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

[User]
Why is it essential for big companies to keep growing in size?

I work in a big tech firm, ~40k employees. One thing that I hear repeatedly from management is that it is essential that we keep onboarding new people, to expand and to grow. This is presented as if it is the most basic fact. "If we don't grow, we won't make money".

But why is this? I understand that one needs to hire new people to replace the ones that quit. But why isn't this enough? We are already making a surplus as it is.

EDIT: I should have specified that my firm is a tech *consulting* firm, which makes the business model quite different than for a company that develop their own products.

[Assistant]
On some level it's not. Companies can and do make the same profit year after year. On the flip side:

1. Shareholders generally want their investment to grow, so they push companies to expand and be more profitable.
2. Workers like getting raises, which can only happen if a) workers get a larger share of profits or b) the company has more profits.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is it that when a nearsighted blurry vision becomes clear when looking through a very small hole cutout?

[Assistant] The problem is that the light is spread out too much rather then being properly focused. Corrective lenses fix this by focusing the light onto a smaller area. A pinhole effectively accomplishes the same, albeit at the obvious cost of field of view.


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

[User]
[X-Men] Why are the X-Men and mutants in general so hated in the Marvel universe?

I really don't get why mutants are so hated when there's so many superpowered heroes out there that are really popular among the Marvel universe public, so I don't think having powers is an argument. Is it?

[Assistant] Fear. Specifically the fear that *Homo superior* (mutants) will make *Homo sapiens* irrelevant. And they have wild powers that typically pop up around puberty, IIRC, which can be dangerous and difficult to control.


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

[User] ELI5: How does looking far help relax the eyes when our vision is 2 dimensional?

[Assistant]
Your eyes are controlled by muscles as almost anything else in your body. Looking at screens makes your eyes fixate very close spots, narrowing down your field of view both mentally and physically. By looking far, you allow your eyes to use their muscles in another way and leave a tense state as well as your brain to process different signals.

See it this way: After spending a day with your head turned to the left, looking straight or even right will feel very relieving.


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

[User]
ELI5:why do people look down on trades even though they can make a living?

at my former high school, one of the councillors liked to remind us that going into trades, such as plumbing and carpentry, is a good option for careers. Attend the local institute of technology and you'll be guaranteed a job, he said. However, almost every single grad went to university for subjects like science, engineering, or business. The school had a lot of international students who never considered trade school but after college, some of them struggled to find jobs directly related to their studies.

why is trade often looked down upon, even though they are the first to find a job?

[Assistant]
The narrative that was being presented was that the more education you get, the better your career will be (this benefits schools as they sell education at an increasingly higher and higher cost).

The Information Technology sector had this revelation awhile back.  Universities aren't on the leading edge of technologies, whereas small structured certification courses were.  It became more beneficial to just get a MCSE (before that became meaningless) than it did to get a Comp Sci/MIS degree.

To be fair to that process though, you will likely hit a lower ceiling in the trades than you will in other areas of the private sector.  So it's like choosing between a guaranteed job with a nice salary or the CHANCE at getting an amazing job with an embarassingly large salary (or failing).


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

[User] [Spiderman] Spidey seems to be able to hang upside down from a ceiling from just his feet regardless of whether hes wearing his costume or a pair of sneakers. How does that work? Does his body itself exhibit some kind of magnetism that doesnt require skin contact (or thin fabric) to stick?

[Assistant] I am not sure if it is different now, but for much of the 616 continuity, the wall climbing did not work through sneakers. When Peter Parker first married MJ, he was running late to the wedding and used spider powers to get there. He had to take his shoes off to wall climb and ran up to the venue with his shoes in his hands.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why are flights from NYC to Boston 1.5 hours long when they should only take around 20-30 mins?

The flight distance from NYC to Boston is around 190 miles. Assuming a passenger jet can travel at 500mph, shouldn't it take only 20-30 minutes to travel the distance, instead of the usual 1-1.5 hours?

[Assistant]
Flight times are counting "block time". This is the time from when the blocks are removed from the wheels of the plane at the gate and it can push back, to the time the plane enters the gate at the destination and has the blocks put back on its wheels to stay in place.

This means that taxiing time, waiting for take off clearance, etc., is all part of a flight time.


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

[User] ELI5: What is the loud, vibrating sound when you open your car's windows while driving?

[Assistant]
It's a rapid pressure oscillation. Basically, air rushes in through the open window, which increases the amount of air in the car. This increases the air pressure until the pressure of air inside your car is greater than the pressure of the wind blowing into your car.

With greater air pressure inside the car, the air tries to rush out again, temporarily decreasing the air pressure inside the car, which makes air want to try to rush in again.

It's important to note that this oscillation only happens in some configurations of having different windows open. Some configurations, particularly having only one rear window open, create much bigger oscillations than others.


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

[User]
[Napoleon Dynamite] How good was Uncle Rico, really?

Could they have won the State Championship if the coach had put him in in the fourth quarter?

[Assistant]
Rico was fucking delusional. No human can throw a football over mountains, yet Rico claims he can. He was probably little more than a bench warmer at his high school, only on the team because there were more roster spots then students who wanted to play. Despite their startling lack of depth, they still made the State championship, but were losing at halftime.

Rico, delusional all the way back then, pleaded with the coach to be put in the game. The coach, not being a complete idiot, kept the starting QB in the game, but they still lost by 13.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is baking soda called "bicarbonate of soda" when the formula is NaHCO3 (only one carbon)?

[Assistant]
It's really old nomenclature. Bi means twice. So sodium bicarb has twice the carbonate ratio to sodium, compared to sodium carbonate (Na2CO3).

It's a horrible naming system, it's changed now, but nomenclature is very difficult to change, most especially amongst chemists, so most people still use sodium bicarb. Official modern name is hydrogen carbonate.


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

[User]
Canadian med school prof looking to work in USA

This is for someone close to me who is medical school professor at a Canadian medical school and was interested in potentially seeking a job in the US.

Currently I make around $160k CAD pre tax ($124k USD) although our taxes are generally higher.

Im tenured and has been a full professor for a few years now. (About 15 years in total of work experience as assistant and associate professor after post doc) Also ONLY PhD not an MD (not clinical)

QUESTIONS:

What are the differences between medical school professor jobs in Canada vs USA? (SALARY, work life balance, position openings)

Is it true in the USA medical school profs are paid mainly in grant money (soft cap?) and a small base salary (hard cap)?

Are there certain areas I should be looking at since Im open to any part of the US as long as it pays similar (or preferably more)?

Thats basically my main question right now but if you have any further additional info it would be much appreciated since I basically know nothing about applying for jobs as Ive been at the same place for my entire career.

[Assistant]
Have you published hundreds of papers? Can you win NIH grants?

If yes to both, you can probably get a job a similarly ranked place. If yes to only the former, you can only get a job at a lower ranked place. If no to both, probably no job for you.


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

[User]
[Interstellar] How did Cooper escape the black hole? And did the ranger-ship that he stole from Cooper Station have enough fuel to make the journey back to Dr. Brand's planet?

Two questions I had from the movie!

[Assistant]
- The 5th-dimension future humans that provided the wormhole in the first place were capable of significant space-time manipulation. They likely retrieved Cooper from the black hole once he had successfully delivered his message.

- The thing about 'fuel' is that you don't actually need it to keep going - just to get started moving. The original Rangers were already enormously fuel efficient to achieve both landing and SSTO without refuel. Another thing to keep in mind is that the less your mass is, the less fuel you need to consume to produce the same acceleration; the future Rangers were quite a bit smaller than those used in the desperation mission.

- It is worth nothing that apparently the official novelization has Cooper wondering if the new Rangers use the gravity manipulation his daughter invented to propel themselves.


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

[User] [Star Wars] What prevented Anakin from having a petulant "Kylo Ren" personality in his Sith years?

[Assistant]
A Sith masters his rage; he does not allow his rage to master him.  Anakin let his anger cloud his thinking and lost everything as a result.  Vader would never make that mistake again.

Kylo, on the other hand, never had to face any consequences for losing his temper, so, like any spoiled brat, he keeps doing it.


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

[User]
[MCU/Marvel Comics] why does Jane Foster use the name "Thor"?

I'm not being like "ugh why women in film", I think it's sick and a really great idea/concept. I'm just curious why she uses the name "Thor" when that's Thor's birth name and not his superhero name. Wouldn't that be like Sam Wilson changing his name the "Steve" when he became Captain America, or Riri Williams changing her name to "Tony" when she becomes Iron Heart?

Is there any in-lore reason why she uses the name Thor when she gains his powers?

[Assistant]
Thor does not have a distinct identity like Captain America. His superhero name is the same as his private name.

Jane is not even the first person to assume the name of Thor when the original is unable to take up the hammer. Thor Odinson being around when she does it makes the situation different, but its not unprecedented.


