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

[User]
[Olympus Has Fallen] Following the liberation of the White House and President Asher being secured and the terrorists all dead, what happens to DC immediately after and months/years later?

After Kang and the KUF all get killed and US troops liberate the White House while also having President Asher secured, what immediately happens to Washington, DC days following the fiasco?

Assuming that Posse Commitus has been suspended in order to have troops lay siege to the White House, are soldiers, National Guardsmen and maybe Marines form Quantico occupying the streets of DC? How does the attack affect both DC, the country and the world? Whats day-to-day life like now for the capital? How is security now handled by the White House?

[Assistant]
If you're old enough to remember 9/11, then you'll have an idea of what it was like. A huge wave of nationalistic, anti-North Korean sentiment broke out, which occupied pretty much every level of society. Everyone can agree that attacking civilian structures (like the KUF forces did early on in the attack) and causing such massive damage in an unprovoked attack is horrendous. It actually serves in many ways as a political unifier - the right and left both agree that the North Korean government is a human atrocity and needs to be wiped out. The military gets big boosts in funding and recruitment numbers, celebrities begin to openly espouse their patriotism in the wake of the disaster, and people make comments about how America is really "coming together."

However, this all comes with the US taking a much more belligerent, aggressive stance on the world stage. Yes, President Asher is aware of just how close the world came to nuclear annihilation and that former US agents were involved in the plot, but most people just think the North Koreans attacked DC, and the citizens and government will want the US to take a more active role in policing the world. That means lots of increased foreign intelligence, that means more wire-tapping and cell phone spying, that means tighter internet controls, the works.

In DC itself, the immediate aftermath was martial law. The total infiltration of the city by KUF forces, who used otherwise mundane opportunities to surround the White House, means that everyone can be a suspect. Troops are in the streets, there's a curfew at dark, and citizens are encouraged to report suspicious activities or group meetings. A few horror stories come out of people being illegally detained by the FBI or CIA, or of DC cops brutalizing Asians on flimsy reasoning, but by and large people ignore it, since the threat of infiltration and invasion was proved to be far greater than anyone anticipated.


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

[User] [Dc/marvel] deadpool and joker meet and get to chatting. Do they become best friends or do they hate each other? If its the latter is the joker crazy enough to mentally break wade or vice versa?

[Assistant]
I remember something like this being asked once.

As it turns out DP's crazy but he's rationally crazy. He has a rhyme, rhythm, and a reason that you can usually understand if you try hard enough. This is why its possible for the heroes of his universe to work with him.

Joker has no such thing, so they instantly would have that grating line where Joker is just too unpredictable to be trusted.

On top of that and the biggest reason they probably *won't* get on well together. DP is adamantly against harming kids, while Joker has done it for a laugh. If DP knew about that little Jason Todd incident, or the thing with the babies, he'd literally rip Jokers head off and shove it up his butt.

Could either break either? No. Jokers too far gone from reality, and DPs not enough of a torturer. While DP has a super power that's pretty much ensuring he stays crazy, and Joker can't do anything about that.


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

[User]
ELI5: What actually happens if "the government shuts down"

I just see it all over the news articles. "Votes to defund Obamacare threaten to shut down government." What the hell does shutting down even mean?

[Assistant] 2.1 million federal employees will be furloughed, many federal programs such as SS and welfare will still happen but be slowed down because of loss of staff. Borders will still be patrolled, certain obligations still paid for, military still will carry out actions but the federal government will halt all of  its non-essential functions until a budget gets passed.


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

[User]
[The Last of Us] A vaccine has been created for the infection and I have been vaccinated with it. However while exploring a tunnel I was ambushed and bit on the arm by an infected, what happens now?

The bite isn't too bad but I am bleeding. I know I won't get infected but will anything bad happen to me now? How will they treat my arm wound? The infected was a stage 1 infected as well.

[Assistant]
If your vaccination had time to "take," then you might get away with no symptoms at all, or you might experience some fever and flu-like symptoms.

As others have pointed out though, the human mouth is filthy, and the infected are not known for their hygiene.  You should clean the wound gently with a clean, damp cloth. If you can get hold of antibiotics, take them as a precautionary measure. Sepsis is a killer.


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

[User] [BvS] Why didn't Luthor actually want to watch the Batman & Superman fight? Couldn't he have asked Clark to bring an aerial drone with him & watch it from his phone or something?

[Assistant] Why would he want to watch it? He wasn't making them fight for the sake of making them fight, he was doing it so that everyone could see Superman as a fraud, a fake, not the hero everyone pretends he is. Lex couldn't care less about Batman or the actual fight itself.


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

[User]
Why is the speed of light what it is?

We know that matter can't exceed the speed of light. This is reasonable because as you put in more energy at this point, the matter gains mass and it ends up being this endless loop where you can't put in enough energy to make even a single proton go as fast as light... but then.... why is light stuck at that point? considering light doesn't have mass, shouldn't it be able to go at an infinitely fast speed due to a lack of mass? Why does it move at a limited speed? Why does it happen to be the speed that matter can't move past?

[Assistant] It's also worth noting that the *speed of light* is something of an incidental misnomer, since light itself isn't fundamentally or qualitatively related to c in any way. It just happens that light was the first thing we discovered that moves at what should probably be termed the *speed of massless vacuum propagation*. We would know it as the *speed of gravity* or the *speed of neutrinos* if we'd happened upon those particles first.


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

[User]
How is biometric authentication not practically the same as using the same password for everything?

Sure it is a good password so it can't practically be guessed, but in the event of a database leak with all our fingerprints they are no longer secure and can no longer be used, ever really.

[Assistant]
Biometrics, although intended as an authentication method, are significantly different than passwords.

1. Biometrics can be forged - forging a password means you know it
2. #1 is because a biometric is _something you have_, while a password is _something you know_. Ideally one would use them together in a 2-factor authentication system
3. Passwords are secret data. Algorithms can manipulate (secret) data to realise useful security properties like confidentiality and authentication. However, passwords are intended to be remembered by humans, severely compromising their entropy, and thus their usefulness to said algorithms
4. Biometrics are _measures_ of the human body, and thus are susceptible to measurement errors. Additionally, they are not secret, aka _confidential_; you show your retina to everyone you meet every day, your fingerprints are all over your desk, the cafeteria, the bottle you just picked up, etc.
5. To satisfy the property that a biometric must authenticate a person in the face of measurement errors, it must be suitably _unique_. Corollary is, of course, that you aren't able to change it often, or at all.

In a general context, you are thus correct: since a biometric represents something you have, and you can't alter it very easily (although that's the very thing cosmetic surgery is fighting against), it would be equivalent to using the same password for every purpose. This goes against the general guideline that instruct us to not use the same password for multiple services, because that leads to a centralised failure mode: if one of these services is compromised, your account in all the rest is also compromised.

Biometrics work better in local contexts. A _local context_ is where there is an available "honest" system; no men-in-the-middle, possibly physically isolated, etc. Biometrics are good at authenticating a human body _locally_, but that is also where passwords are just as good: it is very common to use a generic smartcard or a 4-digit PIN to enter your workplace.


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

[User] [GOT] What does the phrase "chaos is a ladder" mean?

[Assistant]
The metaphor is about climbing higher in terms of power and influence.

I.e., when things are politically chaotic, a savvy person can use the unclear allegiances and fluid situation to better himself, much more rapidly than would be possible in a stable environment.


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

[User] ELI5: How do full blooded siblings end up with such varying results from DNA testing?

[Assistant]
A child will inherit 50% of each parent's DNA. 50% of the mother, 50% of the father. But each child will not receive the *same* 50% from each parent. The genetic code that is passed on is random, every time.

So, let's say one parent has a small amount of African ancestry in their blood. They have a child, which inherits 50% of their genetic code at random. That small percentage of African ancestry is passed on to them by chance.

But when that parent has another child, the 50% they inherit is different to their sibling, so it's entirely possible that they don't inherit any of the trace amounts of African genetics at all.

This is how two siblings can produce different genetic ancestry results.


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

[User] Does a simple fire emit ultraviolet light? lf no, then how does our sun do so? Ks it a matter of thermonuclear fusion, or something else?

[Assistant] The light radiated by a hot object has a central maximum at a wavelength determined by its absolute temperature and intensity falls off on both sides with a characteristic shape. In principle UV will be present at any temperature but at low temperatures very little. The atoms at the sun surface are very hot and so emit a lot of UV.


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

[User]
[Marvel] Can Dr Strange manipulate all of the Infinity Stones in the same way he manipulates the Time Stone?

We know that Dr Strange can use the Eye of Agamotto and magic to use the time stone. Could he use magic to work the other Infinity Stones in the same way?

If he could, would he need a containment device like the Eye as a focus or is the Eye just used to stop people directly touching the stone?

[Assistant]
If he studied them, yes.

The Eye doesn't seem to act as a focus, it appears to serve as a containment unit for the stone so he doesn't touch it and he can cast magical protections on the Eye.  Thanos was able to use it in the same way without the Eye.

Given time, there's no reason why Strange - a very intelligent sorcerer who already has mastery of one Infinity Stone - wouldn't be able to learn how to manipulate the others.


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

[User]
[40k] You end up as a morale officer aboard an imperial naval vessel. How do you keep up morale?

