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

[User]
[Star Wars ROTJ] Why did everyone get all somber/scared during the mission briefing when Mon Mothma said the Emperor was personally overseeing the final construction of the DSII?

Because he's old and creepy looking?

Because he's reputed to have mystical powers?

Because he's the big boss and this is a chance to take him out?

[Assistant]
Because they knew without a doubt that his presence there would mean that their job would be much more difficult.  Everyone there fully understood that this was an all-out, do-or-die effort.
Think about how starship battles work.  Just about every ship is capable of escaping into hyperspace with only a few moments notice.  Bigger ships might take longer to line up to the route, but they can generally tank the beating they might be taking.  Full scale battles with heavy losses on both sides are very rare.  The rebels jump in, smash up a few targets before things get too hairy, and jump out again as the empire brings in reinforcements.  That's how 99% of the battles of the galactic civil war were fought, and the rebel fleet was *good* at it.  They had fast, small, nimble ships, excellent plots, and usually had surprise on their side.
The fight they were heading in to wasn't going to be like that.  They knew that they were going to have to stay and go toe to toe with whatever was waiting for them at Endor.  They were already planning to accept heavy losses, since even if their efforts to distract the imperial fleet were successful, there would be a force in orbit that would be stronger than just about anything they had encountered before.  And that was *without* the emperor.  *With* his presence, it probably felt like they were planning an attack on a military parade.


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

[User]
ELI5: What is the difference between theory and law in science?

For example: theory of relativity and law of gravity.
I googled this but answer wasnt clear to me.

[Assistant]
In science a law is a **description** of an observed phenomenon. Often this takes the form of a mathematical equation describing the relationship between observed phenomenon.

A theory in contrast is an **explanation** of why a phenomenon exists or what causes it. They run the range of completely untested guesses to enormously supported explanations accepted by basically everyone as correct; there is no "graduation" from one thing to another via consensus or evidential support, a theory is always a theory no matter how well or little it is accepted.


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

[User] ELI5: How does a firefighter lighting a backfire help stop a fire and how does that fire not go out of control?

[Assistant]
When a home is on fire there are usually large sources of water nearby, like a fire hydrant, or the ability to call for tanker trucks for additional water.

Wildfires are not that way, remote often far from roads or too difficult to being large tanker trucks. So wild fires are rarely fought with water except in certain situations. With a wild fire you stop the fire by removing the fuel. Use workers with hand tools, bull dozers and other heavy equipment to clear the grass brush and trees.

Once you've created a fire break, and cleared as much brush as possible, a second back fire that's hopefully burning into the wind and not with the wind is set. By burning into the wind it's a smaller slower fire that burns all the fuel that the uncontrollable wildfire would want. So when the wild fire gets there all the fuel is already burnt and the main fire dies out.


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

[User] What makes CRISPR better than other genome editing methods, and what makes it worse?

[Assistant]
Most gene editing methods take advantage of local DNA repair mechanisms which are there to repair errors in DNA.  As you might expect, these mechanisms are more active when there is a problem with the DNA that prevents cells from reproducing, such as a break in a DNA strand.  CRISPR-Cas9 is useful because it allows people to create breaks in DNA strand that will cause DNA repair mechanisms to be upregulated.  To take advantage of natural DNA repair systems, we can insert a repair template that will get integrated in a targeted manner at the site of the break while it is being repaired.

Now of course, there were other ways to create targeted breaks in DNA before CRISPR was developed.  However, these methods were targeted by altering long proteins that binded to DNA in a sequence-specific manner.  The disadvantage of those methods was altering such long proteins was more laborious, so if you wanted to target a lot of different things it took much longer and was more expensive.  Also, those other methods tended to be less efficient at breaking DNA, so you have to screen sometimes thousands of cells before you would find one that got edited.  CRISPR is much more effective, and is easier to target due to only needing to change a few dozen bases in a targeting guide RNA sequence, which can be done quickly and cheaply.

One disadvantage of CRISPR-Cas9 is that while most of the DNA you want to target can be whatever sequence you want, the proteins have evolved to require a short sequence of DNA next to the target be a pre-determined sequence, such as NGG for the most common Cas9 protein.  This limits where you can target, and if there is no sequence nearby where you want to edit, then the efficiency will be much lower.

Another disadvantage is the sequences guide RNAs target are only around 20 bases long, which gives less specificity than other methods, which can target regions of around 40 bases and higher. This means you'll have more instances of cutting DNA that wasn't intended to be cut but looks kinda like the region you were interested in cutting.  However, there is a lot of research and engineering being done to reduce these off-target effects, so hopefully it won't be a real issue in the future.


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

[User]
Would it be unethical to establish an "authorship ring" if everyone actually contributed intellectually?

Suppose 3 friends who work in the same field (Avery, Billie, and Charlie) come to a mutual agreement: They agree to always include each other on papers related to their shared work. They discuss the projects, make suggestions regarding analysis and interpretation, and help each other write the discussion and introduction sections.

Would this be considered unethical for any reason? It seems to me like a great way to boost publication count, strengthen networks, and the "many hands make light work" principle.

[Assistant]
If all three authors contribute enough intellectually to the papers to merit authorship, then its not an "authorship ring", its a collaboration.

That said, there's a reason why (field dependent of course), people tend to value first-authorships (for grad students) and last authorships (for senior authors) over middle authorships.


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

[User]
CMV: Putting the word 'BREAKING' in a headline is meaningless and so the practice should be stopped.

This doesn't give any additional information about the topic being covered.

Some might say that this tells you the story is very recent. I disagree because:

A. You can find old articles that say 'BREAKING' in them.

B. Obviously if an article or video was published recently, the story is breaking.

Some might say this tells you the reporting is still preliminary, but that has been covered by the previous points I wrote. Besides, almost all news reports are liable to be changed - very few news stories remain static for long.

So, change my view: the word BREAKING in a headline is meaningless and there's no logical reason to continue doing it.

**Edit: I've awarded a delta for TV-related news. I can see how a 'breaking story' on TV could be important as it butts-in to existing programming. Written news (eg. website) is still a problem though.**

[Assistant] I think Breaking in terms of news means that its breaking up your programming. For instance, you might be watching a segment on the election, but at the bottom it says, Breaking: Biden falls off bike. This doesnt mean its new, it means its not part of the election programming, its breaking in or breaking it up and adding something unrelated thats important.


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

[User] If deep water is colder than surface water, then why does the water at the bottom of a lake not freeze before the surface water?

[Assistant]
A few key things to keep in mind:

    - Nearly all heat transfer to/from a lake occurs at the surface
    - It takes increasingly more energy to mix water masses of increasingly different temperatures
    - The maximum density of water occurs at 4 C
    - Less dense masses float on top of more dense masses

So, for a typical temperate, dimictic lake during warm summer months, the surface waters of the lake are much warmer and less dense than deep water.  The difference is usually so extreme that lake water becomes stratified such that the surface waters ("epilimnion") do not mix at all with the bottom water ("hypolimnion").  Moving into autumn, the epilimnion water begins to cool until its temperature equals that of the hypolimion.  When this happens, the lake water begins to fully mix and lake stratification disappears.  As atmospheric temperature continues to fall, moving into winter, the surface water of the lake continues to cool.  However, since water is most dense at 4 C, water at this temperature sinks to the bottom while *colder* water, which is less dense, floats to the top.  Lake stratification becomes reestablished with the coldest water in the epilimnion and warmer (4 C) water in the hypolimnion.  The surface of the lake eventually cools to below 0 C and freezes into a solid; however, water has a unique property in that its solid phase is less dense than its liquid phase.  Thus, ice floats on liquid water.  When the lake begins to warm throughout the spring, the epilimnion reaches 4 C and again mixes with the same-density water of the hypolimnion.  Upon continued warming, the surface waters -- which are now less dense than the 4 bottom water -- become once again isolated by lake stratification throughout the summer.

This is generally the case of most lakes, especially in temperate latitudes.  These lakes are named "dimictic" because they mix twice during the year.  There are many other mixing regimes for lakes and it all depends on their climatic setting and, sometimes, the chemical composition of their water.  Some lakes mix once ("monomictic"), some mix many times ("polymictic"), and some don't mix at all ("meromictic").


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

[User]
[LotR] Is Hobbit society self-sustainable?

Let me start by saying I'm not a book-reader, so everything I say might be completely wrong. But if the movies are to be believed, hobbits eat seven meals a day instead of three, they often socialize with their ales and "pipe-weed", and don't appear to be very industrialized at all.

The resources needed to sustain that sort of lifestyle for even a small to moderate sized population (I don't know how big the Shire is) are pretty staggering. Granted, their infrastructure appears to be almost entirely centered on farming/gardening, so maybe their food demand being met isn't 100% unrealistic. But if you and every other farmer or worker in the community is eating seven meals a day, it seems like you would barely be coming back from lunch break before it's time for "tea".

Any hobbit experts care to chime in?

[Assistant] Hobbits are tiny, if rotund. Hobbits probably eat half to three-quarters to that of an adult Man. Also, their meals may be disproportionately smaller spreading out that food over more meals. Also, they don't appear to have invested much by way of other types of infrastructure. They have no standing army, for example. They seem to be completely agrarian.


