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

[User] ELI5: Why aren't consumer computers "instant" yet, in terms of the basic functions like booting up, opening up programs, etc? I mean literally instant, with zero delay following a mouse click. Will they ever be?

[Assistant]
There are instant computers, you just don't think of them as "real" computers. Tons of devices with embedded microcontrollers (household appliances, elevators, traffic lights, you name it) have real computers in there that load their resources almost instantaneously and can get going.

As for "real" computers, we'll probably never see instant ones because as soon as the startup process gets faster.... people dream up more functions and resources for the computer to load. As computers get faster, we just keep on giving them more to do. Microsoft Office 95 would probably load in a blink of an eye on a modern machine, but Office 2013 takes a while. But 2013 offers a ton of features and changes it's predecessor didn't that MS decided was a worthwhile tradeoff. The case is the same for most software.


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

[User] ELI5: Are historical events recorded in the time zone that they occur? Wouldn't an event that occurs in the United States given the right time occur on a different day in for example Australia?

[Assistant] Effectively, yes. Good example is 9/11. Down here in New Zealand, we still refer to it as 9/11 and treat it as if it occurred on the 11th of September here, despite the fact that, in our time zone, it occurred at (I think) about 1am on 12th of September.


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

[User]
Why is there a need for the concept of dark energy as an explanation for the expansion of the universe?

Apparently points in the universe are increasing their distance with respect to each other. Why does there need to be some kind of force or energy to explain this? Why could the explanation not be that the universal lengthscale just is not constant or something along the lines?

[Assistant]
Dark energy is introduced because the expansion is observed to be accelerating (this is a Nobel prize). It can be easily seen through examination of the Friedmann equations that this cannot be explained neither by matter (including dark and baryonic) nor radiation (massless or ultrarelativistic particles). In particular it is found that the following relationship must hold between the pressure and energy density of the component that drives the acceleration:

P < - 1/3

The aforementioned components have P>=0 and so they're not fit. Any additional component with an equation of state satisfying the above would be called dark energy or a dark energy variant. The simplest (but not the only) possibility would be

P = -

Which is the behaviour of a cosmological constant / vacuum energy.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do tractor trailer trucks need help to extricate themselves when they are jackknifed? Why can't they just turn their wheels and straighten out on their own?

[Assistant] The wheels on the trailer aren't powered. This isn't a problem when the truck is pulling them in a direction mostly parallel to the direction the wheels move, but the further the trailer turns the less of the force the truck produces is pointed in that direction. If the truck is pulling perpendicularly to the direction of the wheels, zero force is being applied in a direction the trailer can actually move, and so it won't. At that point no amount of turning the wheels on the truck will move it, as all the force the truck produces will be applied to the hitch, in the direction the truck is currently facing.


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

[User]
ELI5: Who actually owns the credit card companies Visa, Master Card, and American Express?

Someone asked me when you use one what institution are you borrowing money from and it turned to be more complicated than I thought after Googling it...

[Assistant] All three of those companies are floated on the stock exchange, so their owners are whoever it is that owns their shares. As with most large floated corporations, the majority of shareholders are likely to be corporate investors; in other words banks, other financial services companies, and pension and investment funds.


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

[User]
Is there a theoretical minimum size for a living cell?

I know that mycoplasma and rickettsia are among the smallest cells known, but is there a theoretical size smaller than these below which a cell could never be viable? What is the limiting factor?

[Assistant] An interesting answer from a physics perspective was given by Schrodinger in "What is Life." He begins by asking why atoms are so small, by which he means why are organisms so large compared to atoms. The answer he gives is that life requires "exact physical laws." If you don't have enough atoms, statistical fluctuations will be too large for life to develop.


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

[User]
[Terraria] So it started raining and my goldfish decided to go for a walk. What gives?

I mean he was just swimming quite happily in my pond, but once the skies opened up he just stood up on his fins as if they were legs and went for a stroll outside! Also, what is up with these slimes and their umbrellas? Where did they even get them? Aren't they mostly water anyway? What is in this rain (and should I be drinking it)!?

I hope he comes back soon, I think it is starting to clear up. Plus, it is getting lonely here...

[Assistant]
Because it's only time it can get any walk. Why would your goldfish go for a walk in dry weather?

As for the slimes, it is true that they are mostly made of water. However, what makes them alive and sentient are the other parts. If slime spends time in rain it becomes more diluted and thus more stupid. Some slimes aspire for higher intelligence and so use umbrellas during rain to prevent dilution. Of course, this intelligence is relative to other slimes, it doesn't keep them from attacking much stronger target such as yourself. And as for the question on where do they get them, well, it's kinda weird. And speaking of weird, here you are, talking to an old grandfather clock. Now hand over those mushrooms you've been eating. Trust me, you'll need them to make potions later.


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

[User] [Deus Ex: Human Revolution] Why does everyone in Detroit have either a Bostonian or Canadian accent?

[Assistant]
Detroit was founded by the French, and its earliest incarnations were mostly French Canadians. It wasn't officially ceded by the British until 1796. Many Loyalists simply crossed the St. Clair River and established settlements all along the waterways.

After being ceded, Detroit was re-populated mostly by Eastern Americans - Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey - who sought to escape the population crush of the now-substantial American cities in the East Coast. They brought with them their own accents.

Trade since the 1790s has significantly increased, with many people actually living on one side and working on the other. Cities like Sarnia and Windsor are closer to Detroit than Toronto, and Americans often find it cheaper to shop in Canada on the strength of their dollar. As a consequence of the close regional economic ties over many generations, there is a significant cultural exchange with Canada, and many Northern Michiganders more closely identify with Southern Ontario than they do, say, Indiana or Ohio.

All of this is to say that, while the game might not represent the truest accents of Detroit's diverse population, a majority of Caucasian residents would logically have either an East-Coast or Canadian accent or dialect. It's not as much of a leap as you might think.


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

[User]
Are earbuds really worse then any other speakers for your hearing?

I've heard that earbuds, like the ones ipods come with, are bad for your hearing. Are they really worse then say, car speakers? I know that loud music can damage your ears, but why would earbuds be worse then say, car speakers, when listening at a normal volume? As well, if they are worse, does this also apply to head phones that don't actually go into the ear?

[Assistant] I believe that the research behind this found that people were more likely to listen at higher volume levels with headphones instead of speakers because the isolation from outside noises made it difficult for them to realize how loud they were actually listening. They're not disturbing other people and there is no visceral 'bass' feeling in the chest like you get with loud speakers, and there was less ambient noise for them to reference, so people tended to turn the volume to levels that could damage their hearing without realizing it.


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

[User] ELI5: If I burn 1kg of paper in a closed environment, will this environment be as heavy as before? If yes, why/how?

[Assistant]
Yes, if by heavy you mean will it have the same amount of matter/energy.

This is because burning is a chemical reaction that breaks the bonds between some atoms and creates new bonds with others. This produces heat and light, but doesn't change the number of atoms from beginning to end.


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

[User] ELI5: How does an SSL certificate keep my website safe?

[Assistant]
Imagine you have a friend and that friend has a friend.

You don't know your "friend of a friend", but your friend vouches for them, and says they're a good person.

Your friend is a really good person, so you trust your friend when they say that this other person is a really good person.

There are certain "certificate authorities" in the world. They're groups who everybody has agreed are reputable and are allowed to hand out certificates. Your computer trusts those certificate authorities by default. They're like your good friend that you trust.

An SSL certificate is a "signed certificate"(like a signed letter) from your trusted friend that says "This website that you're connecting to really is who they say they are."

When you try to connect to a website, the site responds with the certificate they have to identify that the site is who they say they are.

Websites are just files on certain really fast computers(called servers). The really fast computers' only point is to hand out files.

But anyone could set up a similar computer running a fake website that looks the same and try to make people think it was real site, and try to collect people's information when they entered it into the site.

In the address bar of browsers like Chrome, if you click the lock, you can see the certificate information provided by the site, to make sure that the site is who they say they are.


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

[User]
[The Little Mermaid] Why does Ursula turn merfolk into polyps? What does she get out of it?

Also does she intentionally sabotage everyone that comes to her? Does anyone get what they want and pay up, moving on with their lives?

[Assistant] She enjoys having power over ~~people~~ mer-people but she can't rule over the territory she wants, the Seven Seas. Instead, Ursula grasps at any subject she can get. Tiny polyps stuck to the ground can't fight back and so are condemned to subjugation forever. But how is Ursula going to get more subjects? Certainly she can't sashay into Triton's kingdom and take prisoners. So she sets up a little gig. She will give people their deepest desire but, in exchange they are given a challenge. Should they fail the challenge, they belong to her. Now Ursula has a pretty good supply of mer-folk going to her and, she feels no guilt because they did it to themselves.


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

[User]
[DC] Superman gave a piece of kryptonite to Batman, as a sign of trust. So does Lois have any kryptonite (weapons)?

And if not, why not? Clark trusts Lois with all of his being. Additionally, Lois is incredibly at risk, from either other kryptonians or a mind-controlled Superman.

[Assistant]
That might inadvertently put a big target on her back.