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

[User] ELI5: I got SPAM from my own account. I looked this up and apparently some E-mail providers allow you to send messages from other e-mail accounts (Spoofing). Why is this allowed?

[Assistant]
E-mail is sent using a protocol called SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) which dates back to 1981 (and so is about eight years older than the World Wide Web).

Back then, the internet was used by the military and academia (universities, research institutions and so on) -- it wasn't available to the general public. Nobody really thought the internet would become what it is now, with nearly everyone in the developed world (and a lot of people in the developing world) owning devices that could connect to it. And the idea that anyone would want to spoof e-mails was... ridiculous. This was a serious research tool, a network of databases.

So SMTP never included a way to authenticate the sender. And we're stuck with that.


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

[User] ELI5: Why don't rovers on other planets or satellites in space ever take true video?

[Assistant]
Probably because videos take a relatively large amount of storage space compared to photos, and they would take very long periods of time to transmit. Seeing as how there's no real added value to a video versus a picture when nothing is moving, there's not a great reason to do it other than "because we can".

"Because we can" isn't a sufficient argument when arguing for the millions of  dollars in technology required to perform such a function.


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

[User]
Can an omniscient being and free will coexist?

Apologize if this scenario has been brought up multiple times.  Assuming that there exists an omniscient being that knows the past, present and future and knows everything that you will do prior to you making any decision would it be possible for free will to exist within this framework?

[Assistant]
Omniscience with foreknowledge on its own most likely does not pose a threat to free will.

However, you may find the following consideration interesting. Spinoza argues in his *Ethics* that God is a necessary being in the sense that God cannot be otherwise than the way he actually is. He also essentially argues that what is rooted in an absolutely necessary basis must, itself, be necessary.

In Part 1 of *Ethics*, Spinoza says,

>Everything depends upon the abilities of God. In order for things to be different than they are, the will of God would necessarily have to be different. But the will of God cannot be different (as we have just demonstrated very clearly from Gods perfection). Neither therefore can things be different.

If he is correct about this, then neither God nor man has free will in the sense of being able to do otherwise.

Granted, Spinozas conception of the nature of God is quite different from orthodoxy.


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

[User]
[Dr. Strange MCU] When the physical therapist sends Dr. Strange the notes from another patient how many laws and ethics codes did he break?

When the patient who recovered and worked in a plant traveled the world and was carried to the tops of mountains to speak with gurus how much money did he spend and where did that come from?

[Assistant]
pretty much all of the ethics codes and privacy laws were violated with that one.  Given that Dr. Strange is still technically a doctor, he might have been able to pass it off as consulting on the case or doing research on how to improve care... but that would be a tight legal tightrope to walk.  It's doubtful the therapist followed proper procedures in checking the file out or noting chain of custody.

On the money question, he might have been able to do it cheaply enough to manage it with whatever meagre savings he had left or money he could acquire from friends and relatives.  Seeing as how he lives in NYC, it's possible he has a patron or family member willing to help out.  Once he's out and about in the world, he could make his way around without spending much money by relying on goodwill for rides, food, shelter, and support.  Likewise, the porters helping him to the top of the mountain may have been willing to do it for free if he was suitably convincing and latched onto local traditions.


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

[User] When you get a headache from say, constant loud noise, what exactly is hurting if your brain has no pain receptors?

[Assistant] The brain itself has no pain receptors but just about everything else in the skull does. Commonly it's down to irritation of the meninges - the membrane surrounding the brain - or to a blood vessel. Migraines seem to have more to do with nerves in the skull.


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

[User]
What are some experimental observations that have been made that do not currently agree with our current understanding of physics?

I'm interested in seeing what kind of interesting things can't fully be explained. To clarify I'm taking about things that can't be explained by widely accepted theories.
BONUS QUESTION:
What are the theories that have been developed to explain these events.

[Assistant]
Based on astronomical and cosmological observations, there is a lot more mass in the universe than we can see. We do not know what comprises this mass.

The cosmic microwave background is the same temperature in every direction, even though regions at opposite sides have never been in causal contact with each other.

If bubbles collapse fast enough they release a flash of light.

To name a few.


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

[User] [MCU] How did The Sovereign handle The Snap and The Blip five years later?

[Assistant]
Given their claims of a perfect 1:1 balance of actual and needed population, plus the seeming absence of Adam Warlock on the galactic scene, probably badly. They have no redundancy in any element of their society, and their use of telepresence for their drone fleet instead of AI suggests that they can't readily automate the now unfilled roles. The conversation between the High Priestess and Star Lord in GotG2 suggests that single digit losses would be enough to cause trouble; a 50% loss would probably be cataclysmic.

And assuming they survive, crash grow a replacement generation of citizens, and get things back on the rails, the Blip shows up. Now they have 50% surplus population, and probably don't have the logistics in place to house and feed these people. Not to mention the sociological shockwaves caused by a mass number of people in a world that prides itself in every single person having a place and a role being *redundant*. Deciding who gets primacy, the blipped back originals or the replacement citizens, could become the defining conflict in their history.


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

[User]
ELI5: How is temperature measured and considered to exist in space?

So with going over concepts such as absolute zero and the definition of temperature in chemistry, it got me wondering how it is calculated and defined in space? Basically I was wondering how we perceive it because there is no atoms or molecules to move around in empty space, doesn't that mean that any specific section of it is at absolute zero? I get that heat can be transferred through cosmic energy from the sun and other stars but if there is nothing to move because of the heat, doesn't that make it have an absolute zero or nonexistent temperature?

[Assistant]
Believe it or not, a lot of space is actually pretty darn hot! In fact, there are clouds of gas/plasma that surround large galaxy clusters that can reach up to 10 million degrees Kelvin. Wow! An environment like this provides a useful example to answer your question:

"Temperature" of a gas (most of space is gas/plasma) is really a measurement of the kinetic energy contained in that gas. In other words, it's a measure of the average speed of each of the individual gas particles. Think about a room full of children as an analog for a container full of gas. If the kids have a lot of energy and are running around really fast then that gas is "hot", if they are tired and just sitting there then that gas is "cold".

So what would you feel if you put your hand in some of the intergalactic gas that is 10 million degrees? Probably nothing. The reason is that, while each individual gas particle has a huge amount of energy, the density is so crazily low that not many of them hit your hand and transfer energy to it. In the children analogy, hot gas in space is like a huuuuuuge room with only a few kids running really fast.

So how do we actually _measure_ the temperature of gas in space? Unfortunately the answer is very complicated and depends hugely on what type of gas you're talking about and how hot it is. The short, mostly accurate answer is that things that are hot tend to cool (even in space) and the cooling process almost always results in some sort of emission that we can detect and measure.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do double minuses become positive, and two pluses never make a negative?

[Assistant]
Image youre facing me.

I instruct you to turn around and then walk backwards.

This is a negative (turned around) multiplied by a negative (walking backwards)

But youre *getting closer* to me.  Negative times negative has given you positive movement.

What if you just faced me and walked forwards?  Still moving towards me from positive times positive.

Any multiplication of positives will always be positive.  Even number multiplication sequences of negatives will also be positive as they cancel out - flipping the number line over twice.


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

[User]
What have been the implications/significance of finding the Higgs Boson particle?

There was so much hype about the "god particle" a few years ago.  What have been the results of the find?

[Assistant]
The particle itself was never of any particular relevance, except for potential weeding out potential grand-unified theories.  The importance of the discovery of the boson was that it confirmed that the Higgs FIELD was there, which was the important thing.  For about the last 50 years, particle physics has constructed itself upon the un-verified assumption that there must be a Higgs field.  However, you can't experimentally probe an empty field, so to prove it exists you must give it a sufficiently powerful "smack" to create an excitation of it (a particle).

So the boson itself was pretty meaningless (after all, it was at a pretty stupid high energy). But it confirmed the existance of the Higgs field and thus provided a "sanity check" for 50 years of un-verified assumption.

Which for particle physicists was something of a bittersweet sigh of relief.  Bitter because it's written into the very mathematical fabric of the Standard Model that it must fail at SOME energy, and having the Higgs boson discovery falling nicely WITHIN the Standard Model means that they haven't seemingly learned anything new about that high energy limit. Sweet because, well, they've been out on an un-verified limb for a while and verification is nice.


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

[User]
Can you be colorblind in just one eye?

I suppose what I'm getting at is - is colorblindness a disease of the eye or of the brain? Or of some stage in between?

[Assistant] Colorblindness affects the color receptors in the retina, and is genetic.  So to be colorblind in just one eye would require something very unusual such as chimerism (where one person has multiple genomes in different parts of their body)


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

[User]
How deep into the ocean will the impacts of a hurricane be felt?

