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

[User]
I believe our country would be better off without career politicians. CMV.

I think that in virtually every way possible, it would be better if our elected officials were lawyers, businessmen, veterans, teachers, or many other professions. While politicians have more knowledge over how legislation works, and how to effectively use their position, I still feel that we'd be better served by someone who has shown in the past that they can be effective outside of a politicians role, instead of just assuring everyone that they know what's best with nothing to back it up.

EDIT: Forgot to include I'm an American.

[Assistant]
Politicians already do tend to be lawyers or busniness men. For example, Obama is a lawyer and he was also a professor at the University of Chicago Law school, so there you have a lawyer/teacher. Romney was a the CEO of Bane Capital so there you have a business man. Many are also veterans, such as John Kerry and John McCain.

It is pretty important for politicians to be lawyers, or at least understand the law, because they write it. Which is why a lot of them have law degrees.


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

[User] Why does nearly every baking recipe require eggs and butter?

[Assistant]
fats like butter and egg yolks keep flour from sticking too much to itself by coating the proteins. when the protein is rubbed together, it forms strong bonds of gluten. this is what gives things like rustic sourdough bread its chewiness. sourdough is a "lean" dough (low levels of fat). it is different from things like sandwich bread, which has things like milk or butter in it, which gives it a lighter texture.

when fats are heated, it steams as the water evaporates, creating small air pockets that are distributed all over the baked item as well. these small air pockets is what makes something "fluffy"

often, the fats will take on the maillard effect and turn brown, also giving a nice caramelized taste.

a croissant is multi-layered (butter keeps the dough in separate layers), crispy (browned and caramelized) and full of air pockets (as steam rises within the layers). this is all due to butter and the eggs.

egg whites, when beaten, hold their shape really well and become stiffer when the water is baked out of it. this is how meringues are made.

eggs are also a binding agent, it keeps the rest of the ingredients together.

there are only 6 basic ingredients to baking:

flour, sugar, eggs, butter, heat, and time. :)

edit: ermahgerd sentence structure!


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

[User] ELI5: Why does the US government which doesn't have the security to prevent 21.5 million employees from being hacked want to put backdoors into all programs?

[Assistant]
The US government is made up of people. Each of those people think they are good people doing good work. They work to protect other good people. They think they are the good guys. They want to defeat all bad guys. They think that encryption back doors will give the bad guys fewer places to hide. They want to beat the bad guys so much that they are willing to give up your privacy. They want to beat the bad guys so much they are willing to destroy the entire concept of privacy in order to win against all bad guys everywhere.

They don't understand that the "back door" they want to build can be found by the bad guys.

They believe that their safety is more important than your privacy.


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

[User] ELI5: what does going bankrupt/declaring bankruptcy actually mean and what are the consequences?

[Assistant]
In short, it's a legal filing that formally states that your debt obligations are well beyond your means and that you are seeking the assistance of the courts to either restructure debts to more manageable terms or, if necessary, discharge some debts.

In exchange, the courts may order that any non-essential valuable possessions be sold off and the debtor pay off what can be done with what assets one has, and also typically gets a huge red flag attached to your credit history that lasts a long time.


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

[User]
The nature of mental illness

I hope not to upset anyone with this question; I myself have been in both behavioural psychiatry and am currently undergoing psychoanalysis, so I don't wish to come across as unsympathetic to people with psychological struggles.

I am wondering what has been said to the idea that mental illness isn't a particularly functional category; that is to say, because there is no determinable "norm" of psychological state, there is no way to determine someone as being in a problematic state based on their deviation from such a norm.

Rather than labelling some people as "mentally ill", which our society seems far too eager to do (e.g. in cases of terrorism), wouldn't it be better to actually look at people's issues on a case-by-case basis, without having to put them in some normative (or, rather, non-normative) category?

Thanks, I hope my question made sense.

[Assistant] Perhaps you'd like to check out M. Foucault's *Madness and Civilization* and the critiques thereof - it's one of the bigger analyses concerning how the concepts of folly/ madness/ mental illness were placed in relation to moral ideals and institutional order in historical periods from the Renaissance to the modern  times. Foucault's point would be that the category *is* functional, only not in the field it's supposed to affect directly - he perceives it as one of the categories that help actively create and categorize social identities and models of behaviour rather than describe any psychological states. The book seems to polarize its critics, but it's a must-read if you're interested in social foundations of the common, normalized perception of mental illness.


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

[User] ELI5: Colour perception is typical described as a material absorbing light wavelengths and reflecting others, with those reflected wavelengths being interpreted as colour. EII5 how are light waves absorbed by a material? Is there a limit to absorption?

[Assistant]
Materials absorb light by quantum interaction between the photons (light) and the electrons in the material. If the wavelength of light matches up to an electron properly, the electron can absorb the photon and jump up to a higher energy level. Materials have many electrons in many different configurations with many different energy levels so they can absorb a wide range of possible wavelengths.

It's not just the interaction of the electron with it's atom, it's also the electron bonds between atoms...that's why different chemical compounds can have different colours even if they involve the same atoms.

There's a limit to light absorption in the sense that the energy has to go somewhere, and it's typically going to show up as heat in the material. Eventually you get hot enough to cause the molecules to break down or change state (solid to liquid to gas to plasma)...either will change the electron configuration and energy and the absorption will change.


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

[User]
What did Heidegger think of Sartre?

They lived concurrently, and I've heard that Heidegger thought Sartre misunderstood him after he read *Being and Nothingness*. Can anyone elaborate on what Heidegger thought Sartre got wrong?

[Assistant] Letter on Humanism by Heidegger is a famous critique of French existentialism by him. Suffice to say he had negative opinions. Heidegger's problem seems to be that Sartre's existentialism is still a metaphysics.


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

[User]
ELI5: How does water evaporate, such as in puddles, when its clearly not being heated to 100 degrees?

If 100 degrees is boiling point, why can I leave a glass of water by my window and it will eventually evaporate?

[Assistant]
200 Students in a class.
Smart students who finish their work get to go to lunchtime, where there are donuts and toys. Normally, students finish one at a time, smartest first then not-so-smart, over the course of the day.

If every student now has a private tutor that helps them, they all finish much much quicker, and everybody gets to go to lunch for donuts and toys much sooner.

For a water particle to turn into gas water, it needs energy. Heat is a type of energy. Energy isn't split evenly among the water, like how smart students are, so some get enough energy to evaporate and leave, while others don't get to leave so soon. Lots and lots of energy, then the majority now has enough energy and everybody gets to leave.

I want a donut.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do clocks become fast or slow over time?

For example, Ill set my watch to the exact time thats on my phone and a month or so later, its 2-3 minutes slow.

[Assistant]
Your watch is not keeping the exact time. There are 86400 seconds in a day, but if it is mechanically measuring 86399 seconds in a day, then after 2 months, it'll be one minute off.

We're talking about a 0.001% error here. For many inexpensive watches, it is 'easy' to not build to this level of specificity.

This is especially true since after 6 months, you'll be 3 minutes out of date at this rate, and then you change your watch for Daylight Savings time anyways, and you'll fix the error then.


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

[User]
[Any] What is the single most fucking badass/fascinating weapon you know of?

Whether it's meant to kill one person or remove a galaxy from existence, what are your favorite devices of badassery?

Sorry this post isn't from an "in-universe" perspective, the nature of the scope of the question prohibited that. Feel free to respond :in-universe" that the weapon is from :)

[Assistant] The Possible Sword: It exists where it currently is but also where it could be (within a certain range of probability). If you use it with extreme precision and control it isn't anymore effective than a normal sword because there is nowhere else it could be. In the hands of the totally unskilled it's very dangerous to the user as the posibilities are so large the sword might end up striking you as well as your opponent. If you develop just the right mix of control it can deliver a lot of wounds simultaneously.


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

[User]
ELI5:Why is it so hard for some people to rub their stomach and pat their head at the same time?

I know there are many variation of this, but this is the most common and well known, and I would assume that the answer to this would work for the others.

[Assistant] It's a limb independence issue. Your limbs want to work in tandem with each other to do tasks (like walking), so there is some extra training needed to get them to do different things. Most of these things you pick up as a toddler and never notice that they were difficult for you. A good example of something that adults struggle with is drumming. While there are certainly people that can pick it up quickly, a lot of people have trouble keeping the arms at different beats while using the kick drum at another. That is of course a task very high on the limb independent scale, but hopefully it'll help you understand.


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

[User] ELI5: Why can seeing a drop of blood or a needle make me pass out, but seeing something that could actually kill me like a lion or a knife cant?

[Assistant]
The short answer is that we don't actually know for sure. What we do know is that some triggers such as seeing blood or a needle can cause your blood pressure to drop. This is called vasovagal syncope and it's why you pass out.

But, seeing something that truly scares you such as a lion or a knife will cause adrenaline to be dumped into your bloodstream which causes your blood pressure to spike, not drop.

But, there's not a clear explanation for why some things trigger a vasovagal response and why some trigger an adrenaline response.


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

[User]
If two colleagues working on laptops share a single charger cable, switching it over as each battery approaches being depleted, are they saving energy?

