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

[User]
ELI5: Can chemists follow formula like a recipe?

For example, Salt has the chemical formula NaCl, so if you bond sodium with chloride, you will get salt.

Could a chemist apply this same principle to say Insulin (C257H383N65O77S6). Using the chemical formula alone to replicate the substance in question?

If this is the case, why are knock-off drugs not more common, couldn't a rival lab (or illegal labs) just take the publicly available formula and replicate it at a fraction of the c0st?

[Assistant]
No. Thats not how chemistry works.

Saying that c^(6)H^(12)O^(6) is sugar is kind of like say a particular LEGO model is 6 red bricks, 12 blue bricks, and 6 yellow bricks. There is not enough information to build the model even though you know the ratios.


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

[User]
ELI5 Why do some injuries hurt at the moment of impact while others hurt the day after?

 For example let's say you fall and you can't move for a a few seconds because your knee really hurts, peter griffin style, but the next day what really hurts is like your back or your shoulders. Why is the pain at that moment so sudden and goes away quickly while the other will come a while after?

[Assistant]
There are two types of pain:

* an immediate severe one to make you escape closest danger (e. g. you'll reflexively remove your hand from a flame or a sharp object);

* afterwards a different, long-lasting, deep ache if you have been seriously hurt. Its function seems to be to send you (or any animal) into a safe place to heal, and also to limit exercise while getting better.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] What laws of physics does magic defy the most?

And by laws of physics I mean science plus the universe as well.

[Assistant]
The first law of thermodynamics is that energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be transferred from one form to another.

All spells (travelling through time, flying on a broomstick, healing broken bones) would require energy - sometimes huge amounts - but it's never clear where that energy is coming from and it appears to be 'created'.


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

[User] ELI5: When we are drunk, why is it easier to focus with one eye instead of the two?

[Assistant]
Both eyes need to be able to coordinate to function. Coordination goes out the window with alcohol leading many to cross their eyes or have a bit of a lazy eye when they normally wouldn't. Some may even have pro lems with eyes not focusing at the same time or at the same focal length, making things seem blurry or out of focus.

The brain is not only trying to interpret these mismatched images as one image, but also trying to make sense of the world at all through the alcohol.

By closing one eye, you remove one image from the data and your brain is left with only one feed to work on. Now you don't have two uncoordinated eyes, but one trying to get information to an uncoordinated brain.


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

[User] ELI5: How do the anti-theft systems at store exits/entrances work?

[Assistant]
There are little tags inside the devices that emit a reply radio signal when theyre subjected to another, higher power radio signal on the correct frequency.

If you shoplift an item, this tag is still active and the sensors you walk through can detect it.

When you check out, the cashier runs your item over a device that detects the tag. When the tag is detected, the device emits a very high powered pulse that burns out the tag, deactivating it.  This is the bong you hear sometimes.  This pulse does a good job of demagnetizing credit cards, so thats why theres signs saying keep them away.


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

[User]
[Star Trek] In TNG, could any of the bridge crew be speaking another language, and we wouldn't know it, due to the Universal Translator?

I was just wondering this.  Could Picard be speaking French through the whole show?  Could Counsellor Troi be speaking Betazoid or whatever her home planet language might be?  Or, do you think English became the universal language of Earth and diplomacy at that point?

[Assistant]
Standard military protocol would call for all persons onboard to speak a single language while on duty.

This will ensure that, in the event of an issue with the translator, communication will not be hampered.


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

[User]
[The Mist] Is it a good idea to send the army into the Mist World?

One type of Mist Creature that our scientists have studied (a giant, centipede-like predator) turns out to secrete a type of fluid that can instantly heal all human diseases and infirmities.

The folks above me want to send the military into the Mist World and hunt a few of these enormous man-eaters and bring back their fluid glands.

Not to mention, some scientists want to set up a permanent base there to study the local ecology.

Considering that the military was able to clear out New England of the infestation 13 years ago, it seems like theyre up to the task, but what does everyone else think?

Would it make sense to send the military into the Mist World? Is it feasible to set up a permanent base inside?

[Assistant]
We know very little, if anything, about the "mist world".  We have seen done maybe the equivalent of an alien species opening a doorway to the arctic and killing some bears, and we have as much chance of figuring out how safe the alternate dimension is as those aliens do of figuring out earth.

Is the other dimension entirely they misty space we saw, or is that just one location? What is the landscape and climate like beyond the presence of mist? Are the creatures that entered our world representative of most life there, or are there more dangerous things there? Is the dimension inhabited by sentient life and, if so, how would it react to our presence? Is there enough food, water, even oxygen there for humans to survive?

We would need to make a lot more exploration before we could answer whether a military incursion, never mind a full base, is possible.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does my mouth literally feel like it's on fire after I eat something really hot?

[Assistant] There are no tastebuds on your tongue for spicy foods unlike sweet or salty. Spicy is the reaction of nerves in your mouth to capsaicin which makes stuff spicy. The nerves in your mouth are there to react to heat, knowing when stuff is too hot to eat. These nerves react to capsaicin in the same way. Basicly these nerves send out the information that the food in your mouth is too hot to eat when eating capsaicin. That is why it actually feels really hot in your mouth.


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

[User] [Purge/Everything] How would the purge play out in various fictional universes?

[Assistant]
To the Punisher, Christmas has come early.

Batman has to work overtime in Gotham.

Any Predators get a lot more trophies than usual.

Skynet started the whole thing as a way to increase Sarah Connor's chances of being murdered.

Xavier's mansion gets a lot of attacks by Friends of Humanity.


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

[User]
How do animals know to avoid eating poisonous animals?

I know that animals have been known to associate colorful animals as being poisonous but how did this come about? I would find it hard to believe that the animals would be able to figure out that the colorful frog or whatever is what caused them to be sick or die and then also be able to pass this information onto other members of their species.

[Assistant]
Consider two birds, one which will happily eat any color of frog, and another which has some strange aversion to red frogs for some unknown reason. He doesn't avoid red frogs because he knows they're dangerous, or for any other rational reason, he just doesn't like them. We'll assume that these preferences are hereditary, meaning that they can be passed on to offspring.

Each bird sees a red frog. The bird which eats any color eats the frog and dies. He won't reproduce, so he doesn't have any offspring to "teach" not to eat red frogs. He did his part by dying. The bird which really dislikes the color red doesn't eat the frog, and doesn't die. He then goes on to reproduce, and make more birds which won't eat red frogs.

Aaand that's evolution. It of course gets much more complicated than that, but to start things off, all you need are 1. a population with some variety, where these variable traits are hereditary, and 2. selection pressure which makes one trait more beneficial than another.


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

[User] ELI5: The discovery of 7 Earth-like planets. TRAPPIST-1 is a star 39 light years away. And scientists found 7 planets the size(ish) of Earth orbiting it? Or am I completely lost? What am I missing here?

[Assistant]
You got it right.  7 planets roughly Earth-sized (+ or - about 25%), 3 of them in what they think would be the habitable zone for life like we have on Earth.  The star is an ultra-cool red dwarf, which is about 8-11% the size of our Sun, and has a surface temperature about 41% that of the Sun.

Because of how close they are to their star, the one furthest from the star has a year about as long as 20 of our days and the rest are shorter than that.  Since they are so close, they expect all of them to be tidally locked, meaning the same side is always facing the star, similar to how our Moon always has the same side facing us.


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

[User] [LotR] Would I turn invisible if I ate the One Ring?

[Assistant] The ring is in constant physical contact with the outside of the ringbearer's body and does not turn invisible unless specifically worn in the way a ring (that kind of ring any way) is designed to be worn, on the finger. The same should apply if it is touching the inside(s) of your body.


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

[User]
Why do we (generally) love when stories come full circle?

Hello all,

I teach a college writing course, and when I teach students to write personal essays, I advise them to reincorporate an aspect from earlier in their essay into their conclusion.

For example, if a student brings up a metaphor/symbol (e.g. a rubiks cube) early in their writing, I advise them to invoke it again in their conclusion.

I do this because I know from experience that we as humans *love* when stories come full circle. We also see this in comedy (particularly stand-up) when a comic will make an early joke, get some laughs, but later reincorporate the same joke into their act and get a significantly larger reaction.

I know this works, but I dont know *why* this works.

Can anyone point me to where I could find more information on this subject?

Thank you!

[Assistant] We like it when "we are in on it". It's a sense of being a part of the group. We are deeply deeply social animals. It's why children will watch a show over and over again because they like to be "in on the know."


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

[User] ELI5: How is oxygen (O2) odorless but ozone (O3) smells and is hazardous?

[Assistant]
O2 and O3 have different chemical structure (bond angle, length, spatial orientation etc)  which give them different physical and chrmical properties.

Just like graphite, diamond and fullerene are pure Carbon but have drastically different properties.


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

[User]
[General Vampires] Can a vampire just ask for permission to enter at gun point?

As in tap on your door/window jab a gun in your face and demand you let me in.

The same technique could be done for windows.

[Assistant]
I know people love to rules-lawyer this kind of thing, but you're looking at the wrong set of rules.

