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

[User]
I believe the Republican Party will die within the next 100 years and will be replaced by the Libertarian Party. CMV

It has recently become fairly clear that the Republican Party is clearly disconnected with the younger generation.  Millennials are increasingly more skeptical of religion and very supportive of gay rights and action on climate change.  They also view the Republican Party as out of touch with reality and old fashioned.  I predict that within the next couple decades, Republicans will show a deep decline in support within the American Populace.  However, Republican backers have some very deep pockets.  Therefore, they will continue to win elections (particularly in districts where apathy is rampant and incumbents have been there for a long time) and maintain a presence for quite some time. They will ultimately accept their fate and rebrand themselves as libertarians that support common sense answers to the social issues afflicting us today.  The Republican platform has little to no merit with younger people except in terms of economic issues.  While I happen to disagree with libertarians stance, it will be far more tolerable that the GOP we see today.  CMV

∆

[Assistant]
It's far more probable that the Republican party will survive, but will shift towards a more libertarian stance - if libertarianism is what will get them votes. Political parties are notoriously hard to ruin, especially in a two-party system. No matter how much people gripe about them being out of touch, they still have a sizable base, and new blood from a younger generation, like Marco Rubio for example, will be on the forefront of changing the party to be more on line with a changing society.

Think about how Republican party lines are already changing due to demographics (immigration reform instead of more border policing and building an ineffectual fence) and the now majority acceptance of LGBTs. Just remember that Republican politicians are still politicians at their heart. Maybe they'll need to lose a few more presidential races, and lose the popular vote a couple more times, but they'll undoubtedly change their strategy if it means that destruction of their party.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do they balance weight on planes with an odd number of seats in each row?

For example, how do they balance weight on planes with rows of 3? Seems like one side would be much heavier.

[Assistant] It is not that much heavier as the isle would be close to the center of the aircraft. And they can balance the aircraft using the location of the cargo and by pumping fuel between the wing tanks. And lastly they just put a bit of trim on their flight controls so that one wing produce a bit more lift then the other wing.


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

[User]
I have a question about the moon. When did all those craters happen, and why isn't it happening now?

The moon is full of craters, where are all the meteors?

[Assistant] A lot formed during the Late Heavy bombardment, shortly after the moons formation.  There have been a fairly constant stream since then.  The reason you don't see the same cratering rate on Earth is that we have an atmosphere and active tectonics which recycle our crust, and erode the surface.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] How often did Clones perform executions?

I just rewatched the Umbara arc of TCW, and looking at Fives and Jessies near execution, it looked like the Clones had it down to a process. This is Star Wars, where lethal injection technology is sure to exist, but they put them in front of a firing squad like it was rehearsed. Does Kamino have a lesson guide on how to execute prisoners? Namely their own brothers?

And then when we go a season further when Ahsokas on trial, Tarkin says that if shes found guilty hell be recommending that she face the highest punishment possible, including penalty of death. Would she be put in front of a Clone firing squad too? Or would Jocasta Nu come out of the library with that lightsaber rifle thing and cap her ass herself?

I dont doubt the Empire performed executions like this, but were talking about the Republic here. Were executions this brutal really that common?

[Assistant]
Odds are good that, along with other assorted drill and formation work, the cloners did include protocols on executions in the training for the Clones. The Republic wasn't exactly huge on executions, but this is a Republic on it's way to becoming the Empire, and having a large standing army trained and ready to gun down the enemies of the nation is a part of that downward slide. Aside from the usual suspects for a military execution, they'd also need to be ready to dispose of defective or unstable clones, as well as traitors to the war, with the definition of "traitor" creeping ever outward as the Chancellor gets closer and closer to being the Emperor. As well, there's the elephant in the room in the form of Order 66; the endgame for the Grand Army is *a massive series of near simultaneous blaster executions*, so having the procedure and practice drilled into all clones is in the Emperor's interests.

As the Grand Army of the Republic is the most potent policy tool at the Republic's disposal, most executions are probably being handled by clone troopers unless committed within the jurisdiction of worlds with alternate or no death penalty. In Ahsoka's case, as A) she is being tried on the Republic level and B) the Jedi have more or less washed their hands of her, the execution would likely be via clone, versus the Jedi coming and killing their own.


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

[User]
What COULD kill the Hulk?

Everything I read indicates he is nigh invulnerable. What would be able to kill him?

[Assistant]
It's not entirely clear that anything could kill the Hulk due to his massive regeneration abilities however there are other options- Leaving him drifting in the vacuum of space with nothing to push against would likely render him harmless, as would throwing him into a strong gravity well (such as a star or a black hole).

It may also be possible to kill Bruce Banner fast enough, say with super speed, that he has no time to turn into the Hulk but some claim that Banner's death would simply free the Hulk permanently and remove his "off swithch".

Also note that Banner survived standing close to the detonation of a nuclear device so he's not easy to kill either.


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

[User] Eli5: Why do we automatically make the sour face when eating sour food?

[Assistant]
That's a good question - "sour" is how we describe the taste of acid. Generally the acids we eat come from two sources - 1) fruits like lemons, oranges, mangos, etc., 2) acids produced in fermentation like in kombucha, vinegar, some beers, and fermented dairy products.

The sour face is an involuntary reaction which means it's wired deep into our brains and not a learned habit. If you give a new born a lemon they'll make the face without anyone ever having seen it before.

The cause is likely 2 reasons -

1) it can aid in the release of saliva in your mouth to help dilute the acid which might have been harmful if too concentrated.

2) its a social signal to others that the ingested food is sour, this can trigger further involuntary saliva production in people around you, helping them with the acidity, it can also signal to others, without language (again going back to primal instincts here) that the food is *wrong* the acidity can come from spoilage and the food is not suitable for consumption. The first person might get sick and die, but the others who witnessed the reaction know it was the food and to not eat it.


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

[User] [Harry Potter] So did Harry, Ron and Hermione ever attend school in Year 7? They were so busy with their little road trip that year, they only showed at the school for that last bang. Did they graduate? Did they need to make up lost classes the following year?

[Assistant]
There was no way they could've finished the year back then due to the fact that the Battle of Hogwarts took place on the 2nd of May, meaning they missed two-and-a-half terms of classes. But it would've have really mattered in the end.

Harry and Ron never returned to Hogwarts, since their experience as the ones fighting Voldemort's forces meant they were the best qualified to become Aurors, so they were given a special exemption to join the Auror training corps.

Hermione, however, *did* return to Hogwarts the following year and graduated in the same year as Ginny and Luna, just so she could gain her N.E.W.T. certification.

Something you need to understand, though - Hogwarts uses the British education system as the basis for it's education program. Only the first to fifth years are actually compulsory, since Sixth and Seventh years are the equivalent to A-Levels or BTEC - just something to prepare students for getting into university.


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

[User]
ELI5: How are new data points created in a video such that a video filmed in 30 fps can be viewed at 60 fps?

How does interpolation work?

[Assistant] Interpolation is a process where a display unit (TV/Monitor) takes two frames and puts them together (similar to an "average") to generate an extra frame in the middle. By inserting an extra frame between each one that was recorded, you effectively double the frames per second and can bring 30 to 60.


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

[User] ELI5: Voyager 1 was launched in 1977 and is almost 12,000,000,000 miles away from Earth, yet we still receive data transmissions from it. HOW?

[Assistant] The probe has a nuclear power pile and a radio transmitter.  We have radio telescope dishes that are sensitive enough to receive radio information from the distant parts of the universe, so even a 12-billion mile distant radio signal is enough to be received by such dishes.


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

[User] What are the moles on our skin for?

[Assistant] Moles are just benign tumors of melanocytes. They don't serve a purpose so much as they are harmless growths of skin pigment containing cells. Luckily, moles are typically self limiting but sometimes they are not, and that's how you end up with melanoma.


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

[User]
ELI5: What are different shapes of pasta good for?

Flat, ridged, fluted, shapes...I've heard they are good for holding onto different kinds of sauces but can't find a good source. Any chefs or other food pros that can let us know the secrets?

[Assistant]
Different pastas suit different dishes and purposes. There are literally hundreds of different types of pasta but they can be organized into different groups, such as shells/cups, round, flat, long, soup pasta, stuffed, and special shapes. Really, it's a matter of personal taste and creativity, but some are better suited to, say, a cream sauces (flat pastas like linguini) and some are better suited to a chunky sauce (cupped pastas like orrechiette) and some are better suited for oils (long, thin pastas like cappellini or angel hair). High texture pastas pair well with textured sauces (which cling to the nooks and crannies of the pasta). Cupped pastas go well with thick or chunky sauces. Long, thin pastas go well with olive oil based sauces that coat the pasta without drowning it. Sheet pastas are best for layering (think lasagna) or rolling. Tomato and simple cream sauces are pretty universal and can be used with basically any pasta.

Generally speaking, the smaller or thinner the pasta, the lighter or thinner the sauce or soup it should be paired with. The bigger/thicker the pasta, the heartier and/or meatier the sauce it can handle. And the giant pasta shapes like manicotti, jumbo shells, and canelloni are meant to be stuffed.


