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

[User]
[Star Trek/The Expanse] How would the Federation react if they encountered the solar system with political problems like in The Expanse?

Assuming some kind of time/parallel dimension fuckery permanently plopped it into the Star Trek universe?

[Assistant]
Prime Directive applies: no warp travel equals no first contact.

But theyre probably very disappointed in their parallel-universe human counterparts for still not having invented the warp drive over two hundred years after they did in the Trek verse.


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

[User]
[Warhammer 40K]Does the Codex Astartes fundmentally weaken the Imperium?

It seems to me, from my readings on the Great Crusade that the Legiones Astartes under the Legion organization is nigh unstoppable. Nowadays it's wiped out there, completely destroyed over here, across the galaxy whole companies are wiped under the Codex. So is there a fundmental flaw in the Codex?

[Assistant]
Both yes and no... Individual Chapters are sorely weakened from their days during the Crusade. No Chapter could hope to stand against, or emulate, a Legion.

At the same time, it was the almost unfathomable strength of the Legions (remember, at the time the Imperial Army was subservient to the Space Marine Legions) is what led to the Heresy. The ability to turn that much military might against the governing body, so easily, was a serious risk to the continued stability of the Imperium.

By crontrast, look at Huron Blackheart. He convinced a dozen chapters to side with him, swaying more commanding minds than Horus did (he only had to convince 7 people) and he was only able to garner a fraction of the strength of a single Legion.

It's one of those weird things, that the Codex Astartes both strengthened, AND weakened the Imperium... It diminished their overall military strength, though it made it considerably more stable.


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

[User]
[The Walking Dead] why did the little girl zombie from the first episode pick up her stuffed animal?

I JUST started watching this show and I couldn't figure out why a mindless zombie would have the urge to pick up a toy.

[Assistant]
[META] Everything in the "rules" of The Walking Dead is based on the rules of the Romero zombie films* zombies. How death and resurrection works, how zombies behave, how to kill them, etc. In Romero's films, it's shown beyond any shadow of a doubt that zombies retain shadows of memories from their past lives. They don't randomly roam- they gravitate towards places that they spent time in while they were alive. They vaguely mimic motions and behaviors of their past lives. They reach for, investigate, and occasionally manipulate objects that they remember. There's a gun-loving zombie in Dawn; he doesn't know how to use guns, but he knows he likes them, and wants them. Zombies wander the shopping mall like they did when they were alive. A hare krishna zombie still carries his beads. In Day, Bub remembers how to use a tape player for music. He also remembers- unprompted- to salute a superior soldier, as he himself was a veteran. He remembers how to check and prep a pistol. In Land, a lawncare worker zombie paces a lawn mimicking his old patterns. A gas-station worker zombie stands at the ready with nozzle in hand. Band member zombies arrange on bleachers with their instruments.

* Night of the Living Dead (1968), Dawn of the Dead (1978), Day of the Dead (1975), and Land of the Dead (2004) at minimum; Romero's "reboot series" of Diary of the Dead (2008) and Survival of the Dead (2011) are of debatable canonicity. Survival definitely is a sequel to Diary, but whether they're a true reboot or just "sliding timescale" new entries which take place concurrent to previous films is unknown.


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

[User] [Deadpool 2]"I probably shouldn't have packed the hollowpoints." If Deadpool is a member of the X-Men, why the hell is he allowed to keep his pistols?

[Assistant]
The X-Men utilise a wide variety of fighting styles, and let members choose their own equipment. Nightcrawler and Psylocke habitually carry swords into battle, Bishop and Cable bring extremely large guns, and thats not even getting into the spin-off teams such as X-Force. Theyre basically on the honour system to use these weapons nonlethally, except when they consider lethal force absolutely necessary.

Colossus presumably hoped Wade would stick by that same principle. Look, nobody ever accused Piotr of being smart, okay?


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

[User]
ELI5: How does the human mind develop what is attractive to them and what is not?

The other day i pointed out a really beautiful girl (in my opinion) to my friend. He replied "Yeah she's alright". This sparked a question in my thoughts on how people develop opinions on attractiveness.

[Assistant]
There are shared opinions of beauty, like symmetrical faces and such, but one of the biggest influences on what somebody finds attractive is the environment they grew up in.

For example, say you had a very nice blonde teacher in elementary school and your closest family (mom, cousins, maybe even grandma) have blue eyes and have athletic bodies, chances are you're gonna be into swedish girls.

Of course it's not this literal, but you get the idea.


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

[User]
What makes a programming language "good" for certain tasks?

For example, I've heard that Python is a "good" language for data analysis, and C# is for building apps. Theoretically, all programming languages should be able to do the same things, so what makes one better for a certain task? Is it the standard libraries?

[Assistant]
A range of factors, and a lot of opinion.

Some things are just hard requirements.  You need to use a language that compiles to native machine code if you want to write an OS kernel.  You can't really write a complete OS from scratch with no other code in Python or Javascript.  Interpreted languages like that need a bunch of extra code at run time to make them work.  But, you can't load that extra code without already having at least some minimal working OS of some sort.  So, you will see a lot of C in OSdev.  On the other hand, if you want to run code in a browser, you probably will use Javascript, because that's what browsers will run.

Sometimes it's just a totally arbitrary availability of tooling.  If some wacky professor writes a really great library for doing a particular task, then whatever language they write it in can suddenly become the best language for that task.  This kind of happened with Ruby when the Rails framework was released.  As a bare language, it's pretty similar to Python.  But for certain kinds of webdev, Ruby is much more convenient because people wrote better tools to do it in Ruby.