Vampires are missing their reflections.  It's not about how their undead skin reflects light, or silver...it's because they're a cursed and unnatural *thing* with no place in the world.  They don't show up on cameras because they're not really there to begin with, not in your world.  They're not afflicted with a disease, they are looking at you from Hell itself and you should thank your lucky stars that your camera doesn't show you what else is watching.

"We have to be invited in" isn't like a password on your wifi.  It's not even because so many vampires started as nobility and they have some class.  You have to invite the Vampire in, because it can only really satisfy its hunger when it seduces someone into embracing Evil.

Tricking someone into giving the invitation, or forcing them somehow, means that the victim isn't willing.  There's no triumph, no glory for the Darkness.  Without that corruption, without a willing sacrifice to Evil itself, the Vampire won't feel release.  They aren't simply feeding on the blood - they are serving their true Master, and He isn't a good person to try and outwit.


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

[User]
[Avatar] Is Ba Sing Se self-sufficent?

Do they rely on any kind of imports? A city that size one would think relies on all sorts of resources to import, food, wood, metal, fuel for fires, etc. Do they need anything or does everything come from within the outer walls?

[Assistant]
Surprisingly, the answer is yes.

You might notice that the outer ring of Ba Sing Se is almost rural, with expansive farmland, mountains, and regional features like Lake Laogai. These resources allow Ba Sing Se to be self-sustaining.


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

[User] Has there been any refinements to existing theory or new hypotheses since the Higgs mass was found to be 125 GeV?

[Assistant]
The mass is a free parameter in the Standard Model (SM). We now know this parameter more precisely - you could call this a refinement. It also has an influence on other processes which we can now predict with better accuracy.

Some models beyond the SM had quite clear predictions for the mass of the Higgs boson, these have been ruled out or at least their parameter range has been restricted.


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

[User] [Spiderverse][General Multiverse Scifi] I'm Tim, a file clerk. I fall into one of those dimension-collider doohickeys like from Spiderverse. Are there a bunch of other "themed" versions of me from different realities? Is there Noir Tim and Anime Tim and Cowboy Tim or whatever?

[Assistant]
Yes, absolutely.

Noir Tim might not be a detective. He's probably still a file clerk. But he's a probably a file clerk in a fedora and suit that talks about dames unironically.

The tims of the multiverse might not be as cool as the spidermans of the multiverse, but they'll have the same variants as everyone else. So yes, Anime and Noir and Wild West Tims are very much out there.


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

[User]
[Hellraiser] "It is not hands that call us..." According to Pinhead, they ignored Tiffany since she solved the box but didn't call them, Channard did. Is there any way of solving the Lament Configuration and not being dragged to Hell?

During one scene in the second film, Dr. Channard handed one of his patients at the mental institution he ran, Tiffany the Lament Configuration since he knew from her disorder that she would be able to solve it. But when she did so, the Cenobites turned on him instead since while Tiffany solved the puzzle it was ultimately *his* desires that called them to the mortal realm.

And from what I understand, the puzzle has typically always fallen into the hands of hedonists and bastards who would summon the Cenobites anyway once they solved the puzzle.

So from this I have to ask, if the Lament Configuration ended up in the possession of someone who didn't have the curiosity necessary to go to Hell and was too innocent to be accepted as a Cenobite, but solved the puzzle box anyway... what would happen to them? Would the Cenobites simply ignore them?

[Assistant]
If you want to stay out of Hell, your best bet is to be as boring as possible for the Cenobites. Tiffany wasn't rejected because she was innocent, but because she was nearly catatonic and wouldn't be able to appreciate the divine suffering they offered.

The original Chatterer was a child, and in the comics they've taken other children and even babies so it's not like innocence or hedonism are necessarily prerequisites. But you do have to have the capacity to suffer and to be aware of that suffering.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] What did Palpatine and the Jedi think of other force sensitive groups?

Were there even any? Did the Jedi mind if other groups existed that studied and used the force? Did Palpatine want to destroy them? This is a question about both canon and EU.

[Assistant]
There were hundreds of known other traditions. Mostly they didn't bother each other (as most traditions are far more localized - most of them present really only in a single system or even just on a single planet - than the Jedi and Sith), though in some instances there was some resentment between groups regarding recruitment. There are instances of learning between groups, yes.

As for other tradition's fates under Palpatine, it's a bit ambiguous - but there are indications that he did in fact pursue other Force-based organizations, if not to the same extent as he did the Jedi.


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

[User] Why is it that when cats have different breeds, they all kind of have the same body type, but when it comes to dog breeds they have much more drastic differences?

[Assistant]
Dogs have more drastic body size/shape differences than any other mammalian species. This is because as human's oldest companion, they've been bred and domesticated for whatever purpose humans wanted for millennia. So you have farm dogs, guard dogs, pet dogs, hunting dogs...all carefully designed by humans over thousands of generations. No other animal has proven to be as useful or as versatile.

Whereas a cat, to paraphrase CGP Grey, is basically just a little lion that lives in your house. Cats haven't been bred by humans for very many purposes, because they're mostly useless to humans (aside from catching mice and being cuddly).


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

[User]
[Thor movies] Isn't Odin really quick to toss Thor out and strip him of his power?

Thor messed up bad.  Asgard doesn't want a war right now.  People are going to die because of his recklessness.

That being said, kicking out your son (and most powerful weapon) on the eve of major war when you're about to literally pass out.
 Odin is many millennia old.  He should have known better.  Is he just a super mastermind playing 4d chess, knowing Thor would end up proving himself?  Or did he let his anger and fatigue get to him.

[Assistant]
Odin was pretty quick to lock up Hela, too. Loki spent time in prison as well.

Asgardian justice is swift.

But regarding Thor, he was useless to Odin at that point in time. He was too quick to rush into battle, too unconcerned about the potential consequences of his actions, and willing to jeopardize the health and well-being of his peers who went along with him.

Odin can't use someone like that. He surely can't put such a man on the throne.

So a test was required. Either Thor would pass and come back to claim his birthright or he would fail, and Odin would find some other way forward.


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

[User] [Star Wars] How did Yoda and Obi-Wan think that Luke could defeat a supremely powerful Sith Master and Sith Lord?

[Assistant]
I think it was more a case of therr really is no one else left to even try. Obi-Wan was dead, and beyond Giving some advice, unable to do anything really. And Yoda was at the end of his life, while very knowledgeable and wise, at his weakness point ever.

Frankly, they didn't have any other options.


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

[User]
What is the difference between magnetic and electric fields?

What exactly is the difference between magnetic and electric fields? Ive got the impression its basically the same thing accept electric fields are produced only by electricity and magnetic fields are produced by magnets
(and electricity?). Could someone just explain it simply, preferably without using too complicated sciency words! Thanks.

[Assistant]
They are closely related, and even transform into each other under changes of reference frame. But there are some important differences.

Assuming static fields (ones that don't depend on time), electric fields are sourced by **charges**, while magnetic fields are sourced by **currents**. (If you allow time-varying fields, then time-varying electric and magnetic fields are also sources for each other.)

Another difference is in how particles respond to the fields. Electric fields exert forces on any charge, while magnetic fields only exert forces on *moving* charges.


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

[User]
Which programming language is recommended for novice?

Hello, I am a 40 year old man, in midlife boredom. I always wanted to learn a computer language but never got time. This year, I decided no matter what, I am going to learn a computer language. However I am too confused about it. Please help..
[edit] Thank you all kind redditors for giving such wonderful advise. I am going to start with python language first as it is most recommended one by you all. Will update my progress as it goes. Once again thank you all for ur advise and support.

[Assistant]
I would say python.
Would strongly recommend against Java as the first one. It's very verbose and the static typing is only an advantage when you get a bit more advanced.

Alternatively JavaScript, later add on Typescript but it's optional.


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

[User]
Since radioactive material is constantly decaying will there be a day in which there is no more radioactive material on earth?

Excluding artificially enriched radioactive isotopes.

[Assistant]
**Short answer:** Certain isotopes will go extinct, but others are constantly being replenished.

**Long answer:** For example, the uranium in the earth is left over from when the earth formed, and the amount of U-235 is decaying with a half-life of 703.8 million years. Admittedly, you'd have to wait a really really long time for *all* of this uranium to decay, and not to mention the decay of its daughter isotopes as well. Nevertheless, we have a finite supply of it and it is slowly running out.

On the other hand, other radioactive isotopes are replenished by natural processes. The simplest example that comes to mind to Carbon-14, or 'radiocarbon.' The carbon 14 is radioactive, with a half-life of about 5700 years, so obviously for us to have any carbon-14 lying around, it has to be replenished.

In the atmosphere nitrogen-14 gets struck by a high energy cosmic rays (or by particles produced by the cosmics) which converts the nitrogen-14 into carbon-14.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why can't we save the North Korean people?

I was just thinking, the UK and USA have intervened in Other situations where there has been worry about the lives of people in that country. Is it really all about oil? Do they really not care about the people suffering there?

Edit: thank you all for you're brilliant explanations. I understand why we won't interfere, as sad as that is. I guess we just have to hope that somehow the regime collapses on it's own, impossible though it seems as the people of DPRK are so brainwashed the won't revolt.

