question "What existed before the Big Bang?" I have been told that this question doesn't make sense, but I have NEVER heard a decent layman's explanation as to why.

Thanks to those who attempted to answer my actual question (which was about the question itself and not a request for multiverse theory explanations, religious proclamations, etc).

[Assistant] It's unanswerable.  That's what is wrong with it.  It appears that time itself began with the Big Bang and so asking what happened before the Big Bang is like asking, "What is north of the north pole?"


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

[User]
[Rings of Power] why do elves even mourn their dead when they all respawan in Valinor anyway? and Valinor is a real place all elves visit eventually.

SPOILERS

If i remember well, in the second age when the show takes place, you can come and go to Valinor, it's not yet a  one way street. But ok, maybe in the show it is a one way street and when elves go back to Valinor, there's no going back to Middle-Earth.

Besides, Galadriel will end up there eventually anyway.

So why does she mourn and want to avenge her brother when his soul is out there in Valinor waiting to be respawned in a new body someday.

Sure it might happen in a decade, or next year, or thousand years later, but still, she's 100% that they'll meet again there someday, and a few hundred years is like maybe five years for elves, a decade is a blink of an eye for them. And there's no doubt that they'll meet again.

So why mourn and avenge?

[Assistant]
Well, we have real world religions that believe in eventual reunion with lost loved ones, yet they still go through those emotions.

You are still losing something with death, and you mourn that loss.


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

[User] Why does the itch of a mosquito bite 'go away' and then 'come back' hours later?

[Assistant]
I dont know for sure but it sounds like a direct and a late allergic respons. Typed really quickly:

First there is a direct activation of mastcells by IgE specific for molecules in the musquito's saliva, these mast cells degranulate and the histamine causes swelling, the proteases and attracked neutrophils causes local damage thus irritation.

After a few hours, around 4, the late onset repons of t-lymphocytes begins. This second and slower allergic immune respons creates again some more swelling and local irritation.

Patients with an allegic shock for example in a bee sting, can experience a second a few hours later. So even when they are stable again, they are taken to the hospital for observation.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] I'm a recent Stormtrooper Recruit and I'm being sent to the Death Star, what can I expect in terms of quality of life?

What types of living accommodations can I expect, is there any kind of recreational activities? What am I doing in my down time. Also are there any banks or financial institutions on board.

[Assistant] You will arrive and live in a communal barracks, with rows of bunks, a common area, a communal fresher and armory where you will be issued and return your weapons for maintenance. Most of your time will be set to patrolling the Death Star or on guard duty to help make sure you are kept somewhat sharp on this mostly boring post. There are no financial institutions such as bank, shops or restaurants. The Death Star is one giant secret military installation. There is little to no civilian presence on board. The largest civilian populations are found in the detention centers. Life is going to be pretty boring, think of it like being aboard a navy ship that rarely stops at port and when it does it is a military port. You get to watch some holos to help with the boredom. But it's just going to be boring unless the most powerful and fearsome military vessel ever created gets attacked by a boarding party. Then you might have something to do if you're in the right hemisphere.


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

[User] ELI5: How does blushing work? How come we don't blush on other parts of our body?

[Assistant] Blushing is a consequence of blood flowing to the brain as the brain requests more blood to be pumped due to overthinking. When you are blushing/feeling anxious/embarrassed, your brain goes into overdrive mode, which requires more oxygen, which is transported by the blood, hence more blood. All that blood flowing there also goes to the other blood vessels along the way, which are on the face.


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

[User]
ELI5: What's the situation with the Falkland Islands?

What has historically happened on/about the islands? What are Argentina and Britain's claims to them, and why do they want them (i.e. do they have any value)? Who currently lives there and will the upcoming referendum have any effect?

[Assistant]
The Falkland Islands, located off the east coast of Argentina, were initially uninhabited when they were first discovered 1600.  In the years that followed, the British, the French, the Spanish, and the Argentinians all tried to settle the island.  The British took control of the Island in 1833.  Since then, the Argentinians still claim the island as their own.