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

[User]
[Batman] How does Bruce Wayne use Wayne Enterprises to fund his expensive private projects if it is a publicly traded company?

Wouldn't independent auditors  or analysts eventually uncover what he is doing? Can we assume they must have found out by now how he is completely misleading his stockholders?

[Assistant]
(In most Batman stories) Batman is funded entirely through Bruce Wayne's own money. His sizable fortune left to him by his parents is more than enough to keep Batman equipped AND to keep his facade of a playboy billionaire afloat.

One thing to remember about the super rich is that they often hire huge staffs to handle various parts of their lives. Not just maids and butlers, but groundskeepers for their properties, mechanics for their expensive cars, secretaries and other personal assistants for business needs, etc. Bruce only has Alfred on some kind of regular payroll, so that's quite a lot of money saved each year. (I'd guess Wayne's prestige and some negotiated deals allows them to hire crews to handle maintenance on set schedules and for a hell of a lot less than a regularly-paid staff)

But still, his Batman-related spending is still carefully managed and disguised just in case people wonder about his spending sprees. But for the most part, people expect him to throw that kind of money around, so nobody bothers to look.


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

[User]
[DC] If I told a blue lantern to give me a ring and told him to "have hope in me", would it work?

The details if/after I get a ring don't matter in this scenario.

[Assistant] Technically Blue Lantern ring would function as long as it detects any sort of sincere hope in you - so  if Lantern in question actually inspires hope in you, the ring would work. However the qualifications to be a member of the Corps is to be able to inspire hope yourself, so if you're not cool enough you'd get only basic flight and protection out of the ring. And Blue rings are already gimped without Green synergy.


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

[User]
I see nothing admirable or desirable about having patriotism. CMV.

As a college student in the South, I see all these fraternities with their American flag shorts and "Back to back World War champs" bro-tanks and I just dont get it. I see nothing special in patriotism. What do I get out of flying a flag in my yard? Why is patriotism admirable?

[Assistant]
You can be a patriot and love your country like the southern rednecks that you're seeing, that only see "WE'RE NUMBER 1!!!" and an MURICA'!

Or, you can be a patriot and love your country like a parent loves their child, they acknowledge their flaws and work with them to improve.

patriotism is what you make of it in this case.


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

[User] What do you wish you knew about Grad School admissions during your undergraduate years?

[Assistant] Find a way to talk about your research interests, even if theyll probably change. Focus your personal statement on your research interests and why theyre important. If you can do that, not only will grad school admissions be easier, but your time as a grad student will as well.


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

[User]
[Terminator Series] POV scenes

Just a couple of questions which I sometimes wonder about the Terminator POV scenes. I'm thinking mainly of the POV scenes in T1 and T2, as they're more conceptually tight, and the later films seem to use POV as more expository.

1) Are the Terminators gaining information from the screen in the same way we are? If I see a face, for example, information about its emotional state is, so to speak, phenomenologically embedded and "flavours" the perception, rather than me having to read off that it's "angry" or whatever. I often wonder, if Terminators are self-aware or conscious, whether they just "know" certain things as part of their software without having to literally read it off of a visual display.

2) Why are there no POV scenes of the T-1000? Does it have a visual display at all?

3) What are all the random numbers displayed on the side of the T-800 screen?

4) Isn't it a pretty massive disadvantage that the T-800 sees everything as a shade of red (i.e. it has an apparently extremely limited colour vocabulary)?

[Assistant] The visual display we see isn't the Terminator's main perception.  Terminators just gather data from the sensors and use it directly.  What we're seeing is legacy code that's producing a sort of diagnostics screen originally meant for human operators to understand what the early hunter-killers were doing.  Skynet hasn't had a need to eliminate that bit of code yet, so you can still take a peek at it.


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

[User]
[harry potter] Why didn't Voldemort go to the ministry to get the prophecy when he could enter so easily and be unseen at the end of Order of the Phoenix?

several Ministry-employed Death Eaters enter the Department of Mysteries, so did a couple of Azkaban-escapees, notably the powerful witch Bellatrix Lestrange.

So if Bellatrix Lestrange and her husband were able to secretly enter the Department of Mysteries undetected, what was stopping Voldemort from doing so?

[Assistant]
Only those who the prophecy mentioned can remove the prophecy from the shelf, that that means only Harry Potter and Voldemort.  He cannot just send one of his Death Eaters to do it.

Voldemort at that time was still trying to hide the fact that he has returned while he was still gathering his forces.  Showing up at the Ministry to remove it himself, if it was witnessed by any of the many employees there, or if he left any trace that could have been linked to him, then the world will know he had returned, as was what happened at the end of the book.  So that leaves Harry the only one who could do it.

This is why Voldemort had to trick Harry into getting the prophecy off the shelf while sending his Death Eaters to fetch it from him.  Some of the Death Eaters are employees themselves so they have an alibi for being there.  As for the others, it can just be explained as the escaped convicts acting on their own, just as the public believed Sirius was in the third book.  It was only when the Death Eaters failed so badly that he risked losing most of his more powerful followers, that he was forced to show up to rescue them.


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

[User] [X-Men] How If their enemies of the government, how did the X-Men and Professor X get so much money?

[Assistant]
Prof X got his money the old fashioned way.  He inherited it.  Oh, and an alien Girl Friend gave him a lot of high tech presents.  And east has invented a lot of stuff.

They're not really "enemies of the government".  They're persecuted by bigoted government officials.


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

[User] What does Ricoeur mean when he says: understanding takes place in a non-psychological and properly semantic space?

[Assistant]
It is important to note in this section of the present work (*Interpretation Theory: Discourse and the Surplus of Meaning*) that Ricoeur is contesting the psychologizing interpretation of Romantic hermeneutics such as one sees in Schleiermacher, who proposed that a reader must understand an author better than the author understood herself  in other words, Ricoeur is challenging the idea that one must gain a God's eye view into the author's mind in order to extricate the meaning of a text, which, in this view, is equated with 'authorial intention.'

It might be helpful to set your quote within its immediate context:

>"In conclusion, then, there is a problem of interpretation not so much because of the incommunicability of the psychic experience of the author, but because of the very verbal intention of the text. The surpassing of the intention by the meaning signifies precisely that **understanding takes place in a nonpsychological and properly semantical space**, which the text has carved out by severing itself from the mental intention of its author."

(*Interpretation Theory*, 76)

The intention of the author  the 'psychological space'  is irretrievable in any absolute sense, hence one works with the relative "semantic space" which is "carved out" in the form of a text.

Ricoeur does propose that historical-critical data do aid in interpretation  by narrowing down the possible range of meanings  yet he does not believe that authorial intention  to the extent that the reader may grasp it in any relative sense  closes the interpretation of any given text; the simple fact of the existence of the text, its being set in graphic (rather than spoken) semantics, opens it up to other possible interpretations. The possible range of meanings of a text, while both opened up and limited through historical-critical analyses, are not the exclusive property of authorial intention.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Was Qui-Gons Stab wound in Phantom Menace really that bad?

I know he died, but it seemed like such a small hole in a non-vital area. If we also consider the cauterization factor, it seems like he could have easily recovered from it.

[Assistant] It's not so much the area he was stabbed in, but the thing he was stabbed with and how he was stabbed. Cauterization works because the heat is only applied for a short amount of time, so only a small amount of tissue is damaged. That way the benefits of not bleeding outweigh the damage being done to the patient. But with a lightsaber, we are talking about an object hot enough to melt through thick blocks of metal in seconds, which is then left in Qui-Gon's body for a few seconds before being removed. Boiling water will give you third degree burns almost immediately when in contact with skin, and lightsabers burn much, much hotter than that. In all likelihood, his cause of death probably wasn't the stab itself, but rather his organs being cooked inside of him, or possibly a build-up of steam inside his body as the water in his torso boiled.


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

[User]
Is it morally justifiable to prefer luxury over charity?

I have no professional or academic background in the field of philosophy or ethics, but this question bugs me a lot:

I am a 17 year old white male living in Germany. I enjoy pretty much any advantage a human can hope for, I am healthy and my parents make a decent middle class living. I spend my time in school, studying, dicking off on reddit, drinking, you know the type, just to give you a little context to the question.

I recently bought a 150$ pair of headphones, pointless luxury, just because I can. This money could've saved lives. A ton of rice apparently costs 400-500 dollars, enough to feed families for months. If I buy a smartphone for the same price instead of donating the money, am I responsible for starvation and subsequent death? To what extent am I morally bound to help strangers over spending spending money on myself?

We (rightfully) praise firefighters, policemen, soldiers for protecting and saving individual lives because the stories appeal to us - but the distance and anonymity of far-away suffering silences our biological sense of empathy. African lives apparently have less inherent value than the ones close to us, close to our communities. Does that make us bad people?

On a related note, to complicate the question further: We spend a huge amount of resources to save the "weak but wealthy", it is not uncommon for cancer patients to receive treatment that costs a few thousand dollars a month just so they can live a little longer. Is it selfish of us to do this instead of saving hundreds of poeple? Is there a utalitarian or humanist consensous on the matter? Does acknowledging my moral shortcomings change anything about their nature? I don't think of myself as a horrible person, but laying things out like this, I apparently am.