[Assistant] Because North Korea has the largest artillery force in the world scattered along its border aimed at Seoul. It's probably the most credible and effective deterrent in the world next to the US and Russian nuclear arsenals. Any military action would result in the destruction of a densely populated city that is one of the world's most important economic hubs. The artillery can't be destroyed in a first strike, it's far too distributed with a significant portion of it being mobile. Nobody wants to be responsible for provoking North Korea, so we leave them to torture their citizens in peace in hope that one day they'll collapse.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do white people have so many different hair colors (blonde, red, brown, black) while all other races all have black hair?

[Assistant]
Because the genes that cause dark skin and dark hair easily override toe genes that don't produce as much melanin.

White people, practically by definition, don't produce as much melanin, therefore allowing hair color traits that require less melanin to be visible to show up.


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

[User]
ELI5: how does bug spray kill bugs?

So when the pest exterminator comes to treat my house on a quarterly basis, he sprays this liquid sparingly on the outside parameter of my home. Sometimes (not often) I will find a roach inside my house BUT ITS ALWAYS DEAD! How does the pest spray work? The pest spray cant be wet when they walk through it because I find them weeks later.

[Assistant] It depends on the specific chemical, but a lot of them are some form of insect-specific nerve agent. There are a variety of modes of action, but the most common (afaik) is inhibition of acetylcholinesterase, preventing nerve signals from turning off. This is the same mechanism of action as sarin gas, but the chemicals used will only (intentionally) affect insects.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] How much did Savage Opress's intelligence decrease after being transformed and why was that acceptable?

Wouldn't a smarter assassin be more useful?

[Assistant]
Opress wasn't a tactical assassin, he was a lethal weapon. Point him at the threat and watch him bulldoze through it.

His raw strength and ability to overpower most resistance was something Dooku was heavily interested in, which is why the Night Sisters used him for their plan. If he was smarter he might have considered betraying Dooku or the Night Sisters (mostly Ventress) as soon as a better opportunity came along. It is Sith nature to overthrow your master after all, so as long as Opress could be a deadly weapon smart enough to outplay his overpowered opponents and survive in battle but *not* smart enough to scheme and make power plays, he fulfilled his use for all of his masters. Dooku, the Night Sisters, Ventress, Maul, he fulfilled his purpose for all of them. Well, besides actually managing to kill Dooku/Ventress and or help Maul overthrow Sidious.

He also wasn't dumbed down so much as hypnotised into a ferocious mindset where battle and fulfilling orders was his core motivation. He still had some personal quirks like his emotional devotion to  Mother Talzan and his brother Maul, but overall he just became more of a battle-hardened warrior than a man who *happens* to fight. Much more receptive to orders and brutality that way.


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

[User]
[LOTR]How would a leader of Men actually use the One Ring to try to defeat Sauron or other enemies if all it does when putting it on is make you invisible?

Say the Fellowship changed their plan and Boromir was to use the Ring to save Gondor and defeat Mordor, like what Sauron thought Men would do. How exactly would he try to do so? Does he put it on his finger or keep it off when leading his troops? Does the simple act of him having it increase his army's morale?

[Assistant] The Ring is a tool of domination. A sufficiently powerful being can use it to dominate the wills of others, especially those others that are wearing a Ring of Power, but also those that are not to a lesser degree. If Boromir brought it to Gondor and either he or Denethor successfully used it in the war, it would allow them greater control over their army, the potential to dominate the wills of their enemies, and some small degree of influence over the Nazgl. As Men, they wouldn't be able to fully make use of its power though, and in any sort of direct confrontation with Sauron, the Ring's allegiance would remain with Sauron. They wouldn't be able to wrest it completely from Sauron's will as Gandalf might have done.


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

[User]
Rail gun technology for space travel...

Not to get *into* space. But would it be possible to utilize rail gun technology *in* space?

Say we had a large system orbiting the planet a la ISS. Would it:

a) be possible to use the technology to "fire" landers/orbiters towards other planets/moons? Manned crafts?

b) if it is possible, would there be any benefit over current methods, namely fuel needed to achieve proper velocity vs energy used for the initial "firing" to create momentum and velocity.

[Assistant]
Would it be possible to? Sure. Not with the current ISS, though. The issue is Newton's third law: it takes a lot of energy to get something to the Moon, and the launch platform is going to lose that much energy in the process (because of the way orbits work, you can't fire it so that the ISS would gain energy, either). That means the ISS as is would end up being de-orbited in the process, or nearly so. In any case, you'd still have to end up spending the fuel anyways to put your launcher back into the correct orbit.

There are two possible alternatives. The first is that you fire with so much force, it puts you into orbit going the opposite way. That would require phenomenal amounts of energy (the delta-v of the launcher would be ~14km/s, so impossible with current technology), or by using a launch platform heavy enough to not be effected much by the reactive force. That would mean we could amortize the cost of the launch over a longer period of time, using ion or plasma engines to regain the orbital energy the launcher looses, which are much much more efficient than rocket engines. That could give us significant fuel cost gains (in theory anyways).

Keep in mind the acceleration involved would be high, again unless you had a really big gun, so whether you could do manned launches would depend on how big a gun you built. The technology isn't there yet.

Note that on the Moon, things are completely different. Rail launchers from the Moon are definitely possible and in fact will probably be a key piece of long-term expansion into the solar system. But that's a few decades away yet.


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

[User]
How do Dogs Tell Real People's Voices Apart From TV Voices?

For example, my dogs. They bark pretty much at the sound of an unrecognized voice. They don't have to see the person, they just hear someone unfamiliar and start barking and run to them. But then when the TV is on or something, and someone is talking on the show, they don't even bother. Why is this? Does it sound different to dogs? Do they just... understand that it's different? I don't know, it's just been something I've been wondering for a while. Maybe it's super obvious, but I'm not really sure.

[Assistant]
Televisions use a frequency range for human ears. The range that usually comes from your TV will be between 20Hz to 18Khz, well within the human hearing range of about 12Hz to 20Khz. These items were made for our ears.

Dogs, however, have a much wider range of roughly 40 Hz to 60 kHz. This is beyond a human range in both directions. This is also why most dogs will not respond to a dog barking or a person speaking through a speaker system the same as they would if the same bark or voice were in real life.

Dogs hear sounds differently than us. All voices, movements, barks, and the world in general is in a completely different frequency to them and the sounds coming from your speakers simply do not match up to their ears as the real thing.


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

[User]
Was Nietzsche really so bad?

So my philosophy teacher started talking about Nietzsche lately. And she is hating him hard. She even boiled him down to 7 Anti's:
Anti-Democratic, Anti-feminist, Anti-Socialist (which is bad apparently), Anti-intellectual and another 3 "Anti" that she didn't talk about yet.
The way she puts it is just dripping with disgust. Now to be fair, I do live in Post-USSR Czech Republic and she is one of the many who gained their diplomas during the soviet regime, which I hear didn't like Friedrich all that much. Something about "Bourgeoisie philosophy".
So what i want to know is how much of that is true about Nietzsche and if the more western nations have a different way of looking at him than we do.

[Assistant]
Was Nietzsche, the human being who lived in Germany and was born in 1844 those things? The signs pretty much point to yes. Is the Nietzschean *philosophy* necessarily opposed to all of those things? That's a question with a much longer and more complicated history. A lot of people thought the answer was yes in the early 20th century because of the association of Nietzsche's work with Nazism, but Walter Kaufmann wrote a lot in favor of the view that Nietzschean philosophy could in fact have the potential for leftist views.

I would say this view, that Nietzsche's philosophy isn't necessarily opposed to those things, has been the dominant one in the philosophical world since then. A lot of very well known and clearly leftist philosophers (Foucault, Deleuze, etc.) consider Nietzsche's work very influential and important for their own projects.


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

[User]
How can I as a layperson get better at judging whether a scientist is
trustworthy?

What parameters are important when judging a scientist's trustworhiness?

There may be a better word than trustworthiness. By trustworthiness I mean what it says in the first two lines of the Wikipedia article:

"Trustworthiness is a moral value considered to be a virtue. A trustworthy person is someone in whom you can place your trust and rest assured that the trust will not be betrayed."

Peace out. Amazing forum!

[Assistant]
1. Are they an actual research scientist? Put their name into Google Scholar. They should have many publications including some that have been cited dozens or hundreds of times.

2. Are they actually talking about their field of expertise? A nuclear physicist is not trustworthy when talking about disease resistance.

There are exceptions, and other things to take into account, but those are the main things.


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

[User]
What subfields of Economics is most used in Economics Consulting work?

Can someone tell me which subfields in Economics are need or most used in Economics Consulting work?

[Assistant]
I interviewed and got an offer at Compass Lexecon, one of the best economic consulting firms, and have talked to many seniors who work in the field.

A lot of the work in economic consulting involves dealing with competition authorities, e.g. evaluating the impact of a proposed merger, or clearing a company accused of anti-competetive behaviour.

Knowledge in econometrics, and industrial organization would be most relevant to the job. Industrial organization is normally considered it's own field if economics, but taught to undergraduates (I presume you're one) normally under a microeconomics course. It studies competition among firms in a industry, and if you've heard of Bertrand and Cournot models of competition, that's the basic models in the field.

Knowledge of econometrics is also very important, because you're using real-world data to justify whatever you're arguing.