In the early 1980's, Argentina was controlled by military dictators, and the country was suffering from economic crisis and civil unrest.  When the new dictator came into power in 1981, he thought that annexing the Falklands would secure his position and distract the people from the country's problems; he didn't think the British would do anything about it.  However, when Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands in 1982, the British did respond.  They sent a task force and re-took the islands.  This is still a sore spot for the Argentinians and the British.

In short, the British want to keep the Falkland Islands because the inhabitants are British citizens, and are of British decent.  To them, the Falkland Islands is no different than any of their islands in the English channel, the only difference being the large distance.  The Argentinians want the Falklands because the islands are right besides their territory.  To them, it's a bit embarrassing that they cannot rule land that is just a few miles away from them.  Beside that, there really isn't anything special about the islands.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why personal computers mostly use graphical user interfaces and mainframe/servers & supercomputers are mostly controlled through command/text line?

I know why PCs use GUI that is interactive for personal usage but for the sake of making a complete el5 question for others, I've included it.

[Assistant]
People who use the latter category are mainly IT professionals and computer scientists who a) may not need the more user-friendly interface, which saves development costs, and b) might actually be restricted by a GUI. Pure command line interfaces give the user complete control of whatever the program in question is capable of, generally speaking.

E: the resource cost of running a GUI may also matter, as another comment says, especially when you're in the business of optimizing algorithms.


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

[User] ELI5: How come mammals are the only animals that produce milk? And not other animals (such as birds, fish, reptiles, amphibians, etc)?

[Assistant]
Because it is part of the huge risks mammals take on with live birth. All the animals you listed don't really take care of their young with the exception of birds and some species of the others. The reason for this is because it doesn't take much energy to develop and lay eggs so you can produce a lot of eggs and just lay them forget about them and hope some of your offspring make it but if not hey you got another mating season.

Live birth is different, you have to carry your baby to term and have it develop which is a huge investment in resources and time and could potentially put you in danger by affecting your running performance, hunting performance etc. and if you fail in raising your young or making it to term with the pregnancy you must wait for the next mating season and wait for the process of developing young all over again. So a way to help guarantee that your young will grow up is to give them milk, a super energy dense liquid to help your young get the energy it needs and hopefully survive since you already spent all this time investing in your young you should invest some more so it didn't go to waste.

Also just compare the number of young produced and you will see why live birth is risky. The biggest litters are produced by the simplest mammals with the biggest being from tailless tenrecs with an average of 15. That's pretty average for reptiles and amphibians usually lay hundreds of eggs.


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

[User] [Star Trek] Is it possible for Borg nanites to assimilate a Founder?

[Assistant]
No. Changelings store some of their mass in a subspace "pocket" they carry around with them, which allows them to take the shape of small items like combadges and rodents. Thus any Changeling, once infected by nanites, could simply morph into something the size of the nanite, thus sending almost all of their mass into the pocket and leaving nothing for the nanites to assimilate.

It is possible that a Changeling infected with Section 31's genovirus could be assimilated, but the Borg would likely have to completely re-engineer their assimilation process and the nanites themselves. After all, it has never been shown that a Borg has assimilated a non-cellular organism, and there was quite some trouble with Species 8472 in this regard.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] If Voldemort is miles ahead of Harry in terms of magical combat ability, why did he struggle so much with Harry during their final battle?

Harry wasnt a Horocrux anymore so Voldy had zero reason to hold back.

[Assistant] I don't know how the movie ended but in the book Harry explained in great detail how Dumbledore wanted Snape to kill him so he'd end up as the new master of the elder wand, and he did, but because Malfoy was the one who actually disarmed Dumbledore the wand recognized him as the one who bested his previous master and then Harry bested Malfoy and so the wand considered Harry to be its master. So Voldemort, for all his power, could only draw out a fraction of the wand's power, and against the wand's chosen owner that power was reduced even further.


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

[User] [Starwars] Why are the Imperial walkers so high off the ground? It just seems like a huge wast of space, and makes them unstable. And vulnerable to things like what happened on Hoth...

[Assistant]
The Galactic Empire is not fighting a war for survival, they are quelling a resistance and keeping the peace. Given that they also have insanely huge production capabilities it makes sense that they would shift design towards intimidation rather than outright efficiency.