Any thoughts on the matter are warmely appreciated.

[Assistant]
Just a small comment, then I'll let people who actually know something about normative ethics answer the rest. There are two interesting questions in here:

> Is it morally permissible to prefer X to Y? (The question in your title).
> Is it morally permissible to do X rather than Y? (The question your post asks).

These are both interesting questions, but they should be carefully distinguished.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does food that is bad for people taste good, while food that is healthier tastes worse?

[Assistant] Our bodies instinctively like foods with high energy contents: fats, oils, and sugars. It's a survival mechanism that isn't really helpful any more. Cavemen who ate animal fats and oils tended to live longer through the cold winters than the cavemen who ate kale. We've evolved to favor the foods that would keep us alive longer.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do rough tires grip the road better than smooth ones? Wouldn't smooth tires give more surface contact, and therefore more friction and better grip?

[Assistant] No... Smooth tires grip better than textured ones. Your intuition is correct. NASCAR, Indy car, and other race cars use smooth tires. Road tires use tread because the real world isn't a perfectly maintained race track. We normal drivers have to worry about rain, sand, oil, etc. The tread helps with those as the expense of not giving you perfect road contact, which really, most cars don't need.


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

[User] [Batman] What does Bruce do for fun ?

[Assistant]
I feel like this question should be split in two.

First, what kind of recreation does Bruce Wayne do? And the answer to that is generic billionaire playboy stuff. Hang out with supermodels on his giant yacht, go to expensive dinners and high class parties, exclusive clubs and operas.

Second, what kind of things does Bruce Wayne enjoy doing? And the answer to that is much shorter: being Batman, although it's debatable as to whether or not he actually enjoys doing that.


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

[User]
[ELI5]Why is it cold during summer further up north if over there the sunlight lasts longer?

I try to think of how earth would be positioned, and doesn't the fact that the day last longer somewhere mean that that part is actually closer to the sun?

[Assistant]
The reason it's cold in the north, even in summer, is about the angle that the sunlight hits the earth. Far north the sun is in the sky for a long time but it never gets very *high* in the sky. In the far north the sun barely gets up over the horizon for much of the day. The sunlight is shining on the earth there sideways instead of straight down, so it's the same amount of energy spread out very thinly over a large area, and it doesn't heat that part of the world up very much.

    ___
        `   <----- Rays here are spread over a wide area
          \
    Earth |   <----- Rays here are striking head-on                                    (Sun is over here)
         /
    ___-

Edit: Also physical distance to the sun doesn't make any real difference. The sun is so immensely far away that even moving closer to it by the diameter of the earth would have basically no effect.


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

[User] ELI5: Why some files are archived into like 40 .rar files instead of just one.

[Assistant]
Intro that explains how pirated things work. If you arent interested, you can skip to below the line.

It has to do with the "Scene". The "Scene" is basically where everything pirated originates from. It is a collection of servers(often called "topsites") and groups of people. Those groups crack games, pirate films, music, etc and then upload them to a topsite(or more). The result of their effort is called a "release" and it usually named like this

Battleship.DVDRip.XviD-DoNE

First goes the name of the material(movie/game/whatever), then the type(dvdrip xvid) and then the name of the group who made it(DoNE). The scene has specific rules regarding the way you can name a release, how you encode it, the file size, etc. From the topsite, the release leaks to other high quality private trackers and dc++ servers(the main uploaders of those sites usually have "scene access") and eventually reaches public trackers like thepiratebay. On their way to the public tracker, those releases are often renamed, unrared and sometimes even reencoded(which lowers the quality of the film).

----------------------------

The Scene uses ftp servers. Ftp doesnt the same kinda of mechanisms that bittorrent has to secure file integrity, therefore the scene has some rules about how your release should be. Also remember that the groups are often racing against time. They want to release their stuff before other groups so they get the credit. Only the first group "wins" and gets the credit. So as long as there isnt anything wrong with the release(it isnt nuked), other groups cant release the same thing(though they can release it as internal).

The rules say that your release should have a hash file(.sfv) that makes it easier to check that your release was uploaded without getting corrupted. Files can often get corrupted, especially when we are talking about really fast transfers to multiple servers. The multiple rar rule comes in useful in the case your release got somehow corrupted, since instead of having to reupload the entirety of your release, you only need to reupload the corrupted individual rar file.

If a warez you found is in a single rar, then it probably isnt "scene" or most likely, it was a scene release repackaged by someone. Personally i strongly release to only download scene releases, preferably from a private tracker since this greatly increases your safety and decreases the chance of downloading a malware.

TLDR : Multiple rars exist so it can be easier to fix a corrupted release.


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

[User]
[Iron Man] How would Tony Stark have turned out if Howard was a great father?

I think a big part of the person he is today is because of the person his dad was towards him.

"He was cold, he was calculating. He never told me he loved me. He never even told me he liked me, so its a little tough for me to digest when youre telling me he said the whole future was riding on me and hes passing it down. I dont get that. Youre talking about a guy whos happiest day was when he shipped me off to boarding school."

But let's say Howard was the same person towards everyone else, but was different towards Tony. If he placed the same expectations on Tony (so he'll be at the same level of intelligence in canon) , but showed fatherly love and encouraged him to be the best he can be ( but not overbearing)  instead of acting cold and belittling him, how different would Tony have turned out?

Would it have made a big difference in the MCU?

Canon:
After Tony just graduated from MIT.
Howard: Meh.

AU:
 After Tony just graduated from MIT.
Howard: Congratulations son! Im so proud of you , I knew you could do it!

[Assistant]
It might not. It's possible that an affectionate Howard would simply fuel Tony's nascent egomania and make him feel invincible at a younger age, which could make his adult attitude even worse. There are many examples where doting/oblivious wealthy parents stand up for their terrible children even against common sense or the law. Tony is also the kind of person who often overlooks the best parts of his life until he loses them or almost loses them. So if Howard had an opposite personality, then Tony might have interpreted it as a negative in his life/an overbearing parent and started acting out, thus becoming his older persona as an act of sad misguided rebellion.

But in the end, it's rather difficult to predict an entirely alternate lifetime.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do movie theaters charge the same price for all movies? Wouldn't it be a better business model to vary the price based on demand?

For example, a movie can have a rating based on hype, time since release, projected ticket sales, etc. Like Tier A, tier B, tier C, etc.

Tier A (ex. Dark Night, LOTR midnight release) would cost the maximum at 10$, Tier B (Kids movie, lots of projected sales but not as much hype) would be 7$ and Tier F would be a crappy horror movie parody with a 2/10 rating for like 2$.

It would encourage people to watch a wider variety of movies and would boost sales for the movie theater in question. So why isn't this done already?

[Assistant]
There are studies on this by behavioral economists, apparently any indication that a company is responding to supply and demand makes the customer feel that the firm is acting unfairly, and there is nothing that irks a normal person more than unfairness.  Even those who might want to go see Jack & Jill for $10 when its $15 for The Hobbit, would rather go to a place where its $14 for all movies, because they won't feel ripped off, even if they actually are being ripped off.

More than that, if we have these two competing theaters, those who would ignore the 'unfairness' would simply only watch cheap movies at the variable priced theater and the relatively expensive ones at the flat priced one, i.e. they'll game the system.

You can read Kahneman and Thaler, 1986 if you want more info on the concept of perceived fairness.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is FIFA's corruption largely condoned?

American here. I don't understand how FIFA continues to get away with such horrible actions. Reddit just decided FIFA is basically an evil corporation, yet the world continues to deal with it. Is the honor of hosting the World Cup really so great as to warrant taking so much financial damage? Why can't football teams across the world decide to abandon FIFA and operate under a different company or in a different way?

[Assistant]
Better the devil you know than the devil you don't.

If a new football/soccer league started, first of all, not every team would join it over FIFA.  What we'd actually get is competition.  Say maybe 30% of teams join the New League (NL) and the rest stick with FIFA.  Now both companies are fighting for ratings, fighting to host the bigger tournament, etc.  The newer, smaller guy usually loses that fight.

And let's say that our NL wins; every team transitions into it, and FIFA is now defunct.... what then?  How do we know that it will be run any better?  Maybe 5-10 years from now, it'll be doing the same horrible and shady things we see FIFA doing now.

It's far easier to try to fix the current, broken league, than to try and beat it with a new league.


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

[User] What is NASA hoping to learn from sending a probe to The Sun?

[Assistant] So you've probably heard of stuff like solar wind and solar flares before; these types of events *can* effect the space environment around the Earth. Basically the sun can be rather unpredictable, and the Parker Solar Probe is meant to fly into the sun's outer atmosphere (the corona) to record extremely accurate and precise data regarding the solar environment and various solar events. This could help us as a society better forecast the changes in Earth's space environment due to the sun, as well as gather more data that could help explain the origin and evolution of solar wind. Hope that helps :)


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

[User] ELI5: Why do people spell words differently depending on countries? Like in America we spell it "armor " other people spell it, "armour." Same with color and colour and favorite and favourite and grey and gray.