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

[User] Why are protons and electrons not pulled together by each other?

[Assistant] They are, that is why atoms form: The electrons become bound to the positive charge of the nucleus. This happens because opposite charges attract. Now, they don't crash together because quantum mechanics restricts what kinds of orbits are allowed. Though take the word "orbit" lightly as electrons don't orbit in the same way the Earth orbits the Sun. Rather the actual position of the electron isn't fixed, and you have a probability distribution where it can be found.


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

[User] ELI5: If cooking raw meat kills the bacteria how come cooking food that is spoiled still makes you sick?

[Assistant] In some cases it does not, for the reason you cite. However, if bacteria or mold have been growing for some time, they may have been excreting toxic waste products. These just sit there being poisonous, even if you kill the bacteria or mold.


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

[User]
Why does ice form on the surface of spaceships right after launch?

Is it even ice?

Edit: thank you for the kind responses! You guys and girls are great!

[Assistant]
The ice layer does not form *right after launch* but *shortly before...*
This typically and only happens with cryogenic stages, which are filled with liquid hydrogen and/or liquid oxygen propellants shortly before launch. Extreme cooling down of the stage's outside surface makes air moisture condense and freeze on the stage's surface.


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

[User] Why does a half dozen eggs cost almost as much as a dozen?

[Assistant]
Two potential reasons, which may be interlinked.

1. The marginal cost to extra eggs is very low therefore moving from 6 to 12 eggs costs little in terms of extra materials or transport costs
2. Supermarkets overprice the half-dozen eggs to induce customers to buy the dozen as it's better value.

I'd bet it's more likely to be number 2.


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

[User] [MCU] Was death of Odin the real cause why Thanos finally decided to actively look for Infinity Stones?

[Assistant]
No, despite being a popular fan theory there is nothing in-universe to confirm that Thanos was waiting for Odin, Ego, and/or the Ancient One to die first.  All three of them were still alive when Thanos sent Loki and his army after the Tesseract in 2012 (at which point he already possessed the Mind Stone) and in 2014 when he sent Ronan after the Power Stone.

However, he did wait to openly and personally go after the Stones until he knew where all six were (or rather five and a person he knew well who knew where to find the sixth).  If all six were revealed and Odin was still alive, Thanos could probably have taken him seeing as Odin was severely weakened by the dark magic he used to send Thor to Earth against Loki's invasion.


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

[User] Why do galaxies collapse into disks, but stars and planets collapse into spheres?

[Assistant]
One way to answer your question is that stars *don't* collapse into spheres. Stars collapse from a cloud of gas and dust, and while most of that goes into the central spheroid (the star), there's a lot left over which collapses into a disk, and it is from this disk which planets are made.

The difference between the sphere and the disk is that the sphere is made of stuff that's "self-gravitating"; it's massive enough to attract nearby stuff.

A famous example of a planet which didn't collapse into (just) a sphere is Saturn. The main body formed the spherical mass, but smaller masses of ice which didn't fall into the central body collapsed into a disk forming the rings. But the rings don't contain anything massive enough and near enough other parts of the ring to cause it to clump up.

So, disks form around massive bodies when the material in the disk is spread out enough for it to miss future collapse, and spheres form when the material is dense enough to fall into itself.


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

[User]
If the world's population were half of it's current number, would the average person be wealthier?

Would the average wealth increase, as there would be less people to distribute things to? Putting it in an other way, would decreasing the population actually help us?

[Assistant]
If you would snap your finger and cut the population in half, there would be a somewhat brief period where there is more stuff to go around.

But at the end of the day, you can only consume what you produce, cutting production in half cuts consumption in half, but of course because we also cut people in half, the per capita figures shouldn't really change.


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

[User] Why does the shadowed part of the moon appear to be invisible even during the day? Wouldn't we see some faint part of it?

[Assistant]
If you look closely at the moon at night, you may be able to see the circle be completed by a faint glow. That is earthshine -- sunlight that has bounced off the earth, illuminating the shadowed (night) side of the moon.

During the day, however, our atmosphere scatters so much blue light at us that it all but drowns out the difference. While we may be able to see the difference between pitch black and earthshine-illuminated-moon-shadow at night, during the day it's just two extremely close shades of blue.


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

[User]
ELI5 : How is "corrected vision" is tested and why isn't it always 20/20 if it's corrected?

Okay so I am researching a health regulation for a friend of mine and it says your corrected vision needs to be less than 3 diopters. Now considering that a 20/20 vision would be 0 diopters, how can even a corrected vision could be less than perfect? Why is it considered "corrected" even though the patient can't see perfectly?

[Assistant]
Its tested with those letter charts, to see if you can read the finest lines as well as someone with 20/20.

Some people with horrifically bad 20/200 vision are just too far out from normal to be corrected completely through any traditional means, but bringing them down to 20/40 will improve quality of life considerably.  Theyre heavily corrected, but its not perfect.


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

[User]
If we shot Jupiter and Saturn into the sun, roughly how much longer would the sun undergo fusion before turning into a red giant?

Both Saturn and Jupiter are composed primarily of hydrogen and hydrogen is the main element 'used' by the sun to sustain fusion. If both Saturn and Jupiter were shot into the sun and they were 'absorbed' cleanly by the star, how much longer than normal would the sun undergo fusion before it turns into a red giant?

I'm asking because I need a contingency plan just in case I happen to survive the next 5.7 billion years.

[Assistant]
You've got it backwards. You want to take mass *away* from the sun to make it live longer. The more massive a star is, the shorter its lifetime. This happens because the extra gravitational pressure from added mass increases the rate of fusion in the core a lot, so even though there's more hydrogen/helium, you burn through it way faster.

The lowest mass stars have predicted lifetimes of well over a trillion years. The highest mass stars have lifetimes less than a million years.

Changing the mass of the sun by +/- the mass of Jupiter+Saturn (about 0.1% of a solar mass) probably won't change the lifetime by more than a few million years though.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is it when you touch the metal part of a plugged in phone charger you dont get shocked?

Im confused why when I touch the tip of my plugged in my phone charger it doesnt shock me.

[Assistant] Because it's an absolutely tiny voltage--the charger is probably only providing about 4V, which isn't much more than the batteries in a torch, which similarly wouldn't be able to give you a noticeable shock. (Even the more potent 9V batteries won't shock you if you touch the terminals with your skin--your tongue, on the other hand, is a different matter entirely).


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

[User] ELI5: How is holding your pee (which is considered bad) any different from when you're sleeping and your body does that for you?

[Assistant] Your body doesn't (typically) hold your urine to dangerous levels while you're asleep automatically.  That's why you wake up needing to pee.  Or some people piss themselves.  Holding your urine an excessively long time isn't comparable to going to sleep.  It's comparable to waking up when you need to pee, then holding it for several hours after that.


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

[User] [Harry Potter] A highly contagious disease that affects only wizards and is incurable by magic afflicts the wiziarding community at large. At what point would they set aside their own fear and pride and seek out the assistance of muggles in curing their affliction?

[Assistant]
How would muggles be able to help if it only affects wizards anyway?
The wizarding community would surely do the logical thing and put their faith in alredy existing institutions like St. Mungo's, who have several hundred years of experience in treating injuries, instead of introducing completely unknown variables who gotta start from completely blank sheets.

People didn't call the Viccans to cure Avian flu.


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

[User]
ELI5: should cleaning products be applied directly to the dirty surface, or to the cleaning impliment?

Like windex and a towel for example. Mostly I spray it on the window, but does it work better if you spray it on the towel? Same thing for dish soap, should you put it on each dish, or will applying to the sponge be enough?

[Assistant]
Its better to spray the cleanser upon the surface to be cleaned.

The cleaning implement is absorbent. So applying cleanser unto it does not guarantee that all the applied cleanser will touch the surface to be cleaned. That amount of cleanser will be wasted.


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

[User]
[Daredevil] why is everyone a martial arts expert?

4th wall I know that it makes for good fight scenes but I was wondering if there's an in-universe explanation.

[Assistant] The characters displaying prowess in the MCU Daredevils series are either members of the Hand, an elite shadowy ninja faction, <stuff that will be revealed in the Iron Fist series>, or were trained by Stick, a dude with serious beef against the Hand.


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

[User] ELI5: How can fire close wounds, and how does fire/heat disinfect?

[Assistant]
Cauterization is not like it is in movies or TV. Yes, heating an *instrument* can sterilize it by physically destroying infectious pathogens from intense heat.

In the body, the intense heat can stop bleeding by physically burning the tissue and clotting the blood. This causes *extensive* tissue damage.

When done by a surgeon, it can effectively be directed to where its needed to stop bleeding. However, this is generally better achieved by ligating (tying off) the bleeding vessel, repairing the tear or using other materials to slow/stop bleeding (such as injecting little gelatin particles into an artery to block if off). In modern medicine, cauterization is actually used to make tiny electric scalpels designed to cut tissue (and also creates the aroma of burning human flesh filling the operating room).

Burns to tissue like shown on TV and movies are actually more likely to get infected due to disruption of skin and tissue which weakens the body's ability to fight infection. People with serious burns need a lot of specialized attention to prevent this, such as in a burn unit.