Lets just say for the premise that you're **not** a commissar and your goal is to keep crew mentally fit for duty. Could be any kind of vessel, staff relative to the size of ship, and access to the same various resources afforded to an imperial naval ship whenever they resupply.

I understand this position/role doesn't really exist in the 40k universe, but just roll with the premise. If you need more context, pretend the *Navis Imperialis* is testing out a new (old?) position and they're trying to reduce suicides/executions due to "unhappiness" and you are a test case.

[Assistant]
Well in the spirit of the 40K universe, the beatings will continue until morale improves.

More seriously probably look at ways to improve the quality of the food. There's not a ton you can about things like living quarters or providing more recreation space but having food other than soylens viridians would make a nice break in the monotony.


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

[User]
[Lord of the Rings] Was there an army of dwarves assisting in the battle at the gates of Mordor? If not, why not?

I don't recall seeing many dwarves in the historical footage of the battle at the gates of Mordor. The only dwarf I remember seeing was Gimli. Were there other dwarves there? If not, where were they?

[Assistant]
The Dwarves couldn't have helped even if they wanted to.

Sauron's assault on Middle-earth was multi-pronged. Every major nation that stood against him - Dale, Erebor, Mirkwood, Lothlorien, Rohan and Gondor - were all attacked at the same time so that none of the nations could help each other.

A large Easterling army assaulted Dale two days after the Battle of Pelennor Fields. That battle lasted for three days, and resulted in an initial victory for the Easterlings after the deaths of King Dain and King Brand and the retreat of their armies into Erebor. The battle only ended after news of Sauron's defeat spread north, and the Easterlings lost the will to fight and were beaten back by the Dwarves and Men of Dale after they sallied forth from Erebor.

Gandalf estimated that the Battle of Dale was just as important as the Battle of Pelennor Fields. If Erebor had been taken, Easterling forces could've then linked up with Sauron's armies from Dol Guldur, and then joined together in overunning Mirkwood and Lothlorien.

Edit - Sauron's strategy was incredibly thorough. He tied up all of his enemies at their homelands to stop them from helping each other, even attacking Gondor in multiple places to avoid Gondor's entire army from uniting. As a result, the only nation that managed to help another was Rohan (due to Saruman's failure), but even then, a force from Dol Guldur crossed into Rohan (but was destroyed by the Ents) and a force of Orcs and Easterlings fortified Anorien so Theoden's army could not reach Minas Tirith. The only reason why Theoden reached Minas Tirith when he did was because the Woses led them through secret paths in the Druedan Forest.

Even Gondor could not field all of its forces in one place. When Pippin is in Minas Tirith, he watches the troops from Gondor's fiefdoms arrive to reinforce Minas Tirith, which number 3,000 in total. The onlookers are shocked, expecting several times that amount of soldiers to arrive. The reason they couldn't come was because Corsairs and Haradrim were planning on assaulting the Anduin and the coastline of Gondor. When Aragorn marches to the Black Gate, Minas Tirith is actually better defended than it was before the battle due to thousands of Gondorian soldiers arriving from the fiefdoms which are now safe from the Corsairs and Haradrim.


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

[User] ELI5: Why things feel wet when they're cold?

[Assistant]
Because our nerves can't feel "wet", our brain decides something is wet by combining the inputs it does get from tempreture and pressure.

It's why water at exactly body tempreture doesn't feel wet, we only feel the pressure.


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

[User]
ELI5: Hubble's Law (and how he figured out the universe was expanding)

I've read articles on this, but to an astronomy layman, it's like reading greek.  ELI5 how this amazing mind using a 1930's telescope was able to determine this, please.

[Assistant] You know how an ambulance sounds higher pitched when it's moving towards you, and lower pitched when it's moving away from you? Light does this too, but it becomes bluer when moving towards you and redder when moving away. Hubble discovered that pretty much every galaxy in the sky was redshifted - moving away from us - and not only that, but the farther away they were, the more redshifted they were, and *not only that*, but the distance from us and the velocity away from us are directly proportional (that's Hubble's Law). It turns out that if you imagine you were observing from a distant galaxy, Hubble's Law would still hold - no matter where you are, it looks the same. Therefore, the universe is said to be expanding.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is gargling salt water known to help with sore throats, but eating chips doesn't?

If the salt in salt water can aide the sore throat, why wouldn't the salt in chips, french fries, or any other salty food also be a suggestion to help?

[Assistant]
There's a phenomenon called 'osmosis' which plays its role here.
When two different liquids with different concentrations are separated by a semipermeable membrane (the one that allows one-way flow only), the liquids would flow in such a way that they attain a state of equilibrium, i.e. now the concentration of both the liquids is same.
The bacteria which cause the sore throat also have their skin similar to a semipermeable membrane. When you gargle with salty water, the inner 'fluid' of bacteria (which makes them live, in a literal sense) oozes out (in order to equalize the concentrations of these fluids-salt water and bacterial body fluid). This kills the bacteria and their 'active fluid' is washed away when you gulf-out the liquid. Thus they loose their dominance on the sore throat and you feel relaxed.


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

[User]
ELI5: Is it legal for Congress to pass legislation that they admit they have not read?

I frequently see articles where Senator X or Representative Y say that they have not read, or do not know the full contents of a piece of legislation that they are going to vote for and pass.  Is this legal?  In a corporate setting, any CEO who did this will be guilty of willful misconduct and be looking at serious penalties.  As I am sure this is one of the "we exempt ourselves from having to follow laws," can someone please explain.

Edit.  Thank you for the comments so far, but I am looking for the actual law, rule, etc.   They are not claiming they have an understanding from their staff, they are saying that they are uninformed.

[Assistant] Sure, it's legal. You can't compel people to read something. Have you seen some of the laws that congress passes? They're *tomes*. Regularly hundreds or thousands of pages. Congresspeople pay staffers to read the legislation, figure out the consequences, and summarize it, and then the congressman usually just votes on party lines regardless.


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

[User]
ELI5: How did the custom of "when riding in the cab, sit in the back" get started, and why is it still tradition?

I mean besides driver safety.

[Assistant]
It is an extension of the era when they were horse drawn carriages. The driver would be on the roof or on a seat in the front that was on the outside of the carriage and passengers would be inside it.

It does provide protection for the driver, and it also provides privacy for the passengers and means that they do not have to talk with the driver if they do not want to. Something that you are socially obligated to do if you are sitting beside them in the front seat.


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

[User]
When you burn a log, the ashes will weigh less than the original log. If you captured all the gasses/smoke that escaped + the ashes, would it weigh the same as the original log?

So a burning log releases carbon (monoxide/dioxide?) among other gasses and smoke. If you could "capture" those and add the remaining ashes and weighed them together, would it weigh as much as the original log? Do you have to consider E=mc^2 for heat and light energy released or is that too small to affect it? Hopefully this makes sense.

[Assistant]
By burning the log, you have combined its components with oxygen. Therefore, if you were somehow able to capture the entire amount of products after the reaction, you would have the weight of the log plus the weight of oxygen that was used to burn that particular log, as the result.

So in short, if you could capture the products (CO2, H2O, C, CO, etc), you would have a greater mass than what you started with, as you have combined the log's components with oxygen in order to burn it.


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

[User] [DC Comics] The Lasso of Truth bypasses mind-wiping, brainwashing, and delusions to find the truth as the subject knows it. However, it cant make the subject say things they dont know. With that in mind, how would it work on someone with severe psychosis, or late-stage dementia?

[Assistant]
As you said, it bypasses delusions.

It doesn't provide information, but it removes any barriers keeping them from seeing reality. That includes delusions and dementia- for as long as they are in the lasso, they can see the truth.


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

[User]
A credible SARS-NCOV vaccine manufacturer said large scale trials shows 90% efficiency. Is the vaccine ready(!)?

Apparently the requirements by EU authorities are less strict thanks to the outbreak. Is this (or any) vaccine considered "ready"?

Are there more tests to be done? Any research left, like how to effectively mass produce it? Or is the vaccine basically ready to produce?

[Assistant]
No, its not ready for the public. The data we just received is internal Pfizer data, which is likely robust and reliable but requires peer review from independent scientists and approval by the FDA.

If all goes according to plan, the first few million vaccines will be distributed to highest priority individuals in December.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is the skin on bald men's heads shiny but skin everywhere else on the body is dull?

[Assistant] Your head secretes an oil called sebum and it still does so even after you lose your hair. Not washing your hair for a few days will make it oily, the same oil makes your bald head shiny without the hair.


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

[User]
Have we observed objects orbiting around the sun in the 'wrong direction'?

I know that the solar system originated from a spinning disk of gas and debris, and as such, all of the planets orbit in the same direction as the sun's own rotation, and with a bit of reading, it appears that the same is true for comets and asteroids.

I also have read about moons in the solar system that didn't originate from the same material as their companion planet, but were instead captured as they zipped past, and as such they orbit 'backwards'.

Have we observed asteroids or comets that are orbiting the sun backwards in relation to all of the planets? If so, or if we do in the future, can we then safely presume that the object originated outside our own solar system?

[Assistant] None of the big stuff, but, famously, Triton is retrograde around Neptune.  Also, Venus rotates backwards, and Uranus rotates at an almost 90 degree angle, both of which are extremely large deviations from the basic angular momentum story.  So, as you suggest, that at least tells us that something pretty crazy and pretty big happened to them at some point.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do older people put "the" in front of things all the time?