Performance can make a difference.  Pedants will point out that a programming language isn't inherently slow.  Different implementations of the same language can vary wildly.  Sometimes a slow language is fast, and sometimes a fast language is slow.  But in practice, Python is generally slow and C++ is fast.  So, you see C++ used in a lot of high performance stuff like 3D rendering and games.  (Or, at least game engines.)  Maya is written in C++, Direct3D games use C++, etc.  Lots of the modules that get used in a slow language like Python are written in C or C++, so you can o fast work with a slow language.

Static vs. dynamic typing, and a few other features effect the convenience of a language.  Python has nice simple Syntax, dynamic typing, and a bunch of useful libraries, so it tends to be an eminently convenient language.  Loading JSON into Python is very convenient because of the dynamic typing -- fields can be added to objects at run time when you load a JSON file.  Doing something similar in C++ is a pain in the neck, and has to be done with a bunch of indirection, specifying some classes ahead of time, and maybe some template weirdness, depending on exactly what you want to do.  So, loading some data and doing some processing (possibly using a fast module which is implemented in c++) tends to be super convenient in Python.

Static strong typing can be useful for for making big projects more reliable by writing pedantically type safe code.  It's a pain to write such code, and a pain to use.  But it eliminate a class of bugs that is really easy to write in Python.  And, a static type language can be analyzed for likely bugs ahead of time.  Python often explodes in completely unexpected ways at runtime, because of that dynamic typing you can never be 100% sure what somebody is going to pass into a certain function.  With C++, passing the wrong type of object to a function is generally just a compiler error, so you can't ship a program to a  user with that type of mistake in such a static types language.  Ada is no longer terribly common, but it used to be used in a lot of military and aerospace projects because it is even more enthusiastic about strong and static types than C++ is.

Does this help clarify?


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

[User]
CMV: It makes way more sense for a professional sports team to wear white on the road and their team color at home.

Not a super pressing issue but one that really bugs me.

In the NBA, the home team always wears white at home and their team color when they are away. I think the home fans should be watching their team play in their defining color, not white. This gives their team more of a defining identity in front of their home fans.

The NHL used to be the same way but changed it to white colors on the road and team colors at home. Although the main reason for this change was to sell jerseys, I think it was great because now people can wear their teams defining color and match their team when they attend a game. I think that is way cooler than the NBA way and wish they would change it.

[Assistant]
They don't have to wear white.

It just has to be a light color.

For Example, Lakers wear team defining yellow (gold) at home.

Smart team would anticipate the rule and make their team-defining color a light one.

edit: Phoenix Suns also used to wear an orange home jersey.


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

[User]
Eli5: Why hasn't commercial supersonic flight been attempted on a wide-scale since concorde?

Surely in 14 years since the last commercial Concorde flight the technology would have advanced to the point we could think about this again?

[Assistant]
The main issue is it just isn't worth it.

It cost about as much to fly the Concorde across the Atlantic as it does 747, which has three times as many seats.

Not many people are willing to pay that kind of money.  3.5 vs. 7 hours might sound good, but super sonic speed doesn't get you through the security line any faster.  Door to door is more like 7 hours vs. 10.5, and that point you are blowing a whole day no matter what.


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

[User] [Known Space] I'm an ARM agent, I'm pretty sure a criminal is using a mobile Sinclair time-acceleration field, is there any way I can I actually stop them without hoping I eventually catch them with it turned off?

[Assistant]
Set up a bunch of transmitter and reciever pairs clocked down to the picosecond around the city.  The time acceleration will produce a small but measurable offset.  You can use those measurements yo pinpoint the location of your criminal.  It's similar to accounting for the effects of relativity in GPS satellites.

You can probably hijack existing communication towers to get the job done.


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

[User]
ELI5: What happens to the veins and arteries that are cut open in an amputation?

Do doctors sew the two together? What about oldschool amputations where that wasn't possible?

[Assistant] They take a hemostat and grab the larger veins and arteries as they cut off the limb. Then tie them off using heavy silk sutures. Then they use the bovie (electric cautery device) to cauterize the rest of the smaller bleeding.


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

[User] The Nobel Prize in Chemistry this year was awarded for super-resolution fluorescence microscopy. How does it work?

[Assistant]
Normally, in samples you see a diffuse spread of thousands or millions of fluorescent molecules. You cannot resolve these individually because the light coming from each of these particles is "fuzzy" and gets blurred out because of the fundamental nature of photons. This fuzziness arises from a limit called the diffraction limit. It turns out that you can localize fluorescent particles better than this limit, but you need to do some tricks.

One way of seeing below this limit is to image the particles one at a time. If you want to see below this limit, you need a way of only imaging samples such that the particles you see are not so close together. It turns out that you can localize them individually much better than you can when they are all together, so you just need a way of randomly localizing them one at a time. One technique is called PALM (photo-activated localization microscopy).

Another way is to use some exotic properties of fluorescent materials that arise because of photophysical properties. These are properties that arise from the way the electrons transitions in these materials. If you are careful about the way you image, you can excite a super-small portion of the material, smaller than the diffraction limit mentioned above. If you do this and sweep over the entire sample, you can get resolution better than the diffraction limit. This is very simplified way of describing it, but this technique is called STED (stimulated emission depletion microscopy).