I was watching the forecast of Florence and though about how deep a submarine would need to be to not be effected.

[Assistant]
Three times the effective wave height.

The magnitude of water movement underneath a wave tails of quite rapidly with depth. Once you are about three times the wave height (trough to crest) below the surface, the movement is barely noticeable.

"Effective wave height" is the average height of the biggest third of all waves. Once you're three times deeper than that, the effects are negligible.

Typical maximum wave heights in a hurricane are rarely exceed 15m, so once you're 50m deep, you're not going to get much effect.

This also means that hurricanes cause remarkably little damage in the ocean. It's only when they get into waters less than about 15m deep that the devastation happens.

As another puzzle, we have no idea how air-breathing marine life weathers a hurricane. How to dolphins survive? We simply din't know.


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

[User] What does Kierkegaard mean when he says  the most painful state of being is remembering the future ?

[Assistant] This may be one of those instances where Kierkegaard is a little too poetic for his own good. What he's saying here makes more sense in light of his concept of Despair, one form of which he defines as, "in despair to will to be oneself." By this phrase he is describing the state of being in which one avoids coming into accord with themself by imagining that there is some change they need to go through before becoming properly "themself." When Kierkegaard says "remembering the future," he is likely referring to this fantasy about what one's future should have been or ought to be, and how these delusional thoughts cause perpetual suffering by alienating them from both themself and their creator.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] - were there any Alderaanians in the Galactic Empires military (Specifically the Death Star)? How did they feel about learning of the destruction of their home world?

In canon or legends, were there any stories about soldiers who were from Alderaan or Jedha and how they responded to what the empire did?

[Assistant] Yes. Nash Windrider was a young Imperial officer who was onboard the *Devastator*, Vader's flagship, when Alderaan was destroyed. He rationalized it as a sacrifice for the Greater Good of the Galaxy and blamed the Rebel Alliance for forcing the Empire to destroy Alderaan as a show of force. He managed to survive until after the Battle of Jakku, and became one of the first admirals of the First Order.


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

[User]
ELI5: How does unemployment work? Who pays for it?

Should I stay on unemployment as long as possible to maximize my benefit or does that just hurt my taxes later? I'm totally unclear how it works.

This question is USA-centric.

[Assistant]
Unemployment is an insurance system. Everyone pays an unemployment insurance premium (or their employers do, depending on the location, but it is part of your compensation). Then unemployment gets paid out of the fund of that unemployment insurance that you paid. It is an ante to the gamble that you are terminated wrongfully or without cause, and the payout is some percentage of your wages, as determined by what you paid in.

This means that you SHOULD find a job again if you can.
This means that taking it is NOT robbing the system.


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

[User]
ELI5: What happens to your body when you get winded?

Just saw a video of a guy falling down and getting winded. What's going on that causes the inability to breathe?

[Assistant]
You know how walking uphill is harder than walking downhill? Or, how it's more difficult to stretch a spring, and it snaps back to place on its own? For the same reasons, inhaling is more difficult than exhaling. Not so difficult that it requires a lot of effort, but a part of the equation is that empty lungs is your breathing cycles neutral mode.

The larger part of the equation is you need to understand what happens when you hold your breath. You know the burning feeling that is telling you to breathe? It's not as much that your body is oxygen-starved, but that it is desperate to expel the carbon dioxide accumulating in your lungs.

People get winded because a sudden jolt to the body empties the lungs very quickly. It's a spooky feeling because you stop breathing, but you don't feel like you are suffocating (no oxygen in your lungs means that carbon dioxide isn't building-up). To begin the breathing cycle again, you need to inhale forcefully because your diaphram (the muscles that make your lungs inflate and deflate) is quite content to sit empty. Your normal inhale isn't enough. A person recognizes they aren't breathing, get alarmed, and it's only when they gasp, or start to panic and suck-in hard, that the cycles starts again. It's confusing and jarring.


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

[User] ELI5: Why don't we use death row inmates as organ donors?

[Assistant] First, because they do have civil rights in most democratic nations. But if the moral argument isn't enough for you, then it's because the levels of substance abuse, infectious diseases etc make prisons a terrible source of donor organs.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do cats like boxes so much?

[Assistant]
Most animals like to feel enclosed. We do as well, albeit to a much lesser extent and in a very different way. For a cat, a box is just the right size for it to get comfortable, have some walls around it, and as many viewpoints out as possible so it isnt shut off from its surroundings.

For funsies, you can take a packing box and cut doors and windows into it. Some cats love it, others think its meh, but its not much work and its worth a shot :)


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

[User]
Why does IQ change during adolescence?

I've read about studies showing that during adolescence a child's IQ can increase or decrease by up to 15 points.

What causes this? And why is it set in stone when they become adults? Is it possible for a child that lost   or gained intelligence when they were teenagers to revert to their base levels? Is it caused by epigenetics affecting the genes that placed them at their base level of intelligence?

[Assistant] If you're an adult, your IQ compares you to other adults. If you're a child, your IQ compares you to other children of the same age. So if your brain develops faster than other children, you'll have a high IQ in childhood but not necessarily in adulthood.


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

[User]
[Outlast/Other Survival Horror Games] Are the protagonists all pacifists or something?

Even when they're threatened with death, bodily harm, and all sorts of nasty fates, the first person protagonists of these games never so much as raise a fist to fight back against the monsters and crazies that pursue them.

It makes sense that stealth and quick thinking would be more useful when trapped in a very hostile environment, but it really doesn't explain why said protagonists don't even attempt to struggle when found or caught.

[Assistant] Mind you, the protagonist of Outlast is not a very physically strong person, nor is he someone trained in any martial art, nor is he a particularly violent person, and he is not armed with any weapon. He is going up against foes who are often physically bigger/stronger than him, who outnumber him, and are thoroughly insane. It wouldn't be logical to try and fight back, the best option is the old, "Feet don't fail me now" approach.


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

[User]
ELI5: What makes the winter air smell so nice and fresh?

Whenever I open the window on a day with zero/negative C, I'm hit with this unmistakable smell of winter. But there isn't anything to give off the smell, only cold air and snow.

[Assistant] Maybe the "clean air" is just air without natural contaminants like pollen and animal pheromones.  It could also be the physical feeling of your turbinate bones warming and humidifying the air entering your nose.


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

[User]
why arent non normal distributions emphasized more in studies?

i dont work in science, mostly economics and business data - i have almost never seen NON right skewed distributions. i mean, everything in the business space seems to start at 0 with big outliers. does that mean we are always supposed to use nonparametric methods or something? its just crazy how ubiquitous normal dists were in school and i NEVER see them.

[Assistant]
A large number of hypothesis tests do not require normally distributed **data**- they require approximately normally distributed **sampling distributions**, or **residuals**, or **conditional distributions** of some sort. For example, in a paired t test the data does not have to be normally distributed, it is the differences between the pairs that needs to be (approximately) normally distributed, but even then it is really the distribution of sample means that needs to be approximately normal.  This is why textbooks (erroneously) talk about the central limit theorem (erroneous because the CLT only helps you with infinite sample sizes). However, we have lots of other results that tell us that in most "nice" data, sampling distributions become close enough to normally distributed with smallish, finite sample sizes.

Even for the tests that explicitly "require" normally distributed data, most of these are very robust to moderate amounts of skewness and kurtosis.


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

[User] Eli5: how do fire detectives find the start of a large fire? Is it more burnt in that specific area where it started somehow?

[Assistant]
>	is it more burnt

Thats a big part of it.  If youre investigating a house fire and you can see that the end of the house where the garage is has been almost completely burned away but the bedroom end is intact, theres a very good chance that the fire didnt start in the bedroom.  So then you can start investigating whats left of the garage for an ignition source.

Same thing with brush fires.  If youve got a huge field that burned, absent any wind or changes in fuel density, the origin point will be near the middle of the burned area.  If there is wind, you can guess where the origin is based on wind speed and direction.


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

[User]
[LOTR] Has any orc ever interacted without hostility to a member of another species who isn't their boss?

For example if they are passing through Easterling territory and need repairs to their equipment. Can they go to a blacksmith shop and interact with the business?

[Assistant]
No. Orcs are evil by their very nature by way of Morgoths corruption.

There is good reason that orcs arent used in Saurons negotiations and why they are approached with a do as youre told command in battalions that arent intermingled between men and orcs. Orcs would just as soon gut their comrades as they would an enemy if they had something to gain from it. Most orc weaponry is either forged by other orcs or scavenged from battle.


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

[User]
[Coco]How does the "being forgotten" thing work?

When Miguel goes to land of the dead he says he's seen Hector and he'll tell people about him when he gets back so he's not forgotten. Hector says it doesn't work like that.

Then He comes back. Coco remembers Hector and tells people about him. Hector is still there. How is that any different?