[Assistant] This is because American English is kind of like a time capsule of older British English. Back in the early 1600s when America was settled, English used -or that came from Latin words. However in the mean time of the 1700 and 1800s British people decided they wanted to have French spellings which use -our for their French-derived words. America didn't change because it was much more detached culturally from the mother country than the commonwealth countries. This is also why Americans call the kicking sport "soccer" while the British and everyone else call it "football." *Soccer* was the original British term, but it was changed to *football* after America already got used to the original word.


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

[User]
ELI5 how are tall buildings drained when rain falls at an angle?

When rain falls at an angle and it hits the side of a building, where does the water drain? Given the volume of the rain that falls, is the water somehow drawn into internal drainage  via guttering all down the building or does it just sheet down to the ground?

[Assistant] It just slides down the outside of the building to ground level, at which point the same drains that cope with the rain that hasn't hit a building first deal with it. Just because it hit a building on its way to the ground doesn't change anything.


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

[User] [Half-Life] Did the Citadel 'arrive', or was it built in place?

[Assistant]
It arrived. Causing several city blocks to vanish in the process.

No one is quite sure how it happened anymore.

Rumors say that it was dropped down from space in one price and landed causing the chasmaround it.

However knowing what we know now of the combine's technology it was likely delievered via some huge dark energy portal which destroyed all the area around it.


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

[User] [The Lord of the Rings] Let's say the Army of the Dead didn't have to leave after the Battle of Minas Tirith, would Aragorn have used them to completely obliterate Mordor? Did Sauron have anything to counter them?

[Assistant]
In the movies, Aragorn had promised that he would release them from their oath after the fight. Breaking an oath in Middle-Earth can have dire consequences - the army of the dead were cursed for breaking their own vows, and Gollum was cast into the fire for breaking his oath to guide the hobbits without harming them.

If Aragorn had kept them in bondage, he would have paid for it. That payment could be his kingship. It could be victory in war with Mordor.

In the books, the army of the dead didn't physically harm the living. Instead, they drove the Corsairs from their ships in terror. Aragorn commandeered these ships to pick up reinforcements from Gondor's allies, arriving at Pelennor Field and flanking Suaron's forces from the rear. The army of the dead wouldn't be able to make much of a difference  in Mordor - beyond the Black Gate, Sauron's orcs would be far more afraid of him than some measly ghosts.


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

[User]
What to do if your senior dev just got fired?

I work on a small team as a Junior/Front-End/Intern.

Today the senior dev who got us the position got fired....

Some of the code that gets written for our applications gets written outsource, the Back-End gets written and managed by a in house dev and they also have an algorithms dev in house.

I would like to keep my job but because we don't have a senior Front-End anymore.... So our position if we are kept would be to work underneath the outsource team or if they hire another Senior dev (I doubt it).

I have enough experience to push on without him leading the team but sometimes there are bugs I don't know how to solve and also they will be looking for a team manager to build the version 2 of their application. (they have a few applications, the one I'm working on is in a framework I know but their main app is written in a different one that I don't have much experience with). The original plan was to rebuild the main app with the framework i'm comfortable with because React is great and Angular sucks... ;) and their version 1 is a pile of unusable garbage (quoting the senior developer)

Now I just want the job and am willing to learn Angular or what ever but I would like to push to use React and I would like advice on systems so that I can push code and work without occasional assistance from the senior dev.

[Assistant]
Guess the most important thing right now is knowledge transfer. I'd suggest:

1. Fix all your bugs yourself. Do not give up and hand them over to the senior. Consult them if you are absolutely stuck but not more. Yes that's painful but it's the best way to learn all the intricate details of a system.
2. Do not have the senior do any stories or similar on their own. Rather have the senior act as a consultant or pair programmer to someone else.
3. Documenting processes is also very useful. We recently formed a shared team out of multiple tiny component teams and one of the things we like to do is to actually write down flows we perform for certain administrative tasks that come up regularly (in our case for instance certain setup tasks that touch multiple systems). The next time that task comes up someone else performs it based on the documented steps, which acts as a good way of reviewing if something is unclear.

Other than that ... a lot of graduating from junior is simply "growing up" so to say - i.e. becoming more self-reliant in finding out things and becoming proactive in the whole development process (including how to set priorities).


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

[User] ELI5: How come we don't sneeze in our sleep?

[Assistant]
Because many neurotransmitters in your brain goes numb during sleep, and the ones controlling sneezing are one of them. So, it requires MUCH stronger stimulation to activate them during sleep. If you really needed to sneeze (like something obstructing your airflow), you would still sneeze, just the normal stimuli ignored during that time.

Basically, the same reason you don't realize your hand falling asleep, an ant walking on your skin or you being cold. If it doesn't cross the threshold, its ignored.


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

[User] [How to Train Your Dragon] Why does hiccup have an American accent if his dad has a Scottish one?

[Assistant] As they age and become more powerful vikings, their accent strengthens as well. Some stories tell of ancient warriors so old and powerful they were incomprehensible to even people from their own village.


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

[User]
Is sugar content higher in ripe vs. unripe fruit?

You have two bananas, one ripe, one green and unripe. The ripe banana will taste sweeter, leading me to believe it has more sugar, but I would assume both bananas have the same total calories.

[Assistant]
In the case of bananas, commercially produced bananas are almost always treated with ethylene gas which acts as a plant hormone that helps the fruit ripen (it's also responsible for the yellow colour). When this happens, enzymes in the fruit convert starch to sugar, which makes it taste sweeter and also makes the fruit softer.

So yes, the calories are the same, but the way you absorb and metabolize them will be different (starches vs. sugars).

Essentially ripening is a process where the walls of the fruit cells break down into various water-soluble sugars which makes the fruit squishier and sweeter.


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

[User]
Jet engines have been increasing their size to increase bypass ratio. What about miniaturizing the core instead?

Jet engines have been getting larger and larger to achieve higher and higher bypass ratios in the quest for efficiency.

However, this has resulted in issues like how the CFM LEAP on the 737 MAX had to be moved, resulting in CoG and CoL changes that necessitated the MCAS system.

What about making the core smaller, or making an existing smaller core more powerful to free up fan space that way?

[Assistant] One of the problems of miniaturizing the core is that when you shorten the turbine/compressor blades, the gap between the blade and the housing constitutes a larger proportion of the total area, increasing the blowby leakage. Another problem is that you have to use fewer blades, which saves cost and weight, but also makes flow separation and blade stall more likely, which narrows the operating window. This is fine for stationary turbines, but not for aviation.


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

[User]
ELI5: Music recognition software like Shazam.

This sounds extremely stupid, but I was wondering how exactly music recognition software recognizes music. I have been able to tag music from the radio, in the mall, and even off of TV with people talking over it. I know it's not "magic" but I want to know how it's able to do that.

[Assistant]
Remember how, when you were a kid, you'd try to hastily sketch someone's face? When you were young, the face probably looked pretty silly - the features wouldn't be proportionate, the eyes would probably be uneven - you'd barely be able to tell it was a face, right? Then, as you grew older, your ability to draw faces got better. With the same amount of time and using the same amount of lines, you could draw a better face than before, this time taking into account the unique features that separate people's faces and carrying them over to the paper.

Think of music recognition like that. Services like Shazam need to get that song recognized, but they can't just send a clip of the whole song and compare it; that would take incredible processing power and quite a while for the database to locate the correct song. Rather, music recognition focuses on a song's *acoustic fingerprint*, which is a property unique to every piece of music. Instead of trying to draw the whole 'face', the acoustic fingerprint picks up tell-tale features like the song's spectral flatness (how the audio deviates from pure noise), tempo (speed), zero crossings (where the sound waves go from positive to negative/vice versa), bandwidth (the difference between upper/lower frequencies), and so forth. Think of these as the easily recognizable facial features; two songs may sound very similar, but their acoustic properties will be very different.

Now, once you've stripped away everything but those few recognizable details, you can easily search through a database. Each detail works to narrow down the search; for example, there are millions of songs, but only thousands of them have a tempo similar to, say, Led Zeppelin's Black Dog. And only a few dozen of them have similar zero crossovers.

As for how the audio recognition is able to pick out music even through background noise; background noise is generally highly random and can't be analyzed as anything more than that, noise. Music, on the other hand, is rhythmic and easier to isolate. It's still possible to confuse audio recognition enough by making noise over the song it's trying to recognize, which is why services like Shazam generally listen for ten seconds or so to get multiple samples in case one of them has background noise.

EDIT: Also, the above reasons are why music recognition services can't pick up the sound from live performances; even if the song sounds exactly the same to the human ear, the acoustic characteristics will be vastly different, making it impossible to identify.


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

[User] [Serenity] On Mr. Universe's planet, how is River Tam able to defeat all of the Reavers in the sealed hallway without sustaining any blood splatter, cuts or bruises on her own person - even her hands look clean?

[Assistant]
In short, extreme precognition.

River Tam is very unique.  She's a combination of a Jedi, Fedaykin (Dune), and a Mistborn (Mistborn book series) burning Atium.

Unlike the other test subjects, River's mind broke.  She was actually capable of utilizing the abilities given to her (at the cost of her sanity).

