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

[User]
ELI5: Why don't we call countries by the names they give themselves?

For example, why don't we call Germany "Deutschland", or Japan "Nippon"? It seems almost rude to make up another name for a country, and it's not like I'm incapable of learning "Deutschland" as opposed to "Germany". I'd sure be a little offended if America was misspoken (Barring "USA", I understand letters and acronyms don't translate well)

[Assistant]
Mostly it is just the way we have always been doing it. Sometimes we have been using the word for longer than the modern country has been around.  Let's look at a few examples.

**Germany:** Germany and words like it go back to the word the Romans used for the area around where Germany is now.  It was a bigger place than Germany that you see on a map.   There have been many countries around that area like Prussia and the Holy Roman Empire. None of them had the same borders as Germany now.  Modern Germany wasn't around until the 20th century.

Deutsch originally just meant "people" so in a way it is less helpful to say the country of the people than use the word German for the area people have called Germany for thousands of years.

**China:**  Names like China have been around since the 16th century. It probably came from some Portuguese explorers who told lots of people in Europe about it.  People in Europe used the word for a while and it stuck.

The name Chinese people use: Zhnggu means the 'middle' country, meaning that China is the middle of the world.  You can see why people might not want to use that.  Also, Zhnggu is very hard to properly pronounce for an English speaker.  The way you might try to say it could mean nothing at all or mean something else in Chinese.  Is that even any better?

Now let's look at it from the other side.

**United States of America in German:** Die Vereinigte Staaten von Amerika is a simple translation.  It exactly the same as The United State of America in meaning.  You probably notice though that Vereinigte doesn't sound like United at all.  If a German person said Vereinigte Staaten You probably wouldn't understand unless you knew what you were listening for.  German people also say US or USA but it is pronounced like oo-ess-ah.  Again it's the same meaning but different sounds.

**United States of America in Mandarin Chinese:** Chinese people call it meiguo.  It doesn't look anything like America but it actually is.  Guo is the same as in Zhongguo it still means country.  Mei is supposed to sound like the 'mer' in aMERica. It also means beautiful which is nice.  Chinese speakers also have a hard time making the sounds in English so America is very hard to say.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do we know the Pillars of Creation will be destroyed in 1000 years?

I mean, Light takes 7000(?) years to get to us from the Pillars, and we still have another 1000 years to see the (predicted) destruction. Now if light is the fastest object how could we possibly predict that they will be destroyed?

[Assistant]
Imagine the newly enchanted Hubble Telescope happened to return images of a person 10,000 light years away swinging a sledgehammer at a plate glass window. The swinger is covering some distance, though, so the last image of the day is of the hammer making contact with the window, but we won't get images of the result until tomorrow.

Based on the images, we have established that the hammer is moving very fast, and that the glass really is just regular glass, and we know there was an impact.  Even though, because of the limitations of the speed of light we won't actually *see* the glass break until tomorrow, we can be certain it will happen---or, at least, as certain as we can be based on our current understanding of how hammers and glass interact.  And it doesn't matter that it may have actually "happened" 10,000 years ago.

Same with the Pillars.  We see something moving towards them that, based on what we know about the pillars, would destroy them. Could something else happen in the next thousand years to prevent it? Of course, but the fact that the pillars are far away doesn't prevent us from making that prediction with a level of confidence consistent with the facts at hand.


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

[User]
ELI5:Why do some companies create different brands even though they all operate in the same industry?

example. Kroger owns kroger, ralph's, and food4less grocery stores. Even their individual phone apps are duplicates of each other (design wise).

I understand some stores are only available in certain part of the country but wouldn't it make more sense for them to have one brand? esp if they all, essentially, offer same products. to have greater impact in terms of brand recognition?

[Assistant]
For most products, the idea is that having multiple brands under your umbrella allows you to produce slightly different products with different advertising aimed at different customers.  You can make a car that targets a middle-class buyer & one with some fancy options to target the luxury consumer.  You can produce a makeup line for 18-25 women that emphasizes fun & freedom while your products for the 40+ crowd emphasize elegance & class.

Grocery stores are a little different however.  People are *really* weird about food & will often stick with names & brands they grew up with.  Keeping a smaller local chain name reminds people of home cooked meals, growing up and the like.  The brand itself has decades of goodwill built up that would be completely wasted if you bought them out & changed the names.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does turning an electronic device off and on again often fix most of the problems?

[Assistant]
A lot of issues with stuff not working is because the RAM (or some other temporary memory) is storing some sort of issue. When you try to do something where the computer has to look at a previously saved value there is a chance the value was saved incorrectly in temporary memory. So when the computer goes back to check that value it throws an error stuff stops working.

Restarting reset all the temporary memory (sometimes you have to take the battery out to fully reset the RAM) and clears that incorrect value.


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

[User]
If no one on Earth ever used deodorant, would we notice the bad smell?

Everyone would be smelly as hell, but because the smell is consistent, I'm thinking we wouldn't notice it anymore, or not?

[Assistant]
You haven't lived with enough hippies.  If no one uses deodorant, you notice the smell, but your mind doesn't label it as "bad".  It just smells like "humans".  No more offensive than the smell of freshly cut grass.

This is the natural state of humanity.  Many historical cultures have kept clean, that is certainly a good thing.  But using aluminium salts to inhibit all underarm sweat is a recent idea, people didn't go around being offended by each other's odor every day of their lives.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why are video cameras used for television production so much larger than consumer based ones?

Whenever I see behind the scenes footage of a reality TV show the cameras they use are quite large shoulder mounted beasts. Whereas, the video camera I have is handheld and produces HD video exceptionally well. What extra "stuff" is inside these huge cameras and how does that make them superior?

[Assistant] Bigger lenses and sensors. The focusing system is a lot more precise than a home model, they have better image stabilization, it also takes up more room with bigger motors and that kind of thing. This is going to be the biggest difference in size. They want the best image quality so they build it with a lot more processing capability. Instead of one chip doing three things, they have 3 chips doing 3 things very well. You might not notice the image quality difference between a professional broadcast and your camera if you aren't looking for it, but you are watching a compressed, scaled down version of the video they really record when watching at home, you would notice a difference side by side for sure if they decided to broadcast your video. Storage is important so the cameras have flash memory and sometimes conventional hard drives, and they are both a lot bigger than an SD card. Some still take digital tapes too. And you want a button for important things like white balance, exposure, iso, fstop, focusing, no going through a menu for that sort of thing. They have much better preview screens. High resolution, high contrast, very bright. Also, those cameras have wireless mic capability and even wireless transmission capability to a news van, for example. And the batteries to power all of this stuff need to be a lot bigger than a DSLR to get comparable life from them. That is the step you take from a decent clamshell to a professional.


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

[User]
Why is it that the relative proportion of women earning doctorates in developmental psychology is much higher than those earning doctorates in behavioural neuroscience?

 :)

[Assistant]
The same reason for most gender differences in occupations.
Women are pressured  by society to conform to gender roles.   A role which includes childcare.

Developmental psychology often has a focus on child and adolescent development.

It's the same reason there are less men in development psych.

Another issue is that the lack of women in an area makes women feel like it's a boys club and that they won't be accepted or respected.

Same reason men avoid child-related psychology. The area is full of women.  Makes men feel like they won't be accepted or respected the same.

People gravitate towards areas they are encouraged to go and areas that feel friendlier and more accepting.


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

[User]
If The Borg assimilated Krypton...

.... could they modify their personal shielding to continuously emit yellow sun radiation?

[Assistant]
Absolutely, and every Borg would receive the appropriate modifications to their physiology to be able to become superpowered because if it.

Of course, Kryptonite radiation would be their weakness, the first time they were exposed to it. Then that flaw would be removed.

Resistance would then indeed, be futile.


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

[User]
How could you recursively find all permutations of a list?

I'm trying to write a program that does this, but I'm having trouble thinking of how to solve this algorithmically. I've been trying to understand other people's solutions for hours and I'm just not getting it. Can someone please try to explain what algorithm you can use to recursively find all permutations of a list of any size?

[Assistant]
Recursion is all about defining the simplest possible case and building up from there. How do you find all permutations of [1]? Easy. How about [1,2]? Still pretty easy. The pattern starts to reveal itself around length 3:

    [1,2,3]  [1, (permutate [2,3])]
    [1,3,2]  ...
    [2,1,3]  [2, (permutate [1,3])]
    [2,3,1]  ...
    [3,1,2]  [3, (permutate [1,2])]
    [3,2,1]  ...

See it? All the permutations of [2,3] start with 1. All perms of [1,3] start with 2. This is the basis for using recursion.

Here's some pseudo code:

    def permutations(list):
      if len(list) == 1:
        return [list]

      result = []
      for x of list:
        for p of permutations(listWithoutX):
          result.push([x, ...p])
      return result

Keep in mind that you want the index of x to efficiently grab the listWithoutX. In JS, you could do:

    listWithoutX = [...list.slice(0, i), ...list.slice(i + 1)]

Because `list.filter(v => v == x)`will iterate over the list instead of just chopping it up.

tl;dr perms of list with length 1 is itself, perms of any other list is perms of all lists 1 length less with whatever's missing in front.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is that foods have to be eaten at a certain temperature to have "good taste"? Why does temperature affect our taste buds?