This technique is also similar in principle to something called "near field microscopy," where you only illuminate your sample with a tiny probe that is smaller than the wavelength of light you would ordinarily illuminate with. This probe is like a nanoscale flashlight. If you sweep this tiny probe over your sample, it will fluoresce only when your tiny probe is in a place where it can generate fluorescence. This is another trick to "beat" the diffraction limit.

**Summary**

A lot of this work has been slowly developed over the last 20 or more years. The diffraction limit remains a fundamental limit of light resolution, but it turns out that if you do the experiment with certain tricks in just the right way, you can get around some of the limitations it imposes. Basically these guys won the Nobel for these tricks.


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

[User] ELI5: If the organs still work after a vasectomy, where does the sperm go if it cant leave the body? Ive heard the body reabsorbs it. Is this true/ how does this work?

[Assistant] The male body makes a lot of sperm cells every day.  Most of them doesn't get a chance to leave the body.  Since there is no bloodflow to the sperm cells, once they use up the energy inside them when they are manufactured, they die.  The body absorbs dead cells all the time, and breaks them down.  Some of the molecules are reusable, and others are not.  The non-reusable ones are filtered out by the kidneys and flushed from the body.  All a vasectomy does is change from 99% never get out to 100% never get out.  It's hardly a significant change.


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

[User] [Inside Out] If dreams are stage productions, what is going on when someone lucid dreams?

[Assistant] Everything in Rileys brain are just facets of her own mind not separate intelligences that happen to live in her head.  If she was lucid dreaming the director of the dream would have less control and the more conscious parts of her mind would have more.  Our best evidence shows that the emotions in command centre are the most conscious parts of her psyche so they would most likely control the dream.


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

[User]
ELI5: How is it possible for tiny SD cards to have 200GB storage? How do they create more storage space on something that small?

Basically I don't understand how a tiny thing like that can hold 200gb of data. How do they make them so they can hold so much information?

[Assistant]
Imagine you have a lot of glasses on your kitchen table in a grid.  You also have a garden hose.  For each glass you have two choices, either fill the glass full with water or leave it empty. It is up to you.

This is a basic memory cell.  With this setup you can store a combination of 1s (glass is full) and 0s (glass is empty).

You can probably only fit 500 glasses on your kitchen table, so your memory capacity is limited by the size of your table assuming you only have normal household glasses.  In computer jargon, we would say you have 500 'bits' of memory. What can you do to increase the amount of memory you have?

The first thing is to get some smaller glasses.  Shot glasses would do just fine.  You can probably fit 4 shot glasses in the footprint of your kitchen glass.  Replacing them all with the shot glasses will give you 2000 'bits'.

The other thing you could do is change how you represent your information.  Instead of only filling up the shot glasses full or leaving them empty, you could use the water level as a way of representing more data.  You could say, empty is 00, less than half empty is a 01, more than half empty is a 10 and full is a 11. See, now we are using one glass to store the same information as two glasses used to.

This is essentially what has been happening with the flash technology that is being used to make these memory cells, a combination of shrinking the bit storage units and changing the way that the information is represented.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do truck drivers in movies honk their horns by pulling on a rope above their heads? Do trucks not have the button to activate the horn inside the steering wheel like normal cars?

[Assistant]
The air horn pull is up and out of the way so you don't activate it accidentally - air horns are loud, can get you in trouble if you blast it certain areas, certain times of days. The truck will have a regular steering wheel "meep" horn like a car, but its not much louder than a car's.

Also, back in the day, customizing your air horn for your rig was a thing; easier to do when its not mixed up with the steering wheel electrical harness.

Plus: air horn pull = fun.


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

[User] ELI5: How can spiders contain so much web when their body's are so small?

[Assistant]
They make it themselves with their spinnerets. It's not like they have a storehouse of web inside their body. They have silk glands that create the web on demand.

The web itself weighs VERY little. One strand stretching across the entire Earth would weigh less than a bar of soap.


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

[User] ELI5: why does running scissors across ribbon make it curly?

[Assistant] it's actually really interesting- i used to think that it shaved off the bottom of the ribbon, but that's not it.  because the blade is sharp the cutting part is really thin and with the right pressure, it actually stretches the far side of the ribbon more than the close side, resulting in a curl. and it stays that way.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do sugary drinks give people worse hangovers?

[Assistant]
I don't know about hydration issues, but the biggest factor in a hangover is the length of time you're exposed to acetaldehyde (a metabolic byproduct of ethanol in the liver) and to a lesser extent, methanol. It's hard work for the liver to manage, but it does it like a champ, however sugar competes with alcohol for metabolic resources.

The more sugar you take in along with your alcohol, the longer it's going to take to break down the most noxious byproducts of ethanol metabolism, and the worse your hangover is.


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

[User] [Conan the Barbarian] Is Conan the strongest regular human on his setting? Considering only his physical strength.

[Assistant]
Conan is arguably "The Strongest" or perhaps "The Mightiest," but that honestly has more to do with all of his traits together rather than just his physical strength. He's actually very smart: Conan speaks dozens of languages some of which are ancient (to better delve forgotten tombs) and he's quite savvy in politics; not only is a King for most of his life, he has been a leader many, many times of both his own tribe as well as dozens of cities, armies, and pirate organizations.

He's obviously very physically fit (although he has encountered many who are stronger in terms of raw strength) and is one of the most accomplished warriors of his era. In terms of his fighting skills and battle knowledge there are few in his world better than him (though they do exist). Tactically he's gifted, although he also knows his limits and generally listens to better tacticians when he's in charge.