Batman at least has a chance of fending off a mind controlled Superman, Lois doesn't have such good odds. It'd probably be better to just give her a way to contact Batman.


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

[User]
Why is 2% inflation generally targeted by central banks?

Why is it that central banks generally have a 2% inflation target instead of zero? I welcome technical explanations since I'm studying Economics at University and Macroeconomics is my favorite subject.

[Assistant]
(Caveat: from a fellow undergrad.)
There are two zero-lower bounds that are the reason a small, positive amount of inflation is usually desired.

The first is the ZLB on nominal interest rates: the central bank cannot lower nominal interest rates in the economy below zero, because people would just hoard their money as currency under the bed, rather than lose it with negative interest rates in their bank accounts/investments.

 But sometimes (in some countries, right now!) negative interest rates are necessary to increase aggregate demand and restore output to a higher level. The real interest rate (the nominal interest rate corrected for inflation) is the one that truly effects people's decisions and is given by:

real interest rate = nominal interest rate - expected inflation

So with a small amount of positive inflation, real interest rates can go negative even though the nominal interest rate is bounded at zero. One thing the Fed in the US is trying to do right now is raise inflation expectations (partly through QE, and also through an announced "Evans Rule" which says they will not raise interest rates until either unemployment drops below 6.5% or inflation goes above 2.5%) so they can get a lower real interest rate.

The second ZLB is on nominal wage growth: empirically, we just don't tend to see workers accepting nominal wage cuts, nor bosses demanding them. Wages are "sticky". But sometimes a country needs lower wages in order to restore competitiveness in tough times, which is called internal devaluation. A small amount of inflation makes real wage cuts possible, even though nominal wages don't fall (real wage growth = nominal wage growth - inflation).

Some economists (e.g. from memory Olivier Blanchard, chief economist of the IMF) have been suggesting that a slightly higher inflation target such as 4% may be better in the future, because the last few years have really shown how much of an issue these ZLBs can be. And a higher rate of inflation in normal times would help avoid the zero lower bounds.

I agree that without these two ZLBs, zero inflation would make more sense. How nice it would be to not have the value of money constantly changing! We could easily compare statistics over time, people wouldn't be (incorrectly) convinced their living standards are being slowly eroded by this heinous inflation, etc.


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

[User]
ELI5: How was the BC/AD dating system created?

These are the two things confusing me. This dating system is meant to be modelled from Jesus' birth, but many historians claim that it is actually just some time near there (suggesting 8BC for example). Also, if it is modelled after Jesus' birth, why is Christmas not on the 1st January? Shouldn't the first day of the year be the day of Jesus' birth? Thank you to anyone who can explain this to me.

Edit: Thank you to everyone who responded because it really helped a lot.

However, I don't think that I explained my exact query well enough. I'm not asking about how the BC/AD system was created (as many of you have explained). My question is, whether or not the BC/AD system is right, whether or not Jesus existed or not, why is it that Jesus' supposed birth is not on January 1st?

Let's assume that Jesus was born on December 25th (I don't want this to turn into a debate about religion, because that's not the point of my question). Then if Dionysus Exiguus the monk was modelling his calendar around Jesus' birth, why would he not Jesus' birth the first day of the year? This way, when you reference a year like 4000 BC, it is actually relative to Jesus' supposed birth.

I'm sorry if I'm explaining this really badly. I know it's a strange question to ask, but I really want to know, because it seems very interesting.

[Assistant]
It was created by a 6th Century monk named Dionysus Exiguus.

At the time, the calendar was based on a Roman emperor who wasn't terribly kind to Christians.  Dionysus was working on an Eastern calendar, and didn't think it was fitting to link it to that particular person.  So instead he did some rough math and took a wild guess what year Jesus should have been born, and based the calendar year on that, keeping everything else the same.

He did this for his own personal calendar, and had no idea with would eventually catch on, including his incomplete scholarship.  By the time people figured out the dates had to be off, it was too late, the calendar had been too widely adopted, and being off a few years after centuries had passed didn't really matter.


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

[User]
What would the ramifications of a lack of causality be?

People say you can have two of three: causality, relativity, and FTL communication. The convention is to discard FTL communication. But what are the consequences of an acausal universe?

[Assistant]
Unpredictability. The equations of motion lose existence and uniqueness. Given a certain initial condition at time t, there might not exist a solution to later time, or there might be infinite equally valid. Essentially the Universe doesn't know what to do with itself, and even if it does, there is no way of predicting anything even having knowledge of the equations of motion and initial condition. Physics is dead.

That loss of existence and uniqueness actually occurs has been studied for various cases, including the motion of a rigid ball in a spacetime with a wormhole allowing timetravel (see e.g. the works of Novikov & Thorne), or classical field theories in the presence of CTCs.

The exceptions are free theories, but these are boring, no actual physics can happen in them. As soon as you add interactions of any kind it's over.

Another sort of consideration comes from thermodynamics. We have a second law because our Universe has two temporal extremities with different entropies. So entropy increases when moving from one to the other; we call the low-entropy one the Big Bang and the direction of increasing entropy gives the arrow of time, and interesting stuff happens following the Universe in this direction.

If you have a region with CTCs where, say, you can think of time as a circle, there is no way of course for entropy to always increase in one direction. The most probable situation is to always have constant maximum entropy, that is thermal equilibrium.


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

[User]
Why is there a layer of O3 (ozone layer), but all of the other gases ae mixed together?

Also, where does O3 come from, and what is causing the hole in the ozone layer? I've heard greenhouse gases, but what do they actually do to ozone that causes it to deteriorate?

[Assistant]
O3 is highly reactive, it doesn't tend to last very long in the lower atmosphere where there are more things to react with. However, in the upper atmosphere O3 is continuously produced through UV bombardment of O2. The steady state of these reactions is a layer of significantly elevated ozone abundance within the upper stratosphere. However, even there the concentration of ozone is only a few parts per million (if the ozone layer were actually a proper layer of 100% ozone it would only be a few millimeters thick). Nevertheless, ozone absorbs UV-b rays very strongly so more than 95% of all the UV-b radiation hitting the Earth's atmosphere doesn't make it to the surface.

One of the advantages to using CFCs as refrigerants is that they don't break down easily, which is a good safety measure as they are more or less inert in terms of reacting with things. However, that means they will stick around in the atmosphere indefinitely and they will float up to the stratosphere and get hit by hard UV rays causing them to crack apart and form free Chlorine radicals. And those free Chlorine radicals can *catalytically* break down ozone (meaning that the free radical is not consumed during the reaction). A single Chlorine free radical can break down on average 100,000 ozone molecules before it gets consumed by some reaction. With a high enough CFC production this could have led to a global depletion of stratospheric ozone levels and a consequent dramatic increase in UV-b radiation levels at the surface of the Earth (even if the ozone layer was still filtering out 90% of all UV-b radiation that would be a factor of 5x or more increase in UV-b exposure).

The phenomena responsible for causing seasonal holes in the ozone layer around the poles is more complex but is due to similar mechanisms.


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

[User]
If we have a moral imperative to self quarantine, do we have an imperative not to drive cars?

It seems that if you're making the argument that we must self quarantine against the corona virus and that you are morally responsible if you infect someone with it (which I would agree with) then we must self quarantine and abstain from many practices that we commonly participate in, perhaps not driving being one of them.

If we compare the amount of deaths caused by car accidents globally with the global death toll of corona viruses cases, about 83,000 people die every month from car accidents and about the same amount of people have died from corona virus in several months. These obviously aren't completely analogous, but it seems that if it's a serious imperative for one thing, then the other ought to be an imperative in its own right. I'm not proposing that everyone needs to stop driving their car because I understand how impractical that would be, but maybe if we thought about it in this way and attempted to walk or bike, perhaps take public transportation where we could, we might be better off, beyond the obvious environmental benefits. Do you think that's off? It seems right to me.

It seems to me even more clear that if this argument for self quarantining is being made then we must donate large amounts of money to charity and go vegan, amongst other things that I doubt many of the people making said argument would be willing to do.

[Assistant]
Interestingly, consequentialist-based theories have a pretty intuitive response to this that isn't available to other systems of normative ethics.

Since COVID-19 has the potential to spread exponentially, exposing others to it can catalyze a spread to hundreds of people. This could happen even if one lived fairly cautiously. The risk of materially injuring that many people with cautious behaviour by driving a car is just not quite there. The two are different in that respect, at least.


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

[User] ELI5: why is it called the Middle East and not West Asia?

[Assistant] Because it was named by Europeans.  From the European perspective, the 'Far East' (China, etc.) is as far East as you can go without running into the ocean.  So the 'Near East' would be when you stop being in Europe and are now in the 'East' and the 'Middle East' would be between those two points (although, in reality, the Middle and Near East are much closer than the Middle East and Far East).


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

[User] Why isn't nuclear physics considered to be chemistry?

[Assistant] Chemistry is primarily concerned with things at the atomic or molecular level. Nuclear physics is concerned with the nucleus itself. There is a whole branch of chemistry called "nuclear chemistry", and what they do is essentially identical to what nuclear physicists do.