As opposed to keeping chargers in their laptops continually.

[Assistant]
The simple answer is no.  If we assume power settings are the same, load is uniform, and ignore conversion losses-- the power used would be exactly the same.  There will be some small variation in real life, though, for a few reasons.

1. Power settings on the laptops.  Laptops are often set up to run at lower power while on battery.  This isn't an intrinsic thing, though-- you could change the "plugged-in" settings to match the "on battery" settings.

2. The inefficiency of charging.  To charge a laptop battery, power is converted to DC, converted to a different voltage, and then used to charge the battery-- and all three of those steps introduce losses.  All other things equal, it would be more efficient to power the laptop directly rather than charge the battery, since it eliminates at least one of those lossy steps.

3. Power supply efficiency.  Power supplies vary widely-- they have a load at which they are most efficient.  If the particular unit with these laptops is more efficient at maximum load (charging the battery while the laptop is being used) compared to lighter load (like just using the laptop without charging the battery) then this will affect it as well.


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

[User]
What allows animals with shorter life spans than humans (eg. Cats and dogs) to develop age related illnesses like arthritis and mental degradation in much shorter time spans?

For example a 15 year old dog may suffer from arthritis or dementia, but it would take an average human a way longer time to start developing those issues typically.

[Assistant]
Because most age related pathology is not a specific defect like many illnesses (like MS or type 1 diabetes) but rather a general consequence of cells in your body no longer doing their job, called cell senescence.

When skin cells are no longer doing their job, your skin becomes thin, less insulating, easier to bruise and slower to heal.

When brain cells are no longer doing their job it is harder to learn new things and you are more forgetful and may even struggle to regulate your emotions.

And so on for all of the different cells in all of your different organs.

Cell senescence results in cells no longer doing their jobs, which results in both these specific pathologies like arthritis and dementia *and aging in general*.  So age related pathologies and aging in general are linked, and so you should expect age related pathologies to happen sooner in animals with shorter life spans.  As for why animals vary so much in their life span, it has to do with how much their cells are doing to repair the damage that accumulates as a side effect of normal functioning.  Cells have many ways to repair themselves and keep themselves functioning normally for a long time, and there are some cases of animal cells which seem to be able to repair themselves indefinitely.. but evolution doesn't select for longevity, it selects for passing on genes, which is different.  Evolution will select for a trait which results in more genes being passed on even if it means shorter lifespans for future generations, and some animals end up with cells that repair themselves for a long time and some animals end up with cells that don't repair themselves so well.  Dogs ended up with the latter.


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

[User]
ELI5: "Phases" of electrical power

What is the difference between single phase, two phase, three phase and four phase electrical current (are there more than four)? How does this relate to electrical motors?

[Assistant]
These all seem above 5yo level, I'll take a stab...

Electricity is generated by spinning a magnet next to a wire.  As the magnet moves, it pushes electrons down the wire.  Since a magnet has a North and a South pole, as it spins it pushes the electrons one way as one pole rotates past and pushes them the other way when the other pole rotates past.  So the electrons are basically sloshing back and forth, like a wave in a bathtub.  This is called "alternating current" or AC because it is not a continuous flow, rather it alternates one way and then the other.  We are only generating one wave so far, so we call it "single phase".

Now say we want more power.  We set up another magnet and spin it too, but we time it so that it's wave hits the end of the bathtub when the first wave it at the other end.  This is 2-phase power.  Waves that hit at the same time are "in-phase", our waves are at 2 different phases.

Want more power?  Set up three magnets, and time them so the waves all hit in sequence, 1, 2, 3.  This is three-phase power.  You can do this as long as you want, but typically you don't go any higher than three phase.


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

[User]
What is my phone's battery percentage actually measuring?

I don't think electrical charge is measured in percentage. Is it measuring the estimated time left of the battery's charge based on phone usage?

[Assistant] The remaining useful energy stored in a battery can be estimated by measuring the voltage on the battery. The voltage will depend on how much current is being drawn, how much charge is remaining, and the age/corrosion state of the battery. It is not at all linear, so a full battery could read 4.37 volts and a nearly empty battery could read 3.5 volts, with no load on it.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do predictive text/autocorrect seem hell-bent on using typos you made one time a month ago?

[Assistant]
If it doesn't catch the typo, or if you make the same typo multiple times, it will add a new word to your phones dictionary (which is designed as a way to always be improving your autocorrects).

Most phones will let you access the dictionary of new words that have been added, so you can go in, find the typo, and delete it, so it won't auto correct to the typo anymore.


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

[User] [The Sandman] When Dream and Choronzon was playing thier game, Choronzon offers anti life, which Dream countered with Hope and Choronzon loses. Why didn't he say say something like was despair or fear?

[Assistant]
Think of it this way.

"I am Fear."  "You're afraid of me?  You lose!"

Like Dream said, hope lives on, even in Hell.  Sisyphus keeps pushing the rock, even when he could just nope out and let the demons stab him.


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

[User]
How are microwaves considered safe as soon as you open the door? Does the radiation "disappear"?

This is just a question that popped in my brain so excuse my science virginity.  Hell, I dont even know if I can word this right.

You microwave some food.  Does the radiation transfer directly to the food to heat up?  When you open the microwave door, there obviously isn't enough radiation in the chamber of the microwave to be considered unsafe, nor is the microwave even any shade of warmer than the air outside of it, so is it a direct transfer of energy where there's no radiation lingering around that wasn't used for heating your food when you opened the door, or do they sort of "disappear" really quickly due to their size?

[Assistant]
The answers above/below aren't entirely correct. Electromagnetic waves ARE radiation, just not in the sense that most of the public thinks of radiation.

They do NOT just disappear when you open the door. They're moving at the speed of light, and the switch the turn the magnetron off activates WELL before you've even moved the door 1 cm. Therefore the remaining waves that ARE bouncing around inside bounce around a ton more before you've opened the door and after the magnetron has shut off, therefore they get absorbed LONG before you'd be exposed to them

With that said, microwaves aren't powerful enough to hurt you in small doses, and it is not ionizing radiation (meaning it won't give you cancer) therefore it wouldn't even matter if you got hit with a few microwave photons. In fact, there are even crowd control weapons that use microwaves (makes people feel like they are burning.)


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

[User] ELI5: How does calculator know and use pi if even super computers can't know all the digits. Does it use like first 100 digits?

[Assistant]
Probably way less than that. For any real-world application, even a few decimal places are totally sufficient. Use 6 digits, and the circumference of a kilometer-wide circle is less than a centimeter off the true value. That's already better than most measurement methods. And additionally to that, computers in general can't handle infinitely precise numbers.

If you do the right calculations, the error could stack up, but in this case you rather use mathematical tricks to simplify the calculations first, before using any hard-coded numbers.


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

[User] [Ben 10] Intergalactic Hero Ben 10 has shown an aversion to using the transformation of my species, and has been disappointed when he accidentally does transform into my species. Is Ben 10 speciesist or something?

[Assistant]
Do you want to know who else he's consistently expressed disappointment about turning into? A Galvan. Know what those are? That's the species, Azmuth, *creator of the Omnitrix* belongs to, of which he turns into a peak version.

It has nothing to do with your little, it's just that in the heat of battle he comes up with plans for certain species, but others don't fit quite well, forcing him to adapt.


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

[User] [Pacific Rim] If Im drifting with my co-pilot and get an itchy asshole, will my co-pilot feel it too?

[Assistant] Not really. Your two minds kinda meld into one. You're more aware of what's happening to the Jaeger than to your own body. So your itchy butt isn't going to be felt much by the copilot. You'll feel the kinetic feedback from the jeagers ass hitting something more than your own butt. And if you're feeling your body it means the drift isn't in sync and you're losing connection.


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

[User]
[Marvel] Which historical figure is most like Doctor Doom?

I am genuinely curious to know, so if you could please answer.

[Assistant]
I'll toss in Genghis Khan. He was:

* An unparalleled master of military strategy
* Using technology (horses, longbows) far superior to anyone he faced
* Prone to making deals with any deity he encountered (Khan allowed those he conquered to maintain their religion. He simply required them to make offerings on his behalf, so that any god, if it were real, would look with favor on his kingdom)
* Believed it was his destiny to rule the world
* Set on conquering the world for its own good
* Feared by all

As an added bonus, nobody knows what Khan's face really looked like. Also, proclaiming ***DOOM*** and shouting ***KHAN*** are equally cathartic.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why are salt and pepper such ubiquitous ingredients in cooking?

Why do we put salt and pepper in EVERYTHING that we cook? Why not anything else?

I imagine it is something to do with availability? Or is it taste related?

Thanks

**Edit**: thanks for all the answers, very informative!

[Assistant]
The human sense of taste has evolved to enjoy salt, because salt is important for your body to keep functioning. But that's not the only cool thing it does, it also seems to suppress our perception of bitter tastes, which lets other tastes like sweet or sour stand out more. Salt not only tastes pretty good on its own, it also makes other things taste better.

Black pepper adds some flavor and a little bit of spiciness, but usually doesn't overpower dishes unless you add too much.