However where Conan excels, indeed is unarguably superior to all others, is his willpower. Conan does not give up. Time and time again he is found to be spent, defeated, exhausted, and bear death, yet he digs into his reservoir of willpower to edge out a victory. He wins because he simply won't allow himself to lose. Be it when a Great Ape is crushing him in a vise like hug or when he must fight through an entire city to escape, or the depths of the greatest battle history ever recorded: Conan will no give up.

In this, he is unmatched, and it's why he seems so strong. His willpower often enhances his other physical traits: allows him to break impossible binds, bend steel, snap necks, fight for hours on end, climb sheer surfaces, avoid certain death, and all of that. It makes his base abilities seem supernatural when in reality they are just human (peak human in many ways). However his Willpower is beyond human, something that many a sorcerer, god, or demon has remarked upon (often right before having their heads swept from their shoulders by his sword).


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

[User] Why is gravity so much weaker than the other forces, like electromagnetism?

[Assistant]
Your statement is equivalent to this other statement:

Why are the masses of the particles of the standard model so much lower (10^20 or so) than the Planck mass?

(This parenthesis is if you wanna lose five minutes. If you wanna try and derive the connection: write the ratio of the gravitational force over electric force between two electrons, then substitute inside that the definition of the fine structure constant in terms of epsilon_0 and e^2, put alpha ~ 0.01, plug in the planck mass expression, and you should get m_electron/m_planck = ridiculously small)

This is a very deep question, and falls under the name of the hierarchy problem. We know that the masses of fundamental particles all ultimately arise from the Higgs mechanism, and so they all are of the same scale (give or take) of the Higgs VEV. Then we can rephrase our question again:

Why does the Higgs potential have a minimum at such a low energy (~hundreds of GeV), if it's supposed to come out of a Planck scale (micrograms*c^2) theory of everything?

Basically, quantum corrections should bring this energy scale up to the Planck energy, *unless* there is some magical cancellations that cuts contribution off above a certain point. This is the main motivation for low-energy supersymmetry. The lower supersymmetry is broken (and thus, the lower the masses of superpartners) the better susy solves the hierarchy problem. Or something else does, nobody knows yet.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Was Vader trying to kill Luke during their final duel?

When they were dueling in front of the Emperor, was Vader actually trying to kill him at that point?

[Assistant]
Yes. From the novelization:

> You are unwise to lower your defenses, Vader warned. His anger was layered, nowhe did not want to win if the boy was not battling to the fullest. But if winning meant he had to kill a boy who wouldnt fight ... then he could do that too. Only he wanted Luke to be aware of those consequences. He wanted Luke to know that this was no longer just a game. This was darkness.

Vader being conflicted =\= Vader holding back. He may have been conflicted about his place as a Sith, but theres nothing to suggest he wasnt trying his utmost to defeat his son.


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

[User] For some species of ant, like Army Ants, what determines whether they become a small worker, a large soldier, a male, or a queen? Is it random or do queen ants choose which profession ants will be when they lay the eggs?

[Assistant] It depends on the species, but among many species of ants the caste that an egg develops into is based on differences in nutrition received through care and feeding by other ants as the larvae develops -- not by anything that the queen does.


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

[User] ELI5: if we get out of the shower clean how do our towels get dirty?

[Assistant] You're never perfectly clean when you get out of the shower, your towels are constantly exposed to dust and other dirt when they're sitting out, and moist environments are good breeding grounds for bacteria.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do our eyes 'burn' when we don't get enough sleep?

[Assistant] Because the cornea gets strained, water is reserved as the body goes into preservation mode after being awake for so many hours and tears are not formed on the cornea to flush them periodically, which allows the cornea to have extra sensitive exposure to particles in air, air itself, etc. causing the burning sensation.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] How in the hell did the Emperor NOT realize that Padme's child(ren) survived?

I mean beyond being a super powerful Sith, it would be easy to see if she gave birth, and there were no babies found with her. Even if his underlings couldn't get access to the body, you'd think finding out if Anakin's child(ren) had survived would be SUPER important. Even if Anakin had killed her on Mustafar, she was far enough along that the baby could be saved. And I mean, right after she's declared dead, CLEARLY having been pregnant and one of her closest friends and allies suddenly has a daughter he adopted and no one thinks to check on this kid?

And of course this doesn't even get into investigating Anakin's remaining family on Tatooine suddenly having a boy....named Skywalker. (this drove my mother crazy, even before the Prequels came out)

I mean Palpatine is a master planner and he didn't notice this?

[Assistant] I figure he assumes Obi-wan took the child and is training them to be a Jedi with the intent of sending him after them, and does nothing to interfere because he thinks this is precisely the sort of conflict that makes the Sith stronger.


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

[User] [Star Wars] Did Imperial commanders routinely execute subordinates without any sort of due process, or was that just one of Vader's personal quirks?

[Assistant]
Sith are their own due process.

Given the discomfort the others demonstrated at the time, and the needs of good military order, it was almost certainly not done as a matter of course.

Understand that the modern military does allow an officer to execute an underling for things like desertion if the situation is sufficiently dire. At least that was true up through Vietnam. If, after the fact, said sanction was deemed unlawful it would be murder.

In a despotism such things happen.

Given that it was a hierarchical despotism there was probably a lot of leeway.

After all, when the Death Star destroyed Alderan the Empire probably didn't remove the imperial troops that were coincidentally stationed there. If all the imperial personnel just started leaving it would have been a tipoff.