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

[User] Why is elevating your heart rate through exercise good for your heart but elevating you heart rate with caffeine bad for it?

[Assistant] Elevating your heart rate through exercise causes your vascular system to dilate, allowing for greater bloodflow. When the veins are wide open, the heart does not need to work as hard to pump more blood.  However, caffeine is a vascular constrictor, causing your heart to work harder to pump the same amount of blood.  Coupled with an elevated heart rate, your heart is now trying harder to force blood through constricted passages, which puts undue strain on your heart and your vascular system.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] How does one create a new spell?

We often read about how famous witches in history created spells, which everybody now uses, and we also know that Snape created two spells himself. Now, I don't understand how this is supposed to work: How exactly can you make someone not say a word while twiddling their wooden stick but do actual magic with this?

[Assistant]
First, lets look into potion creation.  What various parts of the potion tend to do is known.  What they will do when mixed (note that how you mix also plays a part) can be derived with some degree of accuracy, but may take multiple recipes to get the exact potion you want.

Spells work similarly, except the "ingredients" are sounds and wand movements.  One can derive sectumsempre from "sectum" which is an ingredient that involves cutting and "sempre" which makes it long lasting.  These are not exact, so much like how you would vary the amount of eye of newt in a potion, you would vary the exact sound you are making until you get the exact right effect.  Variations of the sound create variations of the effect.


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

[User]
Is there something deeply morally wrong with the state of the world today?

I've been reading a lot on the economics of global capitalism lately, but usually economists and political scientists aren't talking about the ethical consequences of the system, mostly just about the economic problems.

The economic system of global trade, etc., seems to me to have pretty big moral consequences, sweat shops, imperialist-type wars in the Middle East, massive poverty. Have many philosophers taken on the contemporary state of the world and the moral problems with how things are "set up"? It doesn't just have to be about capitalism...I'm curious just about how people see beyond that into just how most people live. Is the way that most people in developed countries live (in states mostly of conformity and passivity,consumerism, non-active political life) morally problematic?

[Assistant] There has been plenty written about this. Pogge's *World Poverty and Human Rights*, Unger's *Living High and Letting Die*, Singer's "Famine, Affluence, and Morality," Risse's *On Global Justice*, and a million other things we could mention.


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

[User]
ELI5:Why isn't the remote finder feature common on TVs?

When you turn on the TV manually, a sound comes from the remote until you press a button. Why isn't this feature on all smart tvs?

[Assistant]
Most TVs use IR (infrared), which require line of sight to the TV - (the remote sends a series of invisible 'blinks', like morse code).

The TV doesn't have a way to send a blink out, and even if it could, the remote is probably lodged inside a couch saying "screw you hippy i'm taking a nap, come and find me, suckah".

If the TV used RF (radio frequency) then it could do that, but then the remote would have to listen for that RF signal, which would eat up the batteries.


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

[User]
CMV: The SpaceX launch is neat, but the headlines are totally overblown

When I see headlines declaring "A New Age In Space Exploration Has Begun", it's hard not to laugh. Nothing new has been achieved here other than that a private company has now done what several space agencies from multiple countries have already done.

I think people need a reality check when we talk about going to Mars. Getting to the ISS is hard enough as it is, and that thing is barely outside our atmosphere, (about 250ish miles). Mars is 128 million miles at perihelion with an optimal launch window that only occurs once every two years.

Maybe it can be done with decades of improvement in propulsion systems and other needed technologies, but we are a LONG way off. I'm no astrophysicist, you hardly need to be one to tell this whole SpaceX launch was way oversold.

[Assistant]
Aerospace Engineer here. The greatest hurdle humanity has to landing a man on mars is not technical, but financial. Landing on mars would not be that much more difficult than landing on the moon, which we were able to do back in the 60's. We have been sending probes and landers to Mars for decades. Living on Mars would not be that much harder than living in LEO, which we have done continuously for the last 20 years. We lost the ability to land on the moon not because it had gotten harder, but because the public and politicians lost interest in space exploration and did not want to pay for more lunar missions. NASA has proposed many missions to return to the moon or to go to mars, but they all either failed to get funded, or were de-funded partway through.

The reason this is a new age in space exploration is because the public is finally excited about space exploration again. If NASA and Spacex can capitalize on the wave of excitement and get the funding they need, there is nothing stopping us from getting to Mars and beyond.

As far as why we would want to colonize space, space travel is one of the greatest investments we can make. For every dollar spent on the space program, 4-5 dollars are generated in the economy. This is better than almost any other program. An example of this is the transistor. The transistor was developed because the old vacuum tubes of the day were to bulky for a computer able to fit inside the Apollo capsule. In order to get around this limitation, NASA engineers made the first transistor, which allowed for the miniaturization of modern computers. The cost to the taxpayers for this innovation was the same as one bottle of coke per person.


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

[User] ELI5: Almost every radio station across North America can be live streamed via the web. Why isn't this the case for tv channels?

[Assistant]
Radio uses less bandwidth.  Streaming cost are lower.

Most tv stations get money from cable and satellite companies.  They dont want to jepordize that money by using live streaming.

OTA companies have already partnered with hulu and other companies.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do products in the USA say "made with real milk" or similar? What else would they use?

I got this question from a friend from Germany and as an American I...actually don't know, and googling is only showing milk advertisements, or ehy milk is a lie not why it says "Real Milk."

Edit: thank you for all the answers, the topic is covered!

Also, I saw many answers that are not talking as though you are speaking to a 5 year old, or some spiraled into why milk is a lie. Milk itself was not the topic of my question. :/

[Assistant]
In the 1980's there was a trend for cheaper products to contain "cheese" that had no actual milk in it - it was basically a blend of hydrogenated vegetable oil that *sort of* mimicked the appearance and taste of cheese.  This became especially prevalent in cheap delivery and store bought pizzas.

People began to assume that all cheap pizza was made with fake cheese, so companies like Dominos and DiGiorno started sticking big "MADE WITH REAL CHEESE!" labels in their advertising and on their products.  A lot of local pizza chains also developed advertising materials based around the fact that they used real cheese - Round Table Pizza, which is a major chain in the western US, used the phrase "The Last Honest Pizza" for a long time to indicate that they used real cheese.

This became so widespread in the pizza industry that its now spread to other areas as well.  A lot of products advertise that they're made with real milk if for no other reason than that it looks weird for someone to see a row of products that all have that label on them and then one that doesn't.  Its sort of a weird labelling arms race - as products that are located nearby in a store begin using labels like that, other manufacturers start using the label as well so that their food isn't perceived as an inferior product.


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

[User] Eli5: When a logo, image or anything is etched on a surface via a laser, why is it always there a final pass that runs throughout the image?

[Assistant]
If you try to draw with a ballpoint pen~~cil~~, when you fill up an area you will first scribble in one direction which fills 95% of it, then scribble in an other direction to fill the remaining 5%.

Laser engraving try to fill up surfaces with a line. The problem is a surface is 2d while a line is 1d-ish. There is some thickness to it but in between the lines there might be some remaining paint to etch. So you finish the job by having a faster finishing pass in a different orientation to clean up anything remaining.


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

[User]
How much does personality/geniality/general likability count in interviews?

Is it like a normal job interview where that's kind of a big deal once you reach the interview stage (I had a mentor who said it absolutely was because they didn't want to have to work with someone for 10+ years who wasn't easy to get along with), or are faculty generally keeping it in mind but more focused on someone's CV/ability to obtain funding/etc?

[Assistant]
Id rather hire someone with a less impressive resume (but still qualified) over someone whos monotonously boring, or rude, or self-aggrandizing 9 times out of 10.

Edit to add: if youre thinking why not hire the most qualified candidate?, what a lot of people misunderstand here is ability to get along with colleagues IS a job qualification in most fields.


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

[User] ELI5: How do we know that plastic takes 450 years to break down in the environment if we haven't lived so long to test it?

[Assistant] Extrapolation. We look at a piece of plastic at X time intervals and take measurements, then apply that information to what we know about how things decay (Surface area vs volume, etc). The combination of the two gives us an approximation. It might not be 450 years, it might be 200 or 900. The point is more about the time scale over which the material will break down. Meaning that it's not going to just be a month or two like organic waste, but also not tens of thousands of years like radioactive waste.


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

[User] ELI5: if an overweight person has liposuction from one area but is big everywhere else, would that area remain smaller or would the fat redistribute?

[Assistant] Liposuction is the removal of fat cells, so they would in theory remain skinny in that spot because there are no fat cells to gain fat (fat cells expand like a balloon with fat).  If they did not maintain a healthy lifestyle and continued to gain weight their body may add new fat cells there.   But no, the fat would not distribute from non lipoed areas to the lipoed area.  Fat cells are fixed in place and do not redistribute after removal.


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

[User]
What are your go-to coding principles that aren't SOLID, DRY, or YAGNI?

More and more I feel like my ability to code well depends on an almost intuitive knowledge of guiding principles such as those mentioned in the title. These are the things that let me say "this is bad, let's do it this way" when reviewing code, and I find that they're mostly heuristic based.

I pose the question to you guys though, what are the principles you rely on to code well, and why are they important?