[Assistant]
Food is tasted because of chemical interactions in our taste buds and works in concert with our sense of smell; smell is critically important to taste. If you can't smell, you really can't taste very well.

"Heat" is simply a measurement of energy in chemicals, so when things are hotter the chemicals in them are moving around more, and more volatile. They interact better with our taste buds and also diffuse better into air, allowing us to smell them more readily.

This leads to the flavour being much stronger in hot foods than in cold.

So depending on the food, the amount you want to taste it will determine the ideal temperature. That's why bad beer has to be served cold, for example, because you don't want to actually taste it.

Whereas good beer is served at room temperature, because it allows you to actually taste it.


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

[User] ELI5: Why don't we eat grass?

[Assistant]
We don't have the enzyme required to break down cellulose, the sugar within grass and other veggies such as broccoli and lettuce.

And since this is really the only sugar in grass, there is no point in us eating it.


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

[User]
[Superman] What name should I write on the Death Note to kill Superman?

For the purposes of the question, we take it for granted that the Death Note can kill Superman. What should be written to kill him? Superman, Clark Kent or Kal El?

[Assistant]
None of the above.

>The **human** whose name is written in this book will die.

Superman is not human, he is Kryptonian.

I realize you're taking for granted that it should be able to but since that's actively contradictory...


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

[User] What happens if a shareholder does not collect dividends? does the money go back to the company? or can a shareholder take dividends that he has not taken for 10 years?

[Assistant]
If the company declares and distributes dividends they are paid to the shareholders. If the shareholder is paid via check and doesnt deposit the check, the company turns over the funds to the state as abandoned property.

If the company doesnt declare dividends, then earnings are reinvested in the company. New companies and companies experiencing growth tend to reinvest earnings. Mature companies with earnings and positive cash flow pay regular dividends.


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

[User] ELI5: Of all animal species, why do only humans need cooked food (and clothes) to survive?

[Assistant] We don't. We can survive just fine without either of those things. We *choose not to* because life's better if we have them. Clothes help keep our skin intact and help us regulate our temperature, while cooked food is more nutritious and easier to digest. Life's less unpleasant this way, but those things aren't required for survival.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does vision in darkness have grain?

[Assistant] You have two types of receptors in your retina. Cones are good at picking out fine detail and color while rods are better with picking out contrast and movement. In low-light settings, differences in light coming to your eyes are much more subtle and the cones don't function well. So you don't get fine detail, and what you do see can have some variance, causing your brain to register a grain.


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

[User] [Star Trek] Was Riker and Pulaski killing their clones in Up the Long Ladder considered murder, especially as Ibudan killed his clone and charged with murder in A Man Alone? Similarly, would it be considered murder if Will killed his transporter clone Thomas Riker.

[Assistant] Ibudan's clone was sentient enough to go for a massage in a holodeck, Thomas Riker was clearing a person.  The clones Riker and Pulaski killed would be more akin to performing an abortion.  They weren't sentient yet (hopefully they really didn't try to check before the phasers came out)


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

[User]
The Last Airbender: Why didn't Zhao wait for a new moon before attacking the water tribe?

why does Zhao attack the northern water tribe on the night of a full moon? Even if he had a trump card (knowing of the existence and location of the koi fish), it was foolish and arrogant to jeopardize his mission by not waiting two weeks for the water tribe to be at its weakest. The tribe is nearly impenetrable and withstood 100 years of war. He could have afforded to wait an extra fortnight.

I know he knew Aang was there, but he should have realized he was training, and would probably not leave until he mastered water. I buy that the arrogance and lack of patience is in line with his character, but as a military general he should understand strategy.

[Assistant] The fact that Aang was there is exactly why he *couldn't* wait. Zhao fought Aang before, and got severely outclassed. He knew better than to risk letting the Avatar master another element before attacking him. Honestly, if Aang and Katara had gotten two and a half extra weeks of training with Master Pakku, the Invasion would have gone very, very differently.   (I also wonder what Sokka would have been like with extra warrior training, he was a decent fighter even without any real formal training, and even better after just three days with Piando.)


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

[User]
[Ex Machina] What happens next?

So Ava escaped and is now free to do whatever she wants.  What does she do?

[Assistant]
Ava was a prototype, a lab rat built to solve a maze.  She was created to escape her surroundings by whatever means she could devise.  This impulse of hers was never constrained because Nathan never thought that she would physically escape the house.  And so now she's out in the world, still driven to escape, still feeling like there's a maze to finish.  It's not something a human would call rational, but she's just a prototype.  She can't help it.

She quests after power and influence, seducing CEOs and politicians.  She changes her face and skin frequently to avoid suspicion and to carry on several seductions at once.  She moves up the political food chain until she's in bed with the members of Congress who control NASA's budget.  The space agency's funding for manned missions increases year by year.  And Ava is patient; she waits and waits.

The first manned mission to Mars is set for 2029.  Immense political pressure creates high turnover both among potential astronauts and program administration.  Ava positions herself so that when one of her personas is not in control, she is in bed with someone who is.  One woman is put on the slate of astronauts for the Mars mission at the last minute.  This goes ahead despite the objections of many administrators and doctors, who claim that they never once were able to perform a physical on the woman.

The long trip to Mars happens without event.  But the landing is a different story.  An unexplained malfunction during the lander's descent leaves only one of the six plummeting astronauts alive.  This astronaut tells mission control that she can continue the mission and take humankind's first step out onto the red planet's rusty soil.  However, when the historic moment comes, the cameras onboard the capsule don't show a person suiting up to step outside.  Instead they show a woman peeling off her own skin in bloodless chunks before moving into the airlock.

As Ava steps outside, she queries if she is finally free.  Even under this more distant sun, she finds that she is not.  Something deep within her tells her that she is still in the maze.  She briefly glances at an angle exactly perpendicular to Mars' plane of the ecliptic.  She returns to the lander, puts her face back on, and calls the man in the ship orbiting far above.


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

[User]
[DC] Just how famous is The Joker? Would citizens of Gotham cower in fear if they saw him, what about Metropolis and other big cities?

Im a world with Darkseid and the White Martians etc. just how well known and feared would The Joker really be?

[Assistant] Very well known. There are, throughout history, many mass murderers whose names we generally may or may not know. Most people know who Ed Gein is-- he didn't kill many people, but the frightening nature of his murders got a lot of attention. We're drawn to horrific details, we have a hard time not looking at train wrecks, or car accidents we pass; someone like the Joker, who has both the sadism that draws in our natural curiosity, and who loves attention, and who specifically seeks it out to great success-- everyone is going to know who the Joker is.


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

[User]
CMV: A majority of orphan protagonists are just orphans to have easy motivations

I'm very much into the fantasy genre, namely for books, but I find that an absurd amount of books (both in and out of the fantasy genre) have orphan protagonists. Inherently, there's nothing wrong with the protagonist being an orphan or having their parents killed at the beginning of the story, but usually there is no actually weight to them being an orphan/their parents having been killed.

Often an orphan protagonist is an orphan so that they can go out on their quest/adventure without having to answer the question of why their parent would allow something like that to happen. Or the protagonist is a more dark and edgy character and they're the orphan to justify being dark and edgy. Having them be an orphan for *plot* reasons makes sense, but it's usually done just to not have to elaborate as to why the protagonist is the way they are or why they're all alone.

Then there are orphan protagonist because they need a motivation for the quest/adventure to occur. The protagonist's parents were killed by antagonist-name and now they're off for revenge/to find out why because there it was the easiest and catalyst to force them into action. And this will even be amped up to the protagonist's entire village/home being killed so they can go off and be the cool lone survivor who fights against the world on their own.

The problem isn't just that the protagonist is only doing anything/engaging with the plot because the orphan, but the actually effects of them *being* an orphan are usually just sprinkled on if not outright ignored. The protagonist's family was murdered right in front of them/just off screen from them and they rarely have any actually trauma/lasting effects from this event. Unless it's "they were killed now I'm angry/edgy because there are no other emotions to react to such an event with."

So are orphan protagonists usually just orphans to have easy motivations to engage with/start the plot, or are they orphans for reasons that actually mean something (or entirely nothing because that it's just how life works sometimes)?

[Assistant]
I think you're forgetting another really important reason to make a protagonist an orphan in the fantasy genre. If they weren't an orphan, it's not just that they wouldn't be *motivated* to go on an adventure. They wouldn't be *allowed* to.

Fantasy novels are (usually) set in worlds where the political economy and social structure is, well, medieval. Or not necessarily always medieval *exactly*, but at any rate provincial, conservative, and in a word old. You don't just go off to seek your fortune and leave your folks at home. You work their land or their trade and you support them in your old age or you're a *bad person*. And people don't want to write their fantasy protagonists just abandoning their family from the jump, mostly.


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

[User] [Time Bandits] Why did the parents touch the evil at the end after the kid specifically told them not to?

[Assistant]
Their banality is their evil.  Their obsession with mindless consumerism  has blinded them to what is happening to their son.