When confronted with a true life and death situation she chose to go all out.  She was very lucky that she remained sane through the whole encounter.


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

[User]
[Dune] What's stopping a madman from destroying a city by shooting into someone's personal shield?

Wouldn't terrorist be more dangerous than ever? If everyone that is a soldier is armed with a shield and shooting it causes mass destruction.

[Assistant]
This is obviously a huge plot hole, but, i will try to provide a few in-universe explanations.

1. Use of atomics is a big taboo (including lasgun/shield combo) and the whole Landsraad would vaporize anyone even remotely responsible and their planet with them.
2. Lasguns are expensive to build and maintain so only major houses could afford them and they could be traced back to them.
3. Aside from major houses, only Fremen have a few old lasguns and not even they are so insane to use them against shields.
4. Lasgun/shield interaction is too unpredictable and inconsistent to be used effectively.


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

[User]
[The Fly 1986] How much longer could Brundlefly expect to survive after his final transformation?

Not, mind you, the fusion with the telepod which seemed like it would likely kill him within hours; but rather his final monstrous fly form. From the looks of it, even after transforming into the giant fly Brundle looks even more sickly and weak in a strange way than before. The constant voiceless groaning emanating from the now inhuman Brundlefly made it sound like the final form was agonizing as well; and it seems highly likely that Brundlefly was still going to keep transforming had he not been killed.

My question is, given the fact that it seems like he was still deteriorating due to fucked up genetics, how much longer did Brundlefly really have left? Days? Weeks? A month? It seems like Brundle was correct in saying the disease would cause him to deteriorate and then die, Brundlefly didnt seem like a viable organism.

[Assistant]
He was definitely deteriorating and close to death. Flies have tiny lifespans anyway, add in the fact that it was a fly's genetics combined with a much larger body and by the time he shed his human skin he had probably a couple more days to live (in agonizing pain) at best. After he merged with the Telepod he probably would have been dead in the following hour even without the gunshot.

His son, however, seemed to have a much more stable structure and could be considered a successful evolution of Brundlefly's faulty genetics, were it not for the fact that he looked like an hideous monster.


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

[User] [Star Wars][Old Republic] What does the Jedi Order do when one of its members is discovered to be using the Dark Side?

[Assistant]
Assuming "using the dark side" isn't "murdering everyone in sight," the first thing to do is try to talk to them about it. Point out that their behavior leads down an all-too-familiar path, and council them on how to do better. We see Yoda try this (unsuccessfully) on Anakin in Episode II.

If the force user is at the murdering stage, then there's nothing to do but put them down.

Some dark side users will at least have enough self-preservation to realize that what they're doing is not accepted by the Jedi Order, and simply go into self-exile. It's a big galaxy, and the Jedi don't try to enforce membership in their order, so it's easy enough to slip away. It's up to the former Jedi whether or not they'll lash out at any Jedi they see, at which case a follow-up session may be scheduled, preferably with a Jedi master who can engage in the appropriate negotiations.


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

[User] What are the disincentive effects of the Green New Deal ? Will more people substitute their private sector jobs for higher paying public sector jobs + work less additional hours for leisure ?

[Assistant] Its pretty hard to determine the effects of something without a clear picture of what it is. The GND is notoriously amorphousare you referring to AOCs questionnaire, Sanderss implementation, or something else? The job guarantee aspect?


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

[User] How much more efficient would my refrigerator be if it had a vacuum as insulation as opposed to styrofoam?  How about a house with a vacuum layer instead of fiberglass insulation?

[Assistant] A typical vacuum insulation panel can have a thermal conduction coefficient as low as 6 mW/m/K compared to polyurethane foam which hangs around 25 mW/m/K. So ideally you could expect a 4x improvement in heat loss by upgrading to vacuum. Fiberglass is not as efficient as foam insulation (~ 45 mW/m/K), so you could expect slightly more improvement in the ideal case there. Either way, this would probably cost far more than would ever be worth it for something like a refrigerator that only operates at maybe 20 degrees C below ambient. It might be reasonable for something like a small dormitory in an Antarctic outpost, but again will be very expensive compared to something as simple as a sheet of foam which can easily be made thicker to compensate. Vacuum insulation is primarily only used for things like liquid nitrogen for analytical/diagnostic instruments where every bit of improvement is needed and cost is already very high.


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

[User]
I can find info on how bumblebees fly. But nothing mentions how they can be so nimble. Without a tail, what mechanism allows them to manage such quick changes of direction?

I've seen them float stationary, then take off, then do a complete 180 with no discernable slowdown. How do they do it?

[Assistant]
Most insects (bumblebees included) don't simply flap their wings up and down. Each stroke (and both the up and down strokes) can be angled and turned depending on what they are trying to accomplish. Additionally they flap very fast. This combination of speed and variety of wing strokes allow many insects to change direction rapidly.

How fast are their wings? Synchronous flight muscles beat at 5 to 200 hertz (Hz), in those with asynchronous flight muscles, wing beat frequency may exceed 1000 Hz.


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

[User]
ELI5 How does time slow down when traveling near the speed of light?

Just can't get my head around it.

[Assistant]
It doesn't. Time passes normally for you even when you're moving quickly past things.

But when you see someone else travelling quickly past you, it looks to you as though time is moving normally for you and slower for them.

And actually, it's exactly the other way around for them - it looks to them as though time is moving slowly for you and normally for them.

This seems surprising, but it's no more so than many other things we experience every day - consider the fact that you look small to them from a distance even though they also look small to you.


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

[User]
[Star Trek: DS9] What happened with the Dominion after the Dominion War?

So their forces in the Alpha Quadrant had to surrender and most likely withdraw. But their main empire would be in the Gamma Quadrant and would quite possibly be undefeatable by the Federation and it's allies. Sure, they can not move through the wormhole without Sisko's permission, but are they still expanding their empire in the Gamma Quadrant?

And what of the Breen? Are they still Dominion allies?

[Assistant]
Breen: What happened to German allies after WW2? They have restrictions on what kind of military buildup they are allowed to do. But the Breen were not IN the federation so the federation's authority to do much to them beyond monitor and not let them build up their forces is it. There might be like some trade embargos with any federation colonies or worlds BUT as stated, it's not like there was much of that going on with the breen before the war.

Dominion: Yea they can still expand in the Gamma quadrant.... so what?  But their forces are crazily depleted. However.... Foolish to assume  that they didn't send a small force to take the long way around since they are all about the long game, however by the time it gets there the tech on the federation side will be much improved.


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

[User] During the Spanish conquest of the Americas, why did pestilence flow from the Spanish to the indigenous populations, and not the other way?

[Assistant]
There are a few reasons. This is actually one area of anthropology/history that Jared Diamond got right, lots of his other stuff is dubious at best.

1) With the exception of alpacas, llamas, and vicunas, the Americas lacked domesticated herd animals. This is partially due to the fact that most animals in the Americas simply aren't particularly amenable to domestication.

2) In the Old World, the domestication of animals co-occurred with increasing population densities. Most epidemics from the Old World are zoonoses, meaning that they are passed from animals to humans. As we begin living in close association with animals (and one another), new strains of diseases are created. These epidemics would typically only infect small portions of the population at any one time. Immunologically, people had many more defenses against these diseases than in the New World.

3) Because Native Americans never domesticated animals and because populations were sufficiently large across both continents, epidemics introduced by Europeans spread quite easily. Because Native Americans never developed herd animals that would aid in the development of zoonoses, there were fewer diseases that could be passed along to Europeans.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does Google give me twice as much storage space for my e-mails as it does for google drive? I don't need 10GB of space for e-mails but I sure could use it for cloud storage.

[Assistant]
It's hard to look into the heads of googles' bosses, but probably because they assume that not many people actually fill up 10 GB of e-mails, but a lot of people will fill up 10 GB of cloud storage.

This means that the total amount of data google has to store is much lower this way.


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

[User]
ELI5:When they tested nukes underground in the U.S. and elsewhere, where does all the radiation go?

What happens to all that underground fallout?

[Assistant]
The dangerous and whidespread radiation does not come from the actual impact point of the nuke itself, the range is actually pretty small, the problem is that highly radioactive particles are spread out by the blast, and those will then, at some point (depending on what atom it is), decay and cause the radiation in the process. (gamma radiation is the only one that can travel really far, but the one that is created during the initial explosion is gone after seconds, and from then on it's the gamma radiation of those particles that are spread out across the area during the explosion). These particles are known as "the fallout", and that's how you can get rid of it: you can imagine it like a thin layer of dust settling over everything in a massive area, that you can wipe off again (of course, if it were as easy as cleaning your desk nuclear explosions would not be that much of a problem, but the general idea is the same).

Underground the Fallout is not able to spread very far in the first place, as there is not air to travel through, but meters over meters of whatever it is that's around (most likely walls of the test facility, reeinforced with absorbing materials, and then the earth on the other side of those walls, i dont actually know what those facilities look like, or if there are any and they dont just dig a hole, put the bomb at the bottom, and then shovel all the dirt back in and detonate... if it's underground, there's somehting around it that's harder to get through than air, that's the point :P). Because the fallout cant spread out very far, it's limited to a very small area, that is a lot more realistic to clean up again, or, depending on how deep down you are, you can just leave it there, as it wont really hurt anyone, radiation is incredibly bad a getting through a lot of earth.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] What can or can't an X-wing pilot do without an astromech droid co-pilot?