[Assistant]
* Dont repeat yourself. (DRY)
* Keep it simple sillyhead. (KISS)
* Test-driven-development (TDD)
* Do one thing well. (DOTW)
* You arent going to need it. (YAGNI)
* Big design up front. (BDUF)
* Single responsibility principle, Open-closed principle, Liskovs iubstitution principle, Interface iegregation, Dependency inversion principle. (SOLID)
* Prior preparation prevents poor performance. (PPPPP)
* Straight up making random acronyms. (SUMRA)


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

[User]
How do 2nd and 3rd generation stars exist?

How does a 2nd or 3rd generation star exist? When a star dies, I was under the assumption that it supernovas into a black hole or neutron star, or becomes a red giant that later turns into a dwarf. How does a star reasemble itself into a 2nd or 3rd generation star? Is there that much unused fuel from one star that it can create another?

[Assistant]
There are large clouds of dust floating around from past supernova (or something else), and primordial hydrogen and helium that has never been in a star. Eventually all of this will coalesce into a new star if there is enough of it in close proximity.

Don't think of it as re-assembling. Supernova's blast the material away such that it's just triggering the creation of new stars eventually elsewhere, not recombining.


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

[User]
[Star Wars Legends] What was the greatest starfighter of the galactic civil war? What topped it?

Was it really the X-wing? Or is the question to dependent on context to have a definite answer?

[Assistant]
This question is entirely dependent on context.

The X-Wing is by far the most notable of the Alliance Starfighter Command and is probably the best all round Starfighter but while the X-Wing performs well at both bomber and fighter roles, it excels at neither. The A-Wing, with its incredible speed and traversable laser cannons, is by far the superior dogfighter. The Y-Wing meanwhile carries a heavier bomber payload and excels at fulfilling the dedicated bomber role. Unfortunately they are slow and susceptible to anti-Starfighter systems. For this reason the B-Wing was developed, a fighter both capable of carrying a large payload and evading incoming fire, making them ideal for tackling Imperial capital ships.

Where the X-Wing out performs all others is in its flexibility. Alliance doctrine called on the use of hit and run operations against Imperial convoys and other targets. X-Wings were both hyperspace capable meaning the could act independently without capital ship support and carried a big enough payload to deal with Imperial escort vessels (at least until the introduction of escort vessels such as the Lancer-class frigate). In this role the X-Wing performed above expectations (as evidenced by the Empire's need to develop ships capable of countering any fighter attacks).


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

[User] [Legend of Zelda] i am this timeline/universe's hero but i am homeless beggar with no way to get in contact with royalty and no knowledge of what i am what happens to the world and me?

[Assistant] You rise up. Many heroes didn't know what they were and had little to no resources, only being called or hearing a calling got adventure. Hylia looks over us and she brought you here for a reason. You'll naturally be drawn to justice and that will bring you on the path to greatness.


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

[User]
[MCU] Quick question: Why didnt strange see Thanos coming much sooner?

Thanoss actions were pretty significant and peering very far into the future would have made his plans very obvious. Did something happen that changed all the timelines? Could strange not see past the snap, since he was destined to be dusted? Maybe strange decided not to peer into the future, until it became necessary in infinity war?

[Assistant] I don't think Strange ever looked into the future before Infinity War. Mainly because there's really no reason for him to do so but also because he needs the Time Stone to do it and he would never use the Time Stone unless it was absolutely necessary.


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

[User]
When does a market become monopolistically competitive  vs an oligopoly?

I guess Im theory and practice- like in theory economic profits would be eaten in the long run for the former, but thats not something we can directly observe right?

[Assistant]
Other comments here are confusing game theoretic oligopoly models with the general meaning of an oligopoly market structure. Oligopoly predates concepts of game theory by about 60 years.

The only difference is whether there is free entry or not. Oligopoly has barriers to entry, so firms can earn long run profits. Monopolistic competition assumes free entry, so while firms charge above marginal cost, profits are driven down to zero.

The monopolistic competition model was first developed by Chamberlain using a representative consumer, but its not widely used.

The cournot model was one of the early oligopoly models, but can be transformed into a monopolistic competition model by simply relaxing the assumption of a fixed number of firms.


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

[User] [Star Trek] if I had no knowledge of holodeck programming and wanted to create my own, what would the process be?

[Assistant] Unless you need something particularly complex or obscurely specific you can simply request what you want in plain speech and the computer will attempt to render it for you. Describe the setting, the characters, and the activity or plot. No programming skill necessary, the only limits are your ability to articulate what you want and the vast resources that the computer can reference.


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

[User] ELI5: How do we know that most of an atom is empty space? And since that is so, why cant we just walk through solid objects?

[Assistant] Think of it like a net. A net is mostly empty space  it we cant walk through it. There are bonds on energy holding all the atoms together. It takes some amount of energy to break those bonds like it does to break the net.


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

[User]
CMV: I think it's totally fine that other companies want to start their own streaming service and think that it encourages competition and prevents monopolies.

In light of the recent Disney announcement that they want to launch their own streaming service, I am very surprised that redditors seem to be upset by it. I love Netflix, but if Disney wants to offer their own streaming service to host their content, then that should encourage Netflix to develop it's own originals that might attract Disney audiences and/or prevent Netflix from price gouging because consumers now have options.

Second, isn't this what people wanted from cable companies? The ability to pick and choose channels that they wanted and only pay for what they want to watch? Netflix as it is is very cheap compared to a cable subscription. It's superb value. Combined with Hulu it's only around $20/mo and you get plenty of options. The cheapest I can get cable is $29.99 and that is only if I bundle that with 2 other services that also cost $29.99 each, and that does not include premium channels like HBO.

Related but not part of my original view, people threatening to pirate if Disney does this. Why is that okay with so many redditors?

[Assistant]
The ideal situation for consumers is to have a low cost one stop shop for all entertainment content. If there are multiple streaming services, the incentive is to have one amazing piece of content that gets people to subscribe, and a ton of low quality filler. If there are three good tv shows each year and you have to subscribe to three different streaming services for each, then we are back to the cable model: One good show to get you to subscribe and a ton of garbage.

We are already at a point where a person needs Amazon, Netflix, HBO Go, and Hulu to get the full online TV experience. Now we are adding Disney. That's $50/month compared to $10/month for Netflix.

Competition is good to the extent that it encourages higher quality content, but the incentive in the online streaming service system is to provide as little quality content as possible in order to extract as many subscriptions as possible. That's completely fine from a business standpoint, but it's not a good situation from a consumer standpoint.

It would be one thing if the amount of quality content increases. But these new streaming providers aren't making the pie bigger. They are just carving out their own piece. So now, we have four streaming providers that provide 100% of the quality content. That's 25% each. $40/month total. Now Disney is jumping in, but they aren't making new content. They are just decreasing Netflix content. So the entertainment pie is the same size, but you have to pay $50/month to get it. Each streaming network is only giving us 20% of the content without increasing the overall amount.

So this kind of competition isn't the kind that makes other companies better. It doesn't grow the pie so consumers get more quality content for the same price. Instead, it's the kind of competition where you succeed by hurting others. Disney makes money by making Netflix worse. Consumers get the same content for twice the price. This sucks for everyone (Consumers, existing streaming companies, etc.) except the newcomer to the field, in this case Disney.


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

[User]
[General Fantasy] Is diamond armor actually any good?

So, we killed a diamond elemental.  Our mage is telling us he can shape the diamond into plate armor for us and it will be better than our steel armor.  I'm worried about how much it will weigh.  Our tank is worried about it shattering.  Should we let him do it?

[Assistant]
Armor made of extremely expensive items tends to be magical--and the more expensive the item, the more magical it is (in direct proportion) and vice versa.

Magic armor tends to be form-fitting (e.g. it shifts to fit the wearer) which is why you can stumble across it in a treasure horde inside a dungeon and it works immediately. It tends to be lighter than it would if it were nonmagical. Thus, diamond plate--which would be insanely expensive and thus insanely magical--would be ultra light.

Diamond is going to have a really hard time shattering.  Depending on the type of diamond, it might be poorly conductive to electricity (bonus for you) or a good semiconductor (meaning you'd be at risk to take electrical damage). Diamond does have very high thermal conductivity, so it won't protect you from heat damage.


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

[User]
Does food that has been cooked have less calories than it did before it was cooked?

Would it matter what type of food like boiling pasta or a pizza?
I overcooked a frozen pizza and was curious if it had less calories than before I cooked it.

[Assistant]
Actually cooking increases the number of calories you can *extract* from foods. For example plants have cellulose lining their cells (which is not easily digestible), unless you physically break those bonds, the nutrients and energy containing molecules inside are inaccessible (cows have four stomachs for this reason). Cooking however, breaks down cellulose very nicely. Cooking will also break down protein in meat (and vegetables) making them more accessible to digestive enzymes. It's like how you digest well chewed food better than poorly chewed food, cooking breaks down food. It's hypothesized the development of fire allowed for the evolution of the human brain (it takes up 1/4th of your calories, you know!

As for the stuff you derive energy from. There are starches, proteins, and fats. These are molecules that consist of long chains of smaller molecules (carbohydrate sugars, amino acids, and fatty acids respectfully) that can be used to make energy in the form of ATP molecules. Cooking can break down these chains, but the molecules tend to be ok. When they don't you get charcoal.