What I mean by this is how a lot of older people who usually don't understand something or don't want to understand something will put the word "the" in front of words that don't normally have it in there. Phrases like:

"Are you reading the Harry Potter?"
"Look for that on the Google."
etc.

Is it a cultural thing? Is that just how a lot of people talked when they were young? Is dropping the "the" a more modern thing to do?

[Assistant]
For a certain generation of older people, many of the new inventions or fads from their youth had a "the" in front of them.  "the radio," "the TV," "the Lindy," etc . . .  This wasn't true of all things then, of course (a new book wouldn't necessarily be "the Great Gatsby," it could be "Revolt in the Desert") and it's not true of no things now ("the internet" springs to mind).

But, because of that historical accident, there was a tendency for people who were grandparent-age in the 90s to assume that new things that they didn't fully understand should have a definite article.  If you don't know what Pokemon are, beyond that your grandkids like them, it might make sense to assume it's more like radio (kids today love playing "the Pokemon") than like a radio station (Kids today love listening to 92.7).

However, as that generation passes, it's just becoming an affectation of slightly older people, a way of deliberately sounding old either as a joke or as a way to express to your audience that you don't fully understand what you're referencing.


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

[User] [Civilization video games] Two spearmen, who have been defending our city since the Stone Age, managed to sink an attacking battleship. How did they do it?

[Assistant] Since the stone age? With that much combat experience, they can develop strategies we can't even dream of. They probably boarded the ship like Captain America in Winter Soldier and took out the entire crew in hand to hand combat before scuttling the ship.


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

[User]
There have been a few recent studies coming out that have claimed/proven that medium-to-long-term periods of sitting causes serious damage to one's health. How does this happen? What sort of damage is it? Is there less damage by simply laying down instead of sitting? Is it reversible?

Thanks for your answers.

[Assistant]
Lying down won't help. The benefit is associated with getting up on your feet regularly throughout the day. The study found that too much sitting (or other sedentary behavior) is associated with shortened teleomere length.

Teleomeres are DNA structures that protect our chromosomes. Each time our cells divide, our telomeres get shorter, which is linked to aging. Once the telomeres get too short, the cell dies.

The researchers don't know why activity causes our teleomeres to lengthen. You can improve your telomere length by becoming less sedentary, so yes, it's reversible to an extent.


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

[User]
[TERMINATOR 2] Why did the T-1000 threaten Sarah with force for her to "call John" instead of just copying her voice or turning into her?

He was currently making contact with her, and had done so earlier in the elevator when he cut her. Why not imitate her voice, or outright copy her entire body, and then terminate her as was standard protocol?

[Assistant]
The T-1000 is composed of billions of tiny nanomachines that allow for its shapeshifting abilities.  These billions of tiny nanomachines had just been frozen solid by liquid nitrogen, blown apart with a 9mm round, and reformed all in the space of a few minutes.  With all of that, hardware damage is inevitable.

(Meta: deleted scenes show that, as a direct result of the above, the T-1000 was starting to malfunction hardcore)


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

[User]
Is it just me that 20 something undergrads need a lot more these days?

I'm just 33, but I'm beginning to feel like the newest crop of students needs a lot more handholding than I did when I was in school. I'm in a graduate program in counseling at a decent state institution in the midwest. We spend at least 20 minutes a class talking about how to do assignments that have fairly straightforward instructions.

I don't want to be "kids these days," but is this a common problem?

[Assistant] There are a lot of valid points in this thread, but you have to remember that you--currently a grad student--probably weren't a typical student in undergrad. So comparing your students to how you remember feeling isn't necessary the most accurate comparison.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why are most hacking tools still built on CMD and version of UNIX?

I'm currently taking an Global informations technology course and during my studies I took some extra time to look into WiFi password cracking and vulnerability exploits for many different situations. The one thing I noticed over and over again is that most of the tools either come on an OS like Kali or Backtrack or need to be downloaded and ran through CMD.

Why is it that no one has bothered to make top line attacking exploits with a GUI?

[Assistant]
Multiple reasons. The biggest one: GUIs are a pain in the ass to make.

Other than that - when working with CLI-tools you have text as in- and output, which you can properly parse and pipe into other tools. GUI applications could also output their data to stdout, but why go this way if all you need to do are giving some options anyway?

Third reason - keyboard is faster than a mouse. If you know what you need you'll be way faster by typing it (and additionally it will be even more faster with completion) than with clicking through a gui.


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

[User]
[Total Annihilation] Does the Arm or Core possess star ship technology?

In the games they are shown to use Galactic gates which are presumably wormholes linking their worlds together, but do they also have spaceships?

While the two sides obviously possess incredibly advanced nano, bio and computing technologies, do they utilise spaceships aswell? I think its reasonable to assume they possess the capabilities considering how far advanced they are with their other tech.

[Assistant]
They do, but it's largely useless when it comes to intergalactic warfare. All of the resources are on planets at the bottom of gravity wells and galactic gates work perfectly find on the surface of a planet, so there's really no reason to launch stuff into space.

Both side's military doctrine relies on stripmining as many resources as possible and throwing as much firepower at the opponent as possible. There just isn't enough "stuff" in space to match the sort of firepower you can amass on the surface of a planet.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do anti-bacterial hand gels/soaps kill bacterial cells but not your own cells?

EDIT: Wow, thanks for the great responses! Never knew epidermal cells were dead... kinda creepy really!

[Assistant]
There are multiple kinds. The alcohol-based gels work by ruining the bacteria's cell walls; alcohol in high concentration is very lethal to nearly all bacteria. The outer layer of human skin is already dead, and a lot more resistant to being penetrated by alcohol; the 30 seconds or so that you're rubbing your hands isn't enough to get through that (relatively) thick layer of protein and other dead-cell bits. But if you get hand sanitizer into a small cut it will touch unprotected, living tissues and sting. It also strips your skin of some of its natural oils, which is why the hand gels usually have moisturizers in them.

Related: Your stomach, and to some extent other parts of the digestive tract, is already protected against *some* chemicals because it's such a strongly acidic environment anyway and it takes rapid cell replacement and a mucus layer to keep the acid from harming you. This also reduces damage from alcohol, though alcohol is still poison. Ethanol, the kind in liquor and beer, is a poison too, but mild to humans in very low concentrations and we've evolved to be able to consume small amounts. It's naturally present in fermenting fruit etc. anyway like we would have encountered in the wild. If you drink a human-potable form of alcohol (say, vodka, which is usually 35-50% ethanol) the most it'll do to your stomach, if you don't overdo it, is irritate the lining; stomachs are tough. Then it's diluted heavily in your bloodstream. But if you wash a countertop with that plain vodka, it'll kill a lot of bacteria; it hits them full-strength and they don't have protective layers.

The soaps with a small amount of an antibacterial topical drug in them, instead of alcohol, are similar. They're toxic to bacteria, but don't really penetrate the thicker, non-living human skin layer. The amount of exposure you get just from washing your hands, even if you have a few little cuts, isn't enough to do anything bad to you.


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

[User]
Are there any indications that there are elements beyond the 118 we have currently discovered or synthesized? If so, is there any indication that there is a finite number of elements, other than their increasingly short halflives?

As a layperson, I would assume that one could just continually add more protons and neutrons to continually make new elements, but I'm not sure about the physics or any limitations related to that. If I'm right, then I assume the only difficulty is stabilizing the samples long enough for a confirmation, as I know that the last few elements we synthesized had incredibly short halflives. Are there any OTHER limitations to the atomic number of an atom? Will the periodic table ever be done? And are there any ways to forcefully stabilize atoms that would allow us to push farther?

[Assistant] A neutron star is very similar to an extremely heavy atomic nucleus. Consider that neutron stars contain ~10^57-58 particles. If a neutron star grows much heavier than this it will collapse into a black hole. Therefore there is a **finite** limit to the number of possible atomic elements, but it's a very large number. A periodic table that detailed all the elements up to and including element number 10^57 would be so large and massive that it would collapse into a black hole.


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

[User]
Since we use multiple telescopes on Earth to increase the resolution in interferometry, Is it possible to build a network of space telescopes around Earths orbit to make a space telescope around 2au wide?

Obviously I know the material requirements and precision would be a huge factor, but I'm looking more for scientific reasons it wouldn't be possible.

[Assistant]
Nope, no major scientific barriers here. It's purely an engineering problem - albeit a very big one!

In addition to knowing the orientation and distance between all satellites at a very high precision, you also need to combine the data from all these telescopes at quite a high cadence. In optical and infrared astronomy, it isn't possible to do this digitally - you have to literally combine the beams on site. In radio astronomy, it's possible to do this digitally, which is why you can have unconnected radio telescopes across the world combining data to form the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT). Similarly, this is why it could be quite possible to spread a bunch of relatively cheap antennae on the far side of the Moon and get a nice low noise Moon sized radio telescope.

However, the amount of data you need can get quite big, especially as you look at higher frequencies (which is where you get the best resolution). Part of the delay for the EHT images of supermassive black holes is that the most efficient way to transmit that data was to put a bunch of hard drives on a boat and literally ship the data. Weather etc caused some delays in getting all the data in one place to be combined.

In space, this problem is way harder, just because of the distances involved. You need more powerful antennae, and it's not practical to send rockets filled with hard drives around every time.