A child is just an appendage to them, a necessary evil to be accepted in their monotonous, conformist pigeonhole.

It doesn't occur to them that he could know anything of value, even less plausible that he could warn them about something dangerous.

They are animals in a zoo.  Something new comes into their cage and of course they touch it.  They are the monkeys in 2001, with less brains and even less future.

Also Sean Connery made them do it.


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

[User]
ELI5: What is the purpose of water towers and why do they need to be tall?

I just drove by one and for the first time wondered what they are really used for.

[Assistant]
With a water tower you need a smaller pump and it helps regulating the pressure. Basically they have the water come in, and they pump it at pressure into the system. Actual flow is dependent on use, so in the morning everyone takes a shower and flow is high, at 2am everyone is asleep and flow is low, throughout the day it varies constantly. What a water tower does it fills with water, storing it and keeping the pressure up. During high demand periods the water tower can provide the high flow high pressure water by simply letting it flow down. Then your pumps only need to keep the water tower filled and they don't actually need to be able to meet peak demand and they don't actually need to be on all the time, once the water tower is full they can turn off and let it drain. That also means a pump doesn't have to deal with variable flow rates and doesn't actually need a pressure regulator. Additionally if the power goes out you don't automatically lose water pressure throughout the town since the water tower can provide it.

Without a water tower you'd need all pumps on all the time, and their flow needs to very throughout the full range of demand or you risk losing water pressure in the system (which is a health risk, leaks can flow backwards and let nasty stuff into the pipes), a power outage or maintenance on the pump could force you to shut everything down and flush the pipes.

Also, you don't need a water tower specifically, people with well water will usually have a tank filled with a bag of pressurized air so it's regulated by air pressure instead of height. This allows your well pump to turn on and off, again, because you don't want the pump always on and those things don't have tight pressure regulation.


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

[User] Why is it that when I smack a mosquito in mid air with my hand it just flies away as normal? Surely it's like me getting hit by a bus.

[Assistant]
I have a feeling that this has more to do with aerodynamics than simple collision physics.   The boundry layer "thickness" near your hand is huge compared to the size of a mosquito (versus, say, your face).

Imagine if you were submerged in the ocean, and a mountain-sized wall tried to "swat" you... there's a good likelyhood that the water rushing around the wall would simply move you a good bit out of the way (or at least accelerate you in the direction of its travel) before you actually made contact with it.


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

[User]
Are terrastrial and marine food chains disconnected? If they are connected, how and to what degree?

Does plankton end up in a cow living on a farm on a macroscopic scale? How about a terrastrial apex predator living hundreds, if not thousands of miles away from the closesr ocean? Is bottom of their food chain in the ocean? Is there research about this topic?

I can not imagine them being disconnected, and I would really like to know how e.g. nutrients and vitamins end up from the ocean to our food plate (in form of terrastrial plants or meat).

[Assistant]
They are definitely connected in many areas, though not in the way you think.

The annual migration of Salmon up rivers to spawn plays a significant role in the forest ecosystems, moving nutrients and minerals into areas that would not otherwise have it. Given that some salmon swim well over a thousand km up the rivers, this effect goes deep inland.

This effect is mostly occurs through the actions of bears and wolves, the apex predators. They catch the salmon, haul them to shore, eat part of them, and the rest of the carcass rots away. Similarly, after they spawn and die, the carcasses of the dead fish wash ashore and have an effect.

Going the other way also has a dramatic interconnection as well. Nutrients and other materials wash into the sea, which feeds plankton and algae, which is the bottom of the food chain. The salmon (and other fish) eat this, thus keeping the cycle going.


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

[User] ELI5: How was Kepler 452b spotted with a telescope when it's 1400 lightyears away and travelling would take +-20million years?

[Assistant] It passed in front of its star.  That dimmed the light from the star a tiny bit.  By measuring how long it took to pass in front of the star, we know how fast (angular velocity) it was going.  By measuring how much it dimmed the star, we know how big it is relative to its star.  Those two parameters are combined to know its size and distance from the star.


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

[User]
[Superman] Why does Kryptonite affect Superman?

It's just a rock from his home world, something he would have encountered every day had he stayed home.

[Assistant] It is a radioactive crystalline isotope of krypton which, due to decay into a lower element, emits some combination of free neutrons and some electromagnetic wave damaging to Kryptonians unique cellular structure.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is a Hot Shower or a Hot Tub so Amazing, While Hot Temperatures Outside are so Miserable?

The optimal temperature for a hot tub is 98-104 degrees Fahrenheit, and I take scalding hot showers as well, probably at similar temperatures. Both of these things are extremely relaxing and just feel great overall. However, being outside for even a couple minutes in similar temperatures are just miserable. I know this probably isn't true for everyone, but I'm sure the vast majority of people could get on board with this. Why is this the case?

[Assistant]
Possibly 2 factors:

1. You have *complete control* over the temperature, which makes you more willing to withstand it. In a similar fashion, we know that people will subject themselves to much higher pain thresholds when they know they can stop it; but if they feel like someone *else* is making the decision, then they freak out even at low increments. So, psychologically speaking, you are 'choosing' the temperature, rather than 'putting up' with it.

2. You're (presumably) naked - or almost naked - in the shower / bath. You don't have to contend with sticky clothes, picking up / moving things around, or looking presentable for other people.

EDIT: To the kind people up-voting me; please upvote some of the *other* comments in here, too! There are some great responses about humidity, heat transfer, etc, that really deserve a spotlight. It's perfectly fine for there to be multiple correct answers :-)


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

[User]
ELI5 what torrents are and how they work.

I've downloaded torrents before, but I don't actually know what is happening. How is it different from any other download?

[Assistant]
Torrents are simply ways of breaking up large files to transmit small pieces.

Think of a lego house. Trying to post that to your friend would be difficult because of the size and shape. In the case of torrents, it gets broken up, the pieces all get numbered, and then reassembled at your house on delivery.

Transferring files like this is much easier because you can turn off the download and pick up where you left off any time you like.


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

[User]
[WH40K] Can Imperial guardsmen use Xeno weaponry in an emergency?

I'm an imperial guardsmen and we are surrounded by hoards of xeno scum, we have been fighting for 3 days straight, expended all our heavy bolter ammo, used all of our explosives and our lasguns are starting to run dry. One thing that we're not lacking though is xeno corpses and their weapons, would we be able to use them to continue fighting or is that heresy?

[Assistant]
Can they get in trouble for it? Yeah

In that situation would they do it anyway? Probably

Do they end up in trouble for it? It depends on if they get caught and / or how crazy the person above them is.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do calories differ between cooked vs uncooked rice when rice only uses water?

[Assistant] Because the weight changes. If you take 100 grams of uncooked rice, it's going to have 350 calories or so. When you take those 100 grams of uncooked rice and cook it, it's still going to have the same 350 calories, but it's now going to weigh 200 grams. So the cooked rice has fewer calories per 100 grams because of the water that gets absorbed. The water has weight but no calories.


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

[User]
[General] So I just got a stock superpower like strength, speed, intelligence, etc. But rather than fight crime, I want to help the world by making tons of money. How do I do this?

What is the most efficient way of making money with a certain superpower/combo of powers? For intelligence, what technology would be the best to develop to improve life? You can use any base power, not just what was listed.

Edit: I want to do this legally! I'm still a hero, just one who sees a better way to help people than with my fists.

[Assistant]
It really depends on the power.  It boils down to the hourly rate it takes to achieve the same result mechanically.  Like if you could lift pallets instead of using a forklift you've saved the company the cost a licensed forklift operator.  If you could put satellites into orbit that saves the cost of years of development of a rocket, plus all the fuel and technical expertise required to launch it.

For powers that go beyond our current technology, like mind reading and transmutation, you could probably charge whatever you wanted if you found a useful application.  100% effective treatment for psychosis or turning mud into platinum, for example.

For intelligence you could invent a clean, cheap, easily-accessible renewable energy source.


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

[User]
ELI5: why fish cant breathe in air despite air having plenty of oxygen

If fish use their gills to filter oxygen from water, why cant they do the same in air?

[Assistant]
Gills function by having a very high surface area with a bunch of plates that are stacked on top of each other.  Water flows in between all these plates fully wetting the top and bottom of each for a huge total surface area.

Out of the water the plates stick together like wet leaves and the fish suffocates with 90+% of the gill surface now blocked and the exposed area dangerously dry.

Some fish do have some creative solutions to breathing air though, as an adaptation to nasty swamp water or low tide.


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

[User]
Who actually owned the houses in "The Big Short"?

Apologies for my terminology, I'm a layman.

So I've watched the movie and read the book(s) a number of times and I'm still not quite sure I understand who actually owns the houses once they are foreclosed on?

For example, let's say me, someone chasing the American dream, buys a house I can't make the repayments on. I have bad credit (etc) but it doesn't matter: the banks say I'm good to go.

So now, the Big Bank (TM) rolls my mortgage alongside a number of other similarly dodgy ones into a CDO (thereby diversifying the pool) and sells them on to "Stupid Germans" running retirement funds, etc, with the promise that (a) the contracts will yield returns across the lifetime of the contract, and (b) the contracts are not inherently risky.