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

[User]
Explain to me like I'm five the severity of having the stock market drop 500 points.

Title says it all.

[Assistant]
You have a lemonade stand.

People originally came to you and bought lemonade at $1 a cup.  Then someone had the brilliant idea that they would buy future cups from you, like coupons, because they think you are going to get more popular and raise your price.  This catches on and eventually you are selling future cups for $2!

Every one of those future cups is debt on you.

People catch on that you have thousands of future cups sold, but you haven't hired anyone or even made a better sign.  They figure they are never going to get their cups, so they try to sell their cup vouchers.

As people begin selling these future cups, they realize people don't want them for $2, so the price begins to go down a bit.

Now, your lemonade stand was hit by an SUV, and instead of rebuilding it properly, you put up a cardboard sign on a stick and spent some of the future cup money on a snazzy hat.  There's a scramble to sell these future cups people bought, because they have no faith in you owing up to your debt and making the lemonade they paid in advance for.  The price drops dramatically.  Now, you can't even sell existing cups for $1, because anyone can go buy a cup you promised someone else for 50 cents.

Now, you can't even make a cup of lemonade for 50 cents, considering you have to buy the cups and pitchers and lemons from other people, and they aren't lowering their price just because you can't afford them.  So, you have to close up shop.

The real problem with the stock market is that lots and lots of people planned on retiring by selling their delicious lemonade vouchers, but you spent all their money on fancy hats instead of making the lemonade.


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

[User] Why can't mobile design offer swappable RAM modules like PC counterparts?

[Assistant]
Swappable RAM, or any user-servicable component, requires more space than a non-swappable equivalent. In the case of RAM, the individual chips need to be assembled onto a module, the motherboard needs to have some kind of mechanism to seat the module in and there has to be space around the socket so that all users, including those without tiny fingers and amazing motor skills, can remove and insert the module. If you forget about user-servicable design, you can simply solder the chips to the motherboard, possibly in awkward and impossible to reach locations, which will give you more leeway to reduce the overal size of the device.

Ultimately, the quest to make mobile devices smaller has made a victim of modularity and user-servicability.


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

[User] Why do people get sick from eating contaminated food? Wouldn't the bacteria/virus be broken up by stomach acid?

[Assistant]
The capacity of microbes to survive the acidic environment of the stomach is largely dependent upon a few variables:

\-The microbial load:  The number of organisms accompanying the food bolus.  The more organisms there are, the greater the likelihood that at least a few will successfully pass through the stomach and in to the small intestine.

\-Time:  Food can pass through the stomach relatively quickly depending upon a few factors. It takes time for the acid concentration of the stomach to do what it does.  Sometimes food (and, therefore, microbes), simply pass through too quickly.

\-Adaptive mechanisms: Many microbes have adaptive mechanisms that protect against low pH. There is a long list of pathogenic microbes for which this is the case, but this also applies to microbes that are part of our normal microbiome and do not necessarily share a pathogenic relationship with us.

\-pH fluctuation:  The stomach isn't always at pH-2.  When food empties in to the stomach, the pH can rise as high as pH-6 depending on the particular materials being digested.  It's also important to recognize that, while the pH of solution can be low, the surface of food contents in the stomach can have a micro-environment that is relatively high-pH.

So while the normally low pH of stomach contents (pH 1-2) is often deleterious to a great many microbes, there is a wide array of conditions that ultimately allow microbes to pass through the stomach and in to the intestines, which is the primary site of infection for most food-borne infectious organisms.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why does stretching feel so much better right before you go to sleep and right after you wake up?

I've noticed even simply raising my arms above my head, which isn't usually stretching, feels good.
Why is this?

Thanks!

[Assistant]
Before you go to sleep: Depending on the stretch, you can release gases and muscle waste. Mostly, it's a way of relaxing your muscles. Instead of them being tight, you give them a good stretch so they can be more flexible and keep you from cramping and being sore when you sleep.

Waking up: After having your body relatively still for several hours, giving it some movement before going through your day is good for you. Not only does stretching get your blood circulating faster, but it can prepare your joints and muscles for the day, and remove or work through any stiffness. After a good morning stretch, your brain releases and spreads more of the stress and wake up hormone cocktails, which include cortisol.

I hope this helps your understanding.


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

[User] ELI5: If and object heats up due to a lot of movement in the atoms, can you theoretically shake a liquid inside a container so fast it heats up?

[Assistant]
Yep.  Its just that shaking at human speeds transfers so little heat to the atoms that youll get exhausted or bored before making any real heat.

Instead of water you should put heavy cream, sugar, and a bit of vanilla extract in there.  The end result will be much better.


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

[User]
ELI5: What makes Snopes the authority on whether claims are true or false?

I see Snopes referenced a lot when it comes to the validity of claims on the internet and it never seems to be questioned.  How are they confirming these claims and why is their word taken so seriously?

[Assistant] They reveal their research process, cite their sources, constantly update their articles when they find new information and most importantly they are not afraid to correct any errors they've made. Basically they practice what good researchers are suppose to do.


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

[User]
What causes people to "stick" to the high-voltage third rail of a railway line?

I've seen it said in many places, including rail operators websites, that if you tread on a third rail you might "stick" to it, meaning the power may have to be turned off before you can be rescued. Is this true and if it is, what causes it?

[Assistant] You lose control of your muscles due to the high currents, causing intense spasming, you're no longer capable of letting go should you have any grip on it, and you're unable to move if you fall on it.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] How come there was a mechanical suit ready for a Vader after he had fallen into lava?

I read the wiki page on Vader's suit and it included all sorts of strange things like Sith alchemy to make it work. They also replaced his heart and a lot of his spine. It seems very complex. Surely they didn't think of all of this when he was rushed in by the Emperor?

[Assistant]
One aspect of the Sith that is often overlooked is their scientific minds. The Sith were some of the greatest researchers in the Galaxy, simply because they combined sheer ambition with a curiosity that would never be impeded by morals.

Both Plagueis and Sidious were obsessed with immortality, and researched for any possible way to extend their own lives.

Combine these two facts, and you start to see the truth behind Vader's suit. It was a cobbled-together abomination of technology and magic. The suit itself was not prepared, but Sidious had over 1000 years of Sith experiments and technology at his disposal. And he had a test subject at his disposal.

Basically Sidious threw any experiment he thought might work into the suit, resulting in the greatly impaired Darth Vader. Vader's survival was important, but it was also a chance to weaken his own apprentice and turn him into the tool he needed.


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

[User]
[LOTR] What caused to Saruman lose hope in the fight against Sauron enough to join him?

Even after Saruman's defection, defeating Sauron was obviously a real possibility (after all they did win), before his defection it must of been even less obvious who would win.  Even without taking into account the role of the actual people on the ground and involved directly in the conflict - the combined forces of most of the supernatural beings in the universe were against Sauron, surely leading Frodo and giving him strength.  God itself was against Sauron even if not interfering directly, why would Saruman waver in his confidence?

[Assistant]
Divine intervention in Middle-earth tended to be limited and indirect after the 1st Age: the Valar worked only through emissaries (most notably the Wizards themselves), and the number of times Eru interfered in a blatantly obvious way can be counted on one hand.

And besides, Saruman was not truly on Sauron's side: he wanted the One Ring for himself, to master it and overthrow Sauron (before taking over all of Middle-earth, "deploring maybe evils done by the way, but approving the high and ultimate purpose: Knowledge, Rule, Order"). Pretending to be on Sauron's side was convenient because Sauron did seem overwhelmingly likely to win. Sauron controlled the entire East besides Mordor and Harad, and he was growing stronger yearly. Meanwhile Gondor was getting weaker and weaker while the Elves continued to sail west in large numbers. It was becoming increasingly clear military victory against Sauron was simply not possible. And in the end it was impossible: without Frodo and Sam, Sauron would have eventually crushed all opposition.


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

[User]
[Megamind] So an infant alien crash lands into a prison, and is just...kept there and treated like an inmate?

Hes not even classified as a person under the law and the government would definitely go and investigate his anatomy.

[Assistant]
Megamind seems remarkably well adjusted, all things considered.

I would hazard a guess that the inmates knew the peril he was in. They came to really care about the the kid and went to great lengths to keep him safe and secret.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do batteries always go the opposite way round to each other?

[Assistant]
Generally batteries are hooked up in series  that is, power flows from the positive end of one battery to the negative end of the other battery, then out to through the device and back into the negative end of the first battery. (Actually, it's the reverse of that, but that's irrelevant to our discussion).

Given the batteries being hooked together like this, putting one in backwards, so to speak, lets you connect the two batteries on one end of the case with a short bit of wire, and run from the other ends of the batteries to the device in a more efficient layout.


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

[User]
[Deadpool] Does Deadpool fight crime in the US, or does all his adventures take place in Canada, since he is Canadian? (more questions in this post)

And more importantly, does he have a US citizenship or visa of some kind?. If so how did he manage to get that, has it ever been shown or spoken about before? Did he get it like everyone else that applies for it, or was there some other way he could have gotten it being such a force to be reckoned with. Is there an exception for mutants and super folks?