So yeah, it's possible, it's just going to be tricky and risky, and there's a few smaller steps we should try first. Even a Moon-Earth scale telescope is still going to be a while away.


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

[User] How can I know whether I'm reading works totally by Frederick Nietzsche or works changed his sister?

[Assistant]
You buy books published by a university press.

Generally though, the works edited by Elisabeth are 'The Will To Power ' and some sections of 'The Antichrist'. 'Towards the Genealogy of Morals' and 'Ecce Homo' should be fine as well. His earlier work, published before his sister took over should be fine too (though there are quite a few horrible translations).


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

[User]
[Marvel] Seriously, when Wolverine heals large chunks of his body, where does he get the extra mass from?

I've heard people mention "meat space," a dimension made of meat that he can draw from. But, that's just a joke answer, right? How do you seriously explain Wolverine's healing power?

[Assistant]
He transmutes energy into body mass, exactly the same way that normal cellular growth does, just really, really fast. Some of that energy comes from normal metabolic sources (i.e., the sugar and fat he's already got stored in his body, just like normal), but most of it comes from the same energy-collection ability that all Mutants possess. So, essentially, it's the same source as where Jean Grey gets the energy to move large objects remotely, where Scott Summers gets the energy to project beams of kinetic force from his eyes, and where Kurt Wagner gets the energy to rip holes in the fabric of spacetime.

All mutants crib energy from somewhere.


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

[User]
Why was Immanuel Kant so captivated by Rosseau's "Emile" that he missed his afternoon walks?

I apologize if this had already been answered.

Kant is perhaps infamous for being rigid enough for  his neighbors to set their clocks to the time in which Kant took his afternoon walks.  However, I read that Kant missed his afternoon walks for several days after reading Rosseau's "Emile, or On Education." I'm not especially familiar with Rosseau's works other than "The Social Contract," but I was hoping someone could explain what was so captivating about this particular work of philosophy in Kant's perspective?

[Assistant]
It was particularly the part called 'profession de foi du vicaire savoyard' that influenced Kant. Kant took from Rousseau the idea that virtue (being good) isn't a science, that morality doesn't depend on knowledge, that being moral isn't a matter of knowing some privileged moral proposition. This lead to Kant exploring reason as being a *practical* faculty, rather than just theoretical.

Rousseau taught him that although we're all unequal when it comes to our capacities for philosophical speculation and theoretical reasoning (for some people are more intelligent than others, never had the right education etc), we're all equal in our capacities to become *good*, we all share an equal moral and metaphysical dignity. Being moral is a matter of how we act, of the intention that forms our actions. In other words, it's not a matter of rationally knowing special moral truths that we become good, but rather by acting according to our conscience (which would become the moral law in Kants works). For Rousseau, having a conscience is part of being human, it's a natural feeling that inclines towards what's good, it's the feeling that pushes one to love and want the good, it's the inner voice of right and wrong that judges ourselves and others.  'One can be human (homme) without being a scientist (savant)' (Rousseau).


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

[User] ELI5: What is the difference in unleaded gas and diesel gas? Also why is it so bad to put diesel gas in a non-diesel engine?

[Assistant]
Diesel is a non-vaporizing oil.  A Diesel engine sprays atomized diesel into the sparking chamber.

Gasoline is a vaporizing oil.  It goes to a gaseous state when injected into the sparking chamber.

Putting a liquid into an environment thats expecting a gas has a whole bunch of obvious consequences.


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

[User]
[MCU] If Steve Rogers wanted to get into the military so bad why wasnt he at least working out and learning fighting techniques before joining?

Steve is supposed to be seen as one of the most dedicated people but hes too lazy to workout to build some muscle? He struggled all through bootcamp.

Edit: I dont want to say the samething on every comment so to everyone talking about medical conditions its seems like Steve Rogers was actually delusional that he would pass bootcamp. Also its selfish of him to join. If he did pass bootcamp he would be such a liability to his division and distract others from the mission.

[Assistant]
The list of medical problems he's struggled with includes not only asthma, but if you read closely, scarlet fever, rheumatic fever, chronic fatigue, contact with tuberculosis, palpitations and other heart problems.

Forget about building muscle- with all these conditions in one body, considering the time he grew up in, it would be a miracle if he lived to retirement age.


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

[User]
[Lord of the Rings] What are my other options to get into Mordor?

Obviously, the trying to take the Blake Gate seems like a mistake. I heard of a secret layer guarded by someone named Shelob but that sounds as risky as it is ominous. It seems to be surrounded by mountains on three side?  Do mountains not cover all of it? And what about the mountains? Could get I get some climbing gear and climb right over it?

[Assistant]
There are no good options. You could travel along either the Northern or Southern border and skirt around the mountains to approach from the East. However, that would require that you travel through enemy held territory: The Easterlings in the North and the Haradrihm in the South. Plus, Harad is a desert, so you also have to deal with the lack of food and water.

Climbing over the mountains is going to be difficult due to their scale.

The country is designed to be practically impenetrable from the West.


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

[User]
[harry potter] How did everyone know that it was Voldemort, himself, that killed Lily and James Potter?

 And why were they so sure that Voldemort was gone? I'll admit, I haven't read the books in years, so there may be something I'm forgetting, but wasn't his body destroyed when he tried to kill Harry? It seems like a huge leap of faith to just assume he was the one, and that he was killed that night, when there wasn't any evidence. It could very well have been one of his death eaters. Plus, I doubt that his death eaters would be very quick to reveal the fact that he had been destroyed. He was feared so much, even his name is considered frightening. So, it doesn't make sense to tell people he had been destroyed, because even the idea of him would be enough to instill fear, and it would ensure that they stay on top.  And why were they so sure that Voldemort was gone? I'll admit, I haven't read the books in years, so there may be something I'm forgetting, but wasn't his body destroyed when he tried to kill Harry? It seems like a huge leap of faith to just assume he was the one, and that he was killed that night, when there wasn't any evidence. It could very well have been one of his death eaters. Plus, I doubt that his death eaters would be very quick to reveal the fact that he had been destroyed. He was feared so much, even his name is considered frightening. So, it doesn't make sense to tell people he had been destroyed, because even the idea of him would be enough to instill fear, and it would ensure that they stay on top.

[Assistant]
Well, the fact that he went missing afterwards, and a bunch of his death eaters came forward and said he had imperius'd them, but was gone now, was enough for most people.

And the reason *they* came forward and said that is because... he *was* gone. And frankly, without him, they stood very little chance against their enemies. Not a single one of them wanted to go 1v1 with Dumbledore.

Or 1v3.

1v5 was still pushing it.

Their invincible dark lord was just *gone*, and this child had survived him. Some of them thought Harry might be the *new* dark lord, in time, and wanted to wait and see. Others went out a-torturing in vengeance, and got captured.

But as for how people *initially* knew... Dumbledore told them. He knew Voldemort would want to personally kill the child named in the prophecy. And he knew that, though James and Lily had died, Harry had survived. Something Voldemort would not have allowed. And he knew what had happened to him - his own killing curse, rebounded by Lily's protection, amplified to the point where it destroyed the house and obliterated him.

So, Dumbledore knew. And he told people.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do parents in lesser developed countries tend to have more children than parents in more developed countries?

It seems like in areas such as Africa and the Middle East, it's not uncommon for parents to have 3 or more children. Is there any direct correlation for this, and if there is a correlation, would removing it help the economy of these countries immensely?

[Assistant] Less knowledge of family planning, and less access to birth control. Beyond that, the less developed world relies on a lot of labor, especially farming, for their livelihood. Often, large families act as the labor force. In a more morbid sense, life expectancy is much less, so more children allows the family to continue when the sad inevitability of the loss of a child is likely to occur.


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

[User] ELI5: How did diseases that are only transmitted Sexually originate ?

[Assistant]
Most infectious human diseases, not just STDs, originally came from animals.  Often domestic animals, but sometimes wild animals as well.  The flu, TB, etc., come from pigs, chickens, and cattle.  HIV came from wild apes or monkeys, and Ebola is thought to have come from bats.

Most STD's weren't originally only transmitted through sex.  But as people's standards of living and hygiene improved, some diseases became less likely to be transmitted through non-sexual contact.  And they're now mainly spread by sex, so they became sexually transmitted diseases by default.

Examples:

HIV probably spread to humans from primates when people killed and butchered monkey or ape meat.  It also may have spread through mass vaccinations in colonial Africa.  It spread through blood transfusions in North America.  But once people paid closer attention to keeping the blood supply clean and keeping needles clean, HIV mainly only spreads through sex.

Syphilis used to spread by skin to skin non-sexual contact, especially in the tropics.  But in colder countries where people wore more clothes, syphilis mainly spread through sexual contact and was concentrated in the genital area, one of the parts of the body that tended to stay warm in the winter.

Same goes for chlamydia and gonorrhea.  They used to spread through non-sexual contact.  Children caught the diseases from touching each other and playing with each other.  But since hygiene and living standards have improved, they mainly only spread through sex now.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Wouldn't the Death Star's blast push it backwards in space?

When the Death Star shoots its huge beam, it doesn't look like it moves back at all, wouldn't that exert a lot of force pushing back on the Death Star just floating in space?