[Assistant]
I think the difference is whether the person doing the telling knew the dead person while they were alive.

Miguel never knew Hector while he was alive, he only met him in the land of the dead, so telling people about him wouldn't help him be remembered.

But at the end of the movie Miguel helped Coco remember Hector.  She did know him when he was alive, and she told people about him, which meant he was remembered even after she died.


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

[User]
[Warhammer Fantasy] How the fuck does the Empire of Man fight Daemons?

I mean how does the EoM kill/banish a Great Unclean One or a Bloodthrister. Shouldn't the Empire have fallen by now seeing as most Chaos forces have freaking METAL armor?

[Assistant]
I mean, they technically did fall, but if you're a sensible person and discarding the Age of Sigmar nonsense, here's your answer:

Faith, steel and gunpowder, combined with how Daemons work. If you believe you can fuck up a Bloodthirster by shooting it or banishing it with prayers, you can.


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

[User] ELI5:How did Australia happen? like surely it wasn't just as simple as a bunch of convicts saying to each other "hey guys, lets work together and bceome one of the most prosperous countries on earth!"

[Assistant]
In short, the British didn't just dump everyone and run. There were people who worked in everything from botany to mapping and government who made the journey out - a new colony was being established - not just a prison.

  Once convicts had served their time, they were often given land or facilities to become a functioning part of society. Some of the country's most prolific farmers, settlers, brewers and public figures were reformed convicts.


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

[User] How does a chameleon change color?

[Assistant] Chameleon skin has a superficial layer which contains pigments, and under the layer are cells withguaninecrystals. Chameleons change colour by changing the space between the guanine crystals, which changes the wavelength of light reflected off the crystals which changes the colour of the skin.


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

[User] ELI5: What's the difference between the different degrees of murder?

[Assistant]
The specific distinction between "degrees" of murder depends on the jurisdiction. For example, the US Federal Code defines murder thusly:

> Murder is the unlawful killing of a human being with malice aforethought. Every murder perpetrated by poison, lying in wait, or any other kind of willful, deliberate, malicious, and premeditated killing; or committed in the perpetration of, or attempt to perpetrate, any arson, escape, murder, kidnapping, treason, espionage, sabotage, aggravated sexual abuse or sexual abuse, child abuse, burglary, or robbery; or perpetrated as part of a pattern or practice of assault or torture against a child or children; or perpetrated from a premeditated design unlawfully and maliciously to effect the death of any human being other than him who is killed, is murder in the first degree.
>
>Any other murder is murder in the second degree.

Think of second degree murder is "murder" and first degree murder as "aggrivated murder" or "murder delux" or "murder plus" or "murder royale with cheese."

Most jurisdictions will use "premeditation" as a reason to kick the charge to the first degree, but different states might have other criteria that would also kick it up from second to first degree.


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

[User]
Do black holes have an upper limit for mass?

Is there a point at which a black hole has consumed so much matter that it cannot consume any more? If so, what happens to it at that point? Could the big bang have been the result of something like this?

[Assistant]
No theoretical upper limit... Just the total mass-energy of the universe, because then it would run out of things to eat.

At at point it would slowly (incredibly slowly) radiate energy away and evaporate until there was nothing left. This evaporation is due to something called 'hawking radiation'.

(Note, black holes are always evaporating, but usually they can consume enough matter and cosmic background radiation to counteract the effect and still have a net growth in size).


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

[User]
Why does normal pain medicine helps you with a headache for a few hours but not make you immune to all pain?

I know basic pain medicaments block some kind of chemical reaction in you body for a while, and this reaction is the base of your pain (extremely simply). But why when I use pills for headaches I still can feel pain from hitting my little toe on a bed?

[Assistant]
There is a difference between pain, inflammation, and sensitivity after an injury. Not all injuries feel the same, but they all go through these stages at different rates. After an injury you'll feel pain which includes inflammation, and as the inflammation subsides and new tissue is being formed in place of place of dead tissue, sensitivity.

The most common pain medications that you don't need a prescription for are anti-inflammatories. These are really good for swelling and pain caused by immune system responses. It's basically  slowing down the increased blood flow that causes the redness, swelling, and hot feeling you get after an injury or infection.

Headaches are mainly caused by increased pressure inside the skull. the vessels in the brain increasing in size, usually due to inflammation or higher blood pressure. Anti-inflammatories reduce the swelling happening in your brain and relax and soothe vessels.

There is an enzyme that causes the release of prostaglandins , which increases blood flow to affected areas when they're injured , also known as perfusion. It's like calling an emergency services crew with mutual aid and special contractors to repair a busted dam or put out a massive fire. But  the body isn't good a regulating inflammatory resposes, which is why inflammation often causes more damage to surrounding tissue. Think of how you feel during a fever, that's mainly the side effects of your immune system.

The pain you feel from trauma isn't just inflammation, but direct injury and stimulation of afferent nerve fibers. opioids and other analgesics work in different ways to affect the nervous system to either slow or block pain signals.

Some medications like lidocaine block nerve signals in the area where it's applied. It's a sodium channel blocker that also blocks the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, which is used by nerves to send pain signals to the brain.


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

[User] ELI5: how do tide to-go sticks work ?

[Assistant] A mixture of acids and hydrogen peroxide help break down stain causing molecules, and it contains some molecules soluble in both polar and nonpolar solvents, allowing to wash away both polar and nonpolar crap.


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

[User]
ELI5 - Why are the rings of Saturn, which are presumably just floating Rocks, perfectly lined up in a huge ring instead of crashing into the planet due to gravity?

I think it will be something with magnetic fields but I'm Not sure.

[Assistant]
Because they are in orbit. They are falling 'towards' the planet, but also moving sideways. They are moving sideways fast enough that they 'miss' perpetually.  Similar to how the moon, ISS, and satellites are all not crashing into the planet.

They are in freefall, but their lateral motion is such that they never hit the ground.


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

[User] Why do airplane window covers need to be lifted during takeoff and landing?

[Assistant]
It's a safety measure. With the window covers open, crew and passengers can see outside the aircraft to asses the situation in the case of an emergency (or detect a problem). Similarly, rescue crew outside a landed/crashed aircraft will be able to see inside and will be able to more accurately judge the situation (e.g. spotting the location of fires).

This is only relevant for takeoff and landing because by far the most aircraft incidents occur during takeoff or landing and if a plane were to crash from cruise altitude it would likely not matter at all whether the covers are lifted or not.


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

[User] [Overwatch] Lore wise, who's the strongest hero?

[Assistant]
By muscles, Reinhardt edges out Zarya due to his size. Winston might be a close third, but who knows. He's probably flabby due to all the nights in the lab.
Bastion units are otherwise the strongest, because they're military-grade miniguns.


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

[User]
ELI5: Terminal Velocity

Why do we stop accelerating after a certain speed?

[Assistant] The force of gravity is (roughly, if you're close enough to the surface of the Earth) constant. The air resists you moving through it, however, and this force of air resistance increases with your velocity. There's a velocity where the force of air resistance is the same size as the force of gravity; the net force on you is then zero, so you don't accelerate. This velocity is called terminal velocity.


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

[User]
ELI5 why do spotted lantern flies need to be killed?

I know theyre invasive, but what exactly does that mean? What do they do that makes them need to be killed?

[Assistant]
Theyre invasive meaning that they arent naturally from the area. Spotted lantern flies are from Asia.

Because of that, they dont really have natural predators in the USA that keep their numbers in check. There ARE animals that will eat them, but they still spread rapidly. And on top of that, that can cause major infestations that severely damage and kill plants or even structures.

So if you take the time to kill them and destroy their egg masses in the fall when you see them, you are helping keep them in check.


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

[User]
[Sword Art Online] Why are VRMMORPGs still so popular after the SAO incident? Was there no legislation put into place?

That crazy dev trapped like ten thousand people in his game and caused thousands of deaths. That must've been a massive international incident, so where was the political backlash against VR games? I mean there are still politicians convinced that conventional games kill, this would be adding a whole lot of ammunition to their stance if a few thousand people actually died because of a game.

[Assistant] If you pay attention they almost did fail. It was Kirito releasing the world seed online again that caused a resurgence. The seed made it possible for almost anyone to make a new VRMMORPG. That meant if you want a pony riding game you could make it nearly on par to SAO.  He basically released the blue prints/bones/structure/game engine. We also see the Amosphere come out that does not use microwaves, so it can't fry your brain.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does water especially in the beach looks blue when you gaze at it from a distance, but then turns somewhat green when you are near it, and then when you kinda scoop it the water turns white?

[Assistant]
Water is blue because it absorbs the other colors of light, reflecting the blue light to your eyes -- or Blue light penetrates water the deepest. First is absorbs the reds and oranges and ultra violet and violet, then the yellows and greens.