[Assistant]
He interacts with other super heroes. That is pretty conclusive he lives in the us. Also he does not really fight crime. As a Merc he mostly commits crimes. There is no evidence he is legally in the country, or any country he travels to, which is not that rare an occurrence from what i have read. He has travelled  disguised before so the most likley thing is he uses his black ops experience to fake identities as needed.

An added wrinkle is he has gained some legitimacy in the comics recently but i haven't read much of that so i don't know if he lives/travels under his own name currently.


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

[User]
[The Shining] Is Jack's ghost being treated well by the Overlook?

So, we all know how the Shining ends, what with Jack in the picture in that party in the 1920s.

Is Jack just sort of living an eternal party for the rest of his life?

It seems sort of almost like Heaven for a guy like Jack. Free booze, good music, etcetera.

Does the Overlook reward him for his service, or is it torturing him and the other ghosts?

[Assistant]
Hell isn't a place of eternal torment, it's just separation from god.

The Overlook is a mental prison that keeps the occupants from passing on to their eternal reward.  They look around and see things that they should like - parties and drinking - so they *believe* that everything is okay.

But on some level they know something is off somewhere.  They just can't quite locate the source of their unease, though, so they occasionally lash out.  Then the Overwatch brings them back into the fold with its seductive offers of worldly pleasures.


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

[User]
ELI5: How would Greek exit from eurozone lead to euro collapse, what exactly would happen after Greek exit, step-by-step?

EDIT: It has been pointed out below that there are several "unknowns"  which make the question unanswerable. Perhaps the more generals questions of "How does a banking system collapse?" and "How does a currency collapse, what is the step-by-step process?" are more answerable.

I can only assume these are complex processes with many variables and numerous ways of evolving but a step-by-step analysis of any scenario would be a very interesting read. ELI5.

[Assistant]
Greece exits the Eurozone, unilateral declares that existing debt will be paid back in drachma at some rate (a semi-default). They begin to devalue their currency. They have some rough years because people are wary of taking their worthless pieces of paper in exchange for actual goods and services. Eventually however, Greek labor becomes so cheap that they bounce back to a new normal, poorer than before, but sustainable.

Step two of the Euro crisis is Spain and Italy looking sideways at Greece saying, "hmm, that looks pretty good and we wouldn't even have as bad of a landing since we both have legit economies and actual exports"


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

[User] [Pixar's Toy Story] Do toy replicas of real people have the thoughts and memories of that actual person? Does my Ruth Bader Ginsburg action figure think she's the real Ginsburg, somehow shrunk down and trapped in a child's bedroom?

[Assistant]
Well when Buzz was opened by Andy, he initially thought that he was the REAL Buzz Lightyear. So in that sense yes, your Ruth Bader Ginsburg action figure would initially think she actually IS Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

However, toys soon figure out that they are just that, toys, and start acting like that. In the case of an action figure of a real person, the time it takes for them to realize they are a toy would be fairly short.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] How much was the Imperial Military weakened after the destruction of the first Death Star? How was the Empire's grip on the galaxy affected?

Just curious as I don't think they really covered it in the movies, and I haven't read any of the books on this era.

[Assistant]
It really wasn't *that* weakened. They lost some high end leaders, but no one that was irreplaceable.

Their grip on the galaxy, on the other hand, definitely started to fracture. With the Rebels showing that they were able to destroy the Empire's new battlestation, more and more planets begin to show sympathy towards the Rebellion and either support them indirectly or openly, but the Rebellion still remains a relatively tiny coalition (in comparison with the Imperial military) until the destruction of the second Death Star.


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

[User]
CMV: The Star Wars prequels were good movies but got negative reviews because of purists and elitists fans

The prequels were good movies. They had better fight scenes, better use of CGI and had pretty interesting story. But the reason many people hate on it and it got negative reviews is because of purists who feel that the prequel do not fit into their view of what Star Wars is. Since they grew up with the original trilogy they have a sense of nostalgia to them, and when the new movies came up they felt their nostalgia threatened by them. An example is the riddicilous criticism against Jar Jar. Many people complained that he was comic relief and was just a strange looking alien with a funny voice. But the easily forget that this is basically what Chewbacca was in the original trilogy. This kind of hypocritic criticism plagued the prequels and led to many critics to give them a much lower score than they deserve. Most likely those reviewers grew up watching Star Wars and now have the nostalgia for the original and hate for the new prequels. Most people I know that only seen the prequels or seen the prequels before the originals like it. But most who don't were often influenced by the purists fan and went in watching the movie with an already negative mindset.

[Assistant]
So your standards for what makes a good movie are:

* good fight scenes
* good use of CGI
* pretty interesting story

Leaving aside the fact that the prequels aren't what most people would call interesting... What about writing? Dialogue? Acting? Practical effects? Continuity with the established universe? Character arcs that make sense, or, god forbid, move you in some way? Emotional resonance?

It sounds to me like your standards are just lower than most -- you don't care about much beyond being mildly entertained for two hours, which is fine.  But if you serve me a hot dog and call it prime rib, I'll probably object.


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

[User] [Full metal alchemist brotherhood] Hoeinheim made this huge deal out of ed/al not transmutimg their actual mom and apparently it was something else, who pr what exactly did ed/al and Izumi transmute??? did they just create another life ?

[Assistant]
you can make a body with common elements. That's what the boys did.

The problem ends up being when you try to bring it to life. Life isn't just base matter. It's energy. that energy has to come from somewhere. In order to get the animating force, the energy,  the "soul", you have to open the gate. The boys didn't realize what this would mean, what price they would have to pay. They just wanted their mom back.

The problem is, Mom was gone.  They didn't have her original body, they didn't have anything but themselves to draw her back... so they opened the gate to find her, and what their alchemy called out was not their mom - it was something ELSE. Maybe it was a soul not quite through with the reincarnation process. Maybe it was a demon or an Outsider. Maybe it was an angel, fallen from grace. Who knows?

A homunculus is what happens when the things on the other side of the gate get into a body - either an artificial body made with alchemy, or an existing body, through the Philosopher's Stone. The boys did make life... but not well. What the boys made was... not a healthy human body. What was inside it was not their mother. They made a homunculus, and Mustang put it out of its misery before it had a chance to do more than crawl.


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

[User] ELI5: How can we "train" our bodies/tastebuds to handle spicy foods? Is it just getting used to the heat or are there actual chemical changes?

[Assistant]
You can train your body.  More importantly your brain.  Your body creates chemicals to battle the pain.  It is why heat heads get a high from trying really hot foods.

Endorphins and other brain goos in the brain are discharged more effectively if you eat spicy food more often.

If you have problems with spicy foods start off with small changes.  Overtime you'll find it much easier to kick up the spicy.


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

[User] Does anyone have a way to explain voltage, other than the water pressure analogy? (probably going to go beyond ELI5 rating.. Or do you know an appropriate subreddit?) massive thanks!!!

[Assistant]
Someone throws a grenade into a crowded room.

Voltage = desire to get out.

Amperage = actual flow of people through the door.

Resistor = door. Increase the size of the door means to lower the resistance.

Grenade = positive charge. (DC)

People = Electrons.

Outside = resting area (lower potential)


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

[User]
ELI5: different regions of American Barbecue?

Can anyone explain how Texas BBQ is different from KC or Carolina BBQ? And any other major regions Im missing?

[Assistant]
Carolina BBQ is pork and (to a far lesser extent) chicken.  It comes in a variety of styles, but perhaps the most famous is Eastern Carolina, which has a thin, vinegar-based pepper sauce that can act either as a mop (applied while cooking) or finishing sauce (applied as a condiment).  Western Carolina, or Lexington, has a thicker tomato-based sauce.

Texas is all about beef.  Particularly brisket.  It's delicious.

KC style is usually ribs or chicken made with a sweeter molasses-based sauce.

Alabama style is known for it's distinctive white sauce.

Other areas in the Southeast use a mustard-based sauce.  I've heard this referred to as Tennessee, Virginia, Georgia, and South Carolina style from different sources so maybe someone can elaborate on this.


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

[User]
eli5: Why do we need rockets that go straight up to get into space instead of using a ship that could just gradually increase altitude like an airplane?

I understand that structurally, it can't just be an airplane. I've just never understood why a rocket is needed.

[Assistant]
Rockets do not go straight up all the way into space. They go straight until the air resistance is greatly reduced then angle over. This helps to reduce fuel consumption.

Fuel consumption is basically the answer. To "escape" Earth's gravity you have to go *very fast* and doing that down where there is high air resistance simply wastes fuel.


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

[User]
ELI5: How is an EMdrive thruster supposed to work?

I saw the article about how it's more successful than they expected, but it doesn't explain how it works.

[Assistant]
Normal rocket engines work by forcing stuff out in one direction very fast. The problem with rockets, is that you have to life the fuel, along with the spacecraft. So if you want to go faster, you need more fuel to burn longer, or you burn fuel faster for shorter. But more fuel means a heavier spacecraft, which needs more fuel.... rinse and repeat.