So yea, a little in-ranks collateral seems to have been the rule of the day, but it likely wasn't terribly common over the entire cohort.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why are shark teeth I find on the beach always black, but when they are in a living shark they are white? Why are there no white shark teeth on the beach?

Along the same line, why are they always white in a shark jaw in a museum or mounted on a fisherman's wall, but not on the beach? Makes me think it doesn't strictly have to do with whether they are alive or not.

Edit: thanks for all the responses. I had no idea I was finding fossils. I always thought fossil finding was hard and required digging. So much cooler knowing I find and hold things that are thousands of years old!

[Assistant]
The teeth you find on the beach are fossilized

> Shark teeth are made up of calcium phosphate, which is the mineral apatite. Although shark teeth are sturdier than the cartilage that makes up their skeleton, the teeth still disintegrate over time unless they are fossilized.
>
> This is why you rarely find white shark teeth on a beach.
>
> Shark teeth are preserved if the tooth is buried, which prevents decomposition by oxygen and bacteria. Shark teeth buried in sediments absorb surrounding minerals, turning them from a normal whitish tooth color to a deeper color, usually black, gray or tan. The fossilization process takes at least 10,000 years, although some fossil shark's teeth are millions of years old! Fossils are old, but you can't tell the approximate age of a shark tooth simply by its color because the color (black, gray, brown) depends completely on the chemical composition of the sediment that replaced the calcium during the fossilization process.


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

[User] [Dune] What exactly is the connection between the spice and the sand worms?

[Assistant] The spice is a by-product of Shai-Hulud's gestation cycle.  The great worms begin their life as a being that is as much plant as animal, known as the Little Makers.  Each one may as well be a colony of plankton, which seeks and traps moisture in the sands deep below the dessert with a multitude of them acting together as a membrane that contains the mixture.  Their waste reacts with the water and sand and creates a gaseous fermentation process that brews the spice and when enough pressure is accumulated, blows it all over the surface of the dessert.  The adult sandworms then feed on the melange, and begin the process over again.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does milk help soothe a spicy mouth better than other drinks? Is it specific to animal milk, or would nut milk have the same effect?

[Assistant] It is specific to animal milk. Animal milk contains casein which binds to the spicy thing neutralising it. Nutmilk doesnt have it because nuts themselves do not have casein and the process of milkifying a nut does not add or cause it to have any either.


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

[User]
eli5: Why are engine exhuast valves so much smaller than intake valves?

I get that the fuel burns but obviously there is no loss of mass or number of atoms. There is energy released and an increase in pressure, but if anything this would mean the exhuast valves should be bigger to handle the post combustion increase in pressure.

[Assistant] It's a flow problem.  You can push that exhaust out with lots of pressure like a pump pushes water but you have only atmospheric pressure to draw that air & fuel in.  Same reason you can suck water only 33' high but can push it 1250' to the top of a building..


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Why are the Mandalorians the only group ever recorded to have used nuclear weapons?

Why haven't these devices been used by the Empire military, or in Rebellion sabotage missions?

[Assistant]
Nuclear weapons are very old tech. There are much more efficient means of destruction such as thermal detonators. A single Class-A thermal detonator was sufficient to cause the collapse of Xizor's Palace, which was 102 stories.

Simply put, there are other weapons which give one more bang for their buck now.


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

[User]
CMV:Pointing to a modern problem to criticize capitalism doesn't logically make sense unless it comes with an explanation of how things would be better/different under socialism or communism.

Disclaimer like always, but I don't consider myself some ardent capitalist or neoliberal. I've been greatly informed and frequently convinced by the analysis of the problems with capitalism I've seen online, but where I faltered was taking the things I've learned online to try and convince other people in real life. Some issues, like wealth inequality, I feel like I could pretty confidently explain why capitalism is to blame. But some arguments I've seen online just didn't convince me fully, mainly because I couldn't make the connection to how things would be better or at least different under socialism/communism.

A lot of these arguments took the form of (description of an actual, serious problem), (something to the effect of 'capitalism sucks'). To take one example, there were claims about how capitalism is the cause of poverty in third world countries, including issues like third world countries not having access to clean water, or food, or dying from malaria. These claims usually come with the explanation that practically speaking capitalism is the only economic system in the world, and thus is the cause of the world's problems, but I feel like that fails to consider other factors. I imagined that if I were to try to convince a family or friend on this issue, they'd ask me "Well, where's your proof that it'll magically be solved in a socialist country?", and I'd have not much to say.

Maybe it's because I haven't read all the proper socialist/communist theory, but I found it hard to see how workers owning the means of production would alleviate malaria, among other issues. (If someone could explain how, I'd give a delta for that too) Maybe others who've learned more can make the connection easily, just like that. I still feel that if one can't explain, even in purely theoretical terms, how socialism/communism could help or solve said problem, the argument that it's capitalism's fault has little weight.

edit: Thanks for all the answer guys, I shouldn't have posted a cmv this late at night but anyways I think I'll have to post more replies tomorrow morning.

edit: One thing to clarify, I don't believe in the "Well if you don't have a solution then don't criticize" mentality at all. I also think singling out alternatives to socialism/communism was a mistake. If I could go back, I'd write my title as "It is a misattribution of blame to state that capitalism is causing modern problems unless it comes with an explanation of how things would be better under a system that does not incorporate capitalism."

[Assistant]
You've got a bit of a false dichotomy here. The world doesn't have to choose between capitalism and communism. "Capitalism" is a very imprecise term. Most of the time, when people critique capitalism, they are critiquing some combination of free markets, neoliberalism, growing wealth inequality, and the sense that we live in a plutocracy where almost everything (legal defenses to keep you out of prison, admission to elite universities, political influence, etc.) can be bought.