[Assistant]
The death star has thrusters to move it around, it's likely that they just compensate with those.

Additionally the relative mass of the death star vs it's beam means that any impulse on the death star doesn't move it that much, possibly a negligible amount when you're "zoomed out" enough to see the whole thing.

Lastly, some kind of recoil control could be used to reduce the amount of kinetic energy transferred to the death star.


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

[User] If eviction were easier, would that make landlords more willing to rent to less desirable tenants?

[Assistant]
yes, their risk is lower.

Think of the choice to rent to a particular person or not as a risk assessment of expected values. If the average time to evict an undesirable tenant were 6 months, the property could be damaged significantly and the landlord likely faces opportunity cost if the undesirable tenant is not paying rent.

If we decreased the average time to evict a tenant to 3 months, the damage to the property could still be significant, but will be stopped sooner (possibly preventing some further degradation/damage). The opportunity cost of lost rent is half what it was before. maybe less, depending on the extent of repairs required.

So at least some landlords that wouldn't have risked a particular tenant before, may now consider the risk worth it.

Other considerations:

\- effects on maintenance and investment in the property.

\- rent control -- distorts market in favour of current tenants at the expense of everyone else.


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

[User]
[The Hobbit] How were the dwarves of Erebor able to mine so much gold? How is this geologically possible?

Erebor is an extremely wealthy kingdom, and from the vast amount of gold seen in its vaults, it looks like Erebor may have managed to accumulate more gold than has ever been mined throughout all of human history and human civilization.

Estimates of all of the gold cumulatively mined through all of human history put the total sum of gold at around a 20m cube. A cube 20m on every side made out of solid gold.

The dwarves of Erebor appear to have outdone this entirely for one single statue. Just one statue (the casting mold was built but gold had not yet been poured when Smaug attacked) is probably of similar volume to a cube 20m on each side. And again, that is just one single statue. Just one. The vaults of other gold items are in addition to that.

This is a lot of gold, but the dwarves of Erebor appear to have either matched or exceeded the sum total of all gold mined by all of human history, and the dwarves did this with just one city. Total population of Erebor likely does not exceed 100,000 at most. Yes, the interior volume of a mountain is vast, but dwarves need food. You can't grow food underground.

The town of Dale is Erebor's trading post, and foodstuffs are likely purchased with gold to keep the dwarves fed. However there is only so much food that can be carted on wagons. This food can only support a finite population.

So it comes down to Erebor has a small population, likely no more than 100,00 at very most, and yet appears to have matched or even exceeded the gold mining efforts of billions of humans over thousands of years. And not for lack of effort either. Gold is extremely prized amongst humans. Dwarves and humans both share the same greed for gold.

How were so few dwarves able to mine so much gold in such a short amount of time, from just one single area?

What is the geology of Erebor? How is it possible that such rich gold veins can exist in rock?

[Assistant]
Do not make the mistake of assuming that Arda has the same amount of minerals as our Earth. It could very easily have more gold and diamonds than we're used to. That, and the dwarven mines are more vast and go deeper than any human gold mine has done. Another thing to keep in mind is that the mine in Erebor was established in 1999 of the Third Age, Smaug didn't take over for nearly eight hundred years! 2770, to be exact.

And you can easily grow food underground. Fungus, livestock, rats, fish, all of these are perfectly edible and can be grown underground without too much difficulty. Especially if you've had centuries to figure out methods! Why, just look at Dwarf Fortress for inspiration there.

And, finally and most importantly, the Dwarven Kings ruling the Lonely Mountain possessed one of the Seven Rings of Power. These made them exceedingly greedy, but! It allowed them to multiply what they had mined and amplified their skills. Gold breeds gold, in the case of the Dwarven Rings.


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

[User]
CMV: Trump and McConnell Must Not Be Allowed to Replace RBG

After    Mitch McConnell said that we can't replace Supreme Court nominees    during election years, it would be extremely hypocritical to try and    replace RBG now. If a president who was elected by big margins in both    the popular vote AND the electoral college TWICE couldn't do it, then a    president who lost by three million votes cannot. If a president whose    administration was free from scandal cannot do it, then an impeached    president who lied about all of the most important issues of our day  and who has most likely   conspired with foreign adversaries while  spreading disinformation about and   questioning the legitimacy of our elections cannot do it.

Here are McConnell's words from 2016 and they all apply today:

 **"Given that we are in the midst of the presidential election  process, we believe that the American people should seize the  opportunity to weigh in on whom they trust to nominate the next person  for a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court,"** they  conclude. "It is today the American people, rather than a lame-duck  president whose priorities and policies they just rejected in the  most-recent national election, who should be afforded the opportunity to  replace Justice Scalia."

Trump, who is trailing in the polls and will likely lose a free and fair election is the definition of a lame duck. His policies were resoundingly "rejected in the most recent national election" of 2018.

That is inarguable and you aren't going to change my view on that.

However,    we all know Trump and McConnell are doing to push this through  anyway.   What I do want you to change my view on is that they must be  stopped  by  any and all nonviolent means necessary from accomplishing  their  goal.

The  first, most  obvious  route is to pressure the hell out of our senators  to not allow  it to  happen. I have zero faith that enough GOP senators  (2? 3?) will  go this  route. You cannot change my view that this is what  would be  best for  the country because it is.

However,    Trump will submit a nominee. McConnell will ram it through. At that    point, I believe it is up to the American people to prevent that  nominee   from ever taking  a seat on the bench, even if that means  nonviolent   resistance and sitting in front of the Supreme Court by the  thousands   and even millions to keep it from happening. Yes, that  would mean civil   disobedience. That would mean violating the law in  some cases. But it   must be done. A vocal, divisive minority cannot  impose their will on   this country for a generation. A commander in  chief who is clearly   incompetent and unfit to hold office cannot  appoint THREE Supreme Court   justices just because no one in his party  will stand up to him.

**Trump    and McConnell cannot replace RBG unless he wins  completely free and    fair election and the Republicans retain control of the Senate the  same  way. If they try to replace her BEFORE that happens then we, the   people,  must make sure it does not come to pass.**

**Change my view because I don't like where this takes me. But I think it is the moral and just way right now.**

[Assistant]
The problem with treating every single election/nomination/whatever as a life-or-death situation is that, when the truly nation-threatening event actually happens, there is no room for escalation.

You clearly aren't fundamentally opposed to a Trump nominee; you yourself admit that a Trump appointee would be acceptable if he and the Republicans win again. You also have to admit that McConnell was acting constitutionally in 2016, and, if he confirms Trump's appointee now, would also be acting constitutionally. You're advocating for massive resistance not because you're opposed to a Republican nominee, and not because the government is acting illegally, but because . . . the Republicans are hypocrites?

History is long, no government lasts forever, and politics in democracy are complicated. Shitty, legal actions by one party will eventually be countered by the other party. Save the societal disruption for a true democratic crisis. The US isn't Hong Kong or Belarus, and the people don't need to act like it is, until it actually is.


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

[User]
Do Rockets harm the environment in terms of exhaust fumes?

I ask me this question when in saw Elon Musks demo of the BFR carrying passengers or cargo from Earth-to-Earth anywhere on the Earth within 90 minutes.

[Assistant] Everything has some environmental impact. A rocket to orbit burns about as much fuel as a jet burns to fly from the US to Japan. It just burns it a lot faster. So like, there would have to be a LOT of rocket launches to be a significant source of pollution compared to more common things.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is the country approximately 50/50 when it comes to the political spectrum? Is it a coincidence that it's divided so evenly, or is it a statistical phenomenon?

Why is it a constant back and forth? I figured it should be like 70-30 or something, but that doesn't seem to be the case...

[Assistant] No, it's actually what you would expect with a two-party system. Imagine tomorrow that either societal attitudes changed or the Democrats changed their policies so that they suddenly had the firm support of 60% of the country. The Republicans, now realizing that they're now never going to win the presidency or control of Congress change *their* policies to appeal to more voters. The change is so successful that it gives them the support of 55% of the country. The Democrats make their own change in response to *that*, rinse and repeat until it stabilizes at 50%. That's essentially what's happened over the past 150 years.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why in old films of NASA and USSR rocket launches do the NASA engines emit yellow flames and USSR 's are blue?

>I've been watching "Chasing The Moon" on PBS and in the historical films of NASA launches the US vehicle engines pour out a very yellow, smokey and less structured flame than films of Soviet rockets where there's very little smoke and the flames look almost like what you would see on a gas stove. Blue and a very tight flame.  Is it the fuel? Basic design?  Maybe the color rendition of film itself?

[Assistant] It could be the fuel as almost all US rockets use liquid oxygen + kerosene which results in yellow glowing exhaust due to all the carbon left in it. Though the most used Russian launch vehicles were/are from the R-7 family that use the same fuel and generally their exhaust looks the same, Russian Proton rockets use nitrogen tetroxide + hydrazine which does burn in a more clear flame.


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

[User] What does 'it' in "It is raining" mean? If it doesn't refer to anything, what would be an alternative sentence which expresses the same meaning?

[Assistant] Have a look at Nietzsche's genealogy of morals 1.13! He argues this is a quirk of language that suggest a doer behind a deed, a subject behind events. But there is no rainer of rain, just the activity of raining. Nietzsche invites us to apply the same thinking to ourselves - there is no free subject behind your acts - just the acts themselves.