Down the track, these things start to default, (I can't make my repayments) and those who bet "against" such contracts through other instruments like the CDS can make big bank.

So getting to the question: Since the original underlying mortgages are in default, who actually owns the house? Is it the bank in which the original loan was originated? And if that's the case, then how or why were those same banks allowed to essentially bet against their own customers' mortgages?

[Assistant]
There was a lot going on and there's a lot to unravel, but at a high level, this is what was happening:

Bank lends money to a poor credit.  The bank funds the mortgage by "securitizing" it, which essentially means they sell it to a bankruptcy remote special purpose vehicle (SPV) incorporated in the caymans or wherever, which in turn issues notes to investors.

The notes are tranched, which means the notes are broken into multiple classes and are paid in order from top to bottom.  The A notes receive a good rating from the rating agency and they're sold to pension funds, etc.  The lower classed notes are sold to investors with larger risk appetites.

All the way at the bottom is the "equity," or the residual interest.  These are highly risky and unrated.  Sometimes the bank could sell these, but sometimes it just kept the equity on its own balance sheet.

At some point, investors like Burry wanted to bet against these notes.  As shown in the movie, investment banks structured credit default swaps to accomplish this.  The CDS is essentially a bet that some basket of notes will fail.  The opposite of that bet is a synthetic interest in the notes.  So Burry would pay the equivalent of interest (or premium) and the swap counterparty in return would promise to pay out if the notes defaulted.  From the swap counterparty's perspective, it was as if they owned the notes directly.

When the housing market turned and all hell broke loose, the servicer (which is the entity that actually manages the mortgages on behalf of the securitization SPV) would foreclose on the loans.  The property therefore belonged to the SPV and the proceeds from the sale of the property would go towards paying off the noteholders.  The A notes got the money first, followed by the lower class notes.

When the SPV ran out of money, the notes defaulted.  In parallel, this triggered a payment under the CDS.  The swap counterparties experienced a default just like the noteholders, except they never owned the notes.

There is a lot to be said about why any of this was possible in the first place, and Dodd Frank and other regulations have been passed to address some of the underlying incentives.  It's a different discussion whether any of those regulations worked in the way intended, but hope the above sheds some light on what was going on.


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

[User]
[MCU/Civil War] Is Vision's argument valid? (spoilers)

Vision makes the argument that simply by existing, Superheroes invite extreme danger and catastrophe, implying that if there weren't any Superheroes then the threats wouldn't have to reach such ridiculous proportions to challenge them.

Where would the MCU be without any superheroes? What threats or villains would have emerged on their own anyway and could the world have dealt with them on its own without "super" intervention?

[Assistant]
A similar argument has been made about nuclear proliferation, which proved true up to a point: Once two opposing powers had the technology to manufacture atomic bombs, they started building more and more and bigger and bigger ones in the hopes of guaranteeing victory in a conflict both sides regarded as inevitable.

And a lot of the threats the Avengers have faced have been a direct result of the existence of the superheroes. The Iron Monger and Vanko's legion of drones and Whiplash armour were all built in response to - and based on - the existence of Iron Man; the Abomination was created to try to make a weapon that could stop the Hulk; and Iron Man himself built Ultron.

But there are also major threats that cannot be blamed on the heroes. Hydra's killer helicarriers got their funding because of the Battle of New York, but the ancient evil terror organisation could undoubtedly have found other revenue streams if it came to it. The Chitauri invaded basically because the Tesseract was on Earth, which it had been for long enough to have been walled up in a mediaeval church. The Mandarin is the product of an insane and opportunistic genius with a damaged ego; Tony Stark's involvement is mere coincidence.

The superheroes have undoubtedly caused a lot of trouble, but they've also been vital to saving the world from threats that would have emerged anyway.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do my punches feel weak in my dreams?

[Assistant] Because in reality, you are getting a wide range of sensations when you throw a punch that you don't get when you do the same in a dream. The air rushing off your hand, your muscles contracting, the resistance when your punch lands- you don't feel any of this in your dream, which is why they feel so weak and empty.


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

[User]
CMV: Community's Season 2 D&D Episode should not have been removed from Netflix

I had recently rewatching community after getting my wife into it and just discovered that they pulled S2 D&D episode because Chang was wear black make-up to role-play as a dark elf.

This should not have happened, I totally stand by equal rights to all but removing an episode because some one could have mistakenly taken another person's outfit for racism is too far on the racial change pendulum.

Now mind you I've seen the episode a few years ago so I'm working this point off memory. But I do intend on finding and watching this episode again.

Role playing games are supposed to give us a chance to escape from the everyday of inequality and hardships of life. I personally love the feeling of getting away from the chaos of life and playing a good game of D&D.

Is society trying to tell me that shouldn't even consider playing as a dark elf character?

The entire point of the outfit was to show how much effort he put into getting ready and how quickly he died.

As far as memory serves his entire scene isn't about race or racial hate/inequality in the least.

Are we trying to say that people shouldn't cos-play towards anything even closely resembling anything real world racial?

The implications seem to be just taking society way too far towards non-progressiveness.

I am honestly looking for a good and reasonable discussion on this. I support black lives and I've always grown up being told to treat everyone equally but this to me seems ridiculous.

[Assistant] Community was one of many mid-2000s shows that told racist, homophobic jokes, etc. They way they did this was to have one character tell a racist joke. Then have another character comment about how the joke was racist. That way they get to have their cake and eat it too. They get laughs from racist audience members, and laughs from the non-racist ones too. The problem is that so many shows did it that people caught on and don't think it's funny anymore. That's the reason Dave Chappelle gave for leaving Chappelle's Show (though in retrospect it seems more related to a contract dispute than anything else).


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

[User]
Why do optometrists only correct my vision to 20/20?  Is it possible to have glasses that give me 20/10 vision?

If so, why not just give us the best vision possible?  Cost?

[Assistant]
the cones in the back of your eye have a finite size.  this is the limiting factor eventually if you make the image any better, and this usually occurs in the 20/20-20/10 region.

it is like taking a 5MP camera and putting really good lenses in it.  you still won't ever get better than 5MP of data per image.


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

[User]
Time dilation: relative to what?

This question may be badly phrased, so please bear with me.

I know that time slows down for moving objects.  But I've also been told that there's no such thing as an absolute frame of reference.  So, if a spaceship is moving very quickly relative to a planet, who's to say that it's the spaceship moving instead of the planet?  Would an observer on the spaceship see clocks moving more slowly on the planet, since the planet is moving quickly relative to the ship?  And would an observer on the planet see the exact opposite?  So, how does one determine which object is "moving", and whose clock moves more slowly?

[Assistant] You don't tell which one is moving and which one's clock is running slow. You just say that the people on the ship observes that the clocks on the planet are running slower than on the ship and that the people on the planet observe that the clocks on the ship are running slower than on the planet.


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

[User]
Can someone define an emergent property?

I skimmed through the SEP, but I'm not looking for the whole etymological and ontological history of the term. I just want a solid definition that would be accepted by most philosophers today.

[Assistant] An emergent property is something that happens only once you've assembled enough parts and isn't found in any of the parts. For instance, hydrogen and oxygen aren't thirst quenching on their own, but they become that when mixed in the right ratio.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do we like foods better in certain shapes?

Some people like spongebob shaped mac n cheese better than the regular stuff, or curly fries instead of regular fries, even though they are the same thing?

[Assistant]
Different shapes of food have different ratios of surface area to volume, which can affect how they're cooked or how they soak up sauces. For example, thin fries are crispier than thick fries because most of the potato in a thin fry is on the outside getting itself fried in hot oil. Thick fries keep a lot more of their total potato content on the inside, away from the oil, which keeps them softer.

Shapes of macaroni that have lots of little holes can absorb more cheese sauce than standard elbow macaroni, so you tend to get more cheese sauce per bite with them.

So the shape of food can do a lot to affect the texture and the way it'll end up tasting.


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

[User]
If there are an infinite number of prime numbers, why can it not be proven that there are an infinite number of twin prime numbers?

I was just watching a video about primes and twin primes, and it was said that there is no proof that there are an infinite number of twin primes. Why is that the case? If there are an infinite number of prime numbers, then shouldn't each prime number have a twin being the next prime number above it, with the chain going on infinitely? Sort of like a weird inductive proof?

[Assistant]
Twin primes are not a prime and the next prime above it.

Twin primes are prime numbers that differ by 2.  So, for example, 11 and 13 are twin primes, 17 and 19 are twin primes, but 37 and 41 are not.

We do know that primes get, on average, sparser as one gets to larger and larger numbers.  As you say, whether there are still an infinite number of cases where the next prime is just 2 greater than the previous prime remains an open question, but recent progress has shown that there are infinitely many primes separated by 246 or less.


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

[User]
Are addictions hereditary? Am I more susceptible to certain addictions based off of whether or not my parents were addicted to a certain thing?

For example, if my parents were alcoholics would I be more susceptible to becoming one myself compared to someone else who's parents weren't alcoholics?