In this sense, capitalism is to blame for a lot of the world's problems. It incentives companies to pay people overseas shit, encourages consumption (and thus advertising) over community or social progress, and generally works to keep most of the world down while a small portion of the population benefits.

It's true that malaria probably wouldn't be cured under communism. But is a less capitalist world, we could tax the rich fund research, give a bit more foreign aid so that poor countries could develop their economies, etc.

People just want more leftist policies, and "capitalism" is pretty much a stand-in for conservative policies online.


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

[User] What happens to the brain during a hallucination?

[Assistant]
Think of the brain as a processing center. In the back of the brain, there is the visual processing center. Parts of the brain back there line up to what we see as reality in everyday life. If  a bug enters your view in the lower-left quadrant, there is a piece of brain in the right side of your brain that processes this. There are also visual processing centers for moving objects. Auditory processing happens in your temporal lobes. There is also some one-to-one mapping of sounds to cortical areas, but it's much less exact.

During a hallucination, your brain is misinterpreting reality. It is sensing things that are not actually there. This is caused by a surge of certain transmitters, usually dopamine, but also can be certain serotonin ones. Basically what happens in a hallucination is indistinguishable...in your brain at least, from what would be happening if that hallucination were real, i.e. if you hooked up an fMRI or other scanner, and looked inside...there would be little difference.

EDIT. For those saying that hallucinogens are serotonin, while stimulants are dopamine. Hallucinogens like DMT, and peyote cause their hallucinations through serotonin. However, amphetamines and the like cause their hallucinations through dopamine, mostly in overdose. They work in different ways, but both dopamine and serotonin can cause hallucinations. Anti-psychotics work on dopamine receptors. They are D2 antagonists.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] What happened to all the Imperial forces after the fall of the Empire?

After the battles of Endor and Jakku the Empire formally ended. Now while we know some remnants retreated and ended up forming the First Order, what happened to the rest of the Stormtroopers and Officers?

How did the New Republic deal with the ones that surrendered? Were there prison camps? Some sort of resettlement project? Was there some form of Reconstruction Act for systems that supported Imperial rule?

[Assistant]
Fragmentation.  Some warlords arose trying to maintain their petty fiefdoms.  Many, many defections.  The market was flooded with surplus Empire military gear as troopers and officers sought cash to melt back into society.

Some gained employment as mercenaries or security forces in brushfire wars between ancient rivals that had been kept in check by the Republic and Empire.


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

[User]
Do stranger forms of life get sick; like jellyfish, amoeba, or fungi?

Just to clarify, do jellyfish get sick?

What about even stranger or simpler creatures, like amoebas or fungi and mold?

Do they fall ill to infections? How do they combat them?

What are some of the more odd immune systems of the planet's strange creatures?

[Assistant]
Even bacteria can get sick.

Bacteriophages are viruses that infect bacteria. There are *a lot* of them, in oceans and in soil and in you.

Some bacteria cope with constant viral assault by having thick peptidoglycan cell walls, by secreting a thick layer of mucus over the bacterial colony, and by trying to not have cell surface markers that viruses could latch on to. Every milliliter of sea water is a constant evolutionary war zone.

People generally ignore phases because they don't make us sick, but they are a nuisance if you are trying to grow algae for making biofuels and they've been investigated as a substitute for antibiotics but finding the right strain of phage to destroy an infection has proven difficult.

I actually have no idea about jellyfish defenses.


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

[User]
[Porn] Why do pizza delivery men and plumbers have so much sex? Is it because of government breeding programs?

Please provide sources for research purposes.

[Assistant] Everyone has that much sex in the porn universe. It's just that people don't seem to be interested in most of the others.  It's really hard to get any work done in the porn universe. Orgies are always breaking out.


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

[User]
gift for professor as a postdoc

I will be leaving my PI's lab after 6 years. Going to an industry job which he had referred me to. Want to show my appreciation. We are not super close on a personal level but definitely chat on a regular basis and joke around.

Budget wise I would say up to $500. A nice pen feels a bit cliche. But honestly don't know what else to get. Want to go for something unique and personal. Bobblehead? Feels like could be a miss.

Thoughts welcome!

[Assistant] To me $500 is way too much. I'd think a bottle of wine or liquor if they drink, a gift certificate to a restaurant, a good book, etc., would be appropriate. Most meaningful may be your handwritten words in a card.


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

[User]
Alright... help me out. Why doesn't the Earth fall into the sun?

The answer I usually get is, "it IS falling, it just keeps missing because of its lateral momentum." I can KIND of understand that, but I need help getting past a sort of mental block, a part of my brain that insists something is wrong:

If I want to fly on Earth, I have to constantly be generating some downward thrust, because gravity is constantly pulling me down. Likewise, the sun is constantly pulling the Earth, but the Earth only has a limited amount of lateral momentum. Shouldn't that momentum get used up?

Another way of looking at my objection: oftentimes I've seen the effect of gravity likened to the dip in an imaginary sheet of rubber if you put a heavy object on it. Well, if you actually had a sheet of rubber and put a bowling ball on it to simulate the sun, and rolled a marble to simulate the Earth, they'd be no way to achieve orbit. Either you wouldn't give it enough force and the marble would spiral down and hit the bowling ball, or you'd give it too much force and it would roll past the bowling ball and not come back. I realize that there's (almost) no friction in space, but I feel like, if I did the above experiment with theoretical frictionless material, you still wouldn't be able to create stable orbit. Am I wrong?