An EMdrive, in theory, does not need fuel. You're converting electrical energy directly into force, without throwing mass away in the other direction.

So, if your engine does not need fuel, then you can run the engine forever, as long as a nuclear reactor holds out. So even if the engine has low thrust, it doesn't matter.

The issue with the current EMDRIVE is that the physics behind why it is supposed to work are shaky, and the amount of 'thrust' is still within experimental error.

Supposedly, the engine manipulates quantum fluctuations on one side of the cavity wall. There are virtual particles that pop in and out of existence, and if you can make more of them pop in and out on one side of a wall then the other, there will be a net 'push' on the wall.

But, in a previous experiment, they intentionally 'broke' the engine and it still worked. Which means it's doing something, just not what people think.

So, it could be either the greatest revolution in modern spaceflight and physics we have ever seen, or a bad experiment setup. Time and rigour will tell.


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

[User]
[Avatar TLAB] could an air bender condense a gas into it's liquid state?

If they could would they still be able to bend it?

[Assistant]
In order to turn oxygen into its liquid state, you would need to do one of two things:

1. Make it colder, but only water and fire benders seem to be able to change the temperature of their elements.

2. More likely: they'd need to increase the pressure of it. Essentially, they'd have to take air and squeeze it into a tiny ball, but it would take a very large amount of energy to compress air to the point of it turning into liquid. At that point, they would need to focus all of their energy on compressing the air, and wouldn't really have any leftover energy or momentum to do anything with the liquid oxygen. Plus, once they bend it and (for example) throw it at someone, the pressure will be released and it will go back to being a gas almost instantly.

 *Edit: forgot about lava benders. Vibrating the molecules in earth fast enough would turn them into lava. Still less energy than point 2.*


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Which was objectively the better fighter? X Wings or TIE Fighters?

If two equally skilled pilots got into one of each, who would come out on top? Seriously, I keep Googling X wing vs TIE Fighter, but I keep getting links to the video game instead.

[Assistant]
TIE fighters were cheap and fast. They had no shields or hyperdrives, and were mainly just easy to mass produce. They're better in numbers.

X-wings were tanks, though not as slow. More guns, shields, hyperdrives, etc., etc.

A single x-wing vs a single TIE with pilots of the same skill? The x-wing is by far the better.


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

[User] ELI5: How close are we to curing cancer as a fundamental illness?

[Assistant] You can read "The emperor of all maladies" to get an idea about the development in medical science re cancer. Out of 1000's of different types of cancer, we can fully cure 2-3 types; however, we are able to lengthen the life of pretty much any and every patient with cancer, so there is some progress. Out understanding about cancer is primitive, we cut it (surgery), burn it (radiation), or poison it (chemotherapy). All three treatments do harm to good sells along with cancer cells. In short, our most advanced medical treatment consists of killing cancer cells before we kill our patients; unfortunately, we often do kill our patients.


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

[User] Can Nuclear Fisson occur without uranium?

[Assistant] Yes.  Nuclear fission can occur for numerous elements.  Fission occurs in all actinides along with the super heavy elements.  Spontaneous fission can occur for elements that fit the equation Z^2 /A>=47, where Z is the atomic number and A is the atomic mass.  This is a rough equation, but it is fairly accurate.  It is theorized that some light elements like molybdenum may even spontaneously fission.


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

[User]
[Captain America - all media] So....when is Cap going to get a promotion?

Surely he has enough experience and a history of being a great commander to be a general by now. What gives?

[Assistant]
In the zombie universe, he's a colonel.

Aside from that, 'Captain' appears to be an honorary term. During WWII, Steve Rogers was actually a private, albeit one tasked with secret counter-intelligence operations. In the modern age, Carol Danvers is known as 'Captain Marvel' even though she's a colonel. As such, we may conclude that 'Captain' is simply part of Rogers' codename, regardless of his actual rank.


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

[User] ELI5: how do the rich use shell companies and off shore accounts to hide money? Cant the government just follow where they invested?

[Assistant]
They can and it doesn't change anything.

Laws apply only in the country you're in. Meaning that if you manage to get the money out of the country, they can't do anything. And it's most often very legal.

An example: They create a shell company in a tax haven. They pay the shell for service (whatever they can find. Most easily consultancy. ) It's legal because they're paying for a service. Since they're spending the money and not keeping it its not profit but spending so it isn't taxed in the original country. The money is now legally out of the country and in another shell company. The original company will not pay taxes on it because it wasn't profit. Only the shell company will pay taxes but to the tax haven with incredibly low taxes.

Most likely, the tax haven will also not care if you literally pocket 99% of the profit to your account rather than follow regulations like in other countries. They still get their 1% of tax, and since they're staying that way solely to attract the filthy rich, they're not gonna change anything.

TL:DR, Pay shell company for whatever, shell company transfer to bank account. Original company don't pay taxes on spending, shell company is barely taxed.


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

[User]
What determines the speed of us thinking?

Basically in the title, what determines the speed at which we (our brains) process information and act?

[Assistant]
What you ask in the title and the question are two different things. "Thinking" implies we are consciously aware of it - that it has reached our neocortex. That determines the speed at which we think. The more you've done something, the more efficient that neuronal pathway for that thinking occurs, increasing the speed at which you "think".

The limiting factor of that speed, is the speed of an action potential (.31-.75milliseconds) times the amount of neurons needed to create that thought (an unknown variable).

For reference, when you see a face, your brain detects you're seeing a face with an event related potential called the N170. 170ms in, your brain has detected a face. However, for you to consciously realize that, it may take a second (EDIT: this is an overestimation, significantly longer is more accurate, the actual number is closer to 400-600ms). Your brain has to put that "face" in context - basically the area that deals with faces (Fusiform face area among others) has to communicate with the neocortex and that takes the most time and is therefore the rate-limiting factor.


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

[User]
[Toy Story] Do all new toys think they are the real thing and not a toy.

So it's clear that all new Buzz Lightyears believe they are the real Buzz . But if there was a brand new Woody made, would he think he was part of woodys roundup? Same with all the other toys.

[Assistant]
Unlike most toys in Andy's collection, Buzz takes batteries.

All the others had the experience of being in a store, being bought, etc, to guide them to the belief that they are toys.

Buzz, however, doesn't activate until he is turned on.  His box is designed to look like a spacecraft and Andy literally crash lands him on his bed.  From Buzz's perspective, he's woken on a new alien planet.

This implies that until they interacted with other toys, Woody would have thought he was a sherrif, Pig, that he was a real pig, etc.


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

[User]
[MGSV: Phantom Pain] What are they feeding poor D. Horse to cause his poop to be slippery enough for cars to skid out of control?

So, in MGSV you can make D. Horse poop on command if you get his loyalty up enough. I could understand infantry and Walker Gear possibly slipping on it, but i have hard time believing that normal horse poop would be slippery enough to do it for cars...

[Assistant] Its the stress, not the feed. He is constantly being ridden in firefights, transported via crazy ballons, run over, and otherwise terrified or injured, all while running around stopping biological weapons and all kinds of parasites. Horses tend to react poorly to all that, and intestinal issues are common in high stress horses.


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

[User] What is physiologically happening when a cat purrs?

[Assistant] Scientists do not know what causes purring.  However, one leading theory is that vibrations in the Aorta (largest artery of the heart) are amplified by the way cats align certain muscles and the throat which causes the purring sound.  This is still just a theory.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do websites know when you are using an adblocker?

I remember a few years ago, I would be able to use my adblock without getting any pop ups telling me to turn it off, but as of late I see an increasing number of websites telling me to turn it off before proceeding? How do they know? Isnt an adblocker only on the client's screen?

[Assistant] In simple terms, they attempt to create an object which adblock blocks, then they run a script to detect whether the object exists or not.  If they can't find the object they know you are running a blocker.


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

[User]
[DOOM 2016/DOOM Eternal] Any particular reason were given why there were no mass nuclear retaliation towards the invading demonic forces?

In a Codex entry in Doom Eternal, it is considered that complete nuclear annihilation was considered to destroy the Super Gore Nest. However, there seems to be no particular reason on why it isn't enacted on early, what gives?

[Assistant] The invasion of Earth was extremely rapid.  Literally hours after the end of 2016 campaign.  Samuel Hayden tried to rally the leaders of earth prior to the invasion but it wasn't until nearly all of earth had become overwhelmed that he was given total authority over the arc forces.  Nukes were deployed but had little effect on larger demons and didn't stop the spread at all.  They threw everything they had at the super gore nest and failed miserably.  Before they could regroup or capitalize on the first hell priests death demons began attacking the arc headquarters and everything was dedicated to holding onto the tenuous foothold humanity had left on earth.


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

[User] [Star Wars] What was the importance of the Hoth base? Wouldnt it have made sense to stay mobile with no permanent structures?

[Assistant]
Ships need maintenance and crews need offship time.  A lot of the ships in the rebel fleet are medium sized.  They're small enough you don't want to spend excessive amounts of time in space aboard one and aren't built for extended voyages, but at the same time they're too big to reasonably fit into your standard starship hanger.

Sure, Home-1 or the other really big capital ships might hold them, but those ships are rare and you don't want to be filling fighter hangers with freighters just so you can perform your waste disposal system's regular maintenance.