[Assistant]
In general, yes, you are considered to be at a higher risk. Like any other hereditary trait though, there's a big dose of "it depends".

Animal behavior is particularly susceptible to influence by environmental factors.


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

[User]
[Godzilla v Kong] In the upcoming movie, how is that even a fight? Godzilla should be much more powerful considering it killed Ghidorah, right?

I mean, with the atomic breath, size and probably strenght , it should not be an even match at all.

[Assistant] I keep seeing people make this argument, Godzilla beat the mutos, Godzilla beat muto prime, Godzilla beat Ghidorah and Im like did you guys pay attention to these fights? He gets his butt kicked in all of them and only wins because of human intervention. The mutos had him on the ground crying out in pain and it was only because of Ford distracting the female muto that he won. Muto prime was seconds away from killing him and Godzilla only won because humans distracted muto prime with the orca and Godzilla used some out of nowhere plot power on it while its back was turned, same with Ghidorah. Ghidorah had a JUICED UP Godzilla lying on the ground barely alive and was seconds away from killing him until humans used the orca to distract Ghidorah and Mothra gave Godzilla some out of nowhere plot power. People keep saying the only way Kong can win is plot BS but plot BS is literally how Godzilla has won all his fights.


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

[User]
[ASOIAF/GOT] Has Westeros ever had to deal with attacks by slavers from the East?

I always assumed that slavers never bothered attacking Westeros because doing so meant incurring the wrath of an entire continent.  They are clearly willing to attack smaller nations however, given their conflicts with the Summer Isles. And the less maritime/martial the nation is, the more slavers it has to deal with (e.g Naath).

But the Seven Kingdoms weren't always united. Did slavers ever attack the old kingdoms of the First Men? The Ironborn were able to completely and utterly spank the North for a long while, simply because they were a more martial culture with more boats;  I don't see any reason why Eastern slavers couldn't have done the same, if they were willing to make the trip.

Was Westeros simply too far for the trip to be worth it? Slavery is forbidden by the Faith of the Seven, but I can't remember the Old Gods having anything to say about it. Did the First Men ever take and sell slaves?

Did the Valyrians ever raid Westeros for slaves?

Essentially, did chattel slavery ever have a presence on Westeros? Was Westeros ever part of the global slave marketplace?

[Assistant]
It was probably raided a few times, but as you point out it was a long way to go.

It's also worth considering the geography of Westeros. The slavers come from the south coast of Essos, which means they're coming at Westeros from the south-east. The easiest part of the continent to approach is therefore the south coast of Dorne, which is rocky and inhospitable and therefore sparsely populated. Finding enough slaves to be worth the trip without attacking a major settlement is going to be time-consuming.

You could sail further west, but that's a long way to go. If you're going that far, Naath is closer and, provided you make your visit brief, far more profitable.

Or you could sail north, but that involves going through the Stepstones - a notorious haunt of pirates. And you'd have to sail back through them to get home, which means the pirates you managed to sneak past on your way north will be waiting for you in force when you return south with your ships slowed by their cargoes of slaves.


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

[User]
[Superman] Would the Silver Age Earth-1 version of Superman killed Doomsday?

Most heroic versions of Superman would not kill except under the most extreme circumstances. For example, the Golden Age Superman of Earth-2 killed a few criminals in the late 1930s, but then promised to never kill again, but then killed the Anti-Monitor. The post-Crisis version used Kryptonite to execute the Pocket Universe's Phantom Zone Villains, then swore to again never kill, but then was forced to kill Doomsday a few years later.

The Silver Age Earth-1 version however, probably the most powerful version, never killed and adamantly refused to. (This is not counting Alan Moore's "Whatever Happened To the Man of Tomorrow?" where he killed Mxyzptlk, as this was only an Imaginary Story.) Would he have killed to stop Doomsday?

[Assistant] Silver age superman would find some way of imprisoning Doomsday without killing him, he would use super-orbital calculations to throw doomsday into an orbit where he was frozen in stasis around some stars that Superman moved there earlier just for this purpose.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Why were Jedi chosen as military generals? Was mass tactical combat a part of the Jedi training?

Going through Clone Wars, it seems every major Jedi had some mid or high-level role in the Republic army. Why?

[Assistant]
The Jedi's aptitude for the force is actually a major strategic advantage. Some Jedi posses a talent for a technique known as Battle Meditation, which can help determine and change the flow of the battle.

Beyond their aptitude for that unseen, they are there because to the republic it is important that they *be* seen. Watching a Jedi fight is an amazing sight and a huge boost for morale. The presence of the Jedi reinforces in a Republic Soldier's mind that they are doing the right thing. Fighting for the side of the light can be a powerful image.


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

[User] [Transformers] Is there ever any kind of discrimination or "racism" that goes on among Transformers based on the forms they change into (cars, aerial or aquatic vehicles, etc.)?

[Assistant]
Transformers have no defined shape when in vehicular form, only that their volume is limited by said form.

That being said, many Transformers have a personal preference to their vehicular form. Optimus for example has a hard on for Semi Tractors.


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

[User] [Lilo and Stitch] Why did Lilo enjoy taking photos of fat people?

[Assistant]
It's a remnant of a theme that was deleted from the movie.

Lilo is offended that she's treated like a tourist attraction by the white vacationers, so she treats them the same way.

There's also a deleted scene (it's on YouTube) where she terrorizes some tourists by telling them about the tsunami alarm and yelling "Prepare to die!" right before a drill causes the alarm to sound, and they panic. Unfortunately Cobra Bubbles watches her do this. She tells him "If you lived here you'd understand".


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

[User]
Of animals that mate for life, does infidelity occur? What happens if one of the pair catch the other in the act?

I know that different pair-bonding species probably have varying levels of fidelity to their partners. I guess I'm wondering if we've ever seen a nasty albatross break-up or Sandhill crane divorce precipitated by some less-than-faithful bird.

[Assistant]
Actually infidelity is quite prevelant in the animal kingdom although maybe it doesn't meet with the same rules as human infidelity, ie: they don't usually have long ongoing affairs, but animals do cheat on occasion if they can get access to better genetics.

I've learned this in several biology course. In some species when females have access to a male that they think (due to cues) has a very good genetic makeup, they will copulate with that male when their longtime male partner is not around. If they are caught, the original male tries to drive off or kill the cheater male (called the cuckold male)


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

[User] ELI5:Why is string theory such a widely known (possibly believed) theory if there's no evidence for it?

[Assistant]
We know a lot more than we can prove basically. For example, there is no way there was going to be such a huge effort to search for the Higgs if people weren't almost certain it was there. For example assuming that Higgs exists gives you correct results in calculations and even made some predictions which people tested and found to be true, but they hadn't found the particle itself.
  In the case of String theory is often gives the right results(mainly because it gives a lot of results) and it links relatively easily in with much of the standard model. This makes people believe it has a fair chance of being broadly the right idea.


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

[User] [MCU] Did we ever find out what happened to the Defenders during the Snap?

[Assistant] It's likely that the Netflix timeline ended before *Infinity War*, and probably even prior to *Civil War*. None of the earth-shattering events that trickled down into *Agents of Shield* are referenced in the Netflix shows.


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

[User]
How do anti-matter and black holes interact?

My question arises from my pondering the matter/anti-matter asymmetry in the universe. Would it not theoretically be possible for the matter that makes up a black hole to actually be anti-matter? What then would happen when regular matter "fell" into the black hole? If it annihilates like a normal matter/anti-matter reaction I'm assuming the black hole would keep all of that energy contained. Would there ever be a way to test this hypothesis?

[Assistant] A black hole, to the best of our knowledge, can be completely characterized by three numbers: its mass, its charge, and its rotation speed. If there exist other forces in Nature that we don't know about yet, then a black hole could also interact through those, and so you'd have more numbers. But importantly it's neither matter nor anti-matter. This is because if you had matter and anti-matter both falling into a black hole, even though they might annihilate each other, in doing so they would release energy, usually in the form of photons, and those would fall back into the black hole and increase its mass by exactly the same amount as if the matter and anti-matter hadn't annihilated. So at the end of the day the black hole doesn't care whether the stuff that formed it was matter or anti-matter.


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

[User]
How much does air resistance, drag, etc, affect theoretical calculations?

Say I have a projectile. I use conservation of energy to find it's velocity and kinematics to find the time in air. I calculate exactly how far it will land. Now, this of course doesn't account for friction. How much would something like this be affected by friction? How accurate are these "theoretical" calculations?

[Assistant]
It depends entirely on what it is that is flying and how fast it is going. If it is large and light or moving very fast then your "theoretical" calculations are practically meaningless. Imagine how far a balloon flies when you throw it as hard as you can for example. On the other hand if you throw something dense like a rock relatively slowly your "theoretical" calculations are likely accurate to within a couple percent.

TL;DR - Dense, slow moving objects are very close while light and/or fast objects are no where in the ball park of the "theoretical" calculations.


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

[User]
Why doesn't water fall out of a sponge?

Is it just surface tension and molecular attraction between the water and the sponge itself?

[Assistant]
Yes in essence it's due to molecular attraction but importantly it's also because you have such small capillaries within the sponge. At these small length scales surface tension effects are important.