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

[User] ELI5:If a car is in an accident, and the repair shop restored it to new condition (no bent frame, new parts, paint, airbag, etc.), why does it still lose value in as a trade in, if it is otherwise in great condition, with low miles?

[Assistant] The problem is that you have to convince people of that 'restored it to new condition'. While it's not impossible they could do that, it's also really common that cars in an accident are never the same no matter how much work you do. So people don't want to buy them.


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

[User]
[Thomas the tank engine] how does this island of sodoor maintain its economy and support a fleet of steam engines which aren't efficient in the modern day?

Does the driver of the engines have any control over the destination or is it all the engine themselves? The engines seem to just follow their own whimsical fansies and disobeying the fat controller and sir topham hat. How is this viable economically?

[Assistant] Actually, trains are one of the most efficient and economical ways to move good over long distances. They can haul significantly more goods than a 18 wheeler and they are much more energy efficient than planes.


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

[User]
CMV: People should only have children deliberately and not as accidents.

It seems so many problems are caused in society by unwanted children.

One solution Im personally considering is a vasectomy while storing sperm multiple banks. It already seems like a no brainer since currently my future as a dad can so easily be ended through minor physical harm. Redundancy seems to make sense. Then once thats in place, I can get a vasectomy to reduce unwanted pregnancy. It can always get undone if I want the joy of doing it the old fashioned way. I just figure that deciding to have a child should take at least as long as it would take to go to the sperm bank or getting minor surgery.

Then I started wondering why this isnt the norm. Please CMV, explain why you wouldnt want this, or improve/offer other solutions.

[Assistant]
Because you can't force people to do things to their body that they don't agree with.

Bodily autonomy is sacrosanct, dude. We even give *corpses* that shit (surgeons can't take organs from dead people unless they specifically consented to it while they were alive).


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

[User]
[General Fantasy] I just drank a shrinking potion and my clothes shrank with me, how?

I was trying to get something in my house that I couldn't get at my normal size so I decided to take a potion I bought at my local magic shop. When I drank the potion I was honestly thinking I would shrink out of my clothes and be, well naked in my smaller size. If it had been a spell I could get it since the magic was coming from an outside source but I'm having a hard time wrapping my mind around the idea that my clothes where affected from a magic from inside my body. The few times I've heard stories from adventurers that have taken similar potions their clothes haven't fit so why was mine different? If this can be done why don't all body altering potions alter the clothes as well to fit the altered form of the person that's taken the potion?

[Assistant]
There were no biological or physiological effects of the potion in your body.  Drinking it merely released a spell that targeted you.

The proof is in the fact that the same potion works identically on most any being, regardless of size, race, or species.  It even works on constructs, such as warforged.


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

[User]
ELI5: How does the Simluation Theory's trilemma conclude that we are living in a simulation?

I feel like just because it's possible that we /could/ be living in a simulation (which seems possible when considering the first two points of the trilemma) doesn't mean we actually /are/ living in a simulation as the third point concludes.

[Assistant]
If there is interest in the creation of simulations, as described in the 3rd point, then it's likely that hundreds, if not thousands, or even millions of simulations were created.

After that, what is the chance, that between these millions and millions of universes that exist, we just happen to live in the 'real' one?


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

[User]
ELI5: Why was everyone so scared of Sauron if he got taken out the first time by cutting his ring finger off?

Not trying to troll. That part always bugged me in the movie and I haven't read the books.

[Assistant]
The movie misleads you.  In the real story, Isildur got the ring only *after* Sauron was defeated.  His physical form, the body/form he was wearing, was effectively "killed", and that's what banished him from doing anything in Middle Earth for a long time.

By the late third age, he had recovered and returned in a new form, but he still lacked a large portion of his former power because that power was in the ring which was not in his possession.  But he was still quite powerful, and he had been rebuilding his old alliances and collecting a vast army in addition.  Plus, he had nine Nazgul - wearers of the nine rings for men - as his lieutenants.  And the ring was trying to return to him, and it wasn't that unlikely that it would succeed.

Defeating him the first time was very hard.  It wasn't simply cutting off a finger like it appears in the movie.  It certainly wasn't a foregone conclusion; he could have won that war.  He lost that time, but that didn't mean he couldn't win this time.

Edit: BTW, the ring is actually why he wasn't fully defeated in the first war.  Because it contained a significant portion of his power, while it remained intact he couldn't be fully destroyed.  Because Isildur kept the ring intact, Sauron was able to continue to exist formlessly for a while, and eventually slowly rebuild his strength.


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

[User]
[DC Cinematic] What is the difference between Deathstroke and Batman?

The latest portrayal of Batman shows a more violent incarnation than we have seen in the past (in film). This is a Batman who has no problem with using firearms or lethal force against even the lowest thugs.

Seeing as Deathstroke is the villain in the upcoming Batman film, I pose the question: What is the difference between this Batman and Deathstroke?

From what I know, usually the key difference would be Batman's "one rule".
Deathstroke fights to kill, Batman fights to subdue. This isn't a factor anymore, so what's the difference?

[Assistant]
Slade Wilson is a warrior. Warriors gain respect through war. The most respected warrior is the most valuable warrior. The most valuable warrior is expensive. Deathstroke doesn't want your money, he wants your respect. Hell he doesn't even want that, he already commands it, he wants everyone to know what he's worth.

Also Batfleck doesn't fight to kill, he just doesn't care if he happens to.


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

[User]
[Comics] Why wear a cape?

I get why a meta human would wear one, it looks really impressive. But why would a hand to hand fighter wear a cape? Batman uses his to glide, but Catman, for instance, wouldn't it just slow him down?

[Assistant]
The cape helps to hide the fighters attack making it harder for their enemies to guess their next move and mount an effective defence.

The cape can also be used to aid an attack if parts are weighted or have blades in them and can keep an enemy off balance if used effectively as a feint.


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

[User] [40K] The Eldar gain the ability to breed as fast as the Orks, what happens now?

[Assistant]
If they can match pace with the Orks, then the Galaxy falls under the thumb of their rule in very little time. Unless the rest of the races can somehow band together or some other such heresy, there's nothing anyone could do to stop them. Keep in mind they ruled the galaxy at one time in the distant past, so it would be like getting back onto a bicycle after a hiatus for them.

The problem with this, of course, is that we could easily be looking at Slaanesh 2.0, or something even more fucked up if the numbers get big enough fast enough.

The Eldar connection to the Warp is unlike any other race's. Where other races may feel a "connection", the Eldar are sitting in it waist-deep. They are an inherently and abundantly emotional race, so unless they can figure out how to rein in their emotional tendencies, we're going to see, at the VERY least, a recreation of the cataclysm that caused Slaanesh's birth. Whether this just mega-boosts Slaanesh, creates an entirely new entity, or even does something totally different, nobody could say, but chances are good that whatever happens might tip the scales in Chaos' favor too far to be balanced again.


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

[User]
[Batman] Does Bruce Wayne as Batman have the full resources of Wayne Enterprises behind him or does his funding come from somewhere else?

Also... Does Batman have access to resources both monetary and technological that Bruce Wayne would not?

[Assistant] Go look up "Wayne Enterprises Finances - Unofficial" on the Bat-Computer. Long story short, all of Batman's products are manufactured by different subsidiaries of Wayne Enterprises as skunkworks projects that are summarily rejected for practical infeasibility, and then sold for a fraction of their price through various shell corporations so that they end up in Batman's hands. Since Wayne Enterprises spends hundreds of millions of dollars on research each year, the few million dollars of equipment isn't noticed. The entirety of Batman's materiel is disguised as canned R&D projects.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] Can a Boggart be scared?

Also to add a second question: What happens when a Boggart meets another Boggart?

[Assistant] I'd say yes, a Boggart can be scared. The whole turn into things you fear aspect is a fascinating self defense mechanism. It turns into things that the enemies targeting it fear, thus saving it's own neck. So if it is defending itself, it is evidently frightened, or capable of comprehending danger. As for when a Boggart meets a Boggart, well let's just say more Boggarts have to come into the world somehow.


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

[User]
ELI5: What happens if an animal who is supposed to hibernate is unable to?

What happens if an animal who is supposed to hibernate during the winter is unable to because of health reasons or even environmental factors (i.e. home being destroyed by forest fire or being snatched out of environment by poachers)? Does its body wear down and fall into a deep sleep regardless of the severe circumstances? Does the animal eventually get over the need to hibernate after pushing through the normal sleep cycle? Does the animal risk death if it doesn't hibernate?

[Assistant] A particular example: brown bears. If the bear doesn't get enough chow to get fat before hibernation, it's likely to wake up in the middle of the winter and go about looking for anything to eat. What you get is a , a "rocker", which is willing to kill anything that gets in its way (including armed humans), and is likely to starve to death before spring anyway.


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

[User] Why can geosynchronous satellites be only at a certain altitude?

[Assistant]
A geosynchronous satellite is one that is always over the same place on the surface of the Earth.  This means that the period of the satellite's orbit must be equal to the period of the Earth's rotation (i.e., 1 day).  A few very simple calculations using Newton's Law of Gravity and the period of circular orbits tells us that orbital period is proportional to orbital radius to the 3/2 power, or

T  r^(3/2)

Given a value for T (in this case, 1 day), there is only one value for r, which defines the altitude for geosynchronous orbit.  It works out to about 35,786 km above the surface.