There is a lot of propaganda about the AT-ATs high stature about helping with landmine resistance, which while true likely does not provide much help against conventional arms by producing such a prominent target. As a result it had to don massive amounts of armor which while effective has severely slowed its speed on the battlefield.

The events on Hoth were somewhat unprecedented. The rebel forces had a highly effective shield generator that prevented orbital bombardment and as a consequence the imperial troops did not have air support. The rebel's speeders were found to be capable of entangling the legs of the walkers which was a brilliant exploitation of the walkers' design, however even without Imperial air support it was a very dangerous tactic.

This is actually rather similar to contemporary armored vehicles. A tank which may be fearsome on the battlefield will be destroyed by simple molotov cocktails, tracks can be blown off by improvised weaponry, optics blinded by paint bombs etc. However these tactics all require extreme close quarters engagement, much like the speeders' tow cable attacks, and the approach to the target is the hardest part. I'd assume the Empire simply didn't imagine enemy troops getting close enough to the AT ATs to exploit any weaknesses.

In TESB, it was pointed out that Admiral Ozzel came into the Hoth system too close and by doing so alerted the Rebel Alliance to the Imperial presence. As a result their planetary shield system was engaged. It is clear then that the Empire was not anticipating that shield to be up, and through a fluke they were denied air support in their assault.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] Can you horcrux yourself?

At the end of Deathly Hallows, Voldemort's killing curse destroys his own soul horcrux on Harry, rather than Harry.

This implies that if you stacked soul horcruxes on a person they'd be immune to at least one killing curse per soul portion.

Do you think its possible to horcux yourself with multiple different souls, in order to become (relatively) invulnerable?

Could you do it without fracturing your own soul? (like Harry Potter's situation)

How would you do this?

[Assistant] You probably could do that, but what would be the point? Instead of immortality provided you keep your horcrux hidden, you'd just end up with an extra life should you ever are mortally wounded. It's far more beneficial to make your horcrux something you can keep in a different location to where you are.


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

[User]
ELI5: AWD v 4WD

I have always assumed that awd drive is always on where 4wd you can turn on and off.  but recently have seen  advertisements for full time 4wd. and have had people tell me that their 4wd is always on.  Doesn't that make it AWD?

[Assistant]
Typically a true "4WD" vehicle has a transfer case as opposed to a differential.  The fore and aft shafts are locked so the front axles and rear axles move at the same speed.  An AWD car usually has a differential of some sort.

A transfer case or fully locking differential is almost a requirement in a true off-road vehicle.  With an open differential you'll find yourself motionless if one pair of wheels is off the ground or otherwise spinning.

The downside is that a transfer case is bad news on dry pavement.  If the front and rear are locked together, and there's a lot of grip because the pavement is dry, any time you go around a corner you're wearing the transfer case and putting unnecessary wear on lots of other stuff (tires included).


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

[User]
CMV: I think student should be able to test out of almost every class.

I think students should be able to test out of any class, at the very least, any of those at the high school level or higher. I don't think it makes any sense to have a student sit through a class to learn things that he can already prove he knows.

Basically, I just want reasons why sitting through a class that a student already understands makes sense.

**Some obvious arguments and their counters**

> Tests might not grasp everything taught in the class, allowing the student to miss possibly important information.

I'm assuming these class tests would cover everything covered in the course, or at least be designed to determine the student's knowledge well enough.

> There are other things that take place in the course that develop the students skills, not just teach knowledge.

I'm also assuming these tests would make sure that the student has a mastery of the subjects rather than a simple acquaintance.

> What about classes like literature, and the like? Classes where students learn things that are bigger than other classes (Dead Poets Society plug).

This is why I specified  "*almost* every class." Obviously there are some classes that teach things that can't really be tested, and of course the student would still have to take those classes, or we might just remove them from the education system altogether.

_____
edit: I apologize, but I must be done for the night. I will reply to any additional arguments tomorrow and will still award a delta to anyone who 'Cs my V.'

[Assistant]
Part of getting the credit for a degree or diploma is putting in the effort over time to get something done. Mastery of the knowledge is an important part of the process, but displaying that you can actually do the coursework is another.

If i'm an employer I'd rather hire the employee who graduated with a B average but can put in a solid 40 hour week of effort over the genius with perfect recall and a very lazy work ethic.