Many other spices tend to be strong and distinct in flavor, and as such can "take over" a dish, instead of just enhancing it.


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

[User]
[Children of Men] What happens next?

Would the Human Project try to deduce what made Kee fertile and be able to distribute that to enough people to save humanity? Best case scenario, how bad of a genetic bottleneck is humanity about to go through?

[Assistant]
Movie:
The world's problems aren't solved overnight. Kee will be jealously guarded by the Human Project, poked, prodded, and put through all sorts of tests, along with her child. If from her they can come up with the miracle that will save mankind, that will allow women to have children again, there will still be a number of issues to overcome.

From what we know, the rest of the world has gone entirely to shit, so England is the logical place to try to spread the cure, there is still good infrastructure and medical services, both of which will be necessary to distribute it effectively. Unfortunately, these services are held together by an oppressive government who, once they know there is a cure, will likely do whatever they can to take control of it and maintain their hold on power. From there they can save Britain, and then use the cure as leverage against the rest of the world to set up an international system that is heavily in their favour.

Assuming that the entire population of Britain can receive the cure in a relatively short amount of time there will be an almost immediate population boom. People who lived through the depression of knowing they were the last generation of humanity will joyfully breed like rabbits once they find out the world is saved. Luckily, it being only 18 years since the last human was born, there will still be a great number of professionals with relevant experience. There will be enough midwives, pediatric doctors, elementary school teachers, etc. who survived to train the next generation to ensure that the baby boom will be effectively looked after.

Once children start being born again after a few years things will return to normality, for the first decade or so there will be a massive population imbalance towards the elderly and middle-aged which will turn into a massive imbalance towards teens and twenty-somethings once that generation starts to die of old age. This cycle will repeat several times with decreasing severity as each successive generation reaches the typical age of reproduction.

The children of the first generation after general infertility will also likely be spoiled brats. Children will be guarded jealously, protected, and likely coddled by parents who thought they would live to see the end of their race.  Children will be treated as something precious, and its likely that the safety of children will be considered the top priority of society. It's likely that this generation will grow up with a massive sense of entitlement.

Book:
Theo, using his relationship as the previous Warden of England's cousin and being the self-declared protector of Miriam and her child, will take over the role of Warden of England. Using his position of power he ensures that the cure, when found, is spread to all of Britain, and then the rest of world as well as he can.

There is a problem with raising the next generation however, the last child was born almost 30 years ago, most of those who would be best able to raise a new generation are seniors at this point, and may not live to see the new generation reach their teens. The Omega generation, the last generation born before infertility, would be young enough, but with their sense of entitlement and superiority, their casual violence and general disregard for their seniors and the rest of humanity in general, would make unreliable shepherds for the next generation. Unfortunately, once the older generations die out, they will be the only ones left to take care of the children of the next. It is possible that some knowledge may be passed on, but without the tutelage of the rapidly aging previous generations it is likely that decades, if not centuries of knowledge will be lost. Humanity will enter a new dark age, but in time, we will recover.


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

[User]
[WH40K] Did the God-Emperor of the pre-Heresy days ever acknowledge that he was a god or did that belief get established after he was interred in the Golden Throne?

He definitely was the most potent psyker from his earliest days, but was it his will to be venerated as an actual god?

[Assistant]
He was venerated, yes, but he denied it at every turn. He went so far as to exterminate an entire world that Lorgar had turned into a cult to the God Emperor, Stating they were irredeemably tainted by religion and alienating the Primarch of the Word Bearers in the process.

The actual establishment of the Church of the Savior Emperor, also known as the Ministorum or the Ecclesiarchy, did not come until M32, but worship of the Emperor began long before the Heresy.


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

[User]
ELI5: How does trade work between the 28 members of the European Union internally and (more importantly) as a group with the rest of the world?

Who contributes which goods/services and how much? Who makes proposals and agreements and who can shoot them down? how is the income divided? How are resources pooled between the 28 countries? Would a war between one of the 28 and another nation (say spain/argentina) effect how the other 27 trade with either?

[Assistant]
Trade for the most part is not between nations but between companies and people.

Governments don't really get all that much involved much at all on trade inside the EU anymore than US states would be involved in intrastate commerce in the US.

The EU as a whole negotiates deals with other countries or unions of countries. for the most part those aren't deals like selling a certain quantity of some product, but setting down the rules by which corporations and people in the countries can trade with each other.

Agreements are between the EU and foreign countries are negotiated as a whole because there is strength in numbers.

The EU collects due from its members and uses that money for various projects in the EU. The poorer countries in the EU mostly get more money invested into them locally by the EU than they pay into it.

As for defence, the majority of EU nations are also in NATO and the EU treaty itself has mutual defence clause in Article 42.7. If a member country gets attacked and invokes this article the rest of the EU would support them. A war that was waged offensively by an EU member would more ambiguous but also far less likely.

There are currently movements in progress to further unite and integrate the militaries of the countries with one another.


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

[User]
ELI5: why is nationalism/patriotism seen as a good thing in the USA, but is seen as a bad thing in Europe?

For example the EDL in England would often be seen as a group of thick brutes, but a similar group America would be held up as a paragon of virtue.

[Assistant] The U.S. has yet to experience for itself consequences of nationalism gone too far. Europe has had two devastating wars as a result of nationalism (gross oversimplification, but nationalism was definitely a major contributing factor). In contrast, the World Wars didn't damage the American homeland.


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

[User]
Is the total wealth constant ?

Like the total mass-energy of universe constant, is wealth constant and just keeps changing hands or can it be created?

PS: I am a high school science student with economics as a optional subject (who intends to switch to a Econ degree in college) so the question and the analogy may sound super stupid. Sorry and Thanks

Edit: Thanks for response everyone.

[Assistant]
First, not a stupid question or analogy. Nothing wrong with asking questions about things you haven't been taught yet.

Second: no, wealth is not constant.

Unlike matter/energy, the concept of wealth is linked to human activity. Wealth can be measured in money or goods. Since money is the medium of exchange for goods, I'll simplify a bit and focus on goods.

Production of goods has 3 basic components: labour, capital (equipment, tools, buildings), and technology. Capital and labour have some fixed productivity (goods they can produce in a unit of time). If you simply add more people, the wealth of each person stays about the same (for the Econs: not going to get into diminishing marginal returns, so please excuse the over-simplification). If technology improves, however, the same amount of people can be more productive - increasing wealth per person.

Basically, technology and new knowledge can improve productivity (we can make more stuff in less time). Improved productivity increases wealth.


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

[User] ELI5: Did T.V stations back then used to play the national anthem then cut to static? If so, why?

[Assistant] In the past, TV networks didnt have enough cone to to broadcast 24 hours. So at a certain point it would just cut off broadcasting. Different stations had different ways to signal the end of the broadcast. Im not sure if any ending with national anthem, most started that way though. Following the ending of their end of transition message, the broadcast would end, causing the TV to cut to static.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do I have dark rings under my eyes?

What causes this?  Why are they dark?

[Assistant]
This is pathetic, guys. One link, a suggestion to google, a bunch of jokes? It's a legitimate question.

Under your skin, there are a lot of things that carry blood through your body--blood vessels. Usually, your skin is thick enough that you don't see these, but it so happens that the skin is very thin right under the eyelids. You can see through it a little bit, and that's why it looks dark (remember that blood doesn't necessarily look red unless it's out in the open).

You might wonder why some people have this and others don't. Most people inherit dark circles through their genes--it's passed down. Sometimes dark circles are a sign of other things, like anemia or liver issues. They are associated with sleepiness because fatigue (being tired) causes you skin to get paler, which makes it easier to see the dark blood beneath it. Usually, it doesn't mean anything bad, and you shouldn't worry unless there are a lot of other bad things happening.

The skin around your eyes is called the "periorbital" region, if you want to look up more.

**TL;DR: Skin around your eyes is thin, which means you can see blood vessels underneath it.**


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

[User]
[Inception] What other applications do dream sharing tech have?

Cobb tells his father-in-law that there weren't many legitimate applications of his dream sharing skills he could use while evading capture for suspicion of the murder of Mal.

What applications are there other than corporate espionage? The military is mentioned as seeking combat training/acclamation. We see a dream den that is treated like a drug den. I personally think that dream therapy has a lot of potential.

Was Cobb right about there not being many socially acceptable ways to delve into people's dreams? Even if he was right, what other options could someone without his talent for theft and deception pursue?

[Assistant]
The main issue with dream therapy is that, once you're in the other person's mind, it starts trying to kill you. It's hard to do therapy when an angry mob is charging you

This is the fundemental problem with finding legitimate uses- you need significant combat and/or stealth skills to avoid simply being forced awake or worse once you start making significant changes It's not that Dream Sharing couldn't have good uses, its that the kind of people who have the secondary skills needed to actually *do* it tend to be criminals, and that shapes the jobs its used for. The military too, yes, but Cobb wasn't cut out for a military life.

Most dream sharing skills either have no use outside of dreams, or have few legitimate uses because they're "avoid the attention of people who want to kill you" or "kill people who want you dead". That's the problem.