Edit: 3/2, not 2/3.


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

[User]
(Star Trek) Currently, what is the most powerful Federation star ship class in service?

By 2400, the Federation has created many warships after the Borg Incursions and the Dominion war. What is currently the most powerful warship in Starfleet, and how does it compare to other warships like the D'deridex class, the Negh'Var, Dominion battle cruisers etc.?

[Assistant] Launched in 2409 the Enterprise F is an Odyssey Class vessel, it has a advanced escort docked in it's aft section as well as a saucer separation. The Odyssey class was designed for the new federation, capable as a military ship due to the threat of war on multiple fronts while still maintaining it's goal as a   explorer. the ship is large enough to warrant having site to site transporters inside the ship. The new dual neck design allows it to use advance transwarp speeds without the fear of subspace stress damaging the ship.


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

[User]
[Red Dwarf] How does the luck virus work?

I've heard word from traders visiting my station about rare positive diseases having been isolated by researchers; a sexual magnetism virus and a so-called luck virus.

I can imagine the sexual magnetism virus invoking some kind of pheromone production to cause its effects, but how in the name of smeg can a luck virus be possible? It can apparently make you correctly guess combinations and even find things lying around that just shouldn't be there... how can this be? What is the viruses mechanism?

[Assistant]
Quite possibly the virus allows your body to act on the vast vast amount of data that exists that we simply allow to wash over us.

For example if faced with a locked door that has a keypad; the virus would intercept the visual information that shows which keys are ever more slightly clean from the repeated input of the code, it would then inform our subconscious of the likely combination. We call it luck, but its actually the virus interpreting the world around us on a far more detailed level than we ever could, and informing the subconscious of the best course of action at all times.


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

[User]
I believe if there is a minimum wage, unpaid internships should be illegal. CMV

Pretty self explanatory from the title. Unpaid internships are jobs that pay less than minimum wage. Therefore they should be illegal.

[Assistant]
Any legal unpaid internship can't be called a job because it cannot benefit the company in any way. So if the company isn't benefitting from your work, why should you be paid?

Edit: Here are the criteria for an unpaid internship in the US. If your experience could impede on the company, why should you be paid?

1. The training, even though it includes actual operations of the facilities of the employers, is similar to that which would be given in a vocational school.

2. The training is for the benefit of the student.

3. The student does not displace a regular employee, but works under the close observation of a regular employee or supervisor.

4. The employer provides the training and derives no immediate advantage from the activities of the student; and on occasion, the operations may actually be impeded by the training.

5. The student is not necessarily entitled to a job at the conclusion of the training period.

6. The employer and the student understand that the student is not entitled to wages for the time spent training.


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

[User] ELI5: How can rural areas sell gas at a cheaper price than in densely populated areas (despite higher cost of transport)?

[Assistant]
The cost of operating the station are higher in urban settings:

1. real estate costs.
2. labor costs.
3. sometimes delivery costs, storage volumes requiring more frequent resupply and so on.
4. urban areas are more likely to have additional taxation on gasoline, as well has higher sales tax (you'll note that gasoline prices are always advertised inclusive of taxation, unlike many products).

Those are all rational.  There is also the "what the market will bear" consideration.  There is also the "what are people will to pay", and those forces can vary greatly based on where other stations are located, the uniqueness of your location (are you right near the rental car return place?) and so on.  You'll see more variety of that uniqueness in a heavily populated area.


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

[User] Why are certain materials like parchment paper, aluminum foil, etc. not hot to the touch out of the oven while metal and glass are?

[Assistant]
Things like aluminum foil are great heat conductors, like metals in general but they are usually very very thin. There is a concept called thermal capacitance that amounts to how much heat can an object hold at a given time. By being so thin and conductive, aluminum foil loses heat quickly after you take it out of the oven.

Think of something like a big hot potato, which has a high thermal capacitance. The potato holds a lot of  heat because of the shape and composition (mostly water). So you have to be careful to not burn your tongue.

Something like a metal plate sits in between.


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

[User]
ELI5: If Israel is where Jewish people originated, why do the majority of them appear European in genetic origin?

I know there have been many questions asked about the Israel/Palestine situation. However most of them are about the politics.

Back to my question. I have a vague understanding of the biblical history and of the formation of Israel. However I don't understand why they now appear European. Are they genetic descendants of the original Jewish people? Were they originally more genetically similar to people who live in the wider middle east? If so was it these people who moved to Europe and bred to become what we now recognise as a Jewish/Israeli person?

Disclaimer: I've tried to make this question as straight forward as possible and not loaded. However I'm aware that there are a lot of sensitivities around this issue that I probably don't know or understand. If I have offended anyone, I apologise, please let me know and if necessary I will edit accordingly.

[Assistant]
The Israelite tribes originated thousands of years ago in the region that today encompasses Israel/Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan, Sinai, and Egypt. The original Kingdom of David was founded in the area that is today Israel, but this was actually many centuries after the Israelite tribes emerged as a coherent cultural group with their own Jewish religion.

The Kingdom of David didn't last for very long though. It was conquered many times over, by the Akkadians, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Macedonians, and finally the Romans. Jewish people from ancient Israel began scattering all over the world in a diaspora. Two major groups of Jews in diaspora can still be identified today.

The **Sephardi** are Jews that remained in the middle east and re-settled in other parts of the middle east, such as Iraq, Jordan, and in particular the countries of North Africa along the Mediterranean coast. They made it as far West as Morocco and many passed in to Spain during the Moorish conquest of Spain.

The **Ashkenazi** went North. These are the Jews that settled in Russia, and in Eastern Europe, and eventually Western Europe. Most of the Jewish people in the United States are Ashkenazim that emigrated from Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries.

As you might expect, Jewish people living in diaspora don't completely isolate themselves and there is inevitably intermarriage and mixing. Sephardi people look middle eastern. Ashkenazi people look European.


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

[User] ELI5: TIL that Andromeda consumed a massive galaxy in our galactic neighborhood over 2 billion years ago leaving behind an object called M32, how did scientist figure this out? if something is already destroyed. How did they know it had a previous state?

[Assistant]
Imagine walking up to a pond and seeing massive ripples expanding in circles from a point. Theres no wind, and you dont see anything else unusual, so you would infer that something (like a rock) had just fallen into the pond at the center of the circles.

Astronomy is like this. We really cant see anything as it happens under normal circumstances, since things happen on enormous time scales (it took longer for Andromeda to eat a galaxy than our species has existed; probably over 100x longer). What we can do though is look at the ripples in the pond and make very careful measurements to figure out why there are ripples and the pond isnt smooth.

In the case of M32, we can measure its composition (both structurally in terms of masses and types of stars and shape) and chemically (by looking at the type of light it emits/absorbs) and its size and position. We know its not a normal galaxy just like our rippling pond isnt a normal pond. Things like M32 dont just form on their own. So we infer that something else had a hand in generating this weird situation. A lot of theories, a lot of careful simulation, and more extremely careful observation later, and we have come up with a pretty decent idea of what happened.

We could still be wrong. Just like it might not have been a rock thrown into the pond. But its a really good guess. And hopefully, if were wrong, well measure something in the future which proves it and forces us to come up with new theories and simulations and measurements. Scientists love when that happens.


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

[User]
ELI5: Communism is supposed to create a "classless utopia" but how come most communist countries are terrible places to live?

Places like the former USSR, North Korea, China, Cuba, North Korea, etc. are for the most part, are oppressive societies with power and wealth concentrated in the hands of a few. Communist philosophy, from what I understand, talks a lot about the excesses and greed associated with capitalism. Yet these "communist" countries usually end up the exact opposite of what communism intended. How can they still call themselves communist?

[Assistant]
Say you are in a group of 100 people. Essentially, they all agree that you should be in charge of how much they eat and what they eat. Now, you could buy them all steaks, marinate that shit, grill it up amazing and BAM they all love you! Cost: $10 per person for a total of $1,000 (just for round numbers).

On the other hand, you could buy ONE steak, you have an awesome meal when they can't see you and buy for them a packet of Ramen noodles while saying "these are tough times and we must all dig deep to give for our long term good!" Cost: $10 for 1 steak, about $0.25 per packet of noodles for $249.75 for total of $259.75. As long as the rest of the group doesn't see you eating steak, you keep saving money for yourself.

Now, the countries you mentioned have a history of social brainwashing to make sure everyone in the country KNOWS that this is the way things need to be for everyone's good. Unless the entire group finds out they are being lied to, it's very tough to break that kind of view.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do we get tunnel vision before we pass out?

A few months ago when I was in the gym I dropped a weight on my finger, there was alot of blood and I even though I'm not a squeamish person I passed out in the bathroom after laying there feeling really cold for about 3 minutes. Before I passed out I saw loads of blue dots like sparkles, and then darkness started filling the edges of my vision until I could only see through a tiny gap about the size of a cup, then my vision completely went but I was still partially concious as I remember waving my hand in front of my face and seeing complete blackness even though my eyes were open.