EDIT: Also in TV you will see people cauterizing arteries that can't be cauterized without cutting off critical blood supply to certain areas of the body. It's not realistic.


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

[User] ELI5:Why you can put in the recycling bin same files with the same name but you cannot do that in any other folder ?

[Assistant] The recycling bin is a "virtual" folder that shows a list of deleted files that can be undeleted. Deleted files aren't actually *moved* in to a different folder: they stay where they were, they're just *marked* as deleted. The recycling bin is a "view" that lets you see all the deleted files in one place.


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

[User]
[Jurassic Park/World films] We have footage of several unfortunate people being swallowed whole by large dinosaurs. How long did it take them to die?

Throughout the various documentaries showcasing the disasters at Jurassic Park and Jurassic World, we see several instances of humans being swallowed alive by enormous dinosaurs. How long did it take those poor people to die? Would they still have been alive when they reached the creatures' stomach?

[Assistant]
It depends on how much chewing a dinosaur would do before swallowing. Anyone who got eaten by a T-rex or their equivalents probably died before reaching the stomach.

The poor assistant who got over killed into the pleaseeasaur if she didn't break her neck from the pterodactyls probably survived until hitting the stomach.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Why do X-Wings even have hyperdrives?

X-Wings are equipped with hyperdrives, and yet they are supremely un-equipped for long trips.  Hyperspace travel isn't instantaneous, it can take days or longer (despite--and so sorry for breaking the fourth wall here, but can't help it--what Episode V would make you think).  The fighters are not equipped with any kind of systems for waste disposal, food, or water, beyond the emergency variety; as well, sitting in one spot for days, artificial gravity or not, is terrible for the body.  The only reason Luke Skywalker can do it is because he uses a Jedi trance to make it endurable.  So why even have this option available, since it would most likely be a death sentence for any normal pilot?

[Assistant]
X-wings are medium range fighters meant to be able to execute missions independent of a mothership.

The hyperdrive allows them to jump in, commit an attack as a squadron with no other support and jump out. It's the perfect craft for a rebellion whose main strategic attacks will be hit-and-run raids against a superior enemy.

Most targets may be hours away, but usually not days. Humans are more than capable of sitting for a few hours' transit time to an area of operations, completing a stressful combat mission and retreating to a rebel base or ship.

For longer sorties, precautions can be taken to make the cockpit ride as comfortable as possible. But really all the pilot has to do is throw a few water packs and emergency rations into their gear bag, make sure an absorbent undergarment is included when they suit up, and they're set for a couple of days of space combat work.

And yes, it's bad for the body. But this is war, not asteroid mining. If you're not willing to endure some hardship, you'd be better off not putting on the orange flightsuit in the first place.


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

[User]
[Mass Effect] How would you defeat or stalemate the reaper threat?

Imagine current day humanity discovers that the reapers exist and are going to start another cycle, cleansing our galaxy of all space faring species, including us. What can we possibly do with the following years to prep?

25 years

50 years

100 years

200 years

500 years

1000 years

Would we attempt to build stupid big rail guns on the moon? Create our own version of the SPARTAN program? Send a life-ship out of the galaxy? Tell me what you all think could be done or if resistance is futile.

[Assistant]
In the games, there's a news article about a species that had just gotten roughly 20th Century Earth equivalent space travel (ie, maybe a trip to the moon or two, probes in their solar system, that's about all), but lucked into first contact. They had just been invited to send an ambassador to the Citadel when the Reapers invaded.

Their plan for dealing with it was to recall their ambassador, destroy all their satellites and space stations, and hope that the Reapers either didn't notice them, or considered them a pre-space flight civilization.

This is probably Earth's best bet in this scenario, too. It's not a great plan, but it does have at least a chance of success. (Some of the species that survived the last cycle were already civilized, but didn't get harvested because they were still confined to a single world.)


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

[User]
ELI5: why does every element want to be iron?

I was just reading about how the sun isnt burning so much as constantly exploding and sucking in more hydrogen to explode more. In the article is said that every element wants to be iron, so when an element is higher than iron, it goes through fission, and when its lower than iron it goes through fusion. Up until it becomes iron, cause everything wants to be iron.

Why? What does that mean? Whats so special about iron?

[Assistant]
Light elements release more energy when they fuse than is required to fuse them, and heavy elements release more energy when they split than is required to split them. Iron is in the middle of that.

If you keep fusing elements on the core of a star, you eventually get to iron, but then the process runs out. Similarly, if you keep fissioning atoms, you eventually get to iron, and then it's mostly not possible to split atoms further.


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

[User]
[Star Wars / The Mandalorian] A question about Boba Fett?

Why is Boba's armor much thinner than the other Mandalorians in-universe?

Also, does it provide enough protection just like Din's?

[Assistant] We presume Din had pure beskar while Boba Fett and other Mandalorians have Durasteel/beskar combination. It makes sense given Dins cult are serious on the Mandalorian way and probably think pure beskar shouldnt be mixed with impure materials. It is also shown that other Mandalorians are killed by blaster bolts in the clone wars proving that it isnt pure beskar. People also tend to put emphasis on the word Pure when referring to Beskar in the show, further backing up the theory that Beskar isnt usually pure in Star Wars. Or They may have just retconned it.


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

[User]
Why do we feel warranted stepping into the middle of conflicts halfway around the world but we won't intervene in Mexico and the tragic drug wars?

I've been wondering this for a little while now and I haven't come up with a good answer. I'm far from an expert on foreign policy, so I could use some insight.

I have a sneaking suspicion that the top answer will be "oil", but I'm not sure.

Edit: It's come to my attention that we are somewhat involved and since apparently this question is biased, let me clarify: Our involvement isn't publicized like it is overseas, and since they are our neighbors, my question is why don't we hear more about it?

[Assistant]
Intervene how?

We're already funding anti-drug efforts, sending agents down, providing weapons and training, etc.

The problem is that the cartels have tens of billions of dollars a year, and a ready supply of weapons being smuggled across the border. (Not small guns; heavier munitions that the US makes in its war industries.) They've been able to use these arms to stage increasingly violent conflicts with the military - having already bought off most of the police departments with drug money (or installed corrupt officials).

There is a growing sentiment in Mexico that the US is causing this problem for them by funding the cartels with its domestic drug policy, and so invading Mexico in response to the cartels would be a great way to ensure the general Mexican populace dislikes us, too.

tl;dr: The Mexican deaths are the casualties in the US's "War on Drugs", and invading them would make it even more obvious it was our unilateral policy choices getting them killed, and make us even less popular.

Edit: To understand the scale of the problem, since 2006, somewhere between 40,000 and 60,000 Mexicans have died in the current bout of drug violence. Understandably, the Mexican people are unhappy that thousands of murders are being committed each year because of US drug policy.


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

[User] [40K] Won't the tau eventually win due to their level of advancement?

[Assistant]
Technology means nothing. Not in a galaxy of magic, soul consuming demons and galaxy devouring bugs.

The Tau lack numbers, resources and the necessary mindset to 'win'. Their expansion and unity is dependent on the Ethereals, and we've seen that they quickly fall apart without the oversight. As it stands, if they drew the actual brunt of the Ultima Sigmentum, they would be obliterated, let alone if they happened to catch the eye of the entire Imperium.

They are also not THAT advanced. They are progressing rapidly, yes, but in most areas they are still behind the Imperium, let alone the Eldar and Necrons.

There is no victory, no winning, only constant, unending war.


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

[User]
How would our solar system change after the sun goes into its first red giant phase?

The Earth would be swallowed up most likely, and Mars would become insanely hot, but what about the gas giants?  They are adequately far away, yet they might be close enough for some or most of the gas layers to boil away.  Would the small rocky cores become new planets, rather large, and with very heavy gravity?  Would new ecosystems form over time?  I am very curious.

EDIT: Pretty much what I expected.  As in, who the hell knows LOL.  I absolutely love astronomy and long term thinking, you know big picture stuff, and I love to get people to start talking about these sort of topics.  Keep them coming.

[Assistant]
Not exactly on topic but since you brought up atmosphere boiling away.  When humans consider our cosmological impermanence it is widely known in popular culture that our sun will one day become a red giant and either destroy or render our planet inhabitable wiping out everything we currently know.  Even though this is roughly 5 billion years in the future it is still irksome.

What is not as well known is that our planet's biosphere will be destroyed by our sun much sooner than that.  The sun is constantly increasing in intensity as its hydrogen supply dwindles and in only 1 billion years it will be hot enough to cause Earth's oceans to evaporate and be lost to space.  A billion years after that the remaining atmosphere will be gone leaving Earth a desiccated, dead planet with a surface of molten rock.


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

[User]
CMV: Assuming You Have Access To Internet, There Are No Good Reasons To Get Cable Television

I just did the math. For roughly $75.00 a month, I am able to gain access to Netflix Premium, HBO Max, Disney +, Hulu (No Ads), ESPN +, Amazon Prime, and The Criterion Collection. Again, only $75.00 a month. My monthly fee for a service like DirecTV would be $65.00 a month, but it would increase to $97.00 a month after the first year. I should point out that this is their most basic package. If I were to purchase a cable television bundle from my current internet provider, the cost would be the exact same. In summary, basic cable television will cost you roughly $20.00 to $25.00 more each month, and that's only in comparison to someone paying for all the streaming services I listed above. It could potentially cost you a lot more if you decide to pay for less services.