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

[User] ELI5: Why don't popular rappers diss each other anymore?

[Assistant]
Hip-hop has gradually drifted away from the hardcore, gangsta driven style that was widely popular during the 1990s and early 2000s. During those eras, rap was a lot tougher and there was a heavier emphasis on being 'real' -- staying true to street culture, or at least being truthful in your lyrics. Because of that, hip-hop feuds had a tendency to unravel into violence. Artists' had a responsibility to prove that they were as true to their image as possible so as not to be exposed as a fake. During that climate, being exposed meant that sales would slump and your career could be ended.

However, listeners gravitated away from that culture as alternative and "middle-class rap" -- popularized by guys like Kanye West, Outkast, Kid Cudi, and Drake -- became a mainstream staying power. The climate changed, and thus so did the industry. There isn't an incentive to being as tough as possible nowadays. Yes, there's sub-styles like Trap and Chicago Drill that embody the 90s culture of hip-hop, and violence sadly does still occur, but the regular hip-hop listener got sick of the elements of that era.

It should be noted that the stereotypical "DAE 90s underground hip-hop" backpacker is not typically wholly conscious of everything that happened during the Golden-Age, and just aimlessly points at present-day mainstream hip-hop as the culprit to every problem in society: money, drugs, sex, etc.


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

[User]
[The Truman Show] Did Truman have a TV, and how did they keep the show a secret if he did?

With radio they could block all signals other than their own and just have a small local team. Pretty easy to setup.

But like, with TV, they're basically need to be running a whole fake network, cause there's no way other shows wouldn't reference events in the biggest show on Earth, so they couldn't just add their own continuity announcers and newsreaders in between the real world shows.

[Assistant]
It seems unlikely that Truman would have a TV simply because that would mean that large parts of the Truman  Show would involve watching him watch television.   (Haven't you noticed that the single most unrealistic thing about sitcoms is how little the amount of time spent by any of the characters just sitting passively watching entertainment on a television set or a computer screen?   Most sitcom characters live far more active lives than do the real life viewers who spend every night watching them!)

However, he would have to have access to a cinema, for some of his amusing antics are clearly based upon film tropes, such as his using soap in the mirror to play out wearing a 1950s sci fi film space helmet.


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

[User]
How can we prove if companies are raising prices disproportionately, but blaming it on inflation?

Thinking about human nature, I feel it is reasonable to assume some companies will take the news about inflation and use it to raise prices higher than actually needed, but blame inflation. How difficult is it to study financial statements and try to determine if they need to raise prices as much as they are? I know this is a fairly broad question, but I am hoping to get some insights. Thank you!

[Assistant]
Not very easily.

What does it mean to raise prices higher than "needed"?

If you just assume "inflation" is rising costs of inputs, it's relatively straightforward, given the data. Let's assume a company wants 2% profit, you just look at all the inputs, factor in the profit, and then you land at the "correct" price.

But that's not really how any of this works, or at best half of it.

Inflation happens primarily for two reasons, lower supply, or higher demand. Everything else being equal, higher demand means higher prices. That's just as "valid" as higher producer prices leading to higher consumer prices, and you can't figure that out from plain financial statements.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] What would have happened to Anakin Skywalker/ Darth Vader if he survived his final encounter with Palpatine over the Battle of Endor and went with Luke on that shuttle?

How would the Rebels have dealt with him? Would have been an asset? An enemy? Would he have gone on trial? So many questions!

[Assistant] You know Luke wouldn't have let them touch him. Besides, by that point he'd have already switched sides and despite his terrible crimes you damn well know the rebels would gladly welcome them to fight with them, its not exactly like they had a surplus of allies.


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

[User]
[40k] I'm a young blank who needs a purpose in life. Help?

I'm a young man born on an Agriworld, and I gotta be honest, life's been tough. When I was born, my parents got so freaked out by my mere existence that they threw me out, and it was only by the mercy of the Emperor that I managed to survive off of mouldy Grox Burgers and eating rats. For a time I tried to get into an orphanage, but they all kept on beating the shit out of me, and after that I became a wanderer but then got chased out of every village by an armed mob, and ever since I've been living in caves and pinching whatever I can find to survive.

Recently, I've found out that I'm apparently something called an 'Omega Minus' Blank, whatever that is, and that's apparently the cause of my problem. As a God-Emperor loving citizen of the Imperium, I want to do my part to support mankind however I can, but I don't know if I can do so due to my affliction. Being a farmhand is obviously off the table, but I fear that if I attempt to join an offworld crew I'll get my head caved in by a bolter round. I'm running out of options - what can I do?

[Assistant]
Stay alive until the next psyker tithe. If the Black Ship has any sort of psychically sensitive personnel on board (and they will), theyll know where you are.

From there, it depends on what they decide to do with you. Youre not a woman, so the Silent Sisterhood is out. If they think you can handle the training, you would likely be made into a Culexus Assassin, frying psyker brains at the behest of the High Lords of Terra. Otherwise, an Inquisitor might see fit to add you to his retinue  a powerful Pariah is an excellent answer to hostile cultists and daemons.

And if youre really, *really* lucky (or unlucky, as it were) you might be made into a Psi-Titan pilot for the Ordo Sinister. Again its very, very rare, and you most likely wouldnt survive the processing.


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

[User]
ELI5: How is it possible that some still don't believe that the Holocaust didn't happen?

Seems like there's overwhelming information now regarding death camps locations, survivors, etc... So how can people think it was all fake?
[edit] I recognize I made an unintelligent mistake with the title, sorry.

[Assistant]
1:  Some people desperately want it to not be true.

2:  Some people will believe the opposite of anything widely believed to be true.

3:  Some people know it is true but lie about it.

4:  Some people want to believe in a massive conspiracy that reflects the fact that the world is run by a shadowy cabal of ultra-powerful figures that are hiding The Truth from the rest of us, and that if we could JUST SEE that the history we know is a tissue of lies we could find those people, remove them from power, and end a great evil.


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

[User]
[Doctor Who] Excuse me? Millions of TARDIS ships and billions of Daleks fought in the war?

I get those are some pretty large numbers but we're talking about universal empires here. Even a galactic empire should have quadrillions of soldiers at a minimum, millions is just laughably small. What were they thinking? Especially with the Daleks, they don't even have the excuse of being a reclusive species that rarely interfered and spent all of their resources on big, super powerful weapons. The Daleks had just billions of *foot-soldiers* in the war. What's going on here?

[Assistant]
I mean its not like every TARDIS has a collapsing star in its core.... You can just pick one of those up at AutoZone when the previous one fails.

Not to mention the longer lived a species the fewer offspring they tend to have, so we can safely assume Timelords had *some* sort of either instinct or program to limit births. Considering a Timelord can have a thousand children in one lifetime.


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

[User]
Why is it not possible to keep a decapitated human head alive?

Besides for the grotesqueness of a live decapitated head, what is the technical or medical reason that this is either impossible or never attempted.
I know that there were Russian experiments to keep dogs heads alive for some time, why never humans?
Assuming the high cost of doing such a thing was catered for (cost of experimentation is usually not an issue), I imagine the only technical limitation would be the complexity of the required mix of hormones produced by organs other than the brain. Blood can be oxygenated, warmed and cleaned by machines, and nutrition would not be a problem. What else would prevent this from working? I think I would rather lose my body if it was dying, and keep my head based senses, and mental faculty. It seems like such a waste to die if your body gives up. Currently there are thousands of quadriplegics who are maintained alive with a useless body either assisted by machine, or with the basic body functions to keep the brain alive, what difference if the body was removed?

[Assistant]
You basically answered your own question, technically speaking. The body isn't just a blood pump, gas exchanger and glucose injector. Many aspects of body metabolism are dependent on things which don't happen in or near the brain, such as hormone synthesis and regulation. It is possible to keep a decapitated head alive, in a minimal sense, for a limited period of time, but long-term life support isn't possible.

So why don't we have a life support protocol for decapitation? Simple: There's no hope of recovery. It's not physically possible to anastomose the spinal cord; that is, once the spinal cord is severed, it's severed *forever.* It can't be patched up. Meaning once the head has been separated from the body, that individual  accident victim, let's say  has absolutely no hope of recovering from that injury. So such a protocol wouldn't actually do any good. It would just be, ethically and legally, mutilating a corpse.


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

[User]
My favorite professor is having a health crisis

Hi ya'll.

Looking for some advice; my favorite professor is having a health crisis; a tumor was found and nobody knows yet how serious or benign it might be.

I'm just an undergrad, so I don't know her super personally, though she has been a support person for me in reporting a different professor. She's an absolute gem, not just for her department but for the entire university. I know for sure that I'm not the only one who feels this way at all.

I want to do something nice for her; anything to bring her some comfort or at least a pick-me-up amidst this clusterfuck. My first thought was to collaborate with the rest of her class and get flowers and cards sent to her room when she's in the hospital, but I'm wondering if there are more/better ideas.

Any ideas or advice would be much appreciated.