EDIT: I accidentally a letter.

[Assistant]
The key is that momentum doesn't get used up. There is no friction. Satellites, spacecraft, and the moon all use this same concept, they are simply moving so fast that they 'miss' the earth as they fall towards it. If they were going too fast, they would fly further away. Too slow and they'd eventually crash. It makes sense that there must exists some happy medium.

Your example with the marble, and with trying to fly through atmosphere all have friction in common. Space has little to no resistance, so momentum can carry you forever.


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

[User] [Star Wars] Why Jedi mind tricks didn't work on Jabba and Watto? Did their species have a natural immunity to these tricks - Hutt and Toydarian - as Watto suggests?

[Assistant] Many people have mentioned that Hutt and Toydarian physiologies are different from humans, but its worth noting that anyone can train to resist the mind trick via sheer willpower. Cad Bane is a good example; he trained his mind so well that it took a combined mind trick from Obi-Wan, Anakin, and Mace Windu to break him.


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

[User]
[The Flash] - It must be mind-numbingly boring to be the Flash, don't you think?

So Barry Allen (or whoever has the mantle) can run very very very fast.

In order to avoid going splat very quickly, when he is running very very very fast, his brain must be also going very very very fast in order to ensure he doesn't go headlong through a wall, or car, or innocent bystander.

In many portrayals of the Flash, when he's running at full speed, we see that everything seems super slow, but that his awareness and experience are - relative to him - normal speed. This is why he'll look like he's moving normally, while all around him thiiiiings aaaare goooooing suuuuuper slooooowly....

So if Flash is running from, for instance, New York to LA to get somewhere, to us mere mortals he might be there in, ahaha, a flash, but in his experience of the run, is this like a normal person having to run that distance?

How does he not lose his mind from boredom? Or forget what he was doing in the first place?

[Assistant] It's often depicted as longer journeys like that tend to be almost on autopilot - they'll avoid most dangers and pitfalls, but they're not out there focusing on every single step they take. But yes, occasionally they've described clean-up detail as being boring even at high speeds specifically because the need to focus on all the little things.


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

[User]
Poor password storage - can someone knowledgable weigh in?

I'm trying to deal with the owner of this random online business who refuses to delete my online account 'cuz of "IRS Regulations," and as far as I understand it, they're storing passwords in plain text (clicking "forgot password" just emails it to you). Here's our abbreviated conversation - **am I going crazy?**

Me:

>Hello! I'd like to have my online account disabled and made inaccessible if at all possible. It seems that Im still able to log onto the site and see order history, my home address, phone number, email address, name, card information, etc. Im mostly concerned about hiding that information because it seems that your website stores login passwords unencrypted, so any breach of login information would expose all of it.

Him:

>IRS regulations require that we keep this information in our database. You should no longer have on-line access. Card information is NOT stored in our database, and passwords ARE encrypted.

(At this point I definitely still have access - he just changed the password to "Disabled1234")

Me:

>I'm concerned about encryption because your website is able to simply email me my password. If I understand correctly, that would mean that your website is storing passwords in plain text, which is definitely a poor security practice. You should definitely be looking into that, and make sure whoever's set up the website knows about this flaw.

Him:

>On a request for a password, the encrypted password is retrieved from the database, decrypted and sent via SSL email to the customer.

Me:

>I don't know much about encryption... but I'm pretty sure it's a one way street. As-in, unless you know the original key, the encrypted version should just be garbled data that can't be reversed. At least, that's how *passwords* are generally encrypted. That's why most websites won't ever "know" your password. Instead, they take the text you entered, pass it through a standard encryption algorithm (like SHA-256), and compare it to the hash in the database. If the algorithm is any good, it can't be easily reversed. That's the extent of what I know about encryption...

Him:

>We use SHA-256 to encrypt email passwords. As we have the decryption KEY, when our PHP software RETRIEVES it from the database, it is available if needed to provide that password to the customer. Any time you ENCRYPT information, you have to have a way to DECRYPT it.

If I understand correctly... he's just assuming that his database is encrypted because he has to have a password to log in to it... but the passwords inside *are* stored in plain text. Is that right?

[Assistant]
Encryption is a 2-way street.

Hashing is the 1-way street.

SHA-256 is a hashing algorithm.  So if the site was really using that then it would not be able to retrieve the password.

Encryption is not suitable for storing passwords.  Keys can be stolen as easily as the database.


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

[User] [Futurama] Is the Nimbus the only Earthican military vessel? Where's the rest of the Navy?

[Assistant] The universe is a pretty peaceful place, earth has been invaded several times the last few decades and the body count for actual military invasions is 1. 1 person, and he was a dirty hippie, our military has proved sufficient to win a couple wars, and the our biggest enemies pretty much invade to chill out and play basketball. Life is good in a practically post scarcity universe.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] What is the tactical or mechanical advantage to piloting walkers if you also have access to speeders and tanks?

Saw lots of empire walkers the other day. Including some single-rider models barely larger than tauntauns. Some speeders whipped by them going like 10 times faster. And there were some tanks too, hovering over the uneven terrain just fine.

So...why bother walking and running when they can fly?

[Assistant]
You probably saw an AT-ST. they are garrison vehicles, primarily intended to control and supress crowds, not be at the front lines.