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

[User]
What are the implications of Fed Rates dropping below 1%?

For the first time in history, the yield curve for U.S. treasury bonds dropped under 1%. What would be the reasons for why the Fed could cut policy rates down to zero?

[Assistant]
Are you asking why, or what will happen?

Why: China, South Korea, Iran, and Wester Europe are experiencing outbreaks of SARS-CoV-2, a new strain of the virus which caused the 2002 SARS outbreak. This virus has a lower fatality rate (~4%) but the outbreak is much larger. China and Italy have both instituted metropolitan level quarantines and have put much economic activity on hold until further notice. This is causing firms to be unable to import goods they were previously having manufactured in those countries, and is especially problematic with China as they are the worlds largest exporter.

There is further fear that the current outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 in the US will spread to the United States. In response to these issues, the fed decided to make a rate cut in order to allow firms and consumers easier access to money hopefully so that they can go to alternative supply chains that aren't being hampered by China.

What will happen: We can expect the usual effects of a rate cut (higher inflation, lower consumer interest rates, etc.) but in the context of a supply shock this is still somewhat unexplored waters.


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

[User]
Why do rapidly flashing lights / rapidly changing images cause epileptic seizures?

Nothing really to add here, just the question in the post.

[Assistant]
First off, most people with epilepsy are not photosensitive.

Some types of epilepsy can be triggered by stimuli at a specific frequency. So in some cases, a person might be sensitive to lights flashing at a particular frequency. Another person might be sensitive to loud, rhythmic sounds at a particular frequency.

**Short Answer :**

The same way any form of over-stimulation causes seizures.

The flashing lights cause the brain send out too many brainwaves at once. This results in a seizure.

This type of epilepsy is known as photosensitive epilepsy.

**Long Answer :**

Photosensitive epilepsy results when a neural circuit somewhere in the brain resonates with a sensory input, and the brain fails to keep that resonance under control.

 Flashing lights tend be a very powerful pattern of stimulation as they can activate both on and off retinal ganglion cells (cells in the retina that respond to changes int the state of light). Scientists who study the visual cortex will often use a drifting grating of black and white bars to elicit a strong reliable response. The reason why some epileptics might respond to this stimuli probably has to do with how those signals are handled beyond the retina, in the thalamus or cortex. What happens at that level is hard to answer. Broadly speaking these areas are wired or have properties that make them poor handlers of highly synchronous stimuli. One possibility being recurrent excitation coupled to low inhibition could cause an epileptic like state in the brain.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why are delivery companies like DoorDash and GrubHub suddenly economically viable?

People have had cars, addresses, and telephones for a century. Pizza and Chinese food have been showing up at people's doorsteps for decades. Surely it seems like everything one would need to build a food delivery contracting company existed before the internet. What was missing that prevented me from ordering tacos by phone in 1995?

[Assistant]
They actually aren't economically viable. Most of these companies don't make profits, a few like OrderUp have already gone out of business. The rest will probably follow. And even when they totally outsource most of their costs onto their employees (employees drive their own cars and are responsible for their own gas, insurance, and maintenance) they still have to pay ridiculously low wages and wouldn't even dream of paying for benefits like health insurance. And despite all that, these companies mostly still don't turn a profit.

Food delivery just isn't a viable business most of the time. If the price for delivery is low, then companies can't turn a profit on such low margins, and if the price is high, then people just don't order delivery very often because they cant afford it, and then the company also can't turn a profit.


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

[User] ELI5: First Post Here - Does everything in life excrete a gas? When you think about the act of 'smelling' something, you're usually not physically touching your nose to it. Does this mean everything that smells like anything in life technically lets off a gas?

[Assistant]
Smells aren't always the result of a gas.

They are often the result of small *solid* particles that just happen to be suspended in gas. This is why we things.

Like how a plane floating on air isn't itself air, neither are a lot of the chemicals we smell.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] If the Sith continued to exist after RotJ, how would Sidious be remembered by future Sith? Would he be revered as a legendary Sith Lord or an absolute disgrace and embarrassment?

On one hand, he does create and rule the first Sith empire in thousands of years AND he nearly wipes out all Jedi in the galaxy.