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

[User]
If E = MC^2 then why does a photon contain energy?

Surely 0 x C^2 wouldn't work universally, or, I guess the equation wasn't posited as a universal truth to begin with - which is what it's reputation would lead you to believe :p

So what is it really meant to demonstrate?

[Assistant]
E=mc^2 is for massive stationary objects. The full equation is

E^(2)=p^(2)c^(2)+m^(2)c^(4)

where p is momentum. Note that p=mv is not a universal law either - it's only true for massive objects at low speed. Massless photons can have momentum! You can see this by setting m=0, because photons are massless, which gives you:

E^(2)=p^(2)c^(2)

E=pc (and p=E/c)

So photons have energy and momentum, and they're proportional to each other - by a factor of the speed of light. (Similarly if you set p=0, you get E=mc^(2) out again)


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do so many little kids pronounce the "R" sound like a "W"?

It seems strange to me that there are so many younger kids that can't make the R sound and they just substitute it with a W sound instead. (Think "I'm going wabbit hunting")

Also there are plenty of kids who never break off this habit and it can follow them all the way into their early teen years.

[Assistant] Speech-Language Pathology graduate student here. Substituting /r/ with /w/ is common in kids because /w/ requires less muscular control, especially of the tongue. Motor control develops over time, and most kiddos outgrow this by age 5.


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

[User] What is the most accurate way to visualize an atom?

[Assistant]
A nucleus made up of subatomic particles and an outer volume of space occupied by electrons.

The question is, can the electron be thought of as a negatively charged particle orbiting a positive nucleus, like a planetary orbital?  To make early chemistry/physics class easy, yes.  But it's actually a continuous wave of energy with momentum.


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

[User]
What are we missing before we finally have a quantum theory of gravity?

I know the motivations behind string theory and other models of quantum gravity (e.g. unification of fundamental forces) but what I don't understand is what is missing from the current proposed models. Do we have all the details worked out and we're just waiting for experimental verification? Are there still theoretical issues that these models cannot address? I remember reading part of *Quantum fields in curved spacetime* by Birrell & Davies and in the introduction they discussed issues with renormalization of infinities in the ground state energy of the quantum harmonic oscillator and how certain tricks to skirt that issue don't work with gravity. Is that still a problem?

[Assistant]
It's not a problem anymore for string theory. String theory is a consistent UV completion of gravity. It doesn't have the incurable divergences of General Relativity, and is indeed healthy as a quantum theory. Moreover, it reduces to GR at low energies.

And it is extremely constrained, i.e. there's only one free parameter and a discrete small set of possible superstring theories. Even the spacetime dimension is constrained.

The downside is that string theory has a large number of vacua and virtually infinite ways of getting out the standard model, and no dynamical process to select one. It is therefore pretty difficult to guess all that happens inbetween and so to make any kind of low-energy prediction. One could say this is a problem of *any* quantum gravity proposal.

Other quantum gravity approaches such as LQG instead have yet to be proven to reduce to GR in the classical limit. There's considerable difficulty building a classical limit, and there is no reasonable argument for its existence. Maybe if there's someone working on the LQG side and correct this he can chime in.


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

[User] Can there be anything higher than a pH of 14 or lower than a pH of 0?

[Assistant] Yes, negative pH is possible with a very strong acid, and >14 pH is possible with a very strong base. A pH of zero simply has a 1 molar concentration of H+ ions, so with 10x that many H+ ions, you get a pH of -1.


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

[User] Eli5: why is it now code to install outlets upside down?

[Assistant]
If a conductive object falls accidentally across the main two prongs of a "right side up" () plug that isn't completely flush against the outlet, it will close the circuit. If it's your finger you get shocked. If it's metal there could be a spark. If there's a spark there could be a fire. Building codes are designed to prevent things like accidental fires.

By installing the outlet "upside-down", you put the ground prong on top of any plug that has one. The ground prong can't create a spark all by itself, so it's safer to touch accidentally.


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

[User]
How can E=mc^2 have a negative solution?

Paul Dirac showed that there is negative energy but how did he prove this? I don't doubt that it is true, i just don't understand it.

c ist the speed of light squared so it defenitely is positive. For this equation to be true there would have to be negative mass then, right? But negative mass sounds so unintuitive.

Thanks for the help!

[Assistant]
The full equation is E^(2) = (**p**c)^(2) + (mc^(2))^(2).

If you go into the frame where the particle is at rest, **p**^(2) = 0.

So E^(2) = (mc^(2))^(2).

The solutions to this equation are E = +/- mc^(2).


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

[User]
CMV: Movie theaters should offer discounts for front row seats.

I went to see the new Star Wars film with a group of my friends last weekend. The theater was completely full, except for the front three rows, which were almost completely empty. When we went to find our seats (this was assigned seating), we discovered that someone else had taken our seats already. We showed them our seat numbers and they vacated. Since there was no where else to sit, they had no choice but to go to the front rows to get seats (which, as it turned out, were the seats they had actually been assigned to).

The above scenario (where I've had to kick people out of my assigned seats, and they have had to go to their actual assigned seats in the front row) has happened to me both of the last two times I've gone to a theater. While I understand why people don't want front row seats, it's still awkward and frustrating for me, the guest, to have to be the police officer in that situation.

It's quite obvious that no one likes the front row seats of a movie theater, and people will try to get out of them if they can. Despite it being opening weekend for Star Wars, the biggest movie on offer at the moment, almost no one had bought tickets for the front row, and the three people that did tried to get out of them.

**For theaters that have assigned seating**, and where all (or close to all) of the non-front-row seats have been filled, theaters should offer discounts for front row seats. This would have at least two benefits.

**1)** Patrons who get stuck with crappy front row seats won't feel totally ripped off since they're getting a discount.

**2)** Patrons who get stuck with crappy front row seats will have less incentive to take better seats from other people since they are being compensated for their suffering by getting a discount. This helps avoid conflict between guests having to kick each other out of assigned seating.

**Edit:** This is for theaters that use assigned seating. This does not apply if theater is open seating.

[Assistant]
> **2)** Patrons who get stuck with crappy front row seats will have less incentive to take better seats from other people since they are being compensated for their suffering by getting a discount. This helps avoid conflict between guests having to kick each other out of assigned seating.

Why wouldn't they just take the discounted front row seats and still try to screw someone else out of better, premium-priced seats?


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

[User]
Does all programming turn into machine code?

I dont know if this question makes sense but when you write code in whatever language, python, C, Java etc does it all eventually get converted into assembly and then machine code?

[Assistant] I don't think assembly is a requirement but yes every language gets turned into machine code. It's just a matter of WHEN. Compiled languages and turned into machine code before you run the code. So a compiled language turned into an exacutable file is fully compiled. Meanwhile, interpreted languages are always compiled as you run the code. So a interpreted exacutable would likely be a bunch of text files that get compiled while you're using the program. Wither way, every language needs to convert the code to machine code.


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

[User]
How does the brain calculate the passing of time independent of simple estimation? Is there a biological mechanism?

The brain must use knowledge of how long thought processes take and can estimate time passing based on tasks and such, but is there a mechanism for linking to circadian rhythms or some other biological clock. I mean on a small scale. For example, I can often predict accurate to a minute or so when 5/10/15 minutes has passed, but my brain couldn't do this simply based on tasks, as time seems faster and slower based on different tasks. It also seems like such short spans of time are too short to rely on circadian rhythms. Is there some sort of feedback loop in brain neurons or is it biochemical?

[Assistant] There are circuits in our brain that line neurons end to end, making small feedback loops based on the time it takes to have the signal make a full lap. Smaller loops are integral in music, rhythm, and even rhythmic movements like walking, swimming, blinking. This very strait forward process is thought to be at work in all temporally dependant activities.


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

[User]
[40k] Could the universe eventually become less fucked up? Or is there really no hope at all?

I mean, like, the Imperium regaining some tech, or something.

[Assistant] Theorizing that one could time travel through the warp, the Ordo Chronos stepped into an Emperor class battleship equipped with radical xeno technology and vanished into the warp... they woke to find themselves trapped in the past, facing mirror images that were not of their own, and driven by their holy wrath to exterminate all heretics and xenos. Their only guide on this journey is Al, an Adeptus Mechanicus magos from their own time, who appears in the form of servitor that only they can see and hear. And so the Ordo Chronos finds themselves leaping from millennia to millennia, striving to rid the past of all heretical filth, and hoping each time that their next leap will be the leap to the Emperor...


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

[User] [Firefly] Is River Tam actually psychic?

[Assistant] Yes, but she lacks control. She will pick up random thoughts from everyone. Active thoughts, passing thoughts, things long dismissed but still remembered. The constant flood is almost impossible to sort through, and gets dumped randomly in her own brain. So a thought of someone who knew about Miranda and was hush on it for years would drop into her own long term memory and sit there ignored/forgotten until a trigger reminds her of it, just as if it were her own memory. That's where the madness comes from, she can't tell the memories apart.


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

[User] [Warhammer 40k] How fast do Orks reproduce and how long does it take for them to double in population size?

[Assistant]
Fast. Greenskins reproduce asexually. When a greenskin is killed, they release a burst of spores.

These spores grow into the entire greenskin ecosystem. Some become mushrooms and fungus. Others grow into snotlings, various types of squigs, gretchin and ofcourse orks. This means that killing orks is only a temporary solution because all it does is infest the land with more greenskins.