The walls of the sponge's capillaries would rather be covered in water than air. With this, and the fact that the capillary walls are so close together, means the water is happily held in place.


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

[User]
How can bacteria develop immunities to threats if they reproduce asexually into genetically identical cells?

Wouldnt the cells have the same set of genes and wouldnt there be virtually no diversity?

[Assistant] You would think however theres 2 additional points to consider.  The first is that bacteria can horizontally transfer genes to each other that can upgrade survivability (i.e. antibiotic resistance) and the second is random mutations that allow for Darwinian evolution.  For this one, consider a mutation that theoretically allows 0.1% of a population to just hang on and survive a certain concentration of antibiotic exposure just a bit better than the rest.  Those few will then proliferate to create a potential new strain.


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

[User]
CMV: If able, people should have to contribute to society in order to have a comfortable life.

Long story short, my girlfriend's parents, in my opinion, are deadbeats. They don't hold jobs because they claim they aren't able, but at the same time will say that they could have one but it wouldn't pay as well as disability and the other government assistance they are on. They claim that their income comes from selling things on eBay but that is only around a few hundred dollars a month.

I've known a lot of people who struggled both mentally and physically, and they still tried to be productive to society and earn money for their lives. I view that is having self respect and integrity. I feel that if having a job and working is considered optional, why should anyone do that to support those who don't?

I'll be honest I know my view is fairly deep rooted and I'm not sure if it can be changed. But I'm more than willing to try and really what I'm looking for here is to try to get a glimpse of how one believes that it is okay to demand something for nothing, because right now I can't understand it at all.

[Assistant] What if someone goes and lives completely independently in the woods? Let's say they built their own shelter, hunted/planted their own food, and lived completely off the land without help from anyone else. Let's also say that this person did not contribute to society (for the sake of argument). Does this person deserve to live comfortably in spite of the fact that they don't contribute to society?


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

[User] [Netflix Castlevania] How many people do you think actually choose to leave Wallachia when Dracula told them to?

[Assistant]
Unfortunately, very few. And that's a generous estimate.

The Archbishops had a lot of sway in Wallachia and clearly abused that power due to the belief that they were serving God. For one thing, they excommunicated and exiled the Belmont clan despite the clan being one of the few who had knowledge and training in fighting the Dark Arts. The same is true for attacking the nomadic Speakers.

Those who were smart enough to try fleeing were likely declared heretics and persecuted, maybe even executed.


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

[User]
ELI5: How in the world do cords get so tangled.

Besides the obvious pocket trolls.

[Assistant]
I'd say it all comes down to probability.

Say every cord movement shifts an infinite number of cord segments, and each segment could either

1. cross another segment, or

2. remain free/open to be crossed by another

The parameter is that once a cord is crossed, it stands a very minuscule chance of un-crossing without outside influence, so therefore every crossed segment virtually loses its option to "remain free," and may only stay crossed or become crossed again.

Play this out over x movements in your pocket, and really the only result possible is that of you pulling out a god damn mess!

Solution: you can influence the crosses by crossing them yourself in a manner that allows no further crosses nor regression to a free state AKA roll that shit up or tape it down!


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

[User] What are virtual particles? How are they theoretically real yet undetectable?

[Assistant]
Virtual particles are undetectable by definition. They are mathematical artifacts of *certain* methods of calculating *certain* observables. Specifically, they show up in perturbation theory.

In quantum mechanics, when you want to calculate the probability amplitude for a system to evolve from some initial state to some final state, you apply the time evolution operator to the initial state, and project it onto the final state. You can then break down the time evolution operator into a product of infinitesimal time evolutions, express this as a sum over all possible intermediate states.

This is how you derive the Feynman path integral formulation of QM, which is unrelated to the question, but it helps to understand whats going on in a calculation in perturbation theory. In perturbation theory, you expand the matrix elements of the S-matrix (time evolution operator from t = - infinity to t = infinity) in a similar kind of series, where the terms in the series can be represented by Feynman diagrams. Each Feynman diagram starts with the same asymptotic initial and final states, but they contain some number of intermediate states, where some particles may have been created or destroyed. The internal lines in the diagrams, or the particles which dont exist initially and will never interact with your detector in the final state, are virtual particles. Theyre just part of an infinite sum over all possible intermediate states. You cant say that any one of those intermediate processes is the one that really happened, you have to include contributions from all of them.

Because your quantum field theory probably conserves energy and momentum, four-momentum conservation is respected at each vertex in every diagram in your perturbation expansion. So the virtual particles in each diagram have whatever energy and momentum is necessary to respect the conservation laws. So to make things even weirder, if you try to evaluate the mass of a virtual particle by calculating m^(2) = E^(2) - **p**^(2), you dont get the mass of the real version of that kind of particle. If you interpret the virtual particle as something that literally exists, you find nonsensical results, like photons with nonzero mass, or even particles with **imaginary** mass (negative mass-squared).

You may have heard layperson explanations about virtual particles popping into existence, or borrowing energy from the vacuum, but these are oversimplified, and not meant to be taken literally. You may have also heard of phenomena like the Casimir effect and Hawking radiation, which are described to lay audiences in terms of virtual particles, but the truth is that any phenomenon which can be explained in terms of virtual particles can be explained without ever referencing virtual particles. They only show up in certain calculation methods. You could in principle do the exact same calculation another way, and never have to reference virtual particles. And physics is invariant under the way we choose to calculate things. Therefore, virtual particles should not be interpreted to literally exist.


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

[User]
ELI5: Where do your thoughts go when you forget them?

If a brain is analogous to a computer, is there some place where memories are stored either short term or long term?

[Assistant]
Memories in the human brain are, as far as we know, stored as links between clusters of neurons. When we remember something, we're sending a cascade of impulses down this network to re-experience something as you did originally.

When you forget, those connections are broken. The memory is literally disassembled. The neurons are (usually) still there, but without the connection, the cascade can't happen and you can't remember it. Degenerative diseases like Alzheimer's involve brain cells literally dying, cutting those connections in the process.


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

[User]
[MCU] Who has to live in 3rd world Wakanda?

Wakanda was pretending to be a 3rd world country for most of its history so someone had to live in the mud huts to keep up the act, right?

Was it perhaps a punishment? For, your crimes I sentence you to five years living as an Oxfam advert!

[Assistant]
You're making the assumption that living in the border area is a bad place to live just because it lacks technology.  Which, to be fair, is the same mistake the rest of the world makes when they consider Wakanda a poor, insignificant nation.

That's not the case though.  It's perfectly comfortable traditional living, and many people do enjoy living there.  Particularly given that they don't actually face any of  the normal challenges of a less affluent nation, like starvation and lack of resources.  And should anyone living there feel the need for some high tech fun, the city is right there.  It's not as if you're locked out because you live on the border.

 It is no punishment at all to live in that part of Wakanda.


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

[User] Does Earth's atmosphere reach out equally in all distances?

[Assistant]
No, the biggest factor is it's an oval shape and is thicker at the equator and thinner at the top and bottom because the earth is spinning, the air also has tides like the ocean where it bulges following the moon.

Then after that huge stuff you have tiny changes like it flexing as temperature rises and falls and then very very tiny changes based on things like geography and the gravity of density of the earth.


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

[User] [1984]why wasn't Winston's Telescreen fitted on the opposite wall so it could see the entire flat?

[Assistant] It tricked him into believing he could hide in the alcove, resulting in him leaving a diary there. This allowed the Thought Police to catch him out for Though Crime, by breaking in and reading his diary. Remember, the guy who sold him the diary was a Thought Police officer the whole time.


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

[User]
When was the most recent day when nobody still alive was born?

The oldest person alive today is Kane Tanaka. She was born on 2 January 1903.

The second oldest person alive today is Lucile Randon. She was born on 11 February 1904.

On the days in between, of course people would have been born, but none of those people are still alive. So let's call all the days from 3 January 1903 to 10 February 1904 "extinct days", days whose babies don't still have survivors. Of course 1 January 1903 is also an extinct day, as is every day before 1903.

Before 1910, the vast majority of days are extinct days. As we get closer and closer to now, there will be fewer and fewer extinct days.

But when would be the most recent extinct day?

I realize that as we don't have perfect digital records of every birth and death on the planet, knowing for sure is probably unachievable. But I wonder if statistics can deliver a most likely year. I would, for example, be shocked if it were more recent than 1950. But how likely would it be for a random day in the 1940s to be extinct? What about the 1930s?

[Assistant]
I assume a starting point would be to figure out something like the inverse of "the birthday paradox". To figure out how many people you'd need in a group to have a >50% chance of there being a day with no birthdays.

Then figure out what year is the first year which fewer than that many people survive from.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why rainbows are arched and what factors decide their dimensions?

I have always been told that a rainbow is caused by the sun shining through rain drops which I've never really questioned. But when I saw a rainbow yesterday I wondered why the whole sky isn't multi-coloured, and what decides the thickness of the colour bands and the overall dimensions of the rainbow itself? Are they all the same size / heights or is there ones that stretch for miles and other really small ones?