This was the first and only time I've ever passed out by the way.

[Assistant] This is your body going into shock. When it does go into shock, all of the blood heads toward the major organs in the core of your body and away from your appendages. This causes blood loss in your brain which causes you to pass out.


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

[User] If a person with light skin got a skin graft from a person with dark skin, would the skin color eventually change?

[Assistant]
What youre referring to is an allograft. The skin would stay the same color as the donor. Freckles dont move around; melanocytes in grafted skin behave similarly.

There are a few different types of skin grafts you can get. It depends on several factors, including surface area to be covered, thickness and texture, and hair growth. Autografts are when thin strips of epidermis are harvested from an unaffected part of the patients body, usually the back or thigh, and reattached over the graft area.  Xenografts are when another animals skin is used, typically porcine, and allografts are irradiated cadaver skin. You dont have to deal with immune suppression in that case because many of the things the immune system would target are destroyed in the prep process.


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

[User]
CMV:High schools should do more to prepare students for the next level.

My high school didn't in anyway prepare me for college and it was such a culture shock with all the studying, HW, and stress. in my opinion what they should do is in 10th grade 2nd semester they should spend a month going thru everything from college to military or work force so the students can decide what's best for them. like one week could be military and everyday they bring in someone from each branch and then discuss what all the military has to offer, then the next month bring in college speakers and explain in black and white what college is like and has to offer, then the next week bring in someone from a trade school to explain the benefits pros and cons of attending a trade school, then in the last week bring in someone from major jobs to speak to the students, then once that week is over, the students speak to their counselor once every so often to discuss their future then at the end of their 10th grade they can decide on what they would like to do then 11th and 12th grade be nothing but prepare them for their next stage in life.

Military could bring in an ROTC program from each branch and then prepare them for military life and go thru mild basic training to prepare them for real basic and then they can possibly go in the military at a better rank.

College could teach their basics and have a real college schedule like mtw 10:30 am- 12 pm math 1:00- 2:30 history TuTh 10:30 am- 12:30 am biology and then give them the same amount of HW, study requirments, and everything they can expect in college then once they are out they can go to their college and then start on their degree and not have to take out so much in student loans.

trade school: for the 2 years teach them the trade they want to go after that way when they get out of HS they can get a job in the job force right out of HS.

work force: have them go into paid interinships to learn more about the job they want to go after.

(this is just to make sure I have enough characters and to kinda rant some)

my HS wasted 11th and 12th grade making us take pointless classes like world history and didn't prepare me for anything and the only reason I had high grades to begin with was thanks for football and their daily study hall class, but the HW was very lack and virtually easy to do and you literally never had to study. then when I started college the only reason I didn't get kicked out 1st semester was thanks to my fraternity making everyone go to the library for 2 hours daily for study hall and tutoring and if you grade went lower than 85% in any class you had to do daily 4 hour study hall and tutoring....and my 1st week of school I had enough HW to last me a week just for a basic class.

[Assistant] Did you ever talk to your conselor? They could have helped you with all  of this. Pretty much all high schools will let you take AP or IB courses or attend your local community college your last few years if you want to where you can take trade classes, college course, or rotc. You just didn't.


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

[User] ELI5: What are the Dead Sea Scrolls, what do they contain, and what is their significance?

[Assistant] Before DSS, the oldest copy of the Old Testament was a Greek translation.  As a translation, it was treated with suspicion, and when there was a difference between it and later Hebrew texts, the Hebrew was preferred.  The early Hebrew copy found with the Dead Sea Scrolls gave clues to the older form of the text.


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

[User] [star trek]why are most of the big fish in the galaxy (aside from the Borg) only a few thousand years old, warp capability wise? what happened to the races that were prominent in the milky way millions of years ago?

[Assistant]
It is hinted at times that races or ensembles of races that become *too* advanced will become essentially "invisible" for less advanced races.

For instance the Q became incorporeal, all-powerful extradimensional entities, the "prophets" inside DS9 wormhole live outside time itself, the Fluidic Space is possibly is a pocket dimension created by Species 8742 itself, and so on.  Even the Federation from the 29th century is so involved in time travel shenanigans that they already look kind of "detached" from normal life in the universe.

So, what the Federation normally sees, and what has any consequence or represents any concern for them, are other races that are about in the same window of technological and evolutive development. It's like how ants will perceive just other species of ants and other insects crawling over dirt, almost all the time completely unaware of - say - a gigantic, incredibly more complex and intelligent human observing them from above. The only times that they "perceive" the human (and in a rather incomplete way) are when he accidentally stomps their anthill or starts to burn ants with a magnifying glass for shits and giggles.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why are coffee cups in tv/movies so blatantly empty, rather than filled with weight?

In most shows I've seen, it's obvious that these coffee cup props are completely empty by the way they move, or by the sound they make when set on a surface. This wouldn't be that big of a deal, except for the brief disruption of immersion.

In my attempts to search for previous ELI5 questions about this, it's obvious that filling opaque coffee cups with liquid isn't a good idea because of potential spills, as well as the amount of liquid an actor would have to ingest throughout all the takes required.....but my question here is different: Why not just simply fill them with a solid weight, like a gelatin with a similar density as water, to more realistically mimic the way these objects should move?

[Assistant]
And the million dollar question you have to answer: does that add anything to the storyline of the film for the avg filmgoer?   No.

Just like movies never say goodbye when hanging up the phone, never lock the door, cock the gun even on a gun that doesn't cock, hacking by typing furiously at the keyboard, looking at a screen so bright the reflection off the glasses is blinding,  10 bad guys fighting the hero will take turns attacking, bad guys have absolutely no aim when shooting,  bad guy has to explain the entire evil plan for 5minutes before attempting and failing to kill the good guy.


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

[User] ELI5: In the US, why is it allowed to potentially expose your child and other's children to deadly diseases through vaccination exemptions but other state mandated laws, such as vehicle child restraints or smoking age-limits, are non-negotiable?

[Assistant] Because you can get away with almost anything in this country if you claim it's against your religion.  Parents have let their children die, literally die, because they didn't "believe" in modern medicine.


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

[User] ELI5: What creates the zooming out effect you see when you shut off a TV or computer?

[Assistant] If you mean on really old CRT screens, the whole picture was drawn by a single point flying across the screen very fast, horizontally, then stepping down a vertical level and repeating. When you turn it off, the inputs driving that beam go to 0v. The outputs of that beam are at high voltage so take a little while to drain, causing the beam to sort of sit on one line, which eventually shrinks to a point, before the power source of the beam dies too.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Did the Death Star's hypermatter reactor power all of the stations systems or just the Superlaser?

If so, how was the laser able to tap into so much power all at once without blacking out the rest of the station? If not, where did the other systems get their power?

[Assistant] It powered the whole station. You could actually hear the power-drain when primary ignition was initiated. Also remember, it didn't generate the power all at once - the reactor operated continuously and they stored a significant portion of that energy beforehand. This is why the Death Star needs to recharge between firings.


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

[User] ELI5: What makes landing on Mars different from the moon landing?

[Assistant]
First of all, Mars is a LOT farther than the Moon (like Johannesburg is farther than the local grocery store).

Then, Mars has higher gravity, so everything gets pulled down about twice as hard compared to the moon.

Finally, Mars has an atmosphere. It's very thin, but still significant. It has quite an effect on anything flying through it at any speed - and a lander coming from Mars' orbit (or beyond) has a LOT of speed.


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

[User]
[Pokemon]Why do so many trainers not have a full party of 6 Pokemon? Also, why can't you carry 7 in the first place?

I understand why Mikey the preschooler with his first Pokemon might not have a full party, but what about those training under gym leaders? What about gym leaders themselves? It almost seems unfair when I walk up with a full party of assorted types stacked up in a way that I can almost always pull a type advantage with same type attack bonus against whatever type your gym specializes in...

[Assistant]
Nothing is stopping you from carrying 7 or more, but official League-sanctioned matches cap at 6 (and you have to declare those six before the battle starts). Most pokegear and belts and stuff come with 6 slots as a result of this, so nobody bothers carrying 7 or more pokemon around with them.

The reason most people have only a few pokemon is that raising pokemon is *hard*. You probably *own* enough for a full team of 6, but if four of them are level 3 pidgey and rattata you're not going to get very far. In order to train 5 or 6, you have to be training full-time. Most people can't afford to train full-time, and anybody funding themselves purely through betting money will run out of money the first time they tilt (losing 3 or more matches in a row). The one exception is breeders (since breeding makes a fair amount of money), and they usually have a low-level team because they have to split their attention between each pokemon and don't care much about winning matches. If you have a day job or even a part-time job, you'll find you just don't have the time to give them all the attention they deserve. It would take a seriously dedicated and talented trainer to manage a working team of 6 at a professional level.

As you pointed out, gym leaders do have the time and resources to have a large team. Most gym leaders have a dozen or more pokemon they're training at any given time. Go ask a leader you defeated for a rematch and they'll bring out a balanced team of 6 level 45 pokemon to crush you. However, the League's guidelines suggest that most leaders give out a certain number of badges each month, so they run the weaker type-specific teams you're familiar with. There are a couple of notable exceptions, like a certain dragon-type gym leader who prides herself in having an impossible-to-win badge.