This is what you see at the macro-level when you view the ocean from far away.

As you get closer, and see water that is closer to shore, there isn't enough water to absorb those yellows and greens so this is what will cause that blue-green hue to start showing up.

When you scoop up a tiny bit of water, there really isn't enough water there to absorb a significant amount of light, which is why the water shows clear.


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

[User]
Sending the same email to all the authors of a paper?

Hello. While reading a research paper and I got some questions and I would like to email them to the corresponding author, however,  I thought that maybe asking all the authors will be more beneficial because I will get each one point of view, and also increase the chance of getting a reply. But, I am worried, how would they feel or react if they know that? What do you think if this happens to you? Thank you so much in advance.

Edit: Actually, there is no corresponding author for this paper, there are all the authors' emails.

[Assistant]
Don't send separate emails (if that's what you were suggesting). Just include all the addresses in one email.

Mathematics tends to be friendlier about these sorts of things than other fields. Other commenters here might suggest being more prudent about emailing authors, but honestly the authors wont mind.


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

[User]
CMV: What you post on Twitter, Facebook or YouTube is not protected by the 1st ammendment

I keep seeing people freak out over 1st ammendment violations for social media sites censoring content.

These are companies. If you went into McDonald's and started screaming conspiracy theories they would kick you out. Is that a 1st ammendment violation?

If you don't like it, post what was censored elsewhere.

Repealing laws that protect social media companies from liability against what their users post will have the opposite affect and will lead to much more censorship.

What am I missing here? The thought seems so widespread on both sides of the political aisle even. I get that they are major players in the way we receive information but there is nothing stopping people from going elsewhere or another company popping up to take over if people are really upset about the way they are handling things.

[Assistant]
Strictly speaking your title is wrong. The things you post on social media sites *are* protected by the first amendment. You cant be arrested, for example, for posting a fuck Donald Trump video or tweeting, I think Joe Biden sucks.

The things you post are indeed speech, and generally speech is protected. Like sure, you might be arrested if youre using Facebook to plan a criminal conspiracy and what not.


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

[User] [Star Wars] Are Nav computers basically Dune Guild Navigators? How does a computer know where all debris and planetoids are at all times to allow ftl travel?

[Assistant] Star Wars ships actually drop into hyperspace when going FTL. The danger isn't running into a physical thing, it's the gravity shadow of larger objects like planets. Smaller, unmapped debris don't have large enough gravity shadows to really matter.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do escalators have bristles on the sides?

[Assistant]
The bristles are called shirt brushes. The sides of escalators that the steps ride agenst are called scirts.  The scirts brushes are there to gently nudge your feet or any other part of your body away from the scirts.  That aria is varry easy to get a body part stuck in, and then sucked into the unit causing great bodily harm. in the trade escalators have a nick name of meat grinders. They do not care. They will suck you up in no time. That being said. Newer units have multiple safety switches to stop the unit wares older units do not. But they will still hurt you badly befor they stop. Always be careful and vigulant. Stay away from the sides and comb plates ( pokey thing at top and bottom the mesh with the steps usually yellow.)  Don't let you child play on them and don't take strollers walkers canes or crutches. If you are unbalanced use the elevator. If there's escalators there will be an elevator.

Tldr: the bristles are scirts brushes to kean you away from sides. They are there to help keep you safe.


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

[User]
If you sleep with no alarm clock, do you sleep the exact amount of time your body needs, or do you oversleep?

I've been wondering this for a while. I've always thought that your body was recharging energy when you were asleep and it automatically wakes up when you are 100% charged, but when I sleep with no alarm clock, I usually sleep 10-12 hours, so now I'm not so sure about this theory of mine.

[Assistant]
First off, there is no answer to your question. No offense, of course, it is a good question. I'll go into a bit of the basics for this one.

A disclaimer, sleep is a complex system that is still yet to be understood fully. In the few years I've been out of practice, some of the theories may have changed.

"How much sleep does your body **need**?"

If you think about it, how much sleep does your body need for what? What does sleep do in the first place? Firstly, to point out in your question, it is **not** to recharge energy. Your body is quite capable of those processes while awake (and asleep).

A few of the current known functions of sleep: Regrowth (healing), memory processing (memories are consolidated and organized).

Going off of these two functions.

How much sleep does your body need to heal? Well, this process still functions while awake, just slower, so technically none.

How much sleep do you need for memory processing? Who knows, there are so many questions to be asked. How many memories did you make? Were they vivid or redundant? Multiple small events or a big large one? How many other memories are associated with those events? We can't get a valid general-use answer from this function.

Further complications arise: Did you get a lot of bright light? How much did you sleep the night before? Did you use any brain altering drugs (eg caffeine)? Did you exercise? What did you eat? How is the weather? And the biggest, *who* are you (weight, age, habits, genetics)?

We have no real understanding of how much your body **needs**, we only have data and conclusions and averages and assumptions. A big question right now is "Why do we need sleep?"

Finally, making our way back to your question, "If you sleep with no alarm clock, do you sleep the exact amount of time your body needs, or do you oversleep?"

We can't know because, apart from not really knowing the question, assuming there was a finite sleep need, we cannot control the external variables well enough to find such an answer.

Now, to give you a basic answer related to this question.

There was a time when people had no alarm clocks. Your body is built to schedule sleep around nighttime. Two main components affect this, your circadian rhythm, and your need to sleep (not the previously mentioned sleep need = duration of sleep). On a consistent daily sleep schedule, this will normalize and you will sleep for relatively the same amount of time each night, sleeping and waking up at relatively the same time. There are many factors involved that can distort this. If the schedule is not consistent, then neither will the sleep be.

Let me know if you have any further questions or if anything was obscure.


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

[User]
[Lovecraft/SciFi] Are clone babies as good as regular babies for sacrifice?

I am a devote follower of Nyarlathotep, and wish to ensure a steady stream of sacrifices for the rainbow prince. I have access to a large array of clonevats that can produce a human neonate in as little as a day.

Are these clone babies as good for sacrifice as human-born babies? If not, how many do I need to sacrifice for it to be the equivelent?

[Assistant] Despite popular portrayals, the Great Old Ones do not actually care significantly about the fine details. Humans have no souls. They are protein. The symbolism of the act matters more to the human cultists than to Nyarlathotep itself.


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

[User] ELI5: How does a Javelin Rocket launcher track moving targets.

[Assistant]
> How does a Javelin Rocket launcher track moving targets.

It has an automatic infrared guidance system which locks on to a heat signature and will adjust the two rear fins in order to steer it toward the target.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do some websites (eg, USAtoday, Facebook etc) send my cpu into overdrive?

[Assistant] Unlike most websites you see Facebook isn't static. Static means that you download the contents of the page, and those do not change (like most news articles you read online, for example). However Facebook has a lot of code on its page that tries to keep the page updated in real time (downloading notifications, new wall posts and messages continuously). This is what uses probably uses your CPU.


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

[User]
[My Hero Academia] I could not care less about being a hero. I just went to a normal school and graduated. I just help people when I come across those in need. It just ever so happens my quirk is so good that I easily rank among the top heros. Is there a downside to not going to a hero academy?

I dont do it for fame, or fortune. Nor is it my full time all day, every day job. Im getting really into the spotlight without even trying. People have dug into my past and have started to notice I never went down the hero academy path. Some people are saying I'm a liability because of this. But no one can argue with my results. Im not trying to be with an agency or anything. Will they try and stop me?

[Assistant]
So, what you're telling me is that you are unlicensed? A criminal vigilante?

You will either be arrested or you'll have to *become* a full time hero and they'll provide you with a license for your good deeds, depending on how successful, helpful and well-liked you are.


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

[User]
[Popeye] What do Popeye and Bluto even see in Olive Oyl, let alone fight over her?? Shes not attractive, not rich, not particularly skilled, and doesnt even have a pleasant personality!

I can only surmise one possible advantage..

[Assistant] Well, one of them is a giant, drinking, sociopathic rapist and the other is a one-eyed, bowlegged, swollen arm mutant with a speech impediment. If you ask me, the better question is "what does Olive Oyl see in *them*?"


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

[User]
I believe that there is ultimately little difference between the dangers of government power and the dangers of corporate power, and that both act in the interests of a privileged minority. CMV

Due to the large overlap in population and revolving door between wealthy corporate interests and government institutions (including elected officials, unelected bureaucrats, etc), I believe that corporatism and state control cause the same degree of negative effects and are equally dangerous to the vast majority of people who are not part of the wealthy elite.

In the United States, we are presented with a false dichotomy between right-wing "corporatists" and left-wing "statists", when both sides represent entrenched, powerful interests. The interests of both sides (corporations and government entities) are similarly at odds with those of the majority of the population, and in many cases the corporate interests and statist interests are literally the same people with the same agendas.