On top of that, cable television currently has no compelling original shows worth watching. I looked up what the best shows of the past decade were. Rolling Stones has a list of fifty shows, and only four of them are not available through one of the streaming services I listed above. Only four. It's basically a fact that quality programming is found on streaming platforms. Cable television just can't compete anymore. And this is only addressing episodic series. When it comes to movies, streaming is a no-brainer.

So what reasons would there be to get cable television? What reasons would there be to drop nearly $100.00 each month on this program? Cable news is obsolete, since I can get easy access to all news stories online. If you still really want cable news, then spend a $10.00 one time fee on an antenna. That's what my parents did. That just leaves sports. My parents have been able to access professional soccer, football, and basketball through their antenna, but let's say you want an even broader selection of sports. Just get Hulu + Live TV for $54.99 a month. Add in Netflix Premium, Amazon Prime, and HBO Max for a bundle that is still the same cost as a basic cable television package, only with absurdly more content.

In conclusion, streaming offers more variety, better content, and is cheaper than cable television. There are some programs streaming doesn't necessarily offer, but which can be easily accessed through alternative methods that are still cheaper than cable television (Hulu + Live TV, antennas).

[Assistant] if you're a big sports fan & regularly watch games from multiple leagues, cable is still superior in this realm. some leagues have decent options for streaming, but then there's a lag & you get spoilers from twitter & your group chat. sometimes they're unreliable and crap out during a big game. and if you have some folks over to watch together, a streaming service somehow always seems to shit itself in front of all your guests.


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

[User] ELI5: What makes Small caliber rounds like .22 calibers uniquely deadly?

[Assistant] They aren't "uniquely deadly". .22LR is one of the most underpowered rounds available. If you're referring to the "most deaths from gunshots are from small caliber rounds" thing, it's because small caliber firearms are cheap, the ammo is cheap, and they are widely owned and used. More people shooting them means more negligent discharges, as well as more of them are stolen or bought cheaply and used in crimes.


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

[User]
cmv: The Finnish siding with the Nazis to defend themselves from the Soviets was completely justified

The Finnish were invaded by the soviet union for refusing to trade territory, and no countries helped. Imagine the situation: Your country gets invaded by one of the most powerful nations at the time. You are winning during the start, but that's simply because of a minor flaw in your enemy's camouflage, which will be fixed sooner or later. Then, another nation, the worst enemies of your opponents, offer to help. Then you have either the choice to side with an evil government, at no price at all, (Which then resulted in Italy helping a bit too, and the English being total idiots and siding with the Soviets) to avoid being destroyed, or you could refuse and get crushed. And the thing is; After the continuation war, which they lost as well as the winter war, both of which caused major damages to the USSR and minor to themselves, they signed an agreement with the Soviets to expulse or disarm all Germans remaining in Finland. Which, despite leading to a very short war between them and the nazis, with Finnish victory, meant they only sided with them, in order not to be destroyed. Amd did they adopt any Nazi ideologies? No.

[Assistant] Why do you want to have your view changed on this? What makes you think this is something that you might be open to changing your mind on? What kind of evidence or perspective would have to be shown for you to consider changing your position.


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

[User]
Weaknesses of Chinese Economy?

Hello,

Can someone help me outline the weaknesses of the Chinese economy in modern day? I have to write a paper on this and economics is not my forte (so all articles I am reading are making my head feel scrambled) so I would appreciate any points that you could tell me about!

[Assistant]
China's biggest problem right now has to do with its debt. China's been relying on insane amounts of leveraging to finance its economic growth - Chinas total debt load (that is, both private debt and government debt) jumped from less than 150% of GDP in 2008 to more than 250% in 2016. 250% of GDP actually isn't that far out of line with other advanced economies, but China has much more corporate liabilities than most large economies.

You see, China's economy relies substantially on state owned enterprises (SOEs) which have a ton of deadweight and failed investments. These investments were financed by the corporate debt im referring to, but the holders of the debt - mainly the Chinese government and other SOEs, are allowing these "zombie factories" to stay alive in order to avoid painful financial deleveraging. This deleveraging must happen at some point, and lots of respectable economists say that it is only a question of when and how badly they handle it.


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

[User]
Professors: Would you allow an interested person to sit in on your class?

I am currently a master's candidate in a non-STEM field as a US citizen at a US university. My fiance is also a master's candidate, but in Pure Mathematics at a university in Germany (he's German). His English is excellent and he can certainly participate at a graduate level in mathematics where language is concerned, so that is not an issue.

He would really enjoy the chance to sit in on some math courses in the US while he is here visiting me. Would it be untoward for me to ask the math department if he could sit in on some classes? Again, I am not in a math-related field and I have no connections other than the fact that I am a student at this institution. I am fine with drafting a respectful email to ask, but I'm just not sure if this is out of bounds in general.

Would you, as a professor, allow him to sit in? My fiance is going to be in the country for roughly two months. He is a good student and very keen. It would absolutely not be for any kind of credit.

[Assistant] It's reasonably common, at least at some schools, for people to do that; I've let students do that a number of times.  Whether or not it will be allowed will depend on the school (some schools do have policies against this) and the individual professor, but it's certainly a reasonable question.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do dogs live a shorter life than humans?

[Assistant]
Let's say that a species is being successful if it can continually create viable offspring and replace it's individual organisms at least as fast as they are dying.

There's multiple paths to this in terms of reproductive strategies. One strategy, is to maximize the number of offspring, even if that reduces the chances of any particular individual surviving. An alternate strategy is a lower number of offspring, but taking more care to ensure their survival. Dogs are somewhere in the middle, while humans are basically at the far end of the "fewer offspring" side.

And following those different paths through evolution has resulted in significant biological differences. The human brain is significantly more capable than a dog's, but it also needs much more time to fully develop to the point where you get a human being capable of self preservation and successful reproduction.

A wolf (which dogs were bred from) is physically and mentally fit enough to reproduce and care for its offspring within a couple of years of its birth, can create a few litters of puppies, and then get old and die within a decade. Over that same 10 years, a human baby will still not even be developed enough to live on its own, much less create and care for a baby.

If you assume about 15 years for a human to develop enough to be in a position to successfully create and care for a child, and then another 15 years for them to care for their child to the point where that child can be independent, then that's 30 years. And that's just for one kid.

Before modern medicine came around, children died much more often, so the average mother might give birth to 5+ kids, so you're looking at being 35+ when your last child doesn't need you any longer. And 35 was a pretty typical life expectancy for much of the history of humanity.


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

[User]
cmv: the best way to fix the injustice in US court systems is to make the victim and the accused person anonymous to the judge and jury.

CMV: People say justice is blind, but for some people, that doesnt seem to be the case. Discrimination based on appearance and gender can often distort justice and harm the nation as a whole.
As such, the best way to combat this discrimination is to not let the judge know anything about these people other than the crimes they may or may not have committed and the evidence for and against it. The judge should not know the appearance, gender, or any other physical trait except for injuries relevant to the crime. Of course they would still have access to criminal records, but those should also have names and photos redacted for the purpose of judging them in a new trial.
As such, a new anonymous form of justice would be the best way of determining how our society gets justice for its victims and its falsely accused.

[Assistant]
interesting idea.

why even hide the victim though? the victim is simply another fact of the alleged crime. would you seek to mask or simplify any other fact of the alleged crime?

after all, criminal matters are always the state vs the charged, not the victim vs the charged.


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

[User] [Harry Potter] What purpose did it serve for the Ministry to initially deny Voldemorts return?

[Assistant] I think mostly they just didn't want to believe it could be possible and therefore denied it. In their minds widespread belief that he was back would cause panic and upset across the wizarding world. Also it could have caused people to come against the Ministry for not doing more to keep him away. To them it was in everyone's best interest to believe he was gone forever if it wasn't for that minor detail about it not being true.


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

[User]
How much randomness is there really?

Our universe obeys causal physical laws. Do entirely random events actually occur or is deeming something random just our inability to understand the causes?

[Assistant]
>Our universe obeys causal physical laws

Nope. Only *most*, the overwhelming majority, of physical laws *appear* to have causal relationships. But there are exceptions. Radioactive decay of particles through the weak force is the classic example. If a particle can reduce the mass-energy of itself or a system of particles by changing to a different particle it will... but exactly when is completely random and without cause. Nothing actually pushes it to a new particle, it just... does. Spontaneously.


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

[User]
Does COVID viruses stay dormant in your body after you recover?

Hi all, just wondering can COVID viruses stay dormant in your body even after you have recovered from it? I know cold sores & chickenpox can stay in the body for long periods of time without being activated, and I was wondering since all of these are all categorized as a viral infection, could this apply to COVID as well? Thanks in advance guys, genuinely curious about this.

[Assistant] Not in the same way. SARS-CoV-2 is an RNA virus. It has to keep replicating to stick around. So it's not dormant. Chicken pox and wart virus can splice their genome into our genome and just wait. Later the virus genome is activated and starts replicating again.