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

[User] ELI5:How do animal detach themselves from their umbilical cord?

[Assistant] The umbilical cord connects the newborn animal to the placenta, which is an organ that attaches to the mother's uterus and is the channel through which nutrients flow to the embryo as it grows in the uterus. The placenta is expelled from the mother immediately after birth, and each animal has a separate one. Most animal mothers will eat the placenta, which is very rich in nutrients, severing it from the umbilical cord in the process. The rest of the cord will dry up and fall off in a few days on its own. The umbilical cord has no nerves, so the severing, drying and falling off do not cause any pain.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do ISPs want to throttle Netflix?

I know coporations are greedy and will milk you for every penny they can but this type of blatant disregard for their customers can't be good for them.

What would happen if we all canceled our service for a month?

[Assistant]
Flawed analogy time!

Imagine the internet is a bunch of roads, built and maintained by ISPs.  Also imagine Netflix is a company that sells awesome noodles.

A bunch of people want noodles, which they buy from Netflix.  Netflix noodle trucks are chugging up and down the roads, business is booming, Netflix profits soaring.

But there are so many Netflix noodle trucks on the roads that the ISPs need to resurface some, and widen others, just to keep all the other traffic flowing.  This costs them a lot of cash, which impacts *their* profits.

So they say to Netflix: "Give us some money for each of your trucks, 'cos we're spending a bunch on maintaining these roads, plus also your profits = huge! xxx"

Netflix replies: "Get fucked, lol"

More and more people want some of those sweet Netflix noodles.  So Netflix is out buying more trucks, while doing that thing everyone who gets a bunch of cash in films does, where they throw it up in the air while lying on the bed laughing.

So the ISPs say: "Well if you won't give us some of your noodle profit moneys, we'll put a bunch of guys out, one on every road, who'll pull your trucks over and delay them, so your noodles are always cold and shitty by the time they get to your customers.  Yeah.  How do you like us now?"

And Netflix are all: "Road neutrality!  There must be laws to say that no traffic gets pulled over and griefed, because reasons (and profit, shhhhh)."

And all the noodle customers are all: "Bad ISPs want us to eat cold noodles!  Road neutrality!"

And  Netflix are all like: "We're not corporate bad guys, looking to make so much money we ge to do that thing everyone who gets a bunch of cash in films does, where they throw it up in the air while lying on the bed laughing, honest.  We're all about the principle!"

---

Basically the whole thing is about who pays for the infrastructure of the internet, and who profits from the benefits of that infrastructure being improved.

Netflix has a great service, but streaming is only possible if the network infrastructure has the bandwidth to carry all that data without constant pausing and buffering.

Netflix happens to be lucky that the principle of net neutrality is one that most internet users are behind.  But don't think that Netflix are the heroes here, and the ISPs the baddies.  It's all about the $$$ for both.


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

[User]
[Marvel] Can Juggernaut fly? If not, why not?

Can't he just use his "can't be stopped unless he wants to be" power after jumping?

I get that the Hulk can slow him down, so gravity should be able to as well, but an enraged hulk >>>>>>> the Earth's gravitational field.

Hell, Juggernaut should theoretically be able to fly (albeit somewhat awkwardly while he got used to the process) by flapping his arms while in the air, right?

[Assistant] It isn't as if the power is that once in motion his inertia is infinite making it impossible to stop him. His ability to keep moving requires him to propel himself forward, something he can't do because he has no traction on air. He also can not walk on water; he sinks because the density of water is no sufficient to support him. Same is true for the air.


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

[User] ELI5: Do air marshals really spend most of their time flying around in random planes? How are they assigned? Or is that just something for the movies?

[Assistant]
The Federal Air Marshal Service is part of the Department of Homeland Security. They are trained law enforcement officers who train specifically around planes/aviation. They go through the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC), which all federal LEOs go through, and a secondary training specific to their role. They are assigned to specific flights, both domestic and international. Long international flights can have multiple Marshals on board. The flight crew knows of the Marshal's presence on the plane. The agency chooses which flights to have Marshals on board. They tend to increase if a large sporting event is taking place or a major political event is occurring in a city. If you fly frequently, you probably have been on a flight with a Marshal and never knew it.

Edit to answer a few more items:
Much of their time is spent in the air or at airports, but they also can have desk work.
They carry SIG p229 chambered in .357 Sig. For those not familiar, it is a hybrid between a 9mm (the bullet) and .40 (the case). Think 9mm magnum for the easiest description.


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

[User] [MCU]Why does Wong have a Chinese name if hes Nepalese?

[Assistant] In the comics Wong was born in Nepal but is a descendant of Chinese immigrants. In the MCU we don't know his actual origin, but since Kamar-Taj accepts recruits from all over the world there's little reason to believe Wong is a native of Nepal.


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

[User]
When is slipery slope reasoning not fallacious

One of the first things they told me in my philosophy class on logic was that just because something has the form of a 'Logical Fallacy', doesn't mean it is a fallacy.

In regard to slippery slope reasoning, it seems like a lot of people are way too quick to label any argument of that form as a fallacy, when obviously that isn't always the case.

So, what are some general guidelines you could use to differentiate between a fallacious slippery slope and a non-fallacious slippery slope?

EDIT: The two answers that seem most reasonable are that;

1. A slippery slope is fallicous if you don't give adequate grounds for each step in the causal relationship
2. A slippery slope is fallacious if you don't take into account the decreasing probability of a result through compounding predictions. For example, if i was to say that the probability of landing heads 3 times was 50% because after each subsequent coin flip, there is a 50% chance of landing heads, basically putting yourself in the position of the coin flipper after he's already flipped the coin once/twice/etc...

[Assistant]
I don't think there's much to say specifically, other than recalling the basics of critical thinking in general.

Typically the scenario in which the accusation of "slipper slope fallacy" comes up is one, where it is claimed that

    A leads to B, B leads to C, ... Y leads to Z, and we don't want Z

or something along those lines, with seemingly a lot of intermediate steps, whereas there's no obvious relation between A and Z on the face of it. This is an informal fallacy if the person who makes this claim doesn't sufficiently substantiate each step, and it's not a fallacy if they sufficiently substantiate each step. And that's pretty much all that is to it.

It's of course not a fallacy per se, to argue that that A leads to B, B leads to C, ... Y leads to Z and we don't want Z. Why would it be a mistake in reasoning to argue for something like this? Long causal chains of events happen all the time, and aren't inherently unpredictable. And all sort of apparently short arguments would be really much longer chain-arguments if we added more details and wrote out all missing premises, as well as justifications for premises and so on.

Presumably people gave it a name and put it in (some) books on critical thinking because they feel that this thing often goes wrong in practice, namely that people tend to not sufficiently back such claims of a slippery slope from A to....to Z. So they want us to be careful when someone advances such reasoning, and make us look closely at the evidence someone presents for their claim.


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

[User] ELI5: Turbo in an Engine. And the difference between Turbo, Turbo-charger and super-charger and how these differ from just a regular old combustion engine.

[Assistant]
First, understand that the mix gasoline and air combusts best in a fairly narrow range of ratios. So for a given amount of air, you have to have a proportional amount of fuel to make the engine work well. The more fuel-air mix you can burn, the more power the engine will produce. It's reasonably easy to get more fuel into an engine; the challenge therefore is to get more air in for the fuel to mix with.

A turbocharger (aka turbo) is two turbines joined by a shaft. One turbine is the the exhaust stream of the engine, so that any time the engine is running, the exhaust spins the turbine. This turns the shaft, which turns the other turbine, which is in the intake. The turbine on the intake side pushes more air into the engine. Since there's more air, more fuel can also be added, and this makes more power.

A supercharger has the same effect - it pushes more air into the engine, but it's driven by a belt rather than by the exhaust gasses. The belt turns a centrifugal impeller or a screw-type pump to do this. Again, more air means more fuel can be added, and the engine can make more power.

With neither of these things, engines work fine for a lot of applications. The simple motion of the pistons creates a vacuum, which sucks in air pretty well; but again there's a limit to just how much air an engine can get this way - and therefore how much fuel can be burned.


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

[User]
ELI5: Do psychopaths know they're psychopaths?

without being diagnosed

to clarify, can they fool themselves into thinking they are normal? does being diagnosed as a psychopath come as a surprise to them?

[Assistant] Psychopaths do not see themselves as abnormal. They see themselves as very sane, pragmatic, and successful in a world of weak, transparent people. They don't search to be labelled or diagnosed, it happens only when others force it on them.


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

[User]
[Percy Jackson] What happens if a God has a child with a Demigod?

Are 3/4 Gods possible? How powerful would they be?

What about if two demigods have a kid? Or a demigod and a human?

Are there any examples of such individuals floating about, with some god blood but more/less than half?

[Assistant]
Frank was only a tiny bit more than half (descended from an Ancient Greek demigod that faced Hercules) and he was warned that he may burn out his life-force (related to a plank of wood that it was tied to).