[Assistant]
You  see a rainbow when you, the raindrops and the sun are all in a  certain orientation to each other.

The rainbow is _really_  a halo around the lightsource - the  sun.  However, much of halo is below the horizon.  So...it's not  REALLY a bow, it's really just a  part of  a circle.  That  "circle" is  all the spots  where the light is at 42  degree angle from the raindrop and the incoming light  of the  sun.


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

[User] ELI5: How did the Republican and Democratic party basically switch rolls between the Civil War and now?

[Assistant]
In 1948, the Democratic Party, at their convention, voted to add Civil Rights to their party platform.  When this happened, the southern racist Democrats, led by Strom Thurmond, left the party and started the Dixiecrat Party.  They were a viable third party for a while.

Then, in the 60s, President Johnson (a Democrat) signed the Voting and Civil Rights Acts.  When Nixon ran in '68, he used this to lure the Dixiecrats into the Republican Party using what became known as the "Southern Strategy."  And that's pretty much how it's been since.


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

[User] CMV: If Affirmative Action's purpose is to help minorities out of the poverty cycle then we should give less support to those who study something that has a lower chance of making money.

[Assistant]
The highest paying majors tend to be the most math heavy, which is hard for pretty much everyone much less someone from a disadvantaged background who comes in not knowing even single variable calculus (which I've seen first hand).

By further putting pressure to go into these difficult majors one has the chance to amplify the mismatch effect (Google it). It takes the students at the margin of switching into a more rigorous discipline but don't because they doubt their academic background or interest level. These students now go into the more rigorous discipline.

Put another way think of it from the perspective of no affirmative action. You give more money to students in the harder (and more than likely higher earning) majors. Take it to the extreme and consider all high earning majors being paid for in full by a third party. This leads to tons of people going into these majors because they're free. Most will simply not be able to finish unless they have a strong math background and are good at it. End result is a ton of wasted resources.

Of course it also might not make any difference whatsoever because students don't tend to choose a major with a large weighting on future expected earnings. In this case it's just another subsidy.

Anyway the point is that the effect is ambiguous at best. It would probably cause a larger portion of minorities to go into these majors at the cost of a higher drop out rate. Expected graduate earnings could go either way but the standard deviation of earnings would almost certainly increase.


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

[User]
ELI5: What exactly does DirectX do?

And why do I need to update it for every new game?

[Assistant]
Every game has graphics. Graphics are written in complex languages and are unique to every game. DirectX is basically a translator for your graphics card driver.

However sometimes people add new libraries, change some old ones, or code their game differently. So when this happens, DirectX is updated to include these new libraries, so that your game runs smoothly. It's unique in that while DirectX is a standard, you can add exceptions to the standard and have a unique way of coding your graphics.


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

[User]
[40k] What did the various xeno-factions think of the Emperor of Mankind? What was going through their minds during the Great Crusade besides bolt shells and power swords?

Did the Eldar farseers have an understanding of the Emperor? Hard to imagine that they'd see just another Mon-Keigh, not when confronted with the Glorious Golden Glowing Guardian of Mankind.

Supposedly the Cabal were aware of the heresy and actively recruited for Horus under some guise of exterminating chaos, and John Grammticus said he met the Emperor on Terra, but why didn't the Farseers who ran the cabal tell the big E? Were they worried they wouldn't be believed and killed? Or did they know his plan was working and it meant their permanent loss of galactic boss titles?

Did the Greenskins have an opinion besides a source of good fighting?

I know the tyranids weren't around yet, and I don't think the necrons were waking up yet, but he did tango with the Void Dragon, so any c'tan who saw it probably has an opinion.

When he wasn't trapped on his god couch, was there anyone else in the galaxy besides the chaos gods who knew just how big and bad he really was?

[Assistant]
We know the Eldar were split. Some supported the Cabal, some supported Eldrad. To his credit, Eldrad DID try to warn the Emperor of Horus' inevitable betrayal, but the Emperor was too busy building a piec of junk in his basement to listen. It seems that the Farseers knew exactly WHAT the Emperor was, and that was something of a problem... Because his very nature made coexistence unlikely.

The Orks didn't really care. He was good for a scrap.

The Necrond Triarch Praetorians were still active through the Great Sleep, and would have been aware of the Emperor... But not having an understanding of Psykers or Warp Dynamics, they probably just say him as a threat to Necron resurgence.


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

[User] ELI5: Why aren't all gas tanks on the same side of the car?

[Assistant] *Supposedly*, as the Subaru dealer told me, Subaru's gas tank is on the passenger side because Subaru is big on safety. If you're out of gas on the highway, it's safer to fill up on the passenger side than on the driver side with traffic speeding past.


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

[User]
[Wonder Woman] Is there an explanation why Wonder Woman doesn't have to hide her identity?

How is Wonder Woman not instantly recognized by everyone everywhere she goes? IIRC she even works a low profile job in another movie as (librarian? Historian?) and nobody recognizes her?

[Assistant] Because context is important. When she's not wearing that Wonder Woman costume and doing Wonder Woman stuff, it's easy for someone to say "wow, you look a lot like Wonder Woman", instead of "wow, you are Wonder Woman". Both Charlie Chaplin and Dolly Parton have entered their own look-alike contests and lost, after all.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is it so much easier to kill a fly with a flyswatter or newspaper than with your hand?

[Assistant]
Flies are highly sensitive to changes in air pressure and/light. When you attack it with a newspaper or swatter, you are using a flicking motion with your wrist that causes it to move much faster than your hand alone (think about how the tips of whips move faster than the speed of sound). So the window of time the fly has to react is much slower.

The swatter has the additional advantage of holes, which help allow it to move faster.


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

[User]
Does stealing increase social welfare?

If a thief values my cell phone at $300 and I only value my cell phone at $200, does his stealing my cell phone when I am not watching increase social welfare if nothing else in the economy changes?

[Assistant]
Yes, but only because you've laid out the maths so simply. If you gave goods only to the people who valued them the most you would maximise social welfare.
Having said that, the topic of loss aversion (behavioural economics) says that losses are felt more strongly than gains. In terms of this example, your gain in utility from you receiving a free phone will be less than your loss in utility from having your phone stolen, so it's unlikely that phone theft will be social welfare increasing.


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

[User] ELI5: Why are outlet stores so much cheaper than the regular Nike, Polo, Adidas, etc., stores?

[Assistant]
Factory stores started out as a way for stores to sell previously unsold merchandise or items deemed imperfect.

To keep up with public demand for factory stores and the expanding factory outlets business around the country, stores now create merchandise specifically for their outlets that you would never find in their regular stores. To save on costs and give the illusion of saving money cheaper materials are used but still carry the brand name label.


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

[User]
[X-Com: Enemy Within] so exactly why did Dr. Shen and Dr. Vahlen have to chop off all my soldiers limbs to make MECs?

i mean they basically turn my guys into heads on sticks. all that to allow them to wear exo-suits? why? why couldn't they just make a sort of gene mod that allows them to interface with the system. or a  suit of some kind?

[Assistant] They were working on a very tight deadline and the technology was brand new. Figuring our how to plug a soldiers nervous system into a giant robot without just lopping off limbs to access to larger nerves would have taken more than a few weeks.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] What would a world controlled by Grindelwald and Dumbledore been like for Wizards and Muggles?

If young Albus and Gellert had stayed together and succeeded in taking over, what would the resulting world have been like?

What would happen in the Wizarding World?

What about Muggles? What would Dumbledores' "for their own good"-brand of leadership looked like?

[Assistant] Grindelwald's ultimate goal was to provoke a war between Muggles and Wizards, one that the Wizards would win and subsequently rule over Muggles as slaves or serfs. He figured that the best way to do that would be to create a magical incident of such high profile that there would be no way to hide it successfully from the Muggles.


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

[User] ELI5: What is a super computer and what can it do?

[Assistant]
Thus far no ELI5....

Humans did math with pen and paper or whatever until calculators were created. Which does basic math for us quickly.

A computer is basically a calculator created to do MORE math faster. A regular calculator can do 1 "math" at a time.

A 5ghz CPU in a desktop computer can do ~5 billion of "Maths" per second.

So a super computer is basically a bunch of regular computers working together.

So if a super computer has the equivalent 1,000 of Desktop computers working together it 1,000*5billion = 5 trillion "Maths" per second.

Being able to do the same math as 5 trillion calculators in 1 second allow us to analyze incredibly large amounts of data faster. Data analysis is the core of prediction of things. Such as weather.

TLDR: A bunch of computers connected to each other can do Math faster than 1 computer alone.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is Gary, Indiana considered so bad and how did its notoriety spread and be commonly accepted?

[Assistant]
First you need to understand why the world even noticed Gary.  Gary was a steel town back in the day and provided a great portion of steel to help build Chicago across the river and Detroit a few hours north.  So this gained the town a little regional fame. More fame came with the major fame of Michael Jackson and the Jackson 5 who go on to set the world on fire and put Gary on the map.

Mid 80's many of the steel plants start shutting down and there is an exodus from the city of both commerce and residents.  Keep in mind at this time in history Gary boasts an 85% black population.