\###UPDATE EDIT:

Just thought to edit this with an update even though I know it's a pretty old post now; my professors surgery went well, it turned out to be benign, and she seems to be feeling much better and has been recovering really well. It's been a relief for the entire department and all of the students who know her! We all ended up sending in a hodgepodge of gifts and some money for food during her recovery. Thank you all for your advice and encouragement.

[Assistant] Flowers and cards are actually probably the right move.  It might seem simple or easy or traditional but the medical staff are taking care of immediate needs and for many people something simple is probably the best (lowest stress) option.  You could talk to the main admin for the dept and see if there is something being coordinated at that end (so the cards can be co-delivered).


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

[User]
How much does gravity/velocity affects time in earth?

I'll try to make it as simple as I can,

Time is affected by gravity and velocity, right? then, here on earth we're moving on an axis, we're moving around the sun which is moving around the galaxy wich is moving in space, so, if I were to put two clocks, one here on earth and another one in a motionless point in space, how different would time pass to them?

[Assistant]
There's no such thing as a "motionless point in space". But you could have a clock some large distance away from the Sun and stationary with respect to the Sun, and compare the clocks.

The gravitational time dilation due to Earth's gravity is about 0.00000007%. The special relativistic time dilation due to Earth's motion around the Sun is about 0.0000005%, and this it the bigger effect. You would only be able to measure it with something like an atomic clock.


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

[User] There are many cases of species evolving to lose limbs for a snake-like bodyplan or losing other organs, is there any occasion where a species regains the use of a vestigial body part?

[Assistant]
I don't know if it qualifies as a body part but primates did regain color vision, a trait that all early mammals had lost in favor of better night vision.

The commonly accepted theory is that it was an evolutionary trait the benefited primates in determining what fruits were ripe to eat as well as differentiating different fruits by color.


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

[User] [Marvel] What are the chief exports/imports of Latveria and major trading partners?

[Assistant] *Doom* has no need for your petty European Union. The nation of *Doom* is entirely self-sufficient. We grow our own food, create our own fuel, and build our own police force. Latveria is truly a utopia.


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

[User]
How do painkillers work?

- How do they know where the pain is?

- If my hand hurts and my foot hurts, do both receive the same pain killing dosage or is it halved?

Thanks!

[Assistant]
There are three broad classes of common painkillers.

The first are the antiinflammatories, both steroidal and nonsteroidal. They block the synthesis of inflammatory molecules like COX-1 and COX-2. These molecules enhance the responses of peripheral nociceptive neurons, which increase the pain signal.

The second are the axon conduction blockers. Examples of this are lidocaine, procaine, bupivacaine etc. These prevent signals in nociceptors from reaching their targets. They are typically only used in surgery to treat pain prophylactically.

The third are the opiates. These act in the spinal cord to block pain signalling and at CNS targets to block pain sensation.

Because these work by interacting with active nociceptive pathways, you may receive little action at sites not signalling pain.

Also relevant are anti-anxiolytics and dissociatives. Pain is enormously gated in the CNS by anxiety and attention. If anxiety is low, pain will be modulated downward without the same kind of direct action on nociceptive pathways you see with opiates. A good surgeon will give an anti-anxiolytic before surgery to minimize the pain windup during surgery. In the dentist's office, they would offer you a low dose of nitrous for this reason. It actually decreases your post-operative pain. If you act anxious about the procedure, a good dentist would offer it to you ;)


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

[User]
[Steven Universe] Was the breaking-point really as effective as Bismuth made it out to be?

Moral implications aside the weapon itself doesn't seem all that viable in comparison with other more versatile gem weapons. In order for it to work the person wielding it would have to make a stab at their opponent's most protected area in addition that area is different for each opponent making it difficult to develop a consistent technique. I also doubt that a single short range weapon could have turned the tide of any battle let alone the war regardless of its effect on individual fighters. There are also already better weapons for disrupting hard-light bodies. Honestly it seems more like a tool of execution than a "superweapon".

[Assistant] You're missing the point. Gems don't want to die. They're not short-lived like humans. If they're shattered, they're missing out on a very, very long lifespan. If you don't kill gems, they'll give it their all because they know what you do to them doesn't matter. But if you go out armed with the breaking-point, then suddenly all the gems will be much more hesitant to join the fight.


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

[User] [Star Wars] Did the clones also execute any force-sensitive babies recently taken by the Jedi? Or was there like some kinda inquisitor day care Vader visited every now and again?

[Assistant]
The Jedi didn't take babies. The age that they actually brought in children as younglings varied from species to species, but the idea is that they should be ready to begin Jedi training. The Jedi weren't running a daycare.

Not strictly related, but you may be interested; During the Clone Wars, a bounty hunter named Cade Bane stole a kyber crystal with the names and locations of force sensitive babies.  The Jedi were aware of them, they just weren't old enough to go to the temple yet. Bane kidnapped them on behalf of Palpatine, who planned to create an army of dark side assassins, trained to peer into every corner of the galaxy to enforce his will.


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

[User]
[ATLA] Why isn't Aang completely blown away from the technology he's seeing the firenation produce?

 Hello. Well if you pay attention to the types of Machinery that the Gaang runs into, someone who is literally from 100 years ago should be blown away from most of the advanced stuff he's seeing. However he reacts like everyone else. What do you think that's the case?

[Assistant]
He spent lots of time hearing about it before  he saw it.

He's a normally curious 12 year old and Sukka doesn't mind running his mouth.

There's a big difference between suddenly seeing an airplane with no idea that man could fly, and seeing one after hearing about it.


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

[User]
ELI5: What is Heisenberg's uncertainty principle in layman's terms?

EDIT: Past the basics i.e. "The more we know about something's speed, the less we know about its location."

[Assistant] In the simplest terms, anything we do to try and detect the location of a particle will change its speed.  In the same way, anything we do to try and measure its speed will change its location.  It's a matter of measurement and sensing sciences, which we cannot (at least yet) surmount.  Heisenberg's theory is that it is impossible to know both at once.


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

[User] ELI5: How do we biologically "lose" energy as we age?

[Assistant] You don't lose energy in the physical sense of energy. However as you get older your metabolism slows down, your muscles become weaker, your blood can become less capable of carrying oxygen, your joints become less lubricated, your bones become weaker, the list goes on and on. All of these factors combined help contribute to the loss of vitality seen in older individuals.


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

[User]
If a famous artists creates a painting worth $1MM, is that extra wealth created or redistributed from somewhere else?

To elaborate on the title, if it's necessary:

If a famous painter creates a piece of artwork that is then said to be worth, or is purchased at, $1,000,000, is the world economy $1,000,000 wealthier? Or does everything else in the world get ever so slightly less  valuable (i.e. the world wealth is just redistributed slightly).

Thanks! Hope this is the right subreddit for this.

[Assistant]
The artist has converted raw materials into a commodity that's worth $1M, the world now has $1M more in wealth, because the artist has created something which is more useful to society than its raw materials. We know this because of its high mark up price (1M$ instead of a $5 worth of materials for instance).

This creation of wealth doesn't take away from the value of other commodities, assuming raw material use in the art making is negligible enough not to drive their cost higher, and that this new artwork doesn't undercut other artworks which results in their combined prices falling by more than $1M.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] What if someone who feared boggart's faced a boggart?

Would it turn into a boggart, or would this be a case like Harry himself and it would turn into something like a dementor?

[Assistant]
I imagine it would look like whatever that person thought they might look like.  Or just cycling through scary things because that's what a bogart does and would be scariest to the victim.

Good question.


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

[User]
CMV: Diversity is not about race

A diverse society is a society which has people from different backgrounds and cultures. How does race come into play?

Take this example; a white child who immigrated from Chechnya to escape persecution and a black, American child, live next door to each other. They grow up together and, ultimately, have to postulate for colleges. The African American child, who has had an otherwise normal childhood, is accepted for the sake of diversity, while the child from Chechnya is rejected. Wouldn't the child from Chechnya bring more diversity to the school, despite his being white? Doesn't he contribute to a multicultural environment?

Isn't it racist to assume that there is a "white culture" and a "black culture" ? Aren't people's backgrounds independent of the color of their skin?

Diversity should be about diversity of experience and background, not skin. Diversity should be about bringing people from different socioeconomic statuses together, whether rich or poor, religious or non religious, American or not American, etc.

[Assistant]
Most universities do have an essay portion where students can write about their background, elite schools especially have a pretty extensive essay section. Writing about immigrating from Chechnya to escape persecution would probably make for a very strong essay. Grades and test scores are only a part of admissions. Based on this, it's hard to say which kid would have a better shot at getting into the same competitive school. A generic black student has better odds compared to a generic white student but there are clearly lots of factors that could make either student stand out.

It seems like a more accurate statement of you view should be "Diversity is about many things: country of birth, race, socioeconomic status, personal experiences" not "Diversity is not about race". It can be about race and other things as well.


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

[User] ELI5: why do eyelids randomly start twitching for a few seconds?

[Assistant]
This phenomenon is called a fasciculation. It is caused by a spontaneous action potential, which makes the muscle contract involuntarily.

It actually happens in every muscle in our body, but other muscles are too big and the area it happens is less sensitive so we are less likely to notice it!