It is often argued that the role of democracy is to ensure that government works toward the common good, but this ignores an important fact: everyone has one vote, but some people have one vote and billions of dollars with which to influence government. Government will inevitably serve the interests of those who have one vote and billions of dollars over those who just have one vote.

The American right argues that state intervention in the economy and society as a whole is often immoral, unfair, and damaging -- I think this is correct. The American left argues that corporations have the same negative effects, and I think this is correct as well.

I think that the primary cause of this problem is the incestuous relationship between corporations and government ("K Street"), but I also think that further regulations on government behavior to limit this kind of corruption would be necessarily ineffective, due to the intrinsic connection between wealth and political power.

I am most familiar with American politics, so those are the examples I have used here, but I don't think this problem is uniquely American. I would like to be convinced that there is a way that we can limit this destructive tendency, but I cannot envision a way that this can be done (at least not without having hugely destructive effects on the rest of society). At the minimum, it would be helpful if I had a reason to believe that one threat or the other was greater, so that I could choose a "side" to try to make things better. Please CMV.

[Assistant]
Ultimately, what *is* the  difference between Government and Corporates?

The first has a monopoly right of physical force - they have police, an army.

The second does not.

You may be right about incestuous relationships, vested interests, corruption blurring who is who. But in the end, it's the government that holds the gun. In the end, a corporate must trade value with value with it's customers.

But there is no such compulsion, such necessity to trade value for value if you are holding a gun.

The government is by far the greater threat.

Which of these corporates, in particular, have hugely destructive effects on society? The problem is, you can't tar them with the same brush. Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook have been forces for *good* in the world, largely without government help, except mostly for the one help the government is meant to provide them, protection from theft. They aren't Enron, Leyman Brothers, AIG, Fannie and Freddie, companies which were in bed with the government, sharing some quasi  monopoly status.

The best solution is to get the Government out of the economics business - for the same reason the Government had to be separated from the Church (or thought business!): people should be able to share whatever thoughts they have, or trade any values they have, free from physical coercion.


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

[User]
What books should I read to learn how to take apart arguments better?

I want to know to be better at finding my own biases and and assumptions and other people's too, but since I have no one that wants to engage in debates over beliefs that are outside politics I wanted to read something like Discourses or books that state a methodology to analyse and take apart ideas and arguments.

[Assistant]
It also helps to learn by simply doing. Oftentimes, you don't increase critical thinking or reading comprehension by reading a book about critical thinking or reading comprehension. These skills simply "emerge" out of close engagement with good work. Try reading any good work of philosophy, and then working out what exactly the claims are. You can even post here, and more experienced philosophers will help guide you if and when you go wrong. (It may also be helpful to read papers that were written more recently.)

For example, you can read something like Shelly Kagan's "What's wrong with speciesism?" to see if you can figure out what the thesis is. You can do the same with a paper like Susan Wolff's "Moral Saints". Try to see if you can distill the thesis down to a single proposition. Or, try Sharon Street's "In Defense of Future Tuesday Indifference". Really try to figure out what the essential claims and argumentative strategies are.


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

[User] ELI5: why does the Ethernet cable from the router to the modem need many conductors when the coaxial cable from the modem to the "Internet" only need 1(plus sheath)?

[Assistant]
Coaxial cable carries the same radio-frequency signals that otherwise could go through the air. Channeling the signal through the cable is just a more efficient means of transmission. The cable company's transmitter is similar equipment to a TV or radio station, just with less amplification. For uploading, the modem on your end does the same.

Radio frequency means that the transmitter mixes the signal with a carrier wave, and the receiver extracts the signal using the same carrier wave. Many signals can be carried on different carriers on the same cable, but they need expensive equipment to combine all their customers' signals, and you need a somewhat expensive modem to extract your particular signals from the mix. You wouldn't want to need a cable modem in every internet-connected device.

Ethernet is designed to run for shorter distances, and to connect to simpler, cheaper circuits. Only one data stream can be carried at any moment, and the router divides time on the cable between your different devices. The usual transmission protocol is called 1000BASE-T:

* **1000** is the total capacity in megabits per second (Mbps).
* **BASE** stands for baseband, as opposed to radio-frequency. The signals are carried as digital pulses of varying voltage, not mixed with a carrier wave. So no modem is needed.
* **T** stands for *twisted pair*, as opposed to coaxial. Coaxial geometry is higher quality, so it could be used just as well, but when wiring an office building one wants to avoid the expense.

OK, so both systems send signals over pairs of conductors. Why does Ethernet use 8 conductors instead of 2? Really, just because of tradition. In the old days, you could put four phone lines on four twisted pairs, and the wires and connectors for this became commonplace.

Today, four pairs carry four times the data as one pair, which is good because 1000 Mbps is a lot of information. The preceding standard, 100BASE-T, only relied on two pairs, potentially leaving half the cable unused. Essentially, 8 conductors instead of 2 is just the difference between having 1000BASE-T and having "250BASE-T" (not a real thing).

---

TL;DR: Coaxial cable allows sending signals to different customers simultaneously. It can do this because it is higher-quality and more expensive. Common "ethernet" cables have the same number of conductors as the pre-ethernet cables they evolved from. But the extra conductors do help to improve their capacity.


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

[User]
[WH40K] Is there pacifist superpowers in the universe?

Greetings.

I would like to know, because my knowledge of this universe is not that vast, is there a race or party with high enough military, political, technological and economical power that would survive while not conquering the galaxy? And if not, who comes closest to this? (I personally thought about Tau, because they have immense amount of different xenos under their influence serving The Greater Good, but they still want to rule the world, so they are out).

[Assistant]
The Old Ones were pretty chill until they were wiped out in the War of Heaven.

Unfortunately given the numerous tides of Tyranids, Orks, and Chaos forces few peaceful empires exist. Even the Tau often resort to hostile takeovers once they gain a foothold.


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

[User] ELI5: If the universe is expanding, does that mean that I, as an individual, am expanding as well?

[Assistant]
No.
Galaxies are getting farther away from each other, but your atoms and molecules keep at the same distance from each other.
The same goes for celestial bodies: they aren't getting bigger, just farther from us. It's just the space between them that is increasing.


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

[User]
do young children behave or think differently after they become conscious?

is there a change in cognition after a young child starts to form long term memory? popularly known as the moment you become conscious at about age 4 or 5. is this a significant moment in brain development?

[Assistant]
There is no evidence of consciousness beginning at a specific age.

It likely starts once the brain is formed and continues to develop over time.

The brain reaches peak development around age 27.


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

[User]
Why does cold water feel, or seem to feel, so much colder than cold air? Why does 50F water seem so much colder than 50F air?

I can walk outside in a pair of shorts and a t-shirt when its 50F outside just fine, but when I get in 50F water, I feel like I'm going to die.

Thanks gang.

[Assistant]
This has to do with conduction, or how quickly heat can transfer through a material.  Both air and water are touching you, and in both cases, they're leeching the heat from you - so the real question is why are some materials better thermal conductors than others.

This can be solved by a version of the First Law of Thermodynamics,  given as:

Energy to heat an object =  Mass(Specific Heat)(Change in Temperature)

Specific heat capacity is a material property of all materials (defined as the amount of energy it takes to heat some unit mass of the material by one degree C), and this multiplied by the mass of the mass of the object gives you the thermal mass.  That's essentially "how much energy does it take to heat up this thing."  Multiply it by the change in temp, and you have your total energy to heat.

This is important because water has a higher specific heat capacity than air, so it absorbs more heat.  Due to another material property, called thermal conductivity, it takes that heat and dissipates it across the rest of the water that isn't touching you.

So, this answer really has 2 parts:

* Water takes a lot of energy to heat up, and

* There's usually a lot more water nearby than there is of you, so it absorbs heat from you very quickly until (eventually) you and all the water you're in contact with are at the same temperature.

Air takes less energy to heat up, because it weighs less and has poor thermal conductivity.  It doesn't absorb as much energy as water, and once it does, doesn't distribute it to nearby air nearly as well as water dissipates heat.


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

[User] Why can every carnivore ear meat raw but humans need to cook it first?

[Assistant]
Humans eat raw meat. Ive had steak tartare, raw fish and raw oysters among other raw foods.

Cooking kills germs and other pathogens in raw meat making it safer.  Many carnivores are immune to those pathogens.

Cooking is also supposed to break down the proteins and requiring less energy to digest the meal.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do torrent websites keep track of the seeds/peers of each torrent?

For example the pirate bay, you can filter results to show a torrent that has the most seeds etc. do they scrape the data for each torrent every time you search? Or do this periodically? For example if all the peers dropped from a torrent, you wouldn't want it to still show on the site as having lots of peers.