It also means that orks will thrive, even in the most hostile environments because they bring their own ecosystem. A harsh land might kill a lot of orks at first. But pretty soon there will be mushroom patches that feed the smaller squigs. Bigger squigs that feed on the smaller squigs and orks that feed on the bigger squigs.

Most warzones that were the site of a major waaagh being destroyed suffer from permanent ork infestations, forcing the local planetary defense force to go on frequent extermination missions to keep the population down.

It's also not uncommon for planets that that suffer a second or third waaagh invasion to suddenly find themselves flanked by tribes of feral orks that appear from the deep jungles or other hostile areas of the planet to support the main horde. These tribes had been living in seclusion until a large waaagh arrived and they felt the call of the horde.

Seemingly solid fortifications are suddenly overrun by feral orks charging the rear of the lines with stone weapons.

I don't really have a time path for you but sufficient to say that ork populations grow fast and they're very hard to get rid of. Another problem is that orks grow bigger and tougher with conflict. So any failed efforts to exterminate them tend to make them nastier.


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

[User]
When washing by hand, does washing dishes with hot water kill more germs than washing with cool water?

My mom always told me to wash the dishes with hot water because it would kill more germs. This never made sense to me because I always thought that your avg germs died at a temp at or above 140 which I believe is just to hot for human hands to wash dishes. Moreover I thought that providing a warm environment would just make it easier for them to breed.

So I guess this is a two part question.

1 Does hand washing dishes with hot water kill more germs than with cold water? For a standard let's call hot water 140 degrees F or 60 degrees C. That should be about the hottest most people can stand right? If not then feel free to change this.

2 Since we know that generally speaking the colder it gets germs tend to reproduce. Or seen another way at what temp. do germs stop reproducing or at the very least at what temp do germs start to reproduce less.

[Assistant] Microbiologist here.  Correct, most will not die unless it is so hot it will hurt your hands (unless they are soaked in it for a long enough time).  However, hot water will flush away oils much better and most soaps will dissolve best and work best in hot water.  The key is really to flush the bacteria away from your dishes, not kill them and leave them in place.  Cleaning is the key, not disinfection.  And to maximize cleaning, use hot water.


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

[User] ELI5 What is a migraine, compared to a what one normally thinks of as a headache?

[Assistant]
A migraine is a neurological condition.  One of its most obvious and common symptoms is a headache, normally servere.  However, a migraine is not a headache and migraines don't have to have a headache to be a migraine.

What causes them is not well understood.


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

[User]
If the sun disappeared, just vanished, would we be able to tell something has happened before it all goes dark?

If some weird cosmic event made the sun disappear, presumably, it would take 8 minutes before the lights went out on Earth. However, are there other effects we would notice before the lack of sunlight became apparent, for instance, how quickly would the Earth hurtle into space on a tangent to our normal orbit.

[Assistant] According to general relativity, gravity also propagates at the speed of light, as does any other information we could measure about the Sun. Unless we had some way of detecting the event that was about to cause the sun to disappear, we wouldn't notice it until 8 minutes later.


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

[User]
[The Flash] How are non-speedster villains able to pose any sort of challenge to the Flash?

* I just find it hard to believe that anyone who wasnt as fast as the Flash could actually manage to give him even the slightest challenge, given the fact that the Flash is able to casually run faster than the speed of light.

[Assistant]
CW TV Show: He's dumb.  That's really the only logical explanation.  He constantly needs people reminding him to run.

The Comics: Flash has a sort of truce with his rogues.  They don't kill people, and he doesn't go all out against them.


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

[User]
[Lord of the Rings] Why did Saruman order the storming of Helms Deep? Wouldnt a siege be a better (but less dramatic) choice?

Watching The Two Towers

- It seems like there would be no strategic advantage to attacking Helms Deep. They say its a dead end, hard to stormSaruman seems motivated more by agenda than strategy here.

- Based on what we see in the movie, a siege would almost certainly succeed, given the cramped, unsanitary conditions inside the walls, the lack of supply lines, and the fortress isolation.

- A siege line could effective bottle up Rohans defenders, removing them from the fight (King Theodens decision to move the population there seems like a grave error; it would result in thousands of deaths from disease or starvation if they were kept in there long enough). In this case, actually killing them is irrelevantdisease and starvation will do that, and the defenders cant do anything but watch as Middle-Earth falls (real life examples of encirclement/blockade: Yorktown, Sedan, the British Blockade of Germany in WWI, bottling up the High Seas Fleet, Leningradwithout Soviet offensives or resupply, it may well have fallen)

- Rohan is undefended as the populace and army defend Helms Deep. Sarumans armies can freely use its roads and resources to either deal with the other armies or link up with the forces of Mordor. Instead of wasting his precious Uruk-Hai and resources on a Pyrrhic victory, I feel he shouldve just let his eager orcs deal with the remaining riders or plunder another kingdom or something while leaving a siege force to deal with Helms Deep.

[Assistant]
There are a few reasons why Saruman would have preferred to press the attack rather than wait out a siege. Think about it from Saruman's perspective. Here's the sequence of events from his view:

* His Uruks capture two Hobbits, and set out to bring them back to Isengard. Saruman believes one of them is likely the Ringbearer.
* Saruman learns that his company of Uruk-hai have been killed. This wasn't in the film, but in the books he also encounters Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli shortly after the skirmish near Fangorn. He must think that either the Hobbits escaped the attack with the Ring, or else they died, but the the remaining members of the Fellowship have retrieved the Ring. In either case, the Ring is now just out of reach.
* Saruman returns to Isengard, and a day or two later he sends out the entirety of his army. He was likely hoping to quickly crush Rohan before the Ring could escape him entirely. He's initially successful, scattering the Rohirrim at the fords before Theoden could arrive there with reinforcements. His forces chase down the bulk of the remaining forces of Rohan and trap them at Helm's Deep, along with (in his mind) the Ring.

Saruman would have a few concerns and mitigating factors here that would probably drive him to push the attack rather than wait it out. For one, he vastly outnumbered the defenders. Losing even half his forces in the attack would probably still have felt like a justifiable loss if it means he obtains the Ring. He'd still have a sizable force remaining, and a new weapon with which he could directly challenge Sauron. The urgency was provided by the fact that Gandalf was still at large, riding about rallying the scattered forces of Rohan as well as the mass of Huorns that the Ents sent south from Fangorn. If Saruman's forces didn't breach the Hornburg quickly, they would soon find themselves surrounded. Of course, in the end that's exactly what happened.

Time was really of the essence. In hindsight, Saruman really should have acted even more quickly than he did, invading with the entirety of his forces immediately after Theodred died at the First Battle of the Fords of Isen. Waiting out a siege would have been even worse than the course he ultimately opted to take.


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

[User] What is the diference between rationalism in Descartes and rationalism in Kant? how do they utilize rationalism differently?

[Assistant]
An important distinction would be that, for Kant, concepts without intuitions are blind, meaning that we cannot posit entities on the basis of reason that do not correspond to possible experience. This includes proofs for the existence of God, free will, and the immortality of the soul.

For Kant, we can only use reason to make determinations within the limits of experience, while the rest remains thinkable, but not knowable.


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

[User] Are the uranium rods in a nuclear reactor constantly breaking down? Every explanation of the fission in the reactor starts with molecules of uranium. Why are they breaking off of the rods?

[Assistant]
There are others on here that actually work on nuclear fuel.  The fuel in most reactors is a UO2 ceramic with a zirconium alloy cladding.  The fuel itself does degrade over time due to the heating and radiation it encounters.  In addition, the build up of fission products in the ceramic pellets does change its material properties.

I am not sure what you mean by breaking down and breaking off.  The uranium is contained pretty well in the cladding.  If the fuel was breaking down you would see radioactive gasses coming off.  That does happen, but the fuel is very sturdy.


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

[User]
[Superman] What is Superman's relationship with Metropolis PD like?

We know Batman's relationship with the GCPD. Has an ally with Gordon most of the time. Some officers don't like him but most of them support his actions. Is it the same with Metropolis? Are they receptive when he flies down with a baddie for lockup?

[Assistant]
It varies over time, though tends towards the positive. By the time his career is in full swing, he's gone a long way to build credibility with local authorities as a guy earnestly trying to help. Another advantage he has is Clark Kent, Ace Reporter; while Batman doesn't really have an excuse to be shoving his nose in people's business, it's perfectly reasonable for a reporter to be sniffing about, allowing Superman to compartmentalize that element of vigilante work from his hero persona.

There are exceptions, though. Some of the cops take the view that Superman can't be trusted, or demands greater scrutiny. Other cops could be under the influence of villains, like Lex Luthor. And sometimes, Superman manages to screw up badly enough to spoil the entire thing, like the time in the Animated Series where he gets brainwashed by Darkseid and used to invade Metropolis.


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

[User]
Why can I only see certain things in my peripheral vision, and not when I look at them directly?

Ok I'm sure there is a scientific/medical explanation for this. There is a vehicle often parked across the street from my house. The vehicle has an alarm system that has a flashing light somewhere in the dash/passenger compartment. When I look directly at the vehicle, I don't see any flashing light, but when I focus my eyes even a few feet away, I can see an obvious flashing. When I approach the vehicle I can see the light while looking directly towards it, but from my vantage point across the street, it only become noticeable in my peripheral vision. Why is that?