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

[User]
Does the US president have the authority to pardon/commute *all* prison sentences?

Let's say Obama is having a good day and decides he wants to pardon all US inmates. Could he do it? Are there checks from the legislative or judicial branches that could block him?

[Assistant]
Presidents have issued pardons in large quantities before. Theodore Roosevelt pardoned everyone who took part in the rebellion the Philippines. Andrew Johnson pardoned all Confederate soldiers.

The president can only pardon federal crimes. He or she cannot pardon those convicted of offenses against state laws.


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

[User] How do video games play "hide and seek"? The game knows where your position is, how does it act like it doesn't know where you are?

[Assistant]
The game knows where you are, but the AI doesn't. The AI has some information about its surroundings, but the game engine does not tell the AI where you are (unless it is cheating to make it more difficult).

so the AI actually has to look and try and find you normally, using the information it actually gets from the game engine.

Not all parts of a video game (or any program) has access to all other parts. The part that handles the AI is distinct from the part that handles the graphics which is distinct from the part that handles player controls. The AI part can't access information it does not own.


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

[User] ELI5: How is it in documentaries about wild animals that the animal act as if no threat (like the camera crew) is around. Is the crew like really far away using cameras that can zoom in real close?

[Assistant] Yes, usually the camera man is far away. Another technique is camping in a spot nearby and remaining still and/or camouflaged for long periods of time allowing the animals to acclimate to the camera operator. They dont use big crews like normal television productions, usually one to three people depending on the location.


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

[User]
[Marvel] Captain America and his children.

Would Captain Americas children have super serum enhanced abilities?  Can Captain America even have children? Has this ever come up?

[Assistant] It didn't go through to Isiah Bradley's descedents. For those of you who don't know, Bradley is another recipient of the Serum. His grandson Elijah in no way i herited his abilities through genetics when he began operating as Patriot. However, Eli later recidved a blood transfusion from Isiah, which *did* afford him thr dame abilities.


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

[User] [Doctor Who] When the Doctor sonic screwdrives a doorknob, is he doing anything to it beyond just locking it?

[Assistant]
When the Sonic Screwdriver was first introduced it did exactly what the name suggests; sonically rotate screws in or out of a screw hole. From there it isn't a massive leap onwards to say that in rotary locks it rotates the block and shifts the pins to lock or unlock it without the key.

These days however, the sonic screwdriver does a lot of things so while it locks the door, it probably scans the type of metal used, the stiffness and shape of the lock, reading for alien DNA on the surface and all other sorts of things where the Doctor's mind wanders while he uses it.


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

[User]
What does 20/10 vision mean?

I just had a doctors appointment a few weeks ago and got a score of 20/10 on the eye test. I know the "average" score is 20/20, so does that mean my vision is twice as good as a normal persons? And what IS twice as good? 150 megapixels? Really curious.

[Assistant]
The standard eyechart ("Snellen") test is really a very blunt tool for quantifying vision. It is reasonably good at determining your ability to resolve detail using your central vision which, while important, is just one component of visual performance.

To directly answer you, 20/10 means that you can resolve details at 20 feet away what the hypothetical "average" person needs to be 10 feet away to see. Healthy young adults can fairly routinely see 20/15 or better. As you age, your ability tends to diminish, sadly.

In visual acuity research, if we really want to get down and dirty with examining resolving fine detail, we use tools like spatial gratings, which tell how many sinusoidal-like transitions of white-to-black-to-white bars can be detected. We measure the acuity in cycles/degree; higher means more resolving power.

I am leery of the whole attempt to relate human vision to megapixels, because we do not have uniform function across our retina. In fact, only the most central one-degree diameter circle is capable of resolving fine detail. This is the fovea, where the photoreceptors are most densely packed, like stadium seating on multiple concentric levels. This trick allows more visual fields per area. Some birds of prey, raptors, have even deeper foveal pits, allowing better packing of receptors, and therefore better acuity.

But vision is way more than just the retina. Your lens and cornea, and all the juices and jellies in your eye must be properly functioning to allow you to see well. When we are young, our lens is clearest and most flexible, so it can be shaped (squashed or flattened) to bring images to your retina. As we age, our lens opacifies and also loses the ability to accommodate (change shape).


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

[User]
[General]Why is there man-sized ventilation in our place of business? We don't do smelting so nothing that needs that much air. Huge vents take up space on the floor plan and increase the cost of cooling the place. They go to every room in our place of business, seems like kind of a security risk?

I am not worried about terrorists or burglars, that is crazy.  More like co-workers stealing stuff or Fred when he is fired next Tuesday after working here for 30 years and having his pension taken.

[Assistant]
Building codes requires them, they aren't  built for everyday airflow, but for managing smoke and manipulating the atmosphere to help in firefighting.  They help firefighters get through to blocked areas and evacuate people.

Air shafts must be big enough to a maintenance worker to crawl through or long-term money will be wasted tearing things out to fix them and putting them backing.

There ave been no complaints yet of workers going AWOL within the vent systems.


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

[User]
ELI5: why isn't there more footage on the Internet of US soldiers in close combat (e.g. clearing buildings) situations?

We've seen terrorists shooting rpgs up close, why isn't there more footage of uncensored combat from the US perspective?

Can't soldiers conceal camera phones in their gear and capture it?

[Assistant]
When you are in close combat, you are at immediate risk of being killed. You have better things to do then screw around with a camera.

Now that cameras are very very small and wearable, and have longer battery life, this kind of footage will become more common.

A separate issue is that many military organizations prohibit sharing pictures or video taken during combat until it is approved by senior command. There is a strong desire to keep operational details secret, and to protect the identities of the people involved in case they are captured later.


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

[User]
[ELI5] Why was ground effect pretty much banned in F1?

Seems strange to me that something that can increase cornering speed like ground effect can is banned?

[Assistant]
It was deemed too dangerous. Ground effects give very strong downforce when they work ie there is little clearance and a good "seal". The big problem is that it has an almost digital effect - it is either working really well and then it doesn't work at all once the "seal" is broken. This was the old days when the seal was actually a flap along the side of the car.

The safety issue is that cars could go into corners REALLY fast with ground effect but if any unsettling occurs, say a slight bump on the road, the cars would immediately lose the ground effect and essentially take off (ie start to fly). There are several examples of that in F1 where the cars would start flying off the road and into competitors completely out of control.

Essentially, it was too unpredictable.


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

[User]
ELI5: Is it possible to 'cook' mouldy or gone-off food long enough that it would no longer be harmful for a human to consume? If not, why?

I don't actually want to do it. I'm just curious...

[Assistant] Imagine we're all cowboys. The sheriff wants you to arrest all the moldy bacteria, because not only did they put a snake in the sheriff's boots, but they poisoned the waterhole. So you go down to the old mill and round them all up and throw them in jail forever, and now all the bacteria is gone and they can't do any more harm. That's fine, but the real problem now is that they've already poisoned the waterhole, and that poison isn't going away just because the mold is gone.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is it so hard to kill people painlessly?

So the recent push in Arkansas to execute several death row inmates before their drugs expired has me wondering. Why do we need such specially produced drugs to execute people?

It seems trivial that the human body is fragile enough that stopping it from working is a minor issue itself. People die without even trying all the time. In fact, we have to work hard to keep that from happening. So the problem is apparently doing that painlessly. But people can also be numbed, aneththetisezed, "put under" in a million ways, and if you disregard future health effects, a million more.

I guess I'm just in doubt that with all the drugs and their various properties that exist for so many reasons, it's only this specially produced combination that can reliably do the jobs involved. Why can't we use the many other drugs which at large dosages will numb past pain and end a life?

[Assistant]
It isn't hard at all to kill a person painlessly. A bullet through the brain stem will do the trick almost every time. Decapitation is also painless. The issue here is that it is seen as barbaric and cruel not only to the prisoner, but to the persons pulling the trigger on the device that kills them.

There are many different kinds of ways to kill a person painlessly, and here in the USA we use a variety of different methods depending on which state you're in. Some states use a single drug (usually a lethal dose of an anesthetic like pentobarbital or a paralytic agent like pancuronium bromide), some states use a three drug system starting with a dose of midazolam (a sleep agent), then hydromorphone (a painkiller), then a lethal dose of potassium chloride.

There are two issues with these methods; the first is that the drugs are expensive and are prone to shortage (not enough companies are allowed to make them), and the second is that *they don't always work as intended*. There have been several botched executions using these kinds of drugs on prisoners.

Recently, many states are switching to a new method which is inducing nitrogen hypoxia (like you get during dental and medical procedures, just with a more prolonged dose) with nitrous oxide. Tennesee still allows the electric chair, Utah still allows a firing squad, and New Hampshire still allows hanging.

tl;dr Killing people painlessly isn't a problem, it's just that we use drugs to do it, and drugs don't work the same on every living person.


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

[User]
ELI5:Do male animals like dogs or cats that have fathered children know that they are their children? If so, do would they treat them any better if they are put together?

This question always plagued me.

[Assistant]
I know you asked about dogs and cats, but primates have an interesting spectrum of techniques.