Not limited to just X-wings. Other than repairs on the go, what is the astromech necessary for? Navigation, diagnostics targeting etc.

[Assistant] Astromechs are the Swiss army knives of droid pilots. Although their primary role is navigation, an astromech can generally control a single pilot ship by themselves. Usually they're used to program the ship's navicomputer for local flight or hyperspace jumps. That last one is pretty key, it takes an exceptionally skilled pilot to pull off unassisted hyperspace jumps. They also control the allocation of power to different systems. When someone yells something like, "Full power to rear deflectors," they're talking to the droid.


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

[User]
Why does incest have a negative effect on offspring, as oppose to just a neutral effect?

I understand the benefits of sexual reproduction; in a nutshell, diversity of genetics makes us more awesome. It makes sense then that reproducing with a sibling (for example) doesn't have any major *benefits* due to not expanding one's genetic diversity much, but I don't understand why it can have actively *negative* effects. What does it do to harm the offspring that makes it worse than, say, simply cloning some one?

[Assistant]
One reason would be that genetic diseases are more likely in children of incest. Many people 'carry' disease-causing alleles of genes but do not show symptoms themselves because they also have a normal wild-type copy to compensate.
It is likely that closely related people would both be carriers of similar disease-causing alleles. Thus, when they mate to produce offspring, there is a good chance the alleles will combine in the offspring (i.e. offspring would get the disease allele from mum and dad) to cause the disease.

When unrelated people mate, there is a much lower chance that both will be carriers of similar disease-causing alleles. Thus, there is a lower chance of genetic diseases manifesting in the offspring.

Note that this is quite a simplistic argument. Most diseases are probably not caused single gene mutations but are the result of a complex mixture of several alleles (you could call this the genetic background) interacting with environmental factors. Nevertheless, the logic of reduced diversity in children of incest still holds.


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

[User]
[Marvel] How do alien cultures justify the Snap?

It seems to me that only a relatively small number of people in the Universe are aware of what happened with Thanos and Iron Man. If the Infinity Stones affected the entire *universe*, the overwhelming majority of people in the universe must have no idea what happened, or why.

How do those people explain half of their population dying, and then coming back spontaneously five years later?

[Assistant]
As far as the Snap, Thanos made a **major** hit on Xandar to get the Power Stone. The Big Purple Dickhead being on the warpath would be headline news across the galaxy, and once the Snap happened, most would put two and two together, assuming they weren't told by a surviving Asgardians or a similar credible source.

And for the Blip, it would mostly come down to interstellar operators like Captain Marvel and the Ravagers to spread the word of what went down at the Avengers Compound.

That's civilization. As far as the primitive/uncontacted worlds of the universe... it's going to be a mixed bag. A disaster of this magnitude is the kind of thing entire religions get built around, and any society not sophisticated enough to detect the phenomenon around the Snap and Blip are going to be left to make things up. Expect nigh-primal terror around any natural event taking place during the Snap (eclipses, planetary alignments, etc), with any events happening around the Blip becoming extremely auspicious, along with the related dates.


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

[User]
Is there any material that stops magnetic pull?

Hello. So I'm trying to create an item for just kind of my science hobby. The device requires two magnets set in place and a wheel with several extensions off of it with magnets on the end of each limb. The idea is that the two magnets would push the magnet on limb causing the wheel to turn and then the next limb would come between the two magnets moving it forward. Now the problem is when the next magnet approaches the opposite pole of the magnet is facing so they push back the opposite direction. Is there a way to block one side of a magnetic pull with a material or something different? Any suggestions would be helpful!

[Assistant]
Well there is a metal commonly referred to as "mu-metal" which is a nickel-iron-molybdenum alloy. It has high permeability and so makes it a useful magnetic shield.

The catch is that means that the shield interacts with the magnetic field, so moving the shield into place would take more energy* than you could recover from the magnets interacting with each other.

*Because you always give up a little to heat and other losses. The laws of thermodynamics win every time.


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

[User] Eli5: what happens on the server when one selects to watch a movie on Netflix and how the architecture allows 500k other people to watch the same movie almost concurrently?

[Assistant]
Content Distribution Networks (CDN for short) are used.  Basically, you request to watch a film on Netflix, then Netflix responds with "Sure, here is your film!" - behind the scenes, a CDN that is located near you will provide the actual data for that film to you.

500k people can watch the same film at the same time from Netflix, but the data that is sent to those 500k people will be coming from 1 of the many, many CDNs that Netflix own.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is it a legal requirement that you wear a seat belt, yet people are allowed to drive motorcycles?

Don't get me wrong, I don't hate motorcyclists or anything, it just kinda confuses me. Whether or not I am wearing a seat belt, I'm pretty much guaranteed to be safer in a crash than someone on a motorcycle. I know its a good idea to wear a seat belt and would even if it wasn't a law, but it seems weird that it is a law when the only real safety measure on a motorcycle is a helmet, which at 70mph is not likely to do shit.

[Assistant]
In a car, wearing a seat belt will stop your from going through your windshield. If you were strapped to a bike, you're pretty much fucked because the entire weight of your bike is about to go head over heels with you.

One will stop you from being squishy. The other ensures it.


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

[User] ELI5: How can one prove that the world outside one's consciousness is not non-existent and that other beings with similar consciousness levels exist?

[Assistant]
One can't.

There is no direct contact with the external that does not go through the processing of your brain. Everything you experience is a reinterpretation - a model if you will - built by your brain.

Of course, that's also being a bit presumptous because the only reason we think there **is** such a thing as a brain is that we are getting that information from the 'outside' which is being reinterpreted by the model...

Kinda circular.

The only rational answer to this question is that it really doesn't matter. You have a choice to believe that what your mind interprets as external phenomena is real or not. If you do not believe it is real then there is no point in... well, being alive at all really; so better to just come down on the sensible side of the fence - presume the unprovable external reality - and get on with more important things like eating bacon, reading books and having sex.


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

[User]
ELI5 Why 64bit is "x64" but 32bit is "x86"

**Edit: Frontpage??**

[Assistant]
Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth and instead of writing programs for 64b or 32b you wrote programs for a particular instruction set architecture, the Intel 8086 processor used a particularly popular one. A lot of successors to the 8086 had names which also ended in 86, hence the family were called `x86`.

The 8086 was actually a 16b processor, but the x86 term became popular after the 32b 80386's introduction to the market.

x64 is actually a shortened version of x86-64, which is a 64b extension to the x86 instruction set. These days, x86 implies 32b only, whilst x64 means 64b.


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

[User]
As Pangea began to drift apart, did the bodies of water that would become known as today's oceans begin as narrow channels and grow over time, or did they come about later on?

I suppose that I'm asking, was there a time you could wade from "North America" to "Africa"?  In the same vein, was there a time when if I stood on the southern coast of Asia, I would see the Indian subcontinent a few kilometres away, very slowly (imperceptably, no doubt) approaching?

[Assistant]
There's no single answer. In some cases, the splitting of continents would have occurred so that seawater filled in as it happened. In others, the splitting progressed further before reaching a point where existing ocean could have entered.

When the Atlantic rift opened, it did so along a series of rift valleys in what are now eastern North America and northwest Africa. Most of these failed to form large rifts and infilled only with sediment from terrestrial sources (rivers, etc.). But others connected to form a longer rift that is now the mid-Atlantic ridge.


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

[User]
How does a stem cell know what body part to become naturally?

What type of communication happens inside an embryo? What prevents, lets say, multiple livers from forming? Is there some sort of identification process that happens so a cell knows "okay those guys are becoming the liver, so I'll start forming the lungs" ?

[Assistant]
The process you're referring to is called "Differentiation", which in biology refers to stem cells becoming other cell types.

Chemically: The chemical properties of the surrounding the cell and available nutrients play a factor.  These are things like pH, oxygen levels, CO2 levels etc.

Physically: Certain cell types are receptive to different mechanical stimuli and surface properties.  If you're trying to grow stem cells on a certain material you can alter it at the nanoscale to promote differentiation into a certain cell type.  Another example is repetitive stretching and compression can promote osteoblast (Bone forming) cell differentiation.

Biologically: There are tons of biological signals that can promote differentiation in one form or another.  Cytokines, proteins, antibodies, hormones etc.  There is a common technique called 'Coculturing' where a scientist will grow stem cells and another cell type in the same media.  The proximity to the second cell type can determine what type of cell the stem cells ultimately become.

Preexisting factors: Not all 'Stem Cells' are the same!  There are several classifcations.  "Totipotent stem cells" can differentiate to become just about any cell type or expand to make more stem cells.   "Pluripotent stem cells" can become almost every cell in the body.  "Multipotent stem cells" can become several different types of cells, but not all and are more limited than Pluripotent.

This is still a rapidly growing and changing field, and there are certainly blurred lines between those classifications as we learn more about cellular differentiation.