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

[User] ELI5: why do stomachs make noises when were hungry?

[Assistant] Its actually your intestines breaking down food and moving gasses along. They are always making noise, its just when the stomach is full you cant hear it, as the full stomach is smothering the sounds.


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

[User]
ELI5: Does one person have to lose wealth for another person to gain wealth?

Does the money that one person makes have to come from someone else's pockets? Is there only so much money to go around, or can we as a world create more wealth by working harder as a whole?

[Assistant]
There's a huge difference between money and wealth. Take an example: suppose there are three people in a village, and each of them starts with $2. So there's $6 total in the village.

John is a lumberjack and fells a tree. He sells the wood to Karen, for $1.

Karen is a carpenter and makes the wood into a chest of drawers. She sells the chest to Henry for $2.

John now has $3, and Karen also has $3. Henry has no money but he does have a chest worth $2. The total wealth in the village is now $8. Everyone in the village is better off than they were before: John and Karen have more money, and Henry has something he wanted.

Next Henry will probably do something to earn the money back. Maybe he's a shepherd and sells Karen a sheep for $1. And again everyone is richer, even though the village only has $6 in cash to go around.

Money is a medium of exchange. Wealth is created by labor.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why are there so many different programming languages, and what's the difference?

C, C+, C++, C#, Python, ruby to name a few, surely there can't be that many differences or something you can do on one that you can't do on another?

[Assistant]
This is because everybody is free to develop a programming language. Besides that everybody has his own taste and requirements. There are languages which are for example more suited for web or standard applications, others may be more low-level to build more specialized stuff.

Languages can evolve or fork into different tastes, or die out over time. Popular languages will often have big and active communities who contribute to it's development and deliver standard building blocks which can be reused by other developers.


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

[User]
[DC] Why is Arkham still running when it was proven multiple times that it's beyond easy to break out of it?

All of Batman's rogues have broken out multiple times but Batman still puts the most dangerous criminals there. Why doesn't Gotham do anything about it?

[Assistant] Because Arkham still offers the best chance of isolating super-criminals like the Joker. Even though it seems Arkham seems easy to break out off, it's only because it takes several months of planning and coordination from outside sources to assist criminals in breaking out. The Riddler took several months to convince GCPD to lower their guard long enough for him to leave using their families as hostages. Joker has enough insane followers due to his philosophy that even normal people who got through the intense psychological testing and screening tend to gravitate to Joker.


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

[User]
[Dune] Is the "Known Universe" really the entire known universe? Or is it just the Milky Way and its satellite galaxies?

We know that Shaddam IV, Paul Atreides, and Leto II Atreides were Emperors of the Known Universe, and that Arrakis is the center of it. However, is it really the entirety of the known universe? Or is it just our home galaxy plus its satellite galaxies? Is there an explanation on how big the Known Universe actually is?

[Assistant]
By "known", Imperial types usually mean "actually surveyed and catalogued by one of the Proper People(tm)"

IOW, they automatically exclude whatever they don't already own as being "unimportant enough to count".

So, it's not even the whole galaxy. It's a few hundred lightyears around Earth, maybe a few thousand. It doesn't even include all of the space that humanity spread out to during The Scattering following the reign of Leto II.


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

[User] ELI5: Why arent there any medicines against the flu? And in general, against many viruses?

[Assistant]
Viruses aren't alive so they're impossible to kill.

Bacteria are alive, they have to take in nutrients and have many chemical processes that go on, and antibiotics are chemicals that actively disrupt those chemical processes. A virus is inert, there's nothing to turn off and they don't "eat" so you can't make them take in a poison.

Viruses inject their DNA into a host cell and then uses your own cell's mechanisms to build more viruses. This is hard to interrupt without turning off the normal operations of your cells which you know, keeps you alive.

Many viruses can be protected against via vaccines, which "teach" your immune system to recognize the virus and destroy it. Cold and flu viruses are highly adaptable and rapidly mutate to avoid this, so getting as flu vaccine this year only protects you from a small number of flu strains and not from any new mutations of flu.

Tamiflu is a drug used to stop flu virus by interrupting the ability for new viruses to exit a host cell, slowing down the spread of the virus inside your body. It's no good to you if you take it after the flu has already spread, and doesn't work against other common respiratory viral diseases.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why does the severe weather alert system that broadcasts over your television sound like I'm logging on to the internet in the 90's?

We are having severe weather here and they just did a test over the tele and it got me wondering.

[Assistant]
It's actually quite intentional.

The Emergency Alert System is designed to be broadcast in case of any emergency, whether it's a weather alert or a Presidential Alert. The system doesn't differentiate where the signal is sent, and is broadcast nationally for each alert, but you don't see the ones that don't apply to you because of those tones at the beginning of the broadcast.

The first time the modem noise is played, the EAS is broadcasting information about the affected area, the type of alert, and the originator to the EAS device located at the station. This code is then repeated two additional times in order to ensure that the data was correctly interpreted on the receiving end. The receiver at the broadcast station reads this data, determines automatically if the alert is valid for the broadcast area, and cuts into whatever is playing in order to relay the information.

This is the same principal as the handshake your modem used to connect to the internet, but with different data since certain things are assumed (Baud rate, transmission format, frequency, etc.)

The three tones at the end of the EAS broadcast are the "End of Message" tones.

TL;dr: It's because the alerts are sent by a system that's pretty close to a modem.

(edit: Moved a few letters around for clarity's sake.)


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

[User] Eli5: Why does jumping off two legs result in roughly the same height as when using one leg? It would seem 2x the upward force should result in a much higher jump.

[Assistant] Most people can jump higher off of two legs. All people can jump higher off two legs if they are standing still. The reason leaping is a thing and some people can get really high off of one leg is because they are moving forward. When a basketball player makes a running leap, he converts some of his forward motion into upward motion. He sort of uses his forward leg as a ramp. The forward foot is planted on the ground and the legs is kept sort of stiff. For the body to keep moving forward the leg forces it to also go up. Its very awkward to do this with two legs.


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

[User] [The Muppets] Im a human associate of the Muppets. But do I live in the real world, where Muppets are skilled thespians, or do I live in the fourth wall breaking fictional world that is the Muppets films about versions of themselves.

[Assistant]
Are you asking if you're a very manly muppet, or if you're a muppet of a man?

But to answer the question, if you're interacting with muppets, you live in the muppet world, not the meta-world that watches muppet movies but does not include actual muppets.


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

[User]
How would an atom bomb effect us if blown up in the sky?

As stated, how would an atom bomb effect us if blown up in the sky?

I understand the radiation would get to us, but what about the shear force from the bomb itself?

EDIT: Meaning in the sky at a high altitude, I did not realize that nuclear bombs were detonated around 500-1000 meters above ground level.

EDIT2: I appreciate all the responses to this question! You guys have helped me out so much. Thank you!

[Assistant]
Atom bombs are _supposed_ to blow up "in the sky" to maximize the explosive power. E.g. "Little Boy" (Hiroshima) detonated at an altitude of about 600 meters/2000 feet.

It's true of dropped bombs in general, since WWII they've mostly detonated using a proximity fuze rather than a contact (impact) fuze.


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

[User]
[Marvel] What would happen if captain America, Black Widow, and Hawkeye were absent during the battle of New York?

How would the battle have gone differently if it was all down to Stark, Banner, and Thor?

[Assistant] There would probably be a few more civilian and police casualties due to The Cap not interacting with the people. But really there would be about 200 more aliens for the rest to dispatch and Bruce Banner would probably just appeared as The Hulk instead of just casually riding in on a motor bike.


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

[User] eli5: why is the ocean salty but most lakes and rivers are not?

[Assistant]
Water moves in a cycle. It evaporates into vapour, which condenses into clouds which the rains onto land. Salt is left behind when water evaporates.

This rain travels over or through the land, and where lots of water collects together, that flow forms streams and rivers, which can flow into lakes. Further water can then flow out of the lake and and ends up in the sea.

Rivers and lakes are the stage between clouds and the ocean, so it's never had the chance to get salty.

There is also "brackish" water, which is the mix of fresh and salty water you find in river mouths and estuaries.


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

[User]
Can someone give me a Halo world overview?

I know the basic story in Combat Evolved, but i have no idea what has happened before it or after.

[Assistant]
Long story short: It's the year 2550 or something and human kind has spread out over the stars, colonizing worlds and fighting some small wars against itself.  The Human Government is the UNSC (United Nations Space Command) and it's HQ'ed on Earth.  The UNSC's largest military base (aside from Earth) is a planet named Reach where they produce ships, train soldiers, etc.

Anyways, at some point, an enemy known as the Covenent make contact with a far off human colony named Harvest (which colloqially was used to grow food for other worlds).  The Covenent invaded Harvest and burned the planet down with powerful weapons.  The USNC sent several ships to investigate, and all but one were destroyed.

Eventually, the UNSC sent a HUUUUUGE fleet (led by Adm. Cole) to attack the enemy, and won!  At the cost of 3 Human ships to 1 Covenent one.  Its was a terrible victory that would set the tone of the Human-Covenent War for like the next what? 50 years?  Anyways, the Covenent are deemed to be such a threat that the locations of places like Earth and Reach are deemed top secret, and human forces are no longer allowed to retreat to them out of fear that the enemy will find them.  This is known as the Cole Protocol.