For less than half-bloods, Camp Half-Blood didn't do crap. But, Camp Jupiter looked out for "Legacies", the descendants of half-bloods.


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

[User]
The closer you get to a massive body, the faster you need to go to orbit. For earth, air resistance limits closeness you can achieve orbit at, but is there a theoretical limit for how close your orbit can be, on bodies without an atmosphere?

For example, on the moon, could you orbit at 500 ft, if you were going fast enough? 50 ft? 5?

[Assistant] For an airless body and assuming uniform mass distribution, you can orbit at the lowest point that doesnt hit the ground. With uneven mass distribution, the question becomes much harder to answer. Though the Moon has no atmosphere, many orbits are considered unstable because the mass concentrations in the moon are pretty weird. We can use the non-uniform mass of Earth to cause an orbit to move around. For example, the A-train satellites use this to pass over the same points on Earth at the same time every day. The moon is more random and finding a stable orbit is much more difficult.


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

[User]
[Spider-Man PS4] Where are the Avengers?

The city is being torn apart, multiple supervillains are running amok, a bio-weapon has been detonated, bombs are going off, water supplies being poisoned. why are the Avengers leaving it all for Spider-Man to deal with?

There are escaped convicts with rocket launchers right outside of Avengers Tower. Why have none of them come to help?

[Assistant] When you take a picture of Avengers Tower, Spidy will say they're dealing with something on the west coast. Daredevil and Luke Cage probably aren't active heroes in this word. And this usually isn't something Dr Strange would concern himself with.


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

[User] ELI5: How did famous generals in ancient history survive multiple battles despite being in the front-line frequently, where the surviving chance was rather slim?

[Assistant] If by "front line" you mean shoulder to shoulder with the infantry columns then that's because they weren't there. They were generally placed to oversee the battle in its whole to give effective commands. You can't do that with the enemy literally in your face.


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

[User]
ELI5: How does sleep debt/build up work?

If I were to sleep for 24 hours could I then skip the next 3 days of sleep? If so how does it work and if not why does it not work like that?

[Assistant]
The first question to answer is, what is the point of sleep?

Among some other functions, the primary purpose of sleep is for the brain to enter into a maintenance mode. Think of it as that 2am hard drive defragging that runs when you wouldn't otherwise be on your computer. Instead of space reallocation, however, the brain's process is biochemical and serves to "wash and replenish" the brain's cellular machinery, something that can't happen when the individual is in a waking state. This process is both reactive (meaning it doesn't do any good to do it before there's a mess to clean) and rate limited (which means that it takes X amount of time to achieve Y results). As such, the normal waking/sleeping cycle maintains an equilibrium of building up a mess and cleaning it up.

You can't bank sleep. That would be similar to cleaning an already clean house for the sake of cleaning it and expecting any mess that you make in the future to come out of the extra work you did. It just doesn't work like that.


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

[User] ELI5: How do they know a cigarette filters will take upto 400 years to decompose when they have only been around since the 1930s?

[Assistant] Decay is not all at once. Take a known quantity of an object, see how much remains after a while, extrapolate how long it will take, repeat checking and extrapolating to ensure good data or to make adjustments.


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

[User] moments after the big bang, if all matter was inside the swarzchild radius, why didn't gigantic black hole form?

[Assistant]
The reason that a black hole normally forms is because there is a lot of matter in a small space that's all being pulled gravitationally toward the center of mass. This means that you need a mass differential: you need a very strong gravitational force pulling each particle in a single direction (i.e. toward the center of mass) compared to a much weaker gravitational force in all other directions (i.e. toward empty space).

With the universe just after the Big Bang, that latter condition didn't exist. Yes there was a lot of mass...but it was incredibly uniform in its distribution, such that each individual particle was being pulled by gravity in all directions equally. As such, the gravitational forces all canceled out and no black hole could form.


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

[User] [Demolition Man] Is the rest of the US as pure as San Angeles? Is San Angeles the only safely habitable place left in the country and, if not, why wouldnt those that hate the laws just get out?

[Assistant] I always suspected that San Angeles was an experiment by the US government to see if Dr. Cocteau's socio-political theories could be successfully implemented in other American cities. All those people who he was talking to when Phoenix breaks out were most likely members of a Senate subcommittee.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is there a "proper" way to serve?

At my current place of employment, everything must be perfect down to the way we place silverware. So why is it "proper" to serve from the left and clear from the right? Also where did this originate from? I just don't understand the point of having to serve and clear on separate sides.. Or why people get snooty if you don't do it the "correct" way.... Seems asinine.

[Assistant]
Service is from the left because most people are right-handed.

Once upon a time, society was pretty much divided between the *landed* and the *tenants.* The landed were the people who owned the land, while the tenants lived on and worked the land, paying a rent to the local lord. That's where the term "landlord" comes from.

Tenants often had young women in their families, daughters and such. These young women weren't suited to agricultural work, for obvious reasons. So they sought employment at the lord's manor house as household servants.

These servants of course needed to be managed, so there evolved this whole organizational structure around the lord and his family employing a virtual *army* of people in their household. This was part of the lord's service to his tenants: They worked his land, he employed their family members.

So a lot of the household tasks in a manor house ended up being delegated to servants. One of these tasks was serving food at dinner. The custom was for a servant a young man called a *footman* to carry large platters of food up from the kitchen to the dining room, and to take it from diner to diner.

Because the footman's hands were full with the platter of food, each diner selected his or her own portion and moved it to his or her plate with utensils.

And since most diners are right-handed, it worked out best if the footman held the platter at table-height to the left of the diner, so he or she could reach across his or her body and serve himself or herself.

We keep this custom around today. Most diners still eat primarily with their right hands, so "servants" we call them "wait staff" today provide table service from the left, so as not to get in the way.

The reason we clear the table from the right is because if we didn't, the porters who clear would get in the way of the servers who are serving!

So it's partly custom, and mostly pragmatism. If we do it this way, there's less bumping and jostling and spilling of food.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is Distilled water not safe to drink?

I learned in Biology that distilled water lacks minerals, so your cells absorb too much of it, causing them to explode. Is that true? Someone else told me it makes you loopy. Mainly asking because there's a boiled water advisory in my town tomorrow and I need water for washing dishes, brushing my teeth, and drinking.

[Assistant]
Two things:

Boiled water isn't distilled water;

Drinking *too much* distilled water over a *long period of time* and not eating any food would be dangerous for you, but that's true of any type of water. You get minerals from foods you eat, and that distilled water has to be absorbed into your body through your mucus membranes / stomach / small intestine.

If you want to alleviate the tiny, tiny remaining lingering suspicion in your mind, shake a pinch of salt into the gallon jug, and tada you're safe.


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

[User]
[Marvel] So does Peter Parker not need sleep?

Listen, I get he's got spider powers and all, but, like, the dude's still got to sleep, right? I hear about how he'll just finish a patrol at like 4 am and turn around and go to work at 8 am. And that's on a good night. Half the time he just straight up doesn't sleep. How? Surely that level of exhaustion would take its toll, right? Or does Peter Parker have some "Super Sleep" thing that we don't know about?

[Assistant] He's tough, so it's not as bad as it would be for a normal person but it does take it's toll, typically the only times he ever gets more than 4 or 5 hours of sleep is when he burns out and straight up passes out, or is injured so bad he is almost literally unable to get out of bed.


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

[User] ELI5: How do deep sea creatures resist being crushed by pressure, but I could still crush them in my fingers?

[Assistant]
It's not the absolute pressure that crushes something, it's the relative pressure.  Deep sea fish are mostly water on the inside and water on the outside, so if they are acclimated the pressure on their insides is the same as their outsides.

If you decide to crush a fish with your hands, it is a big, quick change in pressure that will crush it as it can't adjust.


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

[User]
[40k] So how do the the Craftworld Eldar feel about the Dark Eldar? How do the Dark Eldar feel about the Craftworlders?

The Eldar are famous for being willing to sacrifice billions of human lives for just one of their number. Would they sacrifice those sames lives for a Dark Eldar? Do they interact often? Do the Dark Eldar raid Craftworlds, or do they avoid them? If someone could point out a famous story of Dark Eldar/"Eldar Classic" interacting, I would be really greatful!

[Assistant]
How do you feel about your fucked up cousin or little brother? The one who drinks, takes drugs, parties and gets in trouble with the law.

You feel a sense of pity and contempt and a strange envy at their self destructive life choices. You know that temptation to abandon yourself in self destructive short term pleasure is inside you as well, and even if you hate them they will always mean more to you than a stranger.

***You wonder in your darker moments whether they actually have the right idea....***


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Why did the Jedi switch to only using Kyber for their lightsaber crystals?

I was researching lightsaber construction in the jedi library and I found passages from the old republic referring to jedi using a multitude of different crystals, including various exotic materials like Krayt dragon pearls. What caused this practice to stop?

Furthermore, these old records do not refer to the more standard crystals as "Kyber" and it seems they were able to be sourced from locations other than the Ilum mines. It almost seems like at some point, the records change to consolidate all crystals under the banner of "Kyber" and to only source from a handful of mines. Why is this?