[Assistant] So a torrent has seeders (people who have the whole file and are actively sharing it) and leechers (typically people who download more than they upload). The collection of the seeders and leechers is called a swarm. Different torrent sites use a tracker to organise the swarm. The tracker is what detects the number of people seeding and leeching. So when you open a torrent your computer talks to the tracker and tells it which torrent you're after (downloading), or you tell it that you're ready to upload for someone (seeding).


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

[User] If you cut off a section of skin with a scar or mole on it, will the skin grow back without that scar or mole?

[Assistant] Likely cutting off a scar will lead to a different scar, but in the case of a mole, yes, the mole would be gone. Dermatologists will do this to skin moles if you ask them to, or if they feel the moles to be a risk for skin cancer. Even when a trained dermatologist does the procedure, however, scarring does usually occur.


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

[User]
ELI5: When a person dies of starvation, what exactly happens in the body?

Specifically what kills the person?

[Assistant] Most victims of starvation die of dehydration. when the body is starved of nutrition the stomach starts wasting away (Atrophy) weakening the perception of hunger and thirst. Combine this with diarrhea and organ failure and you have a solid case of dehydration.


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

[User] ELI5: how does breaking someone's neck supposedly kill them immediately?

[Assistant]
When your neck breaks near your skull, three things happen - you can't move, you stop breathing, and your body loses the ability to control your heart. While you're not technically dead *yet*, you're close enough to it (the action/kung fu movie trope of a person slumping lifelessly to the ground), and *will* be dead shortly thereafter without medical attention.

It basically happens because the 'wire' (spinal cord) that runs from your brain to the rest of your body, that tells it to move and keep living, is severed.


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

[User] ELI5: What the heck is an 'open source platform' for website building?

[Assistant]
Open Source is a phrase used to describe a methodology of software development. Instead of keeping the code closed and only allowing people use the software when it's assembled, they share the base code with everyone so they can work with it as well.

This inspires people to find bugs, security flaws, and bad features, then develop and submit their own fixes and improvements. Open Source software, if we'll used and popular, can be very security and full-featured, as well as kept up to date and modern.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do birds especially smaller ones like robins survive?

I have been watching my bird feeder today and couldn't stop thinking. This little bird flies from tree to tree to the feeder to get 1-2 sunflower seeds then flutters away to the far end of the yard. How many calories does a robin burn flying say 100 meters, and how many calories do they get from a single sunflower seed?

Bigger birds that glide most of the way makes sense, but smaller birds that have to flap their wings all the time I just can not make sense.

[Assistant]
Birds are incredibly efficient fliers, so calories matter more for keeping warm. They puff the feathers on their bodies trapping air and using their skin to warm it up. They also have lower body temperature than mammals do so less calories are needed to warm them up. They also, if flocking birds, huddle together for warmth, bask in the sun and find little holes to live in during the winter.

Birds like robins actually fly South so they end up in places that they can tolerate.


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

[User] [Marvel] Is Doctor Doom a more skilled sorcerer or scientist? Or is he equally skilled at both?

[Assistant] Sorcerer, if you're ranking them. He constantly seeks revenge against all the folk who out-science him (Mostly Reed Richards), but the field of magic-users is not as verdant and he's ALWAYS near the top in terms of skill and power.


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

[User] ELI5 - How can a food have an aftertaste? Why do some foods not have one?

[Assistant]
certain foods have molecules that "stick" in your tongue and taste buds better. spicy sticks well, so do oils.

mixing oil /fat into something is well known to preserve and transfer flavor better (think mayonaise or oil and vinegar in a sandwich.)


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

[User]
[TES] Why is gold used for everything? Are there no lower denominations of currency?

In TES games it seems that the only units of currency are gold coins. Are septims all solid gold coins? Why aren't there lesser denominations like silver or copper?

[Assistant] Different denominations do exist, and some coins (like those found in tombs) are quite rare due to their age. People who have no skill at merchantry, like you or the average adventurer, have no idea what their coins are worth and simply count the number they have. They just shove a pile onto the counter and say "is *this* enough gold for that steel longsword over there?" People with better merchant skills are a lot more precise when they barter for goods.


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

[User]
[Fallout] Why was there a dire need for oil?

Hey fellow wastelanders,
I read on a old library terminal that there was a huge war going on before the Atomic destruction. Mostly in Europe and the middle east. It stated that the main reason to fight was to gain control over the little oil reservoirs left in the world. But why did the fight over fossil fuels? I mean didnt they have fusion technology in almost everything? Or were there any other reasons?

[Assistant] I always assumed the reason it was so highly fought over is that the US was tight-lipped as fuck on their fusion tech. Therefor, the US enjoyed a relatively stable (Until the last decade or so before the war) fusion driven economy while the rest of the world suffered. Likely part of the reason China was desperate enough to invade.


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

[User] ELI5: Why can't we clench our fists or hold things tightly just after waking up?

[Assistant]
Not a biologist but:

While you sleep deeply your brain releases chemicals that dampen your ability to move (sleep paralysis).

If you were to wake up in, or close after, a deep sleep cycle this will impact your coordination and muscle control.

Your muscles have not been affected, it is your brains ability to make the muscle work that isn't up to par.


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

[User]
I believe that the pro-life stance is not mysogynistic. CMV.

I have no idea how common this feeling is, but i've seen a lot of people call anyone opposed to 'my body my choice' as being misogynistic/ against women. I think the thing that pro-life and pro-choice people disagree with is whether abortion is infanticide, and this is a valid debate to have and argue about, but calling everyone who disagrees with your view on that topic a misogynist is not productive.

My personal stance is that contraception and sex education are good, that terminating an emryo a few weeks after conception is fine, but that the longer you wait the more wrong it is, and at some point (possibly before 20 weeks, still not decided on that) it basically becomes infanticide. I'm still not sure where the line should be drawn, but I don't think it's just 'when can it survive by itself if it was prematurely born right now'. I'm not sure if i count as pro-life or not. either way, i used to definitely be pro-life, and i find it very disingenuous for the pro-choice advocates to start calling the other side misogynists and treating it like it's completely obvious that it should be fine and anyone who disagrees is crazy.

The question of when you should count as a person/ when it is okay to kill is not a scientific question, it's a philosophical/ moral/ ethical question. Sure science can be used to help inform your decision, but you shouldn't treat it like it can answer it by itself. There's nothing that science can say that shows it's objectively wrong to kill ANYONE, or do ANYTHING.

EDIT: added some details to my view and changed 'murder' to 'infanticide' since people are saying it has murder has a very specific legal meaning.

[Assistant]
If pro-life groups are truly concerned for the welfare of unborn children, we would expect them to:

* throw lots of money into birth control, so that fewer unwanted conceptions happen,

* support comprehensive sex education for the same reason, and

* promote things like government welfare programs and paid maternity leave, so fewer women feel pressured into aborting.

Pro-life groups in fact do *none* of these things. The only reasonable conclusion is that they are not primarily concerned about the fetuses being aborted.


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

[User]
What is a monopoly?

Is youtube or google a monopoly since they have a huge market share in a market with a high entry barrier and they can set the "price"/standard of the market?

If I make a product and sell it only at one particular store, does that make that store a monopoly? or it depends on how substitutable  the product is?

[Assistant]
You're spot on with your second paragraph. Outside of academia, a large part of the practical work in applied microeconomics comes in antitrust disputes or merger control. In that context, market definition is key \[edit: and therefore assessment of substitution\].

For example, you could be deemed to have a monopoly in the supply of matches, but not in the 'market for fire-starting aids'. That would be defining the market based on the demand side, i.e. the thing consumers are really demanding in this example is an implement to start a fire, not a match specifically (although there may be some infra-marginal consumers who will only ever by Bic lighters instead).

You could also look at the supply side because while you may hold a temporary monopoly, your pricing might yet be constrained by the 'contestebility' of the market - the fact that others can easily enter and undercut your prices prevents you from acting as a monopolist might when supplying a product that is hard to manufacture. We refer to the latter as the 'barriers to entry' in the market.


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

[User] ELI5: Why are there more bans on Diesel engine cars rather than Gasoline engines?

[Assistant]
Diesel engines emit higher levels of particulate emissions that are harmful to humans.  This is pretty obvious when you see a heavily loaded diesel vehicle take off from a stoplight, belching out black clouds of smoke.

Diesel is actually a little better when it comes to CO2 and other greenhouse gasses, but worse at particulate emissions.


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

[User]
Scared about getting a job as a programmer.

Hello,

Working as a programmer is genuinely scaring me. I love solving problems and trying to find their best solutions, but when i think about getting a job as a programmer, i'm scared. Most of the jobs i see aren't really involve solving problems, but much more arguing with a language to make it do what you want. Take as an example Web Developers (i had an internship in a webdev company this summer, and this started my thoughts), to me it looks like they're spending most of their time writing solutions to problem they've already solved over and over. And if i think about jobs that actually involve solving problems i start to think about deadlines, having to write bad code on purpose to meet them and even to be irrepleaceable and get job stability.