On one end, there are gorillas, who simply keep harems and thus know that all the kids that the females produce must be theirs, and thus care for them.

On the other end are ~~baboons~~ bonobos which just have orgies all the time and care for the kids in the tribe because "heck, at least some must be mine" but don't otherwise know.

For the latter strategy, competition for spreading genes works at the level of sperm: they literally rely on better sperm cells getting to the eggs faster than those of all the other males who mated with her.

The closer the species is to the second strategy, the higher the males' testicle-to-body ratio.

In case you're wondering, humans fall about in the middle of that spectrum, with average testicle ratios and reliance on both "keep other men away from her" and "crowd out the other guys' sperm".


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

[User]
How much cleaning is enough when preparing recyclables?

I'm concerned about the cost of wasting water and using soap versus the needs of properly cleaning recyclables.  When cleaning empty bottles of vegetable oil, as an example, when is the remaining oil or soap residue no longer a concern?

[Assistant]
Cleaning recyclables is really only for household hygiene and to minimize insect and other animals from getting into your bins, making a mess, and on a macro scale, of attracting them at all.  This applies to the recyclables sorters and processors, minimizing smells, bacteria and vermin.

Plastics are sorted, compacted and sent to a processor where they are chopped up and washed (sometimes, not all do this depending on who's buying).  It varies by processor, but often the wash is a high temperature detergent similar to an automatic dishwasher.  This is required because food oils can degrade some plastics or foul machinery during the remelt processing.  After that depends on market conditions in your area or country.  Generally, the clean chop is sent to a processor for melting and pelletizing into proper form for other plastics molding machinery.

Metals are compacted and sold to a processor that melts it and pours ingots of steel or aluminum.  Glass is sorted into clear or tinted, and remelted.  Of course, the temperatures to melt glass or metals are irrelevant to any food contaminant on the original recyclables.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] So do Jedi/Sith actually train in Dual Wielding Lightsabers?

Been watching more clips of Clone Wars/Rebels on youtube recently and noticed that in those shows, there's an increased prevalence of people dual wielding lightsabers and not just random characters but the main characters like Obi Wan and Sidious.  I know that Ahsoka trained in using two sabers but as far as i know, none of the other characters really showed that before.  So is that part of the usual training process, just in case, or did they just do it on the fly and trust that the Force would guide them.

[Assistant]
Yes. It's actually part of Jedi 'Basic', along with the somewhat unlikely mounted sword combat.

Of course, it has dubious benefits, which is why very few actually pursue this field to any significant degree.


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

[User] [Pirates of the Caribbean] Why can't Davy Jones just ambush Beckett and take the chest when they brought it abroad the Dutchman?

[Assistant]
Because as things stand, Beckett and his cronies in the EETC seem to be the only ones that even believe in the pirate legends.  If Beckett dies and a major player in international trade is found to have been murdered by Cthulhu Jr., that would bring the full wrath of the entire Royal Navy (who, at the time and for considerably longer still, was without equal).

Hes signing his own death warrant if he does that.


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

[User] A tidally locked planet is one that turns to always face its parent star, but what's the term for a planet that doesn't turn at all? (i.e. with a day/night cycle that's equal to exactly one year)

[Assistant]
There are no examples of this as far as Im aware, every object in space rotates.

You could examine the orbit of Uranus, which rotates on its side, producing a relatively similar effect. The poles get sunlight for half a year, and then no sunlight for the other half.


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

[User] [MCU Infinity War/Endgame] How much does society actually know about the events of Infinity War and Endgame? Cap mentions Thanos in his support group but what about the infinity stones? Does everyone know exactly how Stark and Romanoff died?

[Assistant]
It seems like people pretty much know everything. Thanos being responsible for the snap appears to be common knowledge in Endgame and Spider-Man: Far From Home reveals that the actual appearance of the Infinity Gauntlet is known. FFH also shows that people know the nature of Tony Starks death,
they know he sacrificed himself to save the world.

They know the list of Avengers who died, the only thing they seem to be inaccurate about is that they think Cap died. So it seems like the Avengers were very transparent about the events of Infinity War - and at least about parts of Endgame.


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

[User] [Warhammer 40k] What would happen if all of the Imperium's generals were actually talented, competent strategists?

[Assistant] They'd still lose more than they win. You can't just fix one cog in a broken machine and have it turn smoothly. You'd need to unfuck Imperial culture from the bottom of the scum on a hiver's boot to the top voxcaster on the tallest spire on golden terra. Good luck.


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

[User]
[STDS9] Where is Captain Picard during the Dominion War?

Commander Sisko's storyline is pivotal to turning the tide against Dominion forces but I imagine that Captain Picard would have been hard at work as well. Just curious what Jean\-Luc was up\-to during the war.

[Assistant] Picard and the Enterprise-E were down for the first part of the war recovering/repairing from the Borg incursion.  For the rest of the war the Enterprise was doing everything else that the rest of the fleet would have been doing if not involved in the war.  The events of Insurrection take place in the middle of the war and Picard expresses dissatisfaction at being relegated to diplomatic roles away from the war.


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

[User]
Since viruses cannot create energy, how do they physically infect a cell?

I would imagine there must be some mechanism that actually gets the virus inside the cell. They can't produce energy, so how do they actually get in the cell?

Edit: Thanks for the answers, I didn't respond to them all but I've read them! Viruses are truly awesome.

[Assistant] Great question! Viruses can have different ways of entering cells. Some are receptor mediated meaning they shake hands with something on the surface of cells and the cell engulfs the virus. Some viruses like bacteria phages are loaded like springs so when they attach to a bacteria the spring uncoils releasing energy and shooting its genetic material into the bacteria.


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

[User] Are the laws of physics consistent throughout the universe?

[Assistant] The laws themselves are meant to hold for the entirety of our universe, otherwise they wouldn't be very good. The laws are used to predict many phenomena, such as gravitational lensing, redshift, why supermassive black holes may lie at the centre of many galaxies, the rate of expansion of the universe and the age of the universe. If these laws didn't hold, then most of the results produced in cosmology would mean very little.


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

[User] Why don't hummingbirds stay in flocks like other birds?

[Assistant]
Most birds that flock do so for safety (more eyes watching for predators) or because being in a group makes it easier to find food (especially for insect-eating species in the tropics). Some larger species also migrate in flocks, which provides some aerodynamic benefits and helps group members reinforce navigation on long journeys. Hummingbirds are not targeted by many predators and generally use food sources that can't be exploited by multiple individuals so they wouldn't benefit from flocking on the breeding or wintering grounds. The few migratory species of hummingbird all make their journeys solo (even the juveniles), mostly during the day. Because they aren't gliding they can't get the aerodynamic benefits that geese do by flying in a V, and navigation in hummingbirds is (as far as we know) hard-wired instead of learned so following the group isn't as important.

TLDR: because there's nothing in it for them.


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

[User]
eli5: why do we get feelings like Im being watched?

Why do we get feelings like I feel like Im being watched or I feel like Im being followed?

[Assistant]
We are descended from scared little monkey-like creatures that used to be hunted and eaten by snakes and cats and eagles and bigger monkeys.

Accordingly, we have inherited from our ancestors a subconscious capacity for sensing: Theres something watching me!

Its like an alarm system in your brain, always running in the background, that sets off a gut-feeling when it detects what might be eyes trained you.

In modern humans, this same alarm system is now mostly used to watch out for other people looking at us, since other people are a much more common concern for us these days than predators are.

Either way, sometimes that alarm system goes off by mistake. And you get a gut-feeling like you are being hunted or watched, but actually you are not. Certain drugs and mental health conditions can make this alarm system go totally haywire, and thats paranoia.


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

[User]
cmv: The UN is a useless organization that is no better than the League of Nations before them

The United Nations is all talk and no action. They wrote the basic human rights that everyone has in the fifties, yet nations violate those rights on a daily basis, and the UN does nothing to stop them. They take stances in all sorts of conflicts like the Israel-Palestine conflict, and 9/11 and the resulting wars following it, but they never actually do anything to enact their declarations. The last major conflict I know of them getting involved in was the Korean War. That was over 60 years ago, and they only did get involved because some communist nations had lost representation in the UN at the time.

In modern times, the only things Ive seen the UN doing is maintaining an expensive border fence between Cyprus and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, and trying to gain control over the Amazon Rainforest, to which Brazil said no and the UN immediately gave up.

The UN seems so afraid to take a stand in any wars that they just dont. Besides, most countries avoid war and know how to pick their battles anyway, UN or not. The Cold War supports this. The US and USSR wrote the doctrine of M.A.D. which basically stated that if both sides knew they would be completely obliterated by a nuclear war, neither would risk starting one. Another example is Israel who has many nations in the Arab League not recognize them, but (with the exception of Palestine) has done very little militarily to try to end the country because they know that if they did the US and possibly NATO (not the UN) would get involved and the whole thing would end in a hail of bullets and bombs.

The UN does not seem to do a whole lot to try to stop wars, so why do nations across the world continue to pump money and troops into it?

[Assistant]
It may not do much curb major powers, but UN peacekeeping is very effective at ending and preventing civil wars around the world. Far more effective than military intervention by individual countries.