Anyways, over 50 years, humanity is slowly getting its butt kicked.  While they win some battles, they ultimately are pushed back.  Eventually, the Covenent find Reach and launch a massive assault on the planet.  Hundreds of ships are destroyed, the planet is bombarded, and the human military forces are thrown into disarray.  After Reach falls, all that is really left to effectively resist the enemy is Earth.

This is where Halo:CE starts.  The Pillar of Autumn just left Reach as it collapsed, picking up the Master Chief on the way out.  The enemy chasing them, they couldn't goto Earth or another human planet, so they made a blind jump away from the planet and ended up at Halo.

Unfortunately, the Covenent beat them there, the Pillar of Autumn was shot down, and the fight for the Halo begins.

After the events of Halo, the Master Chief and survivors of the events in the game made their way to Earth.  They did so by hijacking a Covenent Carrier, a huge ship.  They fought their way back to Reach (to find a human ship which might have coordinates to Earth or something), picked up a bunch of other Spartan survivors they managed to find, and used the advanced weapons of their new ship to their advantage.  They eventually figured out how to take Covenent weapons on the ship and advance them to the point where they would kick the crap out of the Covenent ships.  Anyways, they eventually stumble upon the Covenent invasion fleet poised to attack Earth, the Spartans infiltrate the central command ship (a huge space station) and sacrifice their Covenent Carrier to blow the whole fleet and thing up.

The Master Chief made it out (lost everyone else on the huge space station) and took a human ship to Earth.  A few weeks later, he's on a space station getting an award when... badum dum dum: the Covenent attack!

Then Halo 2-3 happens.


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

[User]
Given that asteroids from Mars are found of Earth, would asteroids from Earth be found on Mars?

And, if we find life on Mars, how would we show it wasn't just seeded there from Earth from one of these asteroids?

I know that we have found chunks of Mars on Earth in the form of some very rare asteroids. The thought being that pieces of Mars could be thrown into space during large asteroid collisions. Could this happen in reverse?...maybe with some large impact like the Yucatn impact of 65-million years ago?

[Assistant] Sure, but it's much much more unlikely. Earth's gravity is a lot stronger than mars, 9.8 m/s compared to 3.7m/s, so that already makes it harder for chunks of earth to leave and go flying around aimlessly. Earth also has a much thicker atmosphere, so most meteors won't be enough to leave a crater on earth, nevermind send material flying at terminal velocity, so only really catastrophical impacts could have a chance at shooting anything into mars. Mars' smaller gravity also makes it harder for it to "catch" a meteor that is sent in its general direction, it'd be likelier to just whizz by. But nothing stops it from happening.


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

[User]
[Marvel] How is Iceman considered an omega-level mutant?

I have read one of the biggest things he can do is produce a mass ice over of the Earth killing everything, but that doesn't seem too sound to me.

Another I though of was just moisture absorption and dry everything out maybe..

[Assistant]
Remember in elementary school how we learned that when liquid water molecules are slowed down they turned into solid ice (and turns into vapor when sped up)? That. **Iceman doesn't JUST create ice--he's controlling energy at the atomic level.**

WHOA.

Now how's that for Omega-level?


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

[User]
Why don't other viruses nearly eradicated by vaccines not evolve to evade immunity like Covid does?

Covid-19 has seen lots of variants that evade the immune response from prior variants, either acquired from the virus or from vaccines made based on their spike protein characteristics.

Measles is incredibly infectious but historically we were able to nearly eliminate it in the Western world. Why did it not evolve to evade vaccine induced immunity like Covid does?

[Assistant] Flu is able to swap large sections of its genome, since it is segmented.  It also travels through various different species (birds, pigs, human etc), so flu can and does mutate quite a bit.  More than CoVid, by far.  CoVid and measles mutate at the same rate on a molecular level, but the measles spike protein is very highly constrained, and any number of mutations that would allow it to escape neutralizing antibodies would inactivate its ability to bind and enter the cell. Unfortunately we are learning that CoVid is not nearly as constrained, and is able to remain effective at binding even in light of multiple mutations.


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

[User] [LotR] Is elves being twisted into orcs a reason for the Elvish kingdoms decline?

[Assistant] No. For one thing, it's uncertain what the origin of the orcs actually is; the idea of orcs being corrupted elves is only one of several theories. Beyond this, even if orcs are descended wholly or partly from elves, they reproduce biologically, in the same way that any of the other races do. The origin of orcs lies far back in the past of the Elder Days, long before the elvish kingdoms reached their height and began to decline. The orcs were well-established before the time of the great elvish kingdoms of the First Age, and were spreading and multiplying on their own without requiring any additional tinkering on Morgoth's or Sauron's part. The decline of the elves is more closely tied to the nature of Middle-earth, or of "Arda Marred", than to specific actions on the part of the Dark Lords.


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

[User] ELI5: Why people recommend breathing in a bag when nervous.

[Assistant] The bag traps some of the carbon dioxide that you're exhaling. Carbon dioxide levels in the bloodstream tend to lower when you feel stressed out or anxious. Breathing in some of that recycled co2 will raise the level in your blood, making you feel better and more balanced.


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

[User]
[MCU] So what's the deal with the fake infinity gauntlet/timeline of invasion of Nidavellir?

So in the first Thor (2011) we see the Infinity Gauntlet in Odins treasure room.  At the end of Age of Ultron (2015) Thanos grabs his gauntlet and says he'll do it himself.  Then in Thor Ragnarok Hela,imprisoned for a millennia, tells us its a fake.  In Avengers: Infinity war we learn Eitri forged Thanos's Gauntlet after they were invaded and the dwarves have been all but extinct since.

But Hela saying it's fake implies that there is a GENUINE one.  And has been for at least a millennia for Hela to know it was fake like that.

So did Nidavellir get invaded by Thanos a thousand years ago and nobody noticed?  But Odin somehow then learned about the plans and designs for a sweet gauntlet and had a replica ordered up to commemorate the slaughter of an entire race he was sworn to protect?  Or.....what?

[Assistant]
No.  The one in the treasure vault is a fake - we just don't know how Hela knows it - likely she knows that Odin knows.  There already is a mold in Nidavellir, but we don't know if that's related to the fake.  That doesn't imply she knows there is a real one.  That could have been commissioned by anyone.

The one that Thanos grabs from his vault is the one that he had made from invading Nidavellir.  It takes place a few months before Ragnorock because during that Time Thor has been unsuccessfully finding Infinity stones.  That's when the realms fell under further disarray.

The scenes are not in order chronologically.  Its somewhat confusing since the gauntlet was not meant to be in Odin's vault - Thor's original director had no idea that they were going to use it later down the line with Infinity stones.  Thus, Hela knows its a fake.  We don't know how she knows, but she already sees Odin as being a fake anyhow.


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

[User] ELI5: Arcade "Kill screens"?

[Assistant]
The simplest way to describe it is to say that a killscreen comes from being asked to perform a task that is impossible from a strictly literal perspective.

Lets say you have a simple task--moving sand from pile A into pile B using only a spoon.  You have a time limit of five minutes to do this, and you are only able to move your arms at a fixed speed.  Each time you finish moving pile A to pile B, pile A is replaced with an even bigger pile of sand and you have to perform the task again.  If you keep repeating this pattern, eventually the pile of sand is too big to move in five minutes.

The most common example of this is Donkey Kong, where the killscreen represents a level where you are forced to get to the end in an amount of time that is strictly impossible to complete not only practically, but in theory.


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

[User]
Why does our bodies get stiffer as we get older?

Basically the title.

[Assistant] As we age, the elastic-y proteins in our tissues and joints (namely collagen) slowly break down, causing skin to get wrinkles and sag and joints/muscles to get stiffer. This is paired with the commonality of arthritis in old age, which is when the connective tissue that cushions our joints wears down and causes bones to even scrape against each other in severe cases.


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

[User]
ELI5: How does the human body know when it has reached growth or developmental stages?

How does the body know when it's time to start puberty, or when to stop a growth spurt, for example? A lot of these things are pretty hereditary, so presumably it's mostly genetic rather than environmental, but how does the body measure time? How does it know "this is tall enough"?

[Assistant]
It doesn't. There are no countdown timers in your body that signal when certain developmental steps should start or end. It's just feedback loops and certain processes triggering other processes.

Let's consider height. During childhood, your bones are able to get longer because they have growth plates at the end where new bone can be formed. As long as those plates are there, the bone will keep getting longer. During puberty, one of the processes that gets triggered is the closure of the growth plates. At the same time as the closure happens, you also go through your pubertal growth spurt. Now it's a race over how much growth you can achieve before the plates close. So you don't stop getting taller because you hit some predetermined height, you are as tall as you are because that is when the plates closed and you couldn't grow anymore.


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

[User]
How is facebook exploiting me?

I keep reading it in memes and all over reddit. How? Thanks!

[Assistant]
Basically anything you submit to Facebook becomes their property; Pictures, personal information, everything.

People complain about privacy and then go and spill every single detail of their life to Facebook, thus Facebook is "exploiting" idiots.