[Assistant]
While there may be something to the old legends, they are exactly that; legends.  If the practice was ever in place, it fell out of favor so long ago that written records are spotty at best.

The securing of a kyber crystal is as much a ritual as it is a quest; to find and bond with a crystal and, with it, craft a lightsaber.  As it's younglings undertaking this task, it lends itself to 1) have a steady supply of crystals and 2) a place where they can undertake the quest in relative safety.


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

[User]
[GTA 5]What if Franklin decided to do nothing?

At the end the game,Franklin has 3 choices.Kill Tevor,Kill Michael or the Deathwish mass kill the game villains.What if he chose and option 3 and simply decided to do nothing?

[Assistant]
Devin Weston is going to have the heist crew killed. Endings A and B merely delay it by having him force Franklin to do some of his clean-up which demoralizes the crew enough they can't effectively fight back. It's only in Ending C where Franklin uses his one and only opportunity to screw things up for Devin and even then, he's already got a small army of Merryweather mercs out to kill Michael and Trevor.

If Franklin goes by your proposed Ending D and simply does nothing, they'll all be wiped out by the end of the day since Franklin did nothing to prevent it. What did you *think* was going to happen with crossing a corrupt billionaire who's already gotten the crew to commit multiple crimes on his behalf?


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

[User] Eli5: Why does ceramic break tempered glass so easily.

[Assistant]
Ceramic is very hard. Not in the general, colloquial sense of hard, but in the Mohs Hardness Scale. That scale measures whether or not something can scratch something else. Diamond is the hardest on this scale - not because you can't break diamond. Diamonds are pretty brittle, you can easily crack or shatter them with a hammer. But you can't *scratch* them.

Tempered glass is made by putting the glass in tension. You cool the glass so that the outside shrinks, compressing the still-hot inside. When the inside then cools, the outside is frozen in place so the inside pulls tightly on it the inside contracts. The glass pulling on itself keeps the molecules from moving, and holds it all together strongly so it's very hard to break.

By scratching the surface, ceramic breaks the tension, releasing *all* of it throughout the glass.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why doesn't the metal walls of the microwave cause sparks but most every other metal does?

Obligatory front page edit!! Thanks for the answers guys/gals!

[Assistant] First off, the problem that metal in a microwave causes most often is that the metal can reflect and focus microwaves into food or onto the walls, causing things to burn or melting the walls. The worst thing that can happen is the metal reflects the energy right back into where they came from, damaging the Magnetron, the thing that makes the microwaves that cook your food. The walls of the microwave do the same thing, but are designed to evenly reflect the microwaves around the microwave without reflecting them back into the magnetron. The reason you might see sparks when you place a metal object in a microwave is that metal will naturally pick up a static charge when hit with lots of energy. When this happens in a microwave, it happens with enough energy and for long enough to see the static charge overcome gaps between one area of the metal and another, causing it to arc across, creating a spark.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do cold showers relax your muscles if they cause them to tense up because of the temperature?

Especially, if you hate being cold like me. Assuming they mean barely-turning-the-handle cold. It feels like glacier water in my shower. I just got a cold from being cold for a few hours. So un-debunking that right now.

[Assistant] When you have sore muscles it's usually because of inflammation, when you get into cold water, your blood vessels constrict, they get smaller, and less blood is flowing there to help reduce the inflammation.


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

[User]
ELI5 - How are people more prone to getting sick when its cold?

So I just found out about three years ago that the whole wear a jacket or youll catch a cold thing is a myth because you dont get sick from JUST being cold. So why is it that colds and the flu are more common during cold weather? Especially since bacteria and viruses need a warm body to host in to survive?

[Assistant]
1.  Sunlight weakens or kills viruses, including the flu.  Winter=less sunlight & less time outdoors in sunlight.
2. People spend more time indoors, breathing the same recirculated air as sick people.
3. Kids go back to school.  That means they spend a lot of time around other kids, breathing the same air in classrooms, on school buses, etc.  If one kid gets sick, it's easy for all of them to get sick, and then they bring it home to parents, who bring it to work.


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

[User]
Why do some programs require a specific version(s) of Windows or Mac OS, but some don't?

Some programs might require Windows 7, others 7/Vista, and others 7/Vista/XP.  What causes these programs to require specific versions, and why do some seem to not?

[Assistant]
There are typically two reasons for this:

**Programmers make assumptions**

For example, in the Windows 95/98/ME days, any program could modify any file anywhere, so many Windows programs wrote their settings to c:\program files\app name\settings.ini or something similar. When Windows NT/2K/XP/etc. came out, programs were only allowed to write to places their users had permissions to write to - and c:\program files\ is not one of them. As a result, many programs stopped working.

This can be circumvented by running the program as admin, but that has two issues; first, it's less secure. If there's a bug in the program, it can make any changes it wants to your system. Secondly, in a lot of environments (e.g. offices, schools, large enterprises, libraries) users don't have the ability to run as administrator, meaning they can't use these programs, they'll crash randomly, they won't save their settings, etc.

**OSes change**

Windows goes to a lot of trouble to keep things working whenever possible, but bugs still get fixed that app developers assume are ok. On Mac OS, Apple is almost militant about getting rid of old code in favour of new code. If Apple adds a better way of doing things in 10.6, then the old way will often be 'deprecated' (meaning that developers are told not to use this code because it will be removed) in 10.7, and it will be removed entirely in 10.8.

This can cause problems in one of two ways; first, old apps that don't get updated will continue to run on 10.6 and 10.7, because the old ways of doing things still exist, but will not run on 10.8. New apps that are written from scratch (the proper way) in 10.7 will continue to work in 10.8 and onward, but will not run in 10.6.

**Notes**

Good developers are able to mitigate these issues by detecting which version of the OS is running and using the old or new ways depending on which is available, but this can be a significant amount of development work, and can introduce subtle bugs. Also, there is often a very clear signal 'which way the wind is blowing', and developers can update their apps long before there's an issue (if they have the developer time).

Bad developers are especially prone to these issues. Most problems can be solved by writing code the way that Windows is designed to work, using the correct built-in functions instead of writing your own, asking Windows where to put documents instead of picking an arbitrary location, and so on. Bad developers are lazy, and instead of writing four lines of code to figure out where the documents directory is, will just use the app directory instead. They'll write their own functions because they're too lazy to look up the documentation to see if there is already a function to do what they're trying to do, and when they write it themselves they'll miss certain cases (e.g. what if the system language is in Hebrew? What if the timezone is different? What if the Windows directory isn't in c:\windows? They assume everything will always be the same as what they have and when things change in subtle ways, problems happen.


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

[User]
So I know about the colors of urine (dark means dehydrated), but what does cloudy mean?

My only thought on this is when it happened my previous meal was a bag of pretzels, but this has occurred before in a morning urination.

Is it just my body expelling excess salt?

[Assistant]
Cloudiness is caused by proteins, crystals, or cells in the urine, which are all normal. Cloudy urine isn't pathologic in itself. It also depends on *how* cloudy it is, which you can't tell by looking at it in the toilet. When we look at it in the lab, there are 4 grades of turbidity: Clear, hazy, cloudy, and turbid. If all the urinalysis tests are normal, the only time we worry about it is if it comes up turbid.

TL;DR It's normal.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is there a physical response/pain (ie: chest compression, heart aches, etc) when a person has endured an emotional heart break or extreme sadness. Just read about Broken Heart Syndrome, but how does this physiologically happen?

[Assistant] Mainly due to stress. Epinephrine and Norepinephrine is released in your body giving you the "flight or fight" response. Other hormones such as cortisol also contribute to this. This results in blood being drawn away from your stomach and pumped more into your muscles, because during times of stress, your body is more focused on your somatic (muscles) response rather than digestion. This lack of blood in your stomach gives you that "sick to the stomach" kind of pain.


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

[User]
Can we and how do we determine if a sound is produced in front or behind us?

Obviously we can tell if a sound is on either side of us, but can we - without visual aid - tell if its in front, behind, above or below us? If so, how?

[Assistant]
Something called "spectral cues" comes into play.  Sound interacts with the actual surface of your ear lobes before it gets processed (similar factors in skull shape, nasal passages, etc.).  This changes the timing, resonance, etc. in minute ways but your brain is able to recognize these patterns and use them to help recognize the direction even in the plane between ears.

There's actually a really cool experiment you can do to show this.  Have one person blindfolded and stand in the center of an area.  Have another person stealthily move around and clap from various directions, and have the person point to where they heard the noise come from.  Then, use a soft clay or similar substance (bread dough works) to fill the grooves of their ear lobes without obstructing the ear canal.  Repeat the experiment, and you will find that they sometimes point in the completely wrong direction (especially for positions directly above or below them).  They may also get confused and have no idea where a sound is coming from.


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

[User] [BioShock] How come men who are chose to become a Big Daddy need their vocals cords "fixed" as part of the process?

[Assistant] If they could talk, they might be saying things like "Oh god, somebody help me, I've been horribly mutated and sealed in a diving suit" and, even in a libertarian society, that might raise concerns among the masses. Best not to risk it.