Thats before we get to all the humanitarian work the UN does through agencies like UNICEF.


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

[User] Eli5- Why does my mouth taste all gross and icky when I wake up after 6-8 hours, even if I brush before bed, but it doesn't feel that gross if I'm awake without brushing for much longer?

[Assistant]
Dentist here...

It's because your mouth IS gross after 6-8 hours of sleeping.  When you are awake, your saliva production is increased, your tongue, lips, and cheeks push that saliva around in your mouth, and it all gets swallowed.  That saliva washes away food, bacteria, fungi, viruses, dust, hair, bugs, whatever down into your stomach where it is digested.  Talking, chewing, licking your teeth all help the process along.

At night, all of that stops.  You produce very little saliva (yes, you may drool a little, but it is a very small amount over those 6-8 hours compared to day time saliva production).  Your tongue is very still, your lips and cheeks also stop moving for very long periods of time.  Swallowing also is reduced, and many people sleep with their mouths open, which allows for ample accumulation of dust (dust is very gross), mites, pollen, hair, bacteria, yeast, etc to collect in your warm, moist incubator-like mouth.

After several hours, your saliva in your mouth begins to evaporate, leaving a thick, sticky film laden with gross and icky stuff.  That bacteria that naturally occurs in your mouth and the air around you has had countless numbers of reproductive cycles, and now your mouth is one giant petri dish.

LPT: practice sleeping with tape over your mouth.  Nasal breathing is much healthier and will help eliminate some of your nasty-morning-mouth issues.


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

[User]
Are gluons massless?

I remember from my particle physics course that strong nuclear force has a very short range. This was explained by the fact that gluons have unlike photons a mass. Now wikipedia and other sources claim that gluon is massless. What happened? How is short range of strong nuclear force explained now?

[Assistant]
Gluons are massless. The argument that relates the range of a force to the mass of the force-carrier particle works when the force in question is *perturbative*. This just means that the coupling constant that determines the strength of the interaction is small, so that the interactions between two interacting particles can be well-approximated by the exchange of a single force-carrying particle. If this approximation does not work, the interaction is said to be non-perturbative, and everything is much more difficult to calculate.

It turns out that whether or not an interaction is perturbative can depend on the energy (or distance scale) of the interaction, and in particular it turns out that the strong force is perturbative at high energies (or small distances), but it isn't at low energies (or large distances). The result is a phenomena known as *confinement*, which ensures that quarks can never separate from each other on large distances except in "colour-neutral" combinations like protons and neutrons. Colour-neutral combinations are the analogue of chargeless combinations of particles in electromagnetism. Since there is no net colour (like charge), the long distance interaction is very weak.

The exact mechanism of confinement is not completely understood (because non-perturbative quantum field theory is very hard to calculate in) and it is an active area of research.


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

[User]
[General] My armless bipedal mecha just took a nosedive and lies helplessly on the ground? What do I do?

What is the walker equivalent of an Armored Recovery and Repair Vehicle?

No tractor beams and gravity manipulation allowed.

[Assistant]
...?

you clearly reveal it's **Final Form** (which musnt be confused with **Final Form Ultra**, which is only for *serious* emergencies), which replaces the lost parts with expanding/unfolding-yet-superior components (or friends drive up to the the chassis in vehicles which attach and become the lost limbs).

That or teleportation tech is used for egress or teleports spare parts straight in place.


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

[User]
ELI5: What would happen if a syringe of water was injected into your veins?

Say you were prepping for surgery, what would happen if instead of anaesthetic, you were injected with water, in both small quantities and say a syringe full or more?

[Assistant]
If plain water were injected into a vein it would dilute the contents of the plasma (mainly electrolytes like sodium and chloride, and proteins) in that local area.  Through a process called osmosis a portion of the water would fairly rapidly be drawn into nearby cells, in particular the red blood cells.  Many of these cells would expand in volume rapidly  to the point that their cell membranes would rupture, spilling their contents into the circulation.

For a very small amount of water there would be no lasting harm.  As the amount increases more red cells would be damaged.  The harm from this falls into two categories - as you lose red blood cells, your blood is less able to carry oxygen to other parts of the body, and the substances leaking from the injured cells would in large enough quantities cause harm themselves since the balance of what is kept inside and outside of these cells is delicate and well regulated.

If, instead of plain water, water with solutes in roughly the same concentration as the plasma was introduced (such as "normal saline"), and the quantities were not ridiculous, then it would simply become part of your circulating blood volume.  Over time the extra fluid would end up dividing between your circulating blood volume, the insides of various cells, and the fluid that surrounds cells in your body outside of the circulation.  This scenario is common - for example, small volumes of saline are usually used to flush medications given through an intravenous line in order to make sure all of it enters the blood at the time it was intended to be given.


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

[User] ELI5: how much better can a food advertisement look than the actual food before it's considered false advertising?

[Assistant]
The food advertisement doesn't even have to be a picture of the food.  There's nothing on it that actually says "oh BTW, this is actually a picture of what we're selling".

The iconic milk commercial with the close-up of the milk flowing out all slow-motion out of the glass is actually full-speed watered-down school glue pouring out of a glass.


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

[User] ELI5 When a car is moving on TV or a movie the wheels look like they're moving backwards...

[Assistant]
If you take a picture of a clock every minute, then show the pictures in rapid succession, it will go from 12:00 to 12:01 to 12:02... and it'll look like it's going forward.

If you take a picture of a clock every 23 hours and 59 minutes, then show the pictures in rapid succession, it will go from 12:00 to 11:59 to 11:58... and it'll look like it's going backwards.

Motion picture cameras take pictures much faster than once a minute, but the same thing can apply. If the wheel is spinning at a speed where it rotates 90% of the way between frames, it will look like it's spinning backwards.


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

[User]
How do people die from burns?

How does somebody die from large burn wounds if they are still internally sound? I'm wondering what the actual mechanism is e.g. blood loss, shock, etc.

[Assistant] Skin represents the major barrier to infection and disease across the body.  Compromising that barrier opens the patient up to opportunistic infection across the entire wounded surface.  Additionally, skin prevents water loss, and given a large enough surface area, dehydration can become a serious consequence.


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

[User]
ELI5: When a tree grows, where does the mass for its trunk and branches come from? How does the mass and stuff get to the top to make new tree parts?

Physics has the conservation of mass right?  ... And ... Things like trees sit in the ground. Where do they get the mass to grow tall? How do they move it up their trunk? How do really old trees get more dirt when they make it into trunks?

[Assistant]
> Where do they get the mass to grow tall?

Not from the dirt! The vast majority of the mass which makes up plants including trees comes from the air and water.

Cellulose, the main structure of the tree, is composed of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. The carbon and oxygen can come from the air, while water of course contains the hydrogen and more oxygen.

> How do they move it up their trunk?

Water moves up the trunk of the tree via capillary action, water's surface tension, and something called "transpiration". Basically water evaporates from the bottom of leaves and this  acts to pull water into the leaves from the trunk, and by extension all the way from the roots.


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

[User] how can oceanic dissolved oxygen decline if an increase in gas temperature usually means increase in dissolved oxygen?

[Assistant] Basically you assume oxygen has higher solubility in water as temperature increases but, unlike solids like salt or sugar, gases are much less soluble at higher temperatures. De-gassing water to prevent corrosion or make very clear ice is done by repeatedly boiling and cooling water. So yeah : higher temperatures = less oxygen in water.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do we never notice when we fall asleep?

[Assistant] Falling asleep happens in stages. In the first stage, it's very light and you can be easily roused by something as simple as someone calling your name. This is basically what happens if you nod off during the day. But one of the first things it does is diminish your awareness of your surroundings as your brain starts to ignore many of the stimuli you experience while fully conscious. So as you drift into the further stages of sleep, you don't notice the transitions.


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

[User] Does the use of microwave ovens distort chemical structures in foods resulting in toxic or otherwise unhealthy chemicals?

[Assistant] Yes, microwave ovens distort chemical structures in foods.  The heat from the microwave energy causes proteins to uncoil and change their shape, causing their texture and flavor to change.  This phenomenon is known as "cooking", and is the same whether you microwave, boil, bake, or fry food.


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

[User]
[A Song of Ice and Fire] How do the faceless men assign and manage tasks since everyone is No One?

It would suck to be a manager at the house of Black and White. Imagine a schedule of chores on the wall, and every single box is "No One".

"Who is assigned to the assassination today?"

-"No One is tasked with the assassination."

"Who's cleaning the fountain? Someone pissed in it."

-"No One is cleaning the fountain."

...

"Sir, no one has cleaned the toilets for the past four months."

-"Good."

[Assistant]
We know there is an unspoken hierarchy. Arya is "trained in" by and takes her first assignment from a specific No One. It's possible that this single one is in charge of all the Faceless Men. Maybe an assignment comes in, and this single Faceless Man assigns it out.

Alternatively, maybe there isn't a true hierarchy or command structure after you are fully trained in. Maybe the assignments come in, are discussed, and somebody just chooses to take each job. In this scenario the faceless men are all equals and pool resources.