But on the other hand he failed pretty majorly as a Sith master for having an apprentice that turned to the light side. Not only that but he went out like a bitch! Just picked up and tossed over a ledge. No epic battle for his life, he just gets thrown like a rag doll down a hole, screaming.

[Assistant]
He'd be revered, and also seen as a warning.

Sidious wasn't just a Sith Lord, he was the culmination of a millennia of Sith getting stronger with each generation. Distilled power. And that wasn't the most dangerous thing about him; it was his intelligence that was deadliest. The Sith would have taken this as a lesson -- power without purpose or cunning is power wasted.

His eventual death would have served as a warning to always be on guard. He did not fail, he simply grew too overconfident in his victory, like many Sith do.


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

[User]
[Marvel] I somehow become a wielder of the infinity stones and I manage to use their full potential. What cosmic rules I must abide by to avoid being erased from existence by other higher beings who regulate the cosmos?

So I basically win the game and I can do whatever I want(or maybe not?). What things would trigger a more powerful being to take action on me? What are the rules for beings such as myself?

[Assistant]
With all 6 infinity gems you ARE the higher power. Thanos defeated the universal abstracts when he wielded all 6 gems. Just by virtue of having that power the beings like Eternity will recognize you and attempt to remove the power, but youre stronger than them.

Basically at that point you have full reign over the universe and can do anything you want up to and including destroying the universe.

The limits of the gems only working in their home universe means that you cant use them for multiversal shenanigans so youre free to do whatever you want with your universe.


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

[User]
ELI5: What is the Iran-Contra affair?

I've never gotten a succinct explanation of this.

[Assistant] The CIA illegally sold weapons to Iran, then used the money to illegally fund rebels (the Contras) in Nicuragua. Then everyone in the administration that knew about it (Such as Reagan and Bush) lied about knowing about it.


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

[User]
ELI5:The strawman fallacy

Heard numerous times and I swear every time I read it from somewhere I never get it.

[Assistant]
Your mom says you can't have any cookies before dinner because you will spoil your appetite. You complain to your dad that your mom will not let you eat anything because she wants you to starve. This was not your mother's argument, but your dad hears this and storms into the kitchen wanting to know why she insists on starving you. Your mom tells him that's not what she said at all, that her position was simply that you could not have any cookies before dinner, and your dad nods sagely at this. Realizing you misrepresented your mother's claims, your father sentences you to stand in the field to scare off crows while you think about what you've done.

\*Au. Thank you.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why are different instruments tuned to different keys?

A violin is tuned to the key of C.  A french horn is tuned to the key of F (sometimes).  What does this actually mean? Does an F played by a french horn sound the same pitch as a C played on a violin? If so, how is that possible, given that they (presumably) have the same frequencies? If not, what does it actually mean, and why are the instruments like that?

[Assistant]
This is called transposing. It is done mainly for wind and brass instruments to keep fingerings consistent.

Transposing instruments are said to be "tuned to a key". If a clarinet is tuned to A, then when the clarinet plays a written C the sound produced will be an A.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] How effective would a Death Star superlaser be against a gas giant or hot jupiter?

Edit- So I'm going to add two things.

1. As I understand it a laser works by vaporizing a small chunk of whatever you're firing at, and that soild goes through a phase shift causing a small explosion as the gas or plasma state finds itself compressed into the volume of it's solid state.

1a If it's a plasma weapon then you're just talking adding a massive amount of heat to melt or eventually vaporise your target.

2.  The inside of Jupiter is hotter than the sun.  We're talking 24,000 C.  This is hotter than the surface of the sun at 5,000 C, and hotter than the core of the earth at 6,000 C. Adding enough energy to destroy Jupiter should be on a different level of magnitude than a rocky planet.

[Assistant] I imagine if the planet was big enough they might need a more powerful laser.  But even gas giants get denser as you go further down (maybe with a liquid or solid core) so the laser would 'hit' them and have a similar effect as with a rocky planet.


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

[User] Do mosquitoes share blood with each other? Also, do they "steal" blood from other mosquitoes, like from a dead one for example?