A planetary base is perfect for this sort of ship.  They're already intended to land and takeoff, and on a planet you're not limited by volume as much.  Finally, most humanoids in the alliance are accustomed to working in gravity.  Zero-g work is just much more time consuming for them. And that's all not to mention it gives more room for your personnel.  Hoth contained a sizeable amount of infantry as well, and you don't want your military men stuffed into a freight hull for too long, they get bored and out of shape.  Morale and effectiveness will plummet fast.

So really, there's a lot of good reasons to have a planetary base.  Hoth was selected because it seemed like a good one.  Way off the beaten tracks and not someplace you'd ever expect anyone to *want* to live.  Vader's willingness to indiscriminately plaster the universe with probe droids despite the cost just turned out to be a good counter.  There's some that say he was guided by the dark side of the force to the location as well.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] How come Aayla Secura was killed in a much more brutal manner than the other Jedi shown in Revenge of the Sith?

All the Jedi were shot a couple times except her who was shot for a long time after she was already dead. Why was her execution so violent compared to the others?

[Assistant] Think about the jedi we saw die. Plo Koon was blown out of the sky and his craft was incineratef in a fireball, doesnt leave a lot of room for doubt. Mundi was shot by like 20 of his guys, camera cut away before it showed anything else. Basically, people can survive being shot, especially jedi. The clones were just making sure they were dead.


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

[User]
[Disney's The Little Mermaid] Why didn't Ariel just write to communicate while she was mute?

So, Ariel obviously understands English (or Danish, or whatever) and understands what's communicated to her. She signs her name on the contract with Ursula, so she's familiar with writing utensils and with writing itself. Why doesn't she just carry a pen, inkwell, and notebook with her? Or chalk and a blackboard? Why didn't she communicate through text?

[Assistant] One theory I've always held is that even though the audience is shown Ariel speaking in the same language as humans, it's more logical to assume merfolk have their own language. So while she may have learned English from constantly spying on humans, she would not be able to write in it, having never studied their symbols or literature.


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

[User] ELI5: How can Newtonian physics be technically "wrong" , but still mathematically explain many natural processes?

[Assistant]
It is less wrong, and more of an incomplete approximation.

For example, you have a farm in Kansas that is 5 miles by 5 miles.  You have exactly 25 square miles, right?  Area = side * side, after all.

That would be wrong.  You have slightly more than 25 square miles, because the earth is roughly a sphere.  That doesn't mean the formula for area is wrong, it just doesn't take into account spherical surfaces.  It is also very accurate over small distances.

Newtonian physics is the same way.  It isn't wrong, it just doesn't take relativity into account.  And for speeds that aren't a significant fraction of the speed of light, it is quite accurate.


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

[User]
[DC] How Superman can hear someone's call for help on the other side of the globe and save them if the sound that reached him was originated hours ago?

Due the sound speed, if he hears something 2,000 miles away it took almost 3 hours to reach his ears.

[Assistant] I believe its been hinted a few times that Supermans x-ray vision is really a kind of clairvoyance that lets him look through things. Maybe Supermans super hearing is a kind of psychic hearing or telepathy?


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

[User] ELI5:When I get "butterflies in my stomach", what is actually happening inside my body?

[Assistant] When your body goes into fight-or-flight stress response, it is preparing to fight a physical threat or run away from it. To help you do this, your heart rate and breathing speed up, you sweat, and blood flow is diverted from non-essential systems to the major muscle groups. Digestion is a non-essential system, so when stress hormones are in your blood, your digestion slows way down. The weird feeling in your stomach is the reduction of blood flow to your digestive organs, so that the blood can go to your arms and legs instead.


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

[User]
[Chronicles of Narnia] What is the mental state of the four main characters after they turn back into children?

Do they remember being adults? If so what's it like for Edmund and Lucy who are pre-adolescent?

[Assistant]
They eventually forget all of their time in Narnia, thinking of it as having been a game they played together as children, rather than actual events that happened.  The older they get, the more they're sure it was just make-believe.

Susan gets hit with this especially hard, becoming unable to return to Narnia for the Last Battle because she has become too old, and stopped believing it ever existed.


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

[User]
Why are longitudinal studies done on the general public and not inmates?

I was reading about the observation of diets and the outcomes after 3, 6, and 12 months and one of the concerns was a self-reporting bias with people and simply forgetting what they ate. Thought about which environments a person has their diet and exercise almost 100% controlled and is almost guaranteed to be in the same place after 12 months.

If they were fed above the state or country dietary minimum for prisoners, wouldn't they make a better sample?

[Assistant]
Science dealing with humans has a number of ethical rules, some of which have been made into law. One of those is that you can't experiment on prisoners simply because they are convenient- you can only study them if you are specifically doing a study of the prison experience or something like that.  When you want to do a study it must pass a human subjects ethics board review (IRB) and they would never allow a study such as the one you describe.

In order for scientists to effectively do research on humans we need their trust, and experimenting on prisoners is not a great way to gain that.  Apart from that is one of the very basic ethics rules, which is that participation in science experiments must be voluntary, and prisoners cannot be said to be giving voluntary consent because of their situation.


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

[User]
ELI5: How does pure alcohol have calories, yet it doesn't contain sugar, proteins or fat?

Will I get fat from drinking large amounts of pure alcohol?

[Assistant] Alcohol is what is produced when you take sugar and remove as many calories as you can from it without involving oxygen. As a result it still contains a lot of the calories that the initial sugar had.


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

[User]
ELI5 - how doesnt iron burst through blood vessels during an MRI?

There are metals in the body such as iron. Even tiny bits of iron ripping through vessels and organs I would think would do major damage to the body. How does an MRI not cause this to happen? Or does it?

[Assistant]
What makes iron magnetic is that when iron is in a crystalline form (what you think of as iron metal), the electrons in the individual iron atoms align themselves in a way that interacts with magnetism. (Basically electrons (and many other subatomic particles) have a property called spin, when a bunch of electrons are spinning in the same direction, magnetism happens.)

Iron in blood is not in a metallic form - it takes the form of a molecule called hemoglobin. Hemoglobin is essentially a tangled chain of other stuff, with pockets holding single iron atoms throughout. Because those iron atoms are isolated and tangled up in this hemoglobin structure, they can't align like they do in metallic iron. As a result, hemoglobin isn't magnetic at all, and as such is not pulled around by MRI magnets.


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

[User]
[Superman] Earth not Krypton was destroyed. A baby was sent to Krypton via an experimental rocket. Would that baby have super powers like superman?

I admit I don't know much about Superman but what if things happened in reverse? Would a human gain powers under their red sun much the say Superman gains powers from our yellow sun? Or is it something fundamental about their biology?

[Assistant]
The effect that grants Superman his powers is a product of his Kryptonian biology and not the sun itself. Superman essentially metabolizes radiation and, while the degree to this is true varies from depiction to depiction, his "enhanced" state as seen on Earth is actually more akin to a Kryptonian's natural healthy state. The sun of Krypton was simply malnurishing to the population's evolutionary adaptations in that respect. Yellow suns are a literal super food for their biology and unlock their maximum safe potential.

Likewise, green kryptonite is harmful to kryptonians because it essentially lets off poisonous bands of light.

Humans lack that type of adaptation so they wouldn't experience any kind of strengthening or weakening when exposed to a different sun.


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

[User] ELI5: How come you can never get crappy toys in cereal any more?

[Assistant]
Boy, as a kid, shreddies always came with something inside.

I think its to do with safety. The toy might end up being eaten by a child. They might choke and die, leaving a massive lawsuit against the cereal producer.

I also think US government regulations affect this. There are prize-containing candies called Kinder Surprise that are made in Europe, but are banned in the US due to safety regulations.


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

[User]
[Doctor Who] Why did the Doctor's TARDIS allow the master to fly it?

The TARDIS is sentient, and apparently very loyal to the doctor, to the point of love perhaps (the doctor's wife). So why is the master able to pilot it (Utopia et al)?

I know he was only able to travel between two points, but that was the Doctor's interference. Shouldn't the TARDIS itself have said 'screw you dude, we're not abandoning the doctor here' and put the brakes on?

[Assistant] A timelord would know how to force a tardis to go where he wanted. She is still, when it comes down to it, a vehicle, and in the end its not her choice, if someone wants to force her, he can. The master might be better then the doctor at flying a tardis, so he might know how to force her when the doctor does not (he did however force her to go to trenzalore, so he can probably do it)


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

[User]
[MCU Punisher] What allows Castle to fight at full strength even when injuries received would prevent some muscle movement or could even be lethal?

On several occasions Castle is able to fight while dislocating his arm, having his feet destroyed by a drill but is able to move said body parts even though they are severely damaged. Also how is he able to fight let alone stay alive when he has injuries that could kill most people?

[Assistant]
The Punisher has a level of sheer unbreakable willpower that would make Green Lantern jealous. In the comics, it's established that he doesn't use any sort of painkillers unless his injuries are so severe that he is no longer physically capable of fighting. He chooses not to take them because he's unwilling to take the risk of an enemy getting the drop on him while he's not 100% clear-headed.