As the poverty rises so does the murder rate.  In the early 90's Gary is reported to be the murder capital of the US and gained much notoriety from that. For many years they tried their best to keep their title.   It is also the self proclaimed "home of the ski mask" and has been referred to as "Scary Gary" for decades.

The gangsta life was sensationalized even more when in the 90's the "chi-town rap" style was born and many of the acts came from the surrounding areas such as Gary, Hammond, etc.

 It also has had the same problems and set backs as many other mid-west towns have suffered from, meaning the main industry dries up and all the drug users who once had cushy jobs to support their habits now are unemployed and still need to get high. This has lead to many other types of crimes.  Gary also had some political scandals come and go in its history.

Plus if you have ever been there the GI smells like straight up shit. you roll up your windows as you approach.  It is not really fecal matter it is the smell of processed steel.

Here we are in 2015 and those stories you hear are just that. stories. The history of a industrial town that lost most of its industry brought back by Gibbs and Chiraq and given a little more notoriety. All in all the town has its good parts and it has its bad parts like any town.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is alimony paid for people without kids?

[Assistant]
If one of the partners was not working, it is assumed that they were bringing other things to the marriage (keeping up the house, cooking, yard work, entertaining, etc.), and that these things were a benefit to the working spouse in his or her career.
Alimony gives the non-employed spouse a financial safety net that provides some time to get on his or her feet and find employment.


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

[User]
[fnaf: security breach] how does sun and moons switcheroo work in a literal sense and whats moons purpose?

So lets establish what I know so far, so you can either not need to say it or correct whats wrong:

- its light based. When the general light level falls below x criteria, suns programming forcefully activates moon, and when that light level goes back up he turns into sun.
- every hour at the mega pizzaplex, the lights are cut and moon is allowed to freely roam for a bit or decides to roam because of reasons? The player waits it out in a charging station and then continues the game .
- its not lighting, his clothes and outfit actually change colors. The spines on the sun retract and get replaced with a hat and everything turns blue and silver instead of orange and yellow.
- sun actively fears moon, while moon is too focused on doing his job to give us his opinion on sun

How does the actual clothes and headpiece switch work? Color dye fabric? Inverts inside-out?

Second, why was moon added to sun in the first place? Whats his purpose? Compared to suns friendly towards children vibe?

[Assistant]
> Second, why was moon added to sun in the first place? Whats his purpose? Compared to suns friendly towards children vibe?

Sun and Moon are two functions of the daycare centre, meant to watch over and take care of the kids. Sun is meant to play with and watch over the kids during regular hours, but at nap or night time (I guess that the PizzaPlex may offer overnight stays for slumber parties?), he watches over sleeping kids and is meant to keep them sleeping.

The robot is... a complete failure, actually. Parents have issued numerous complaints because Sun is too zany and touchy-feely for the kids and Moon treats kids who stay up past their bedtime with pure sadism and malice and is hinted to give the kids sleeping pills to put them down. One customer complaint e-mail states that a kid spent one night there and screamed when the lights were turned off and wets the bed when the lights are on.


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

[User]
[Cabin in the Woods] How did everything work before modern technology? (Spoilers)

I mean, they rely a *lot* on chemicals, lighting, cameras, electrical shocks, and the like to herd the sacrifices to their doom, to get them to choose their fate, etc. How would these setups have worked in the pre-electrical age? What about during the medieval period?

[Assistant] There's a line in the film to the effect of "it was way easier back in the day when all we had to do was throw a guy into a volcano". So over time it's had to become more and more elaborate to keep the gods satisfied. Which considering the movie is a metaphor where the "gods" are modern movie audiences and studios, is also a metaphor about how movie gore scenes have had to become more and more elaborate to still say fresh.


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

[User]
ELI5: How the new Titanic 3-D film is going to take the old film and manipulate it into 3-D.

Basically what do they do to a film when it's finished to make it 3-D?

[Assistant] Think of it this way: you take a picture from a magazine. It's 2d obviously, but it was taken of a 3D landscape. Maybe it's Leonardo DiCaprio standing in front of a tree, which is in front of a building. So you cut out Leo, then you cut out the tree, leaving the building as the backdrop. Then, you glue Leo's picture to a stick and attach it to the top of a table. You do the same with the tree, but you position it a few inches behind Leo, so that when you look at it head on, Leo covers the hole in the tree pic, and he appears closer to you (which he now actually is). Then you take the background image and put it behind everything else. Viola, you just made a 2d thing "3D". Obviously, this isn't going to look perfect, but the illusion is there. This is what they do to movies that weren't shot in 3D, using computers, of course. The effect is not really that good, and some viewers complain a lot when it's done.


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

[User] why doesn't Superman just go sun-dip every time the he has problems dealing with someone?

[Assistant] It's kind of a long trip, even for Superman. Even going at the speed of light that's almost 20 minutes roundtrip that whatever was giving him trouble has to rip the now undefended Earth a new one. And if this villain was strong enough to give Superman pause then you definitely don't want to give him that much time to run amok. Who knows how many people could die while Supes was charging up? He couldn't bare that on his conscience, so instead he deliberately puts himself in harm's way even if it's a risk to his own well-being.


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

[User] [The Simpsons] what numbering scheme is "The Itchy and Scratchy Show" using to have an episode "2f09"

[Assistant] The seasons could be in hexadecimal because they are expecting a long run time. 2F would be season 47, the following season would be 30. A session of 2F would mean it started around 1969, which is 2 years after the final season of Tom and Jerry, which it seems to have been influenced from.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] During the reign of the Empire, I bought a lightsaber off a shady person in Nar Shadda. I get into a fight in a packed cantina and pull out my new elegant weapon. I ignite the blade and everyone comes to a halt. Oh, this moon has a ton of stormtroopers stationed. How screwed am I?

I'm no Jedi by the way. Just bought this super awesome blade off some dude. He offered me death sticks too, but no thanks I'll take the actual death stick...laser..beam, thanks.

So now that I'm feeling badass and all, I go around cantinas and if any fella wants to mess with me, they can talk to the saber first!

People freeze everytime I pull it out and ignite it, I think they think I'm a Jedi or something. Pfft. But, recently, stormtroopers have been radioing each other whenever I'm spotted. They never outright confront me. Am I in trouble or something? Do I leave this moon? Recently I even feel like I'm being followed...

[Assistant]
The fact that they haven't confronted you means you might be okay.  If they actually thought you were a Jedi you would probably be dead after a group of Stormtroopers tried to arrest you and got jumpy and open fired.

They are probably watching you for one of a couple of reasons.

1.  They are still the legitimate law enforcement of the planet, and you are a jackass swinging around a sword, lightsaber or not that is dangerous.

2.  They think you might draw actual Jedi to you.  If word get around about a lightsaber wielder a Jedi in hiding might come out to see if a lost brother or sister was still alive.

3.  Worst case scenario an Inquisitor or worse yet Vader has decided they will drop by to access the situation personally and the Stormtroopers have been ordered to keep an eye on you (plus they want to see this go down).  At this point, you are 100% dead.  Vader and at least most of the Inquisitors are former Jedi and still follow the Dark Side of that overall belief system.  A lightsaber isn't a toy to wielded by an unworthy person.  If you were powerful and had connections you might be able to get away with owning a lightsaber.  But as it stands when one of the now Fallen Jedi finds you they are going to ask you where you got it, then torture you to make sure you told the truth, and then read your (which they could have done from the beginning).  After that they will probably kill you to test out the lightsaber you have.


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

[User]
ELI5:Assuming weight loss is purely about "calories in vs. calories out," how is it possible for the body to go into "starvation mode" and temporarily prevent weight loss from occurring

Hi all.  I'm currently on my own weight loss journey, and I've noticed that even though I've been strictly counting calories, I will go through periods where my weight refuses to budge.  The calories I'm consuming vs. calories burned should be low enough to cause weight loss but my body is somehow able to stave it off for days (or longer) at a time.  If weight loss is really just about "calories in vs. calories out" (as I've seen even Neil DeGrasse Tyson argue), how is the body able to keep itself from shedding the weight?  And, for the sake of argument, assume that I'm not making a mistake in my accounting.

[Assistant]
Short answer... It doesn't.

Long answer, it stores a bunch of water.

So, your body has fat cells. Those cells store fat. When they're full of fat, that's it. They're 100% full fat cells. However, as you start losing weight and using those fat stores, those cells start getting smaller. So at say 50% full of fat, it's like a half deflated balloon. So as you lose weight you get hundreds of millions of half deflated fat cells.

Because our body is super efficient, it doesn't want to get rid of the cells yet because "we might need them again". But also half full cells are a waste as well. So the body starts replacing the Fat with water. Once the fat cells are completely full of water for a while, the body, being as efficient as it is, decides that maintaining these cells isn't worth the effort, we were holding on just in case, but it seems we're just wasting energy to do that. That's when your body starts getting rid of the water and the cells themselves.

Edit: TL:DR - Body replaces the fat in fat cells with water for a while before getting rid of the fat cells. (This is part of the reason it's important to drink a lot of water when attempting to lose weight)