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

[User]
[Superman] Yellow sunlight exposure and Kryptonians

Does the level of exposure to yellow sunlight impact a Kryptonian's abilities? Is Superman less powerful on Pluto than on Earth? How long does a Kryptonian need to be exposed to yellow sunlight to develop abilities? How long can they be away from it before losing their abilities?

[Assistant]
Kryptonians are solar batteries. As long as they have a charge, their powers remain undiminished.

They can be drained over time by exerting themselves in deep space, but any Kryptonian that has spent more than a couple years exposed to the equivalent yellow sun radiation that the Earth gets isn't going to be any less powerful in deep space than they would be on Earth.

Kryptonians can "sun-dip," enter the outer layers of the sun, in order to gain a temporary boost in strength. For the post-Crisis/pre-Flashpoint Kal-El, fifteen minutes sundipping provided him with a 3x boost to his abilities.

The post-Flashpoint Superman has recently been drained. He discovered a new ability to discharge all of his stored solar energy at once, effectively nuking the location at the cost of all of his powers for about a day or so, then his powers start to come back.


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

[User]
ELI5: Do college students get paid for breakthroughs/discoveries in science, archaeology, etc?

It seems quite often that I'll read an article with a statement like "Students at ____ University recently discovered a new gene" or something along those lines. Would these students get paid for discovery (doesn't have to be directly through the school, also from various organizations) or are they not compensated?

[Assistant]
No that's not how it works really.  Even professional scientists aren't explicitly paid on a "per-finding" basis.  They are usually paid some salary just for doing their work on a daily basis much like most other people are (there may be other pay structures but that's not what you're asking).  When a scientist discovers something it basically allows them to *publish* the findings and be the first to publish it.  That allows them to add it to their credentials when they want to apply to a more prestigious job or if they are applying for what are called "grants" where you get funding from an external source other than your employer that goes, typically, directly to funding your research.  This is similar in collage students - having a first finding of something adds quite a bit of prestigiousness to your credentials, allows you to publish etc.  They can't apply for grants typically but they can apply to "scholarships" which are sort of similar.

In summary, typically you don't get paid on a "I discovered something" basis *directly* but it does help to get better jobs and be more prestigious.


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

[User]
ELI5: how is it that politicians (take your pick) make millions of dollars as a politician yet their salaries are largely under 400k annually? Am I missing something?

I came across a link where Chelsea Clinton (daughter of former president Bill Clinton) is buying a 10+ million dollar apartment in Manhattan. How does she have this kind of money?

Mitt Romney makes sense as he was a successful business man prior to being in politics, but it seems like they reap a lot of other financial benefits no one bats an eye to.

..and no one is concerned that Hilary is spending 2.5 billion on her campaign? (Not her money but still...excessive?)

EDIT: people keep mentioning book deals, but they aren't writing Harry Potter novels here. I understand the books make money, but I wouldn't imagine they make them 10s of millions of dollars.

[Assistant]
Most politicians have sources of income other than their salary. For example, speaking fees and book deals result in *massive* payouts. Every time a former President goes somewhere to speak, you can be damn sure they're getting tens of thousands of dollars to do so.

Once you get to politics at the national level, there's pretty much no one who isn't already individually wealthy. Everyone has either run a businesses or worked as analysts or lawyers in high paying positions.


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

[User]
How does an equalizer work?

Specifically, how does it affect the volume of only specific frequency range(s) and is this mechanism significantly different for the different types of EQ? Assume a fairly basic understanding of sound and electronics.

[Assistant]
An equalizer can be implemented in digital or in analog circuitry, but the basic concepts are similar. Divide the spectrum into different bands, and for each band have a band-pass filter.  Send the sound through all of the filters in parallel, and each band-pass filter will output only the sound within its band, cutting off all of the others (mostly).  Then mix the outputs of all of the band-pass filters together again, but put in a circuit with the ability to adjust the amplitude of each first.

So now some bands can be mixed down with respect to the others.  (Alternatively, you can adjust the amplitude of the whole signal going into each band-pass filter.)  When the bands are re-mixed together (and amplified, if required) the sounds in some are reduced in amplitude.


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

[User]
CMV: The death penalty is more humane than life in prison

The more I think about it, the more I become convinced that death is a welcome respite over spending more than ten years in prison. It feels like a more humane thing to simply execute people than to throw them into this living hell where rehabilitation might as well be nonexistent. I think it might be worse for juvenile inmates where theres zero mental health help, no actual incentive to help anyone behind bars. Perhaps the merciful thing would be to kill them all. I suppose one can argue that prison is meant to be hellish in order to be an eternal punishment, but I honestly have lost faith in the legal system as a whole. This specifically applies to American prisons Im sure prisons elsewhere are more geared towards helping the mentally ill. But here they might as well just throw someone in a tiny cage and feed them crumbs of bread while laughing and itd probably be more humane than the pitiful examples we have all over the US.

Please change my mind, honestly. I feel like this is such an awful mindset, but Id rather die than spend more than twenty years of my life in a place worse than death.

EDIT: Sooo, reading over the replies and admittedly maybe not being in the best mental state when posting this I feel like my view was/is incredibly selfish, making a decision for other people. So I definitely agree with those of you who are saying that we should work to reform prisons thats absolutely the way to go. I still believe that people should be afforded a choice between prison or instant death after trial but leave it to me to jump to an extreme.

[Assistant]
Nelson Mandela was sent to prison for 27 years.

Not only did he walk out a better person than he walk in, the world was better off because of him. If you killed him off, the world would have been a worse place.


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

[User]
Why is leukemia the most common cancer amongst children?

is there something about the white blood cells in children thats more susceptible to cancer? just curious.

[Assistant]
The big picture is that kids don't get cancer much at all, because their cells haven't had nearly as many chances to divide and accumulate errors as an older person. This doesn't leave many ways to get cancer, so the few that are left become "common." Leukemia makes up a third of childhood cancers partly because familiar types like colon/lung/breast/prostate cancer are next to nonexistent in kids.

Bone marrow is full of tons of precursor cells that are constantly trying to make more cells, many of which go through multiple stages. Already a good setup for cancer because there's tons of copying and division. We make tons of red cells, but iron is a big limiting factor so they're less likely to get out of hand. White cells, on the other hand, are part of the immune response, which is to say our survival depends on the ability to ramp up production like crazy on a moment's notice. Very helpful, but it also means fewer brakes that have to fail until we start making way too much of one.


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

[User]
[Terminator] I have verifiable intelligence regarding the whereabouts of young John and/or Sarah Connor. Am I able to barter this intel to a Terminator in exchange for it performing as a clown at my kid's birthday party? How can I ensure an entertaining performance?

ETA: Assume the Terminator is aware that I have a cyanide capsule in one of my molars.

[Assistant]
The Terminator would do a calculation as to how long it would take you to break under torture, and then set that against the estimated duration of a child's birthday party, factoring in travel time, availability of resources, potential proximity of secondary targets, and the possibility of cake.

Unless you can very quickly convince it that you can withstand at least three hours of continuous torture, you're probably better off trying that nice Mr Pennywise down the street.


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

[User] [Ghostbusters] How would RGB Egon explain to GB2 Egon the dramatic increase in size of the containment unit?

[Assistant]
RGB Egon would explain to GB2 Egon that he is a fictional character from a movie and that the containment unit in the first movie looks so small probably due to budget and logistics for the production.

Remembering that at one of the episodes of The Real Ghostbusters they go to Hollywood to work as consultants for their own "biopic" movie, and in the end they go to the theater to watch the premiere (we see the opening credits of GB1 on screen) and Peter complains that the actors don't even look like them.


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

[User]
Can someone explain the spontaneity of time symmetry breaking in the Lukin and Monroe time crystal experiments?

As I understand it:
In both experiments, there was a drive (lasers in Monroe's, microwave pulses in Lukin's) that causes a change in spin state of a system (Monroe: a chain of ytterbium ions; Lukin: defects in a diamond). In both cases, the spin states of these systems revert back to their original state. However, the drives were periodically applied, and the resulting spin state oscillation did not match the periodicity of the drive, but oscillated at 1/2 or 1/3 the frequency.

(I may have misunderstood this - I'm a biologist, not a physicist. Please correct me if so).

What I don't understand is - if the periodicity of these systems is a result of the periodicity of the drive, and not a product of the systems themselves under specific conditions, why is this *spontaneous* breaking of time symmetry?

[Assistant] A priori, continuous time translation symmetry is broken by the drive to a discrete time symmetry with period T. To say that the remaining discrete time translation symmetry is spontaneously broken is to say that the Hamiltonian (which governs the evolution of the system) still has time translation symmetry with period T (i.e. H(t+T)=H(t)), but the *state* of the system only obeys a lower symmetry, in this case |\psi(t+NT)>=l\psi(t)>. We then would say that the time translation symmetry with period T was spontaneously broken to a time translation symmetry with period NT.


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

[User]
Eli5 - How does glow in the dark work?

I've lived on this planet for 28 years and have never questioned it, as I assumed it was magic that was beyond my abilities to comprehend.
My eight-year-old asked me about it today. Give me an answer.