This is definitely what i don't want to do, and i'm pretty sure it'll bring me in depression pretty quickly.

What i want to do, is spend my time solving problems, find new ideas, improve programs so they're easier to use, faster, lighter, without all the bullshit that most programs today bring with themselves.

I was thinking Academia could be my thing, but i'm not even sure if i'll be able to enter University, because as much as i'd want to, i don't really have enough money, and i don't even know what working in Academia really is like. But if i think i'd like it, i'm pretty sure i'd start doing something about the money.

So, what do you think that could be my possibilities?

[Assistant]
I really think you should try to attend university if you really want to pursue a career in the CS area. There are many scholarship and loan opportunities for those in a less than great financial situation.  University will help you discover the different types of careers.

Research may be what you're looking for but you won't get there in academia or business without a degree and likely a masters/phd of you really want to pursue research.


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

[User] [Musicals in general] I'm not a good singer. I can't match pitch to save my life. Am I doomed to a life of mediocrity where nothing important or interesting ever happens to me?

[Assistant]
You misunderstand.

If you *intentionally* go up onto a stage or in front of a microphone you will have a bad time.

What you need is a vocal coach and montage. It's a song that shows the passage of time, and you working at singing. At the end your singing abilities will be highly improved.


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

[User]
How come there is no cancer of the muscle or the heart?

I have never heard of biceps cancer or trapezius cancer. Doesn't cancer affect muscle cells?

[Assistant] In general, cancers are most likely to occur in tissues with cell populations that divide a lot over the lifespan of the organism. These include epithelial layers (skin, GI tract, breast, prostate) , blood cells, etc. Muscle and nerve divide much less frequently so cancers arising from these cell populations are very rare. You may be thinking, "then what about brain cancer?" Most brain cancers arise not from neurons themselves but from the supportive glial cells which divide more often.


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

[User]
Why does the central limit theorem work?

I asked a teacher, and his answer could almost be rephrased as "it is a general property of the universe".

[Assistant]
It works because the math works out (which is similar, although philosophically pretty different, to your teacher's answer).

It may help to think of the central limit theorem not as a property of every type of random variable, but as a property (in fact, the motivation for) the normal distribution.

Compare it to the Poission distribution.  It's not a coincidence that a Poisson distribution looks like a bunch of low-success-rate binomial distributions added together, because that's the motivation for the Poisson distribution.

Similarly, it's not coincidence that the mean of a bunch of iid random variables looks like a normal distribution, since that's precisely why the normal distribution is interesting.

It's still a bit surprising that this works for *any* collection of iid variables, but it's not really that surprising, because adding n and then dividing by n for large n tends to smooth out any weird distribution those variables may have.


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

[User]
Does the velocity of an object falling into a singularity exceed the speed of light?

Or more broadly, can gravity be used to accelerate something to a speed greater than the speed of light?

I might be misunderstanding how gravity works.

**edit for context** - *this question occurred to me while thinking about the possibility of masking the mass of an object temporarily so as to line up stars and make a giant gravity rail gun by masking and unmasking the masses of sequentially heavier stars.*

[Assistant]
Nope; nothing can be made to go from a speed less than light to one greater than light (or vice versa). Period. This is built directly into the structure of general relativity, which *is* our theory of gravity.

I'd note, though, that in such highly curved spacetimes, how you define velocity is a bit ambiguous in the first place, since distance and time are just coordinates which can be changed as you please. There are different answers to what the speed of an infalling object is depending on how you propose to measure it.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do they call the deliverer of unsent email the "mailer-daemon" ? What is it's origin? Is it just a name for some type of protocol? Or something else?

I'm talking about the auto reply emails that bounce back to you when sending emails to an address that no longer exists.

[Assistant]
A "Daemon" is computer program that runs as a background process. The Mailer-Deamon is a program that takes incoming mail and moves it to the recipient's folder. If a recipient cannot be found, the mailer-daemon send back a notice that the address is incorrect.

The term Daemon comes from Maxwell's demon, a hypothetical being from a thought-experiment by the famous physicist. Daemons are mostly a term used on unix (linux, solaris, AIX, etc) systems - windows uses the term "Services".


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

[User] Why haven't we created superior alternatives to turbines for electricity generation?

[Assistant]
To run an AC generator, you need some sort of varying magnetic field - and one of the easiest ways to do that is by spinning a set of magnets. Obviously, it's very easy to get your magnets spinning if you attach them to a spinning turbine. A turbine is also easier to maintain than, say, a piston-based system - it only has one moving part.

In short - it's simple and cheap, it works, and it's quite efficient.


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

[User]
[Star Wars: Revenge of The Sith] Why does Obi Wan leave stealth and jump right behind Grievous while a ton of droids are clearly protecting him? And it's not like he jump ON TOP of Grievous, just behind him. Arrogance or calculated risk?

I just thought it was a bit weird. It's something I'd expect Anakin to do and Obi Wan to reprimand him for doing so. Yet, in here, Obi is the one doing it. It seems like a REALLY bad idea it seems kind of foolish for a Jedi Master, no matter how skilled they are, especially Obi since he was sort of the more level-headed between him and Anakin.

And as I mentioned, Obi Wan didn't even use the stealth to, you know, land a stealth attack. He just landed behind Grievous and even announced his presence. Just, why?

[Assistant]
Obi Wan jumps down on General Grievous, killing him with a precise strike. Five hundred droids open fire upon him, killing him quickly with overwhelming fire.

Or...

Obi Wan announces his presence and Grievous duels him one-on-one, meaning the droids would not dare risk firing upon their commander. Meanwhile Obi-Wan could ensure the battle moved elsewhere by the time he won. Meanwhile the droids are without their leader.


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

[User]
[The Hunger Games] How would events have played out differently if Katniss hadnt volunteered for her sister?

I know this will be mostly speculation, but Im rereading the series, and its something Ive been thinking about a lot.

[Assistant]
her sister dies

katniss is sad

overwhelmed by grief she never leads a revolution, just stays at home depressed living her grim peasant life mourning her sister, retreating from human contact.

she's found at the end of a rope age 35.


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

[User]
[LotR] Exactly how fast is Shadowfax?

This old bloke with a pointy hat just stopped by my village for water riding what he called "the Lord of all Horses", then zipped off towards halfling country.
My donkey Bessie can manage quite the trot, but this Stallion was something incredible!
For storytelling posterity, how speedy is that horse?

[Assistant]
He managed to make the approximately 500 miles between Dol Baran (south of Isengard where the camp was made after the confrontation with Saruman) to Minas Tirith between the night of March 5/6 and dawn of March 9 while only traveling at night. This averages at around 10 or 11 miles per hour, but that's still an amazing endurance race over that time period.

It's also around 130 miles from Dol Baran to Edoras and that distance is covered in that first night of riding. Camp was made about 10 PM and if we assume that Pippin and Gandalf leave at around midnight, that leaves around 6 or 7 hours until dawn when they reach Edoras. That's an average speed of ~20 MPH, but again that's an endurance race, not a sprint.

There are endurance races for horse riding and an exceptionally good time for a 100 mile race is 10 hours. So, over a shorter distance than that first stage of Gandalf and Pippin's ride, the best "normal" horses average half their speed with the averages getting closer as we get to around 5 times the distance over many consecutive days, which normal horses would not be able to maintain.


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

[User] [Primer] Abe and/or Aaron release open-sourced instructions to their boxes on the Internet; what sort of chaos, advancement, or regulations will result?

[Assistant]
The government will probably become involved immediately.  All of the materials will be added to some sort of government watch list as well as a raid on storage facilities which are drawing similar amounts of power as the original box.  Any site hosting the instructions will probably get shutdown pretty quickly.  Abe and/or Aaron would be recruited into some sort of government agency to further explore the effectiveness of time travel.

Of course, once it's on the internet any number of people can download it and have it locally on their computers.  People will be a lot more reckless than Abe and Aaron.  Hopefully, only people who are aware of the intricacies of the time travel would be able to actually build their own.  Bookies will probably have to stop taking any bets after 6 hours before the end of an event.  The stock market would have to make some adjustments to how trading is done.

The real problem is the idea of alternate timelines.  Especially when there are multiple boxes in the same universe.  If two cycles overlap then multiple new timelines are created.  People would most likely be oblivious to it, but some scientist/engineer/mathematician will probably attempt to find a way to mess this up and cause something terrible to happen.

So worst case scenario, the universe ceases to exist.  Best case, the world adjusts to the new time traveling paradigm and only a select group of people will prosper during the adjustment time.   It will start to get interesting when people try and improve on the box.  Especially when it's in the hands of the government.