[Assistant] No, they don't. In fact, it is notoriously difficult to get female mosquitoes to feed on a hemotek in the lab; this is a system, with a membrane, in which the blood is heated to body temperature and left on mosquito cages in the dark. Field populations have to be 'weaned' onto this system to become lab colonies, initially they will only arm feed. Mosquitoes in the wild require host cues to take a blood meal, little is known about these other than carbon dioxide, heat and a volatile called octan-3-ol are attractants. People have a very complex array of volatile chemicals on the skin, and different combinations of these make people more or less likely to be bitten. As mentioned above, mosquitoes can be completely sustained by sugar, and feed on nectar in the wild, a blood meal is necessary so the mosquito can become gravid and lay eggs. It may be worth mentioning that most mosquitoes do not preferentially feed on humans, live stock, dogs, birds etc. are bitten a lot, the preference for humans leads to some species' extreme competence in transmitting disease.


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

[User]
[Lilo & Stitch] What exactly did Cobra Bubbles save the planet from? Why does the galactic federation care about an 'endangered species' of insects if their willing to gas entire planets?

Edit: They're*

[Assistant] Given how the federation's first response to 626 escaping there was to plan its destruction, he may have conned the federation to prevent exactly that, maybe helped catch a dangerous fugitive while he was at it.


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

[User]
[ASOIAF/GoT] Who grants the knighthood for the Knights of the Houses?

Further boiling it down, do the Lords of each house have the authority to grant the title to their own knights, or are they only acting as an extension of the King?

A followup: If House Stark has the authority to grant knighthood to their own knights, does House Stark hold that authority over House Mormont and House Hornwood, or do the banner houses knight their own troops at their discretion?

[Assistant]
Any knight can grant knighthood to anyone else. Typically it's granted to squires when they've proven worthy, but as we see with Ser Davos that's not the only way. As far as actual claim to title (lands, honors, etc) this can only be granted by a Nobleman, typically your King/Queen, Lord/Lady.

To your second question, Bannermen are lords as well as lieges, they can grant knighthood in their own right.


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

[User]
[Captain America: CW] A question about Antman

Not particularly spoilery, but I figured I'd leave the question out of the title: how did they convince Antman to fight? As I recall, his main motivation was to be able to see his kid on his terms and to be seen as a hero.

The Sokovia accords would have either stripped him of his hero status, put him in jail... or given him legitimacy. Fighting against them would only make him seem like more of a criminal, and while he's not an immoral man, having a fight with representatives of 117 nations in a German airport doesn't seem like it would further his goals.

[Assistant]
Most of the comments here are missing why Cap was at the airport in the first place. Cap was putting together a team of people, not under the accords, to help take down Zemo and the winter soldiers.

They weren't expecting Stark to show up at the airport. They hear announcements about the airport being evacuated and Cap says, "Stark." to which Ant-man responds "Stark?!"

He isn't there to fight the accords, he is there to save the world. Iron Man and his team become an obstacle to Team Cap and Ant-man supports their mission.


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

[User] ELI5 How does "auto generated subtitles" translate audio into text?

[Assistant]
It works almost exactly the same as digital assistants such as Siri, Alexa and Google Assistant do when they listen to your voice commands. Which is called "Automatic Speech Recognition" or ASR for short.

First you need to teach a computer program to be able to recognize speech and match that to words. This is done by giving a machine learning program lots of examples to start with.

Like *" hello program* *here are hundreds if not thousands of hours of already correctly subtitled videos. Try to recreate it. "*

The program then works really hard until it is able to recreate the subtitles at which point you start to give it new videos without any subtitles to compare with.

The program can now detect speech automatically but it is not perfect. It still makes a lot of mistakes. But the beauty of it is that it can learn from mistakes. All it need is feedback just like we do and hopefully get in school. If it hears "Hello" and thinks it's "jello" all you need to do is correct it and it will remember and expand from it.

So now when you go to YouTube and turn on auto generated subtitles the video is either feed into this program on demand or has already been processed and the result is speech to text which is synced. Example of output from the program would be: At 2 minutes 34 seconds the word "**Malarkey**" is uttered.

note: it is obviously more complex as machine learning is involved which is a whole other subject and is more complicated then i made it seem but the gist of it holds true.

*Edit: Spelling.*