[Assistant]
Normally when substances absorb the energy of photons they emit them back as light almost immediately. However some substances absorb the photons of light so that the energy of the photon kind of get's stuck into a "quantum traffic jam" within the molecules. It takes some time for the energy to be released as light from the "quantum traffic jam". This time is so long that when you turn off the lights, the light that was absorbed by the substance is emitted back with a delay.

You can maybe think if it like how metal and heat insulating material react differently to heat. If you point a torch to a heat insulation, you can almost immediately touch it afterwards, as it does not really contain heat that well. But metal on the other hand absorbs the heat for some time and you can still feel how it is hot after some time.


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

[User] [WH40K] Can Eldar Farseers predict the future of blanks or pariahs?

[Assistant] Some, sure. If the farseer is skilled enough and if the blank or pariah is important enough, they will displace the sea of souls around them like water around a pebble. With a strong enough ability to discern the flow, you can see where it is not and what it avoids just as clearly as if you could see the rock itself. If the pebble is too small and the stream too weak it would be an arduous task, some totally forgettable blank living out their days as an outcast on a nameless death world would be much harder to see than the personal attendant of a long lived and important inquisitor.


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

[User]
Christianity prerequisite for reading Nietzsche

I'm somewhat ashamed to say it, but I haven't read much of Nietzsche himself. I've mainly read secondary sources on him and I've only read The Birth of Tragedy and Philosophy in the Tragic age of the Greeks by him. I know a good deal about the presocratics, Plato, Aristotle, Schopenhauer, and Kant, but should I know any Christian writers? Is Nietzsche responding to Christianity as a whole or to certain writers? If so, what about theology and religion should I know about prior to reading the Genealogy of Morals and stuff like that?

[Assistant] If you have even a basic understanding of Christianity, you'll be fine. His criticisms of Christianity are broad enough to apply to essentially any organized religion. However, the historiography of Nietzsche posits him squarely in a Christian society, which is more of what he's reacting to as opposed to specific tenants of the religion itself.


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

[User] Eli5: How is it so many books say 'New York Times Bestseller'? How is this possible?

[Assistant]
The NYTimes Bestseller list just tracks sales numbers - it says nothing about the quality of the book. It also says nothing qualifying about the title itself - if your book showed up at the bottom of one of the multiple Bestseller lists for just one week, you can call your book a New York Times Bestseller for the rest of its printing lifetime. There exist firms that will manipulate the list for a fee to get you onto it for that week.

Not only that, but some authors/publishers will carry that title over to other books. If you look at some books that claim they were a NYTimes Bestseller, you'll sometimes notice underneath the header, "author" written in smaller font. This book that you are holding wasn't a Bestseller, but the author did write one in the past and can continue to advertise his work forever afterwards.


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

[User]
How do flat moles form in the first place?

Flat moles that look like a blotch of black or brown ink on the skin. Those that cannot be felt by hand. How do these moles form in the first place?

Is there any way to prevent new moles from growing near other moles?

[Assistant] Flat moles, also called nevi, are skin lesions composed of a bunch of extra melanocytes. Melanocytes are the cells in your skin that produce brown pigment. Most moles appear in the first two decades of life. It's unclear what exactly causes moles, but it's hypothesized that they are due to defects that occur during development leading to melanocytes in a specific region reproducing too much and forming a large, dark region. It's also hypothesized that limiting UV exposure can prevent acquired moles from forming.


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

[User] [Fallout] The Brotherhood of Steel often say things about how they hate all non humans, so why does no one bat an eye when I bring a supermutant, synth or ghoul onboard the Prydwen?

[Assistant]
I want you to think of how many things the average person on this ship has killed. Twenty? Thirty? Some of the veteran Paladins might have over a hundred. But that guy. Just walked into the institute by himself and proceeded to kill over 200 synths alone with no assistance, then he took out the entire gunners HQ, for all intents and purposes fought a Mirelurk queen alone, kills deathclaws with his bare hands just to see if he can, has basically killed every raider in the commonwealth, walked into the glowing sea like it was nothing, has a kill count in the 5 digits, can seem to get *any* task done that was given to him no matter how insurmountable the odds, all he has to do when he gets shot is eat some mashed potatoes and hes fine, no lock or computer can keep him out of anything.

He can carry 300 lbs and still manage to fight in combat and sprint even. Can take an astray, some duct tape, and the steel bit off of a screwdriver and can with just that make a minigun fire faster and deal more damage while shooting straighter, has an arsenal that could literally kill the entirety of the local contingent of the Brotherhood of Steel if he was just so inclined. Oh and he came out of the vault only ***3 fucking days ago*** and did all of that. You wanna make a snide comment about his friends? The long and the short of it is. He gets shit done, and by the grace of god or luck he is on our side. Now shut your mouth and be thankful for that.


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

[User] Did Mars have tectonic plates?

[Assistant] Mars used to have a molten core but is no longer geologically active.  But it never had tectonics, the largest volcano in the solar system, Olympus Mons, was in part able to grow so big because its plates don't move and all the lava spewed out in the same area.


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

[User]
[W40k] Is it possible for The Emperor to be corrupted by The Chaos Gods?

As far as I know the Emperor is just a Human man with a very strong psyonic presence, made immortal by The Golden Throne. If human souls are corruptable by the Chaos Gods, doesn't that make The Emperor susceptible (although strong willed) to corruption?

[Assistant] Just a Human man? Just a Human man?! He has been herald as the greatest leader of Mankind, he is so powerful that people proclaim him as a God/Star Child, his ability to maintain the Astronomican is unmatched, he has faced and dealt punishing blows to the Chaos Gods, he is so old that no one is sure of his age even before he sat the Golden Throne, his understanding and insight into the technologies of the universe is unparalleled. He is absolute, incorruptible to the forces of Chaos, he is the Champion of Order.


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

[User]
ELI5: We all know that water freezes at 0C. But does it freeze harder at lower temps?

My freezer is set at -21C  (-6F) and tubs of ice cream come out hard as a rock and are near impossible to scoop.  But if I set it a few degrees warmer, yet still way below the freezing point of water, I can scoop it easily.  So, is there such a thing as both frozen and *really* frozen?  Conversely, a boiling point is a boiling point, I believe.  Heating water to a temp above 100C gets you the same steam that you got at 100, just faster.  Right?

[Assistant]
ice cream is typically made by churning the fat sugar water mixture to incorporate air as it freezes. this prevents ice crystals from forming above a certain size. a good ice cream is technically a frozen foam with millions of microscopic ice crystals and should feel like snow even at -21C.

the problem happens when storage is actually not as cold as reported. warmer than -18C, ice crystals can start to fuse into large crystals over time or even over several cycles of taking it out into the room for a few minutes.

same thing happens with snow. if it cycles through warm periods eventually the powder snow becomes rock hard.


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

[User] ELI5: When a religious group sees an event, like the blood moon, as a sign of the end times how do they reconcile their faith with the world continuing like normal afterwards?

[Assistant] The same way they reconcile any and all conflicts.  Imperfect interpretation, or last minute miracle from the god(s).  You might get a few stragglers who become disillusioned and bail, but not as many as you would imagine.


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

[User] [General] [Science Fiction] How much does a system's orbit, and rotation affect war strategy for space?

[Assistant]
Before you can get a real answer to this
Are you considering FTL?
If yes what kind of restrictions are in place and how instantaneous is it?
What general level of tech are you considering for weapons and spaceships?
Is this say a hundred years out or a thousand or ten thousand.
Not trying to be a douche but the specifics here are going to greatly enhance peoples' ability to provide meaningful answers.


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

[User] ELI5:why fox news isnt accused for false reporting?

[Assistant] If you mean legally, it's not against the law. Can you imagine if there was a law against reporting anything that could possibly be wrong? You wouldn't hear about anything for weeks, until a team of investigators and lawyers were able to ascertain with 100% certainty that yes, there indeed was an overturned tractor trailer on the highway at mile marker 33 and not a U-haul truck at mile marker 32.


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

[User]
[Meta] How can we be sure vampires aren't posting BS on all the vampire related threads so we become easier prey?

I noticed a few mods are only active at night as well...hmm.

[Assistant]
There is absolutely nothing to worry about. Nothing at all. Now if you'd be so kind as to remove all the garlic from your kitchen and invite in the incoming group of "maintenance workers" you obviously hired months ago but forgot about, things will be just fine.

^^^Op ^^^knows ^^^too ^^^much, ^^^response ^^^team ^^^has ^^^been ^^^sent.


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

[User]
ELI5: why do stock exchanges close and then reopen every day?

Is there any reason they can't stay open 24/7?

[Assistant]
Historically people traded on the floor of the stock exchange, so it made sense to have business hours for all of the reasons that other places have business hours -- traders went home for the night, the place needed to be cleaned, etc.

Over time, practices evolved around a set trading timeline. Companies report quarterly results early morning before the market opens so that everyone can have time to understand it before trading starts for the day. Big events are generally announced at the end of the day so that people can digest it over night before the market opens the next morning.

This take a bit of the competition to be *the first* to know info to try to beat the market and levels the playing field a bit. It also takes some of the panic buying/selling out of it and, at least theoretically, leads to fewer big swings and a smarter market. Someone can read the whole press release without trying to make an immediate decision about whether to buy/sell before everyone else does.