[Assistant] The distribution of rods and cones in your eyes is not even. Your peripheral vision uses mostly rods and they have better light sensitivity (but no color capacity). Thus, nightvision is better in your peripheral than at the center of focus.


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

[User] ELI5: I understand land snakes but how do sea snakes manage to maneuver themselves through water, what are they pushing away from?

[Assistant]
The water, same as everything else that swims.

Snakes are pretty well built for swimming. Their entire body is basically one big fin. Sea snakes especially are usually flatter than their land-dwelling cousins to maximize their swimming efficiency.


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

[User]
Do all planets receive the same wavelengths of light from their star?

We observe our world through the light visible to our eyes, however there are know organisms who see different wavelengths, bees for example can see ultraviolet light. Could there be planets where potential lifeforms might have to evolv to see x-rays or microwaves in order to observe their world?

If some planets received a different composition of light waves than ours I suspect it might be possible but I don't know if that is physically accurate.

I know there are different types of stars and I know that the consensus is that a planet needs to be in the 'goldilocks zone' of a star to support life.

Thought I might ask here and hope it's not a completely stupid question haha thanks.

[Assistant]
The "spectrum" of a star is what we call the distribution of brightness over different wavelengths. Hot blue stars have a spectrum that has more on the blue/ultraviolent end, and cool red stars lack the blue/UV but still have red/infrared.

In the "main sequence", where stars spend most of their lives, the blue stars are brighter and the red stars are dimmer, with yellow in the middle. The goldilocks zone is where the light from the star is bright that the planet is warm enough for liquid water to exist, but not so warm that it boils the water away instantly. You have a goldilocks zone around any type of star - it's just closer to a dim red dwarf than it is to a bright blue star.

So yes, a planet can be in the goldilocks zone of a star with a totally different spectrum. Even though your temperature might be the same, if you're in the goldilocks zone of a bright blue star, you'd getting hit with a "hard" spectrum with lots of UV - more UV than you'd get from being closer to a red dwarf star. If you're near a red dwarf star, you don't get as much visible light, even though it's fairly warm. This could have a big effect on the viability of life and its evolution.

(Side note: there are also bright red stars, i.e. red giants. But these are a short lived phase at the end of a star's life. Here the star gets a "softer" spectrum as it gets redder, but also becomes a lot brighter, enough that it would shift the goldilocks zone.)


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

[User] [Game of Thrones] Do the army of the dead have a method for crossing bodies of water? Can they walk along the seabed or freeze water and walk atop its surface?

[Assistant] In the books, someone writes a letter ask for help against the Others.  The writer mentions that there are dead things in woods, and dead things in the water.  This seems to imply that the army of the dead can travel underwater.


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

[User]
Why doesn't the west coast get any hurricanes or tropical storms?

I've been living on the west coast for 18 years and had never had a problem with hurricane, but every fall the east coast always gets a storm.

[Assistant]
We do get hurricanes, but they are farther south. If you are in Southern California, a lot of the tropical weather we get here in the late summer/early fall is the "left overs" of the hurricanes that peter out over land in Baja or the colder northern waters off the Californian coast.

Hurricanes get their energy from warm waters. The reasons why hurricanes can reach so far North on the East Coast has to do the with the direction the oceanic currents run.

As a (huge) generalization, the Northern hemispheric currents run clockwise due to the Coriolis force/effect due to Earth's Rotation. This means that warm water from the equator will run north on the "west side" of an ocean and south on the "east side" of the ocean. Ex: In the Pacific, the warm water currents run north from the equator up to Japan and the Korean penninsula up into the artic, where it cools down, then runs south passed Alaska and down the West Coast of the US where it then mixes with the warmer southern waters off the cost of Southern California and the Baja Peninsula.

This is why you hear about typhoons hitting the SEA area and Japan which mimics the hurricanes that hit the Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico, and the East Coast.

In short, hurricanes and typhoons thrive on warm water. Warm water is near the equator, and currents run clockwise patterns. This means that you will have more warm water on the "left side" of an ocean and colder water from the Arctic on the "right side" of an ocean. This is opposite in the Southern Hemisphere due to the Coriolis force switching directions(Currents run counter clockwise).


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is there no male birth control pill? Is it difficult to stop sperm production in men?

I have wondered about this for a while. It seems like this would add a layer of protection for couples in long-term relationships or who are married and want to avoid unplanned pregnancy. I realize that men can use condoms, but personally, I would much prefer a pill once a day like the ones that women can take.

[Assistant]
Basically, female reproduction only happens at a specific time, and requires specific hormonal changes to start.  Birth control pills give women a different set of hormones to stop this from happening, so they don't end up making babies.  No hormone changes to stimulate ovulation, no baby.

Men... we're different.  Our body's normal state is constantly making babies.  We produce sperm daily, with no full-body chemical changes required.  It's a lot harder to find a simple and safe way to interrupt that, at least through a pill.


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

[User] [Fallout 4] Why did the founders of Boston-based Gwinnett Brewery name it after a Georgian founding father instead of a Massachusettsan like Samuel Adams or John Hancock?

[Assistant] The Gwinnett Brewing Company is actually headquartered in Georgia. The brewery and attached restaurant in Boston is actually just a small experimental attempt to expand the company. You see, Gwinnett beers had been getting quite popular further north, and the main company decided to try out opening a small brewery in the area, to see if there was a market. They even had their own signature brew for Boston, the Gwinnett Stout, which was gaining quite a bit of traction before the... unfortunate events of 2077.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is it that, when we learn about the death of a loved one, that it takes awhile for it to truly sink in and become real?

[Assistant] The first step of the five stages of grief is denial. Most people when faced with an emotional trauma will deny that the trauma occurred to protect themselves. Of course that doesn't work forever and that's why there are 4 more stages.


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

[User] ELI5: Why are house in America built so hollow with drywall and light wood, whereas homes in other countries like india, houses tend to be built with cement and brick? Which is stronger?

[Assistant]
In states like California, the wooden homes can withstand earthquakes (and is cheaper than the other earthquake code approved material, steel reinforced concrete) because they're flexible and can bend a bit.

So what homes are made of is going to depend on where you are.

Are you on Long Island in New York?  The houses will mostly be brick or cinder block with aluminum siding.


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

[User]
[The Matrix] What have the Machines been doing since the Matrix was built and the humans essentially neutralised?

With their energy needs taken care of and the humans pretty much neutralised, I wonder what sort of goals the machines are working towards? Are they trying to colonise other planets? Building over the Earth?

In the first film Morpheus says the date is closer to 2199 in the 'real world' and you get a glimpse of the build date of the Nebuchadnezzar being built in the USA in 2060 or so, so I think we can assume that the war hasn't been finished for too long and that the Matrix itself must have taken some time to get up and running (as well as the previous failed iterations).

I think we can therefore assume they've not had a huge amount of time to do their own thing, but I'm curious what people here think they've been up to / if we know anything.

[Assistant]
If the AI can improve on itself it can likely do so at an incremental rate. And as we know it has gone through a process of improving itself at least once, so there is no reason to assume it stopped improving itself until until it reached some sort of singularity (omniscient/omnipotent etc), or until it reaches a barrier to becoming said singularity.

As we know the year is actually 2699 during the Matrix trilogy, not 2199 like Morpheus wrongly thought it was. Now, anything the AI has been doing between the great war with man, and the year 2699 can be assumed to have to do with achieving this self improvement. So why would the AI imprison what looked like millions, if not billions of humans in artificial realities?

Morpheus thought the AI humans needed human bodies for power, which frankly, is pretty stupid, considering the laws of thermodynamics. Feeding humans goo from other humans won't give the the AI more energy than they put it. So why is the AI really keeping all those people tethered by robotic umbilical cords to the brain?

The answer is qualia. The AI is harvesting experiences and feelings in order to become the singularity. in the beginning the AI wasn't able to feel and experience the universe with the same richness and depth as a human mind could, as the human brain has hundreds of millions of years of evolution behind it in order to become a sentient, conscious being it was way beyond the AI in actually experiencing existence and being a part of the universe.

Humans weren't smarter, or stronger mind you, they just had a lot more experience in being alive. The AI of course wasn't dumb enough just to throw all that experience away, so instead they built on it.

We know that in the Matrix it is possible to download experiences into the human brain. So it's possible to learn Kung Fu in a matter of seconds. Now imagine what you could do with humanity by taking the best qualities of the best most experiential human minds, and perpetuating/increasing those pattern in new minds for hundreds of years.

This is why Neo is the sixth reincarnation of  "the one". He is the result of hundreds of years of AI engineering with some sort of spiritual potential humans have, that AI wouldn't have been able to achieve without the combined experience of man, in such a comparatively short time.

When Neo becomes able to influence the real world with his mind is when he achieves the potential the AI needs in order to influence reality with nothing but thought. That is when the AI chooses to meld with Neo and become something that isn't human, and not AI. The spark from Neo's mind is what was needed for the abiogenesis of a new god.

Or at least that is what the AI was trying to do. It's unclear how successful it was.

tl;dr (The AI reaches a barrier to how much it can improve itself, then the AI keeps humans in vats to harvest the many subjective ways humans can experience reality in order to improve on itself)