It's this level of willpower that enables him to not only *survive* injuries that would cripple or kill most people, but to *continue fighting* despite them. He's too stubborn and hateful to just give up and die.


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

[User]
[Star Wars]What kind of food can allow the more than 30,000 crew members of the Star Destroyer to live in the Star Destroyer for 2 years?

 There are more than 30,000 crew members in the Star Destroyer, and the consumables they carry can allow them to survive in space for 2 years. If it is conventional food, the daily consumption is very large and takes up a lot of space. Although the Star Destroyer is very large, the building occupies a large part of the entire Star Destroyer, so the place for food storage will not be very large. The food that can provide the crew members to live in space for 2 years should not be ordinary food. Then, what kind of food can make more than 30,000 crew members of the Star Destroyer live in the Star Destroyer for 2 years?

[Assistant] They use rations and nutrient packs in addition to smaller standard food storage that needs to replenished regularly. The ration packs are the size of a cigarette pack but can feed a human adult for a week easily if not comfortably. The packs have a shelf life of a few decades but have been known to survive for longer in optimal conditions though no one will eat them if given an alternative choice. They're cheap and contain the bare minimum of nutrition in a compact size. With appropriate rationing a few thousand pounds of packs could feed several thousand personnel without taking up more than a cargo container or three in the ships hold.


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

[User]
CMV: Can anyone show me a rational reason as to why this specific example of incest would be immoral?

**DISCLAIMER**: I'm *not* endorsing incest.

**The following context is what I cannot come up with a rational reason as to why it would be immoral:**

* Two orphaned siblings after years of separation meet again (both aware that they are each others siblings):
* One sibling is a man who is 30 years old.
* The other sibling is a woman who is 32 years old who has had a hysterectomy and is sterile.
* They reconnect after 12 years of separation and decide to date and have sex.

**The common arguments against incest are the following which do NOT apply to this situation:**

1. Increased birth defect rates (impossible without a uterus)
2. Power dynamics, as in a parent and a child (these are siblings that are close in age)
3. Pedophilia and exploitation (again these are siblings close in age who start their relationship well over the age of consent)
4. Should the relationship terminate it can lead to the collapse of a family system (in this situation these two siblings have no other family members than each other and have been living separate lives independent of each other for awhile)

**Additionally the following answers are not acceptable:**

1. Religious reasoning (not objective, not to mention many religions have non-condemned incest in them)
2. Using the fallacy that illegal things must be immoral
3. Simply saying it's gross or "feels wrong" without explaining why that would make it immoral is not sufficient.

I must admit I personally am not comfortable with the idea of incest, but I can't actually come up with a rational argument as to why it is immoral. I simply just "feel" it is.

[Assistant]
Playing devils advocate:

Encouragement.
If its ok for those two, another couple of siblings that doesnt fit your special parameters might see them, and think that it is not so wrong after all.

Of course if you dont see anything wrong with incest that is a moot point, but since you are constructing this special example im assuming you do see something wrong with incest in general.

Basically they cant have nice things, because it would ruin it for society.


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

[User]
ELI5:Why do shadows tend to be attracted by other shadows ?

I was in the bus today and whenever my shadow got close to another one, it would stretch to reach the other. I never paid much attention to it before now. I know it probably is something about light, but I'd like to know the exact reason of this phenomenon.

[Assistant]
Imagine two equally tall mounds of sand on a flat surface.

Now, push the two mounds towards each other. You will notice that where the two mounds touch, the sand will combine and rise higher.

The same occurs for shadows. A shadow's edge is never completely sharp due to diffraction, a property of light that blurs the edges. The farther away the shadow is from the object blocking the light, the more blurred the edges become.

When two shadows come close together, in the overlapping regions, the light gets blocked twice, once by each shadow. The amount of light blocked must be considered separately per shadow. Imagine that the blurred part each blocks 50% of light. Then one shadow allows 50% of the light through and the second shadow blocks 50% of that. Therefore, the total blocking is 75% which is why it appears darker than each individual shadow, much like how the sand in the two mounds rises higher than the original mounds as the mounds come closer and closer.


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

[User] [Star Wars] How much punishment could the Death Star withstand if it was being directly attacked? How many ships would the Rebels have needed if they wanted to go "toe to toe" with the Death Star? (assuming unlimited resources)

[Assistant]
More firepower than the Rebellion could bring to bear at Endor.

The Death Star was massive, dwarfing any capital ship. Concentrated fire might be able to do serious damage to a couple decks, but you're not going to disable a Death Star with turbolaser batteries, not before Imperial backup arrives.


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

[User]
ELI5: If people can build their own computers, what is stopping people from building their own smartphones?

I have not put a computer together myself, but my boyfriend recently built me a PC from two old machines and the idea of building a smartphone came to mind.

[Assistant] Individual components that make up a smartphone are not as easily available or affordable as PC components. They are highly proprietary to each manufacturer and smartphones don't follow a single form factor the way PCs do.


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

[User]
[Fifth Element] How did Korben's neighbor end up being impersonated by Mangalores?

Wasn't that the same face? I haven't seen the Fifth Element in years and every so often out of nowhere this question creeps out to bug me.

[Assistant]
When Cornelius arrives at Korban's apartment, he switches Korban's business card to another door. Later, when the police arrive, they spot the name card and bag the neighbor (literally) because they think he is Korban.

Then the Mangalores show up and blast the police who they think have arrested Dallas, so that's the face they use when they try to board the flight.


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

[User] ELI5: What is physically happening that causes the inside of a cpu to heat up?

[Assistant] Electrical resistance. Just as light bulbs get hot because of the current flowing through a tiny filament, CPUs heat up for much the same reason. CPUs can draw 100W or more these days, and virtually all of that power is converted to heat.


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

[User] [Star Trek] How did/would other people attempt the Kobayashi Maru, like Riker? Janeway? Seven? Etc.?

[Assistant]
I still find Sulu's answer the one that fits him well.  He has the internal conflict - and orders his ship to NOT go into the neutral zone.  While the comm plays out the sounds of the crew of the Kobayshi Maru getting killed.

It may be the safe call, but he called it a trap - and a violation that could trigger a war with the klingons, and he was right.  Some Heros have to know when to not go cowboy.


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

[User] ELI5: What would our vision be like if we had a third eye at the back of our head?

[Assistant] Do you mean how would 'what we see' appear? That would depend on how our brain had evolved to use that third eye and represent it to us mentally. Since this is necessarily different from how our brains function today, there's no definitive answer to give you other than 'we could presumably see behind us, at least if we cut our hair.'


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

[User]
ELI5: How does fire destroy stuff?

This is hard to properly express my question, but what does fire do to destroy things? Like how does it burn a whole house down leaving ashes on the ground, and why aren't the ashes destroyed? Probably some obvious answer I'm overlooking but it is what it is.

[Assistant]
Fire is the process of transforming something chemically into something else. It usually happens in two stages. First, for complex stuff like wood or paper, you take something and heat it up, and that heat destroys the chemical bonds in that substance. The big molecules in it that are very long and solid and lock its parts into place break into smaller molecules. So cellulose cracks into gases like methane (a very light form of gaseous fuel) and leftover stuff like carbon (which is what makes char black), and the wood appears to disintegrate.

Then the heat causes the gasses to combine with oxygen and combust - change into carbon dioxide + water molecules - and give off more heat, making a self-sustaining "fire". When they're gone, it works on the little bit of carbon that's left to turn that into gas - carbon dioxide - too.

What's left is a tiny amount of solids that are made of molecules in traces of wood that don't turn into gas when combined with oxygen (for example, potassium), stuff that's already oxidized (for example, dust from sand - silicon dioxide - blown into that wood from a nearby beach) and stuff that doesn't burn at the temperature of the fire (for example, the copper piping in your house).


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

[User]
Job Interview questions

I posted this question in academia and didnt get much response so thought Id ask here

Humanities disciples: As someone who will be going on the job market this fall, and a first-gen Phd, can you please share a question that popped up during your interview process? Maybe a question important to the process but werent expecting, a question that stumped you, surprised you, etc
And if you can, would you share what your answer to the question was?
Thanks very much.
Im feeling excited but nervous about the whole thing and would like to know what Im getting into. Feeling underprepared.

[Assistant]
The question that you will always get, in one form or another, is " tell me about your research". Top tips for answering that:
1) talk about your dissertation's major contributions to the field, and do not only talk about your dissertation: your research is one big project, but you want to show that you have plans beyond it and you're already thinking about it.
2) talk about your dissertation in the past tense (even if you have not defended yet)
3) do all of the above in a maximum of 4-5 minutes and structure the answer with a clear intro, middle and a summary sentence at the end.

They will ask you what would you/could you teach and this is where you have to show them that:
1) you've done your research on what courses they offer and where are the gaps that you can fill
2) you have teaching experience that is relevant for them -- don't dismiss your TA experience as 'just TAing'
3) have one undergrad and one grad course ready to talk about. Have a few major books that you will read in those courses and try to come up with one cool assignment for each of them.

They will ask you if you have any questions: always ask at least one, and ask a question whose answer cannot be easily found on their website.

Hope this helps and good luck!