Antigrav is expensive and are more complicated to maintain compared to walkers. This is bad when you have got them on planets all over the galaxy, many who don't have people to maintain advanced tech.

Finally, Repulsorlifts doesn't make the vehicle weightless. A more heavily armored vehicle, would require a bigger, more expensive repulsorlift system. Engineers usually go for more shielding instead of just armor, but these, like repulsorlifts, require specialized crew to maintain.

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

Like you said, the advantage is speed, but that is irrelevant in many cases. Walkers are intended to move slowly alongside infantry, and support them.

Finally, there are many planets where repulsorlifts simply don't work.
Electric storms, electronically charged mud, hostile repulsorlift jammers, and other bullshit like that would severely cripple an army that is dependent on repulsorcraft, and leave the men without armor support..
When you are deploying troops all over the galaxy, you gotta be prepared for all situations.

**TL;DR: Different vehicles fill different roles. There are no reasonably priced "perfect tank"**


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

[User] What determines when/where a branch will grow on a tree?

[Assistant]
It has to do with the distance from the apical meristem.

The apical meristem holds a lot of stem cells within the growing plant, and is generally the top of the forming tree/bush.  The trunk of a tree is the remnants of the apical meristem as the tree grows in height.

One of the hormones it releases is called auxin.  When auxin is released into the vascular system of the plant, it contributes to apical dominance, which prevents any branches from growing below.  Thus, auxin is a negative feedback hormone; if concentrations are high, things are prevented from happening.  As the apical meristem moves higher, the concentration of auxin becomes lower, and this triggers secondary meristems that have formed to branch out.  Basically, as the tree gets taller, the auxin concentration at the secondary meristems is lower, and they grow out.

If you take a growing tree or bush and cut the apical meristem off, the secondary meristems on the side will grow out.  This way you can cause a plant to grow horizontally instead of vertically, though they will eventually begin to grow vertically again as one of the branch tips assumes the role of the apical meristem.


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

[User] ELI5 why do costumes cost more money than regular clothes despite using seemingly cheaper fabrics?

[Assistant]
Because costumes are specialized equipment that is produced in significantly lower numbers than regular clothing and the demand for specific costumes has a *very* high variance.

The materials used in a product have almost no bearing on the eventual price. That's mainly determined by demand and supply.


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

[User]
ELI5:Explain deep web

Please explain deep web, I know some of the basic stuff, but that's it.
I'm so curious!

And btw it's not because I want to go to deep web, I just want to know :)

[Assistant]
So there's the web you're on now (surface web) where everything is indexed and fairly simple to find with standard browsers and search engines.  The deep web is the stuff that's not indexed and takes some special software and, often, some layer of security, to access.

Think of it like this:

Say there's a bookshelf in front of you and you can browse all the titles and access any book you want.  But *behind* those books are a multitude of other books that you can't see.  Maybe it's because they belong to someone who chooses not to share them, or maybe they are banned books that you typically don't have access to, or maybe they are being hidden for sharing with a specific person or group, or maybe they are just being stored back there.  Whatever the case, you can't see them unless you put on a special pair of glasses which allows you to see past the books on the outside of the shelf.

Accessing the deep web is less like accessing a forbidden spooky wasteland as some may describe it (though there is some freaky stuff out there) and more like accessing the stuff you aren't necessarily intended to be able to see, for whatever reason (intentional or not, illegal or not, accidental or not).


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

[User] How come its either C or C++, how come C+ never caught on?

[Assistant]
I don't think "C+" was ever a thing?

The "++" part of "C++" refers to the "increment by 1" operator of C, so the name can be interpreted as something along the lines of "next after C" or "C plus one". Which makes sense, given that it was made as an extension of C.


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

[User] Can bacteria or single celled organisms sense how many others of their kind are around them?

[Assistant]
Yes, through quorum sensing. Bacteria can secrete quoromones. The more bacteria, the higher the concentration. Using a two component regulatory system, the cells can sense the quoromones in the area to sense the cell density.

An environmental signal (quoromone) binds to a sensor kinase on the cell, activating the sensor kinase by phosphorylation. Then the response regulator is phosphorylated, which can then turn on or off the genes involved.


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

[User]
Why aren't there thunder-snow storms?

I was just thinking about how I never see lightning in the winter. Why, when it snows, is there never thunder or lightning involved in the storm?

[Assistant] Storms in the summer are due to instability and clashing air masses. Cold air is dry, and lightning needs humidity, instability, and rising air. Lightning can occur in heavy snow, mostly in lake-effect snow which is driven by cold air moving over warmer lakes, which puts more moisture into the air. Lightning is also known to occur in storms that are on the dividing line between rain and snow. I've seen it before, it's rather insane.


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

[User]
Cmv: 'Classical music' and the arguments that older music is 'better than today's trash' are problematic

I often see arguments that 'classical music is better than shallow pop songs'. I think this is over-generalising things.

For one, when people mention the word classical music they mean long, drawn out orchestral music created by the highest acclaimed composers of an older age. It is unfair to compare these undeniably more complex forms of music to simple songs with lyrics. They are different mediums of music making.

Consider that even during the times of so called classical music most people were also more familiar with simple songs. Beethoven symphonies were not always the most common form of entertainment. Rather, it was more likely people learned songs that were created by song writers similar to modern pop songs.

Basically songs are the most common type of music generally speaking in terms of a music intended for entertainment and not for religious, political, or military uses. It is so even during mozarts time.

The so called classical music people like to venerate is infact a modern construct. It is a conglomeration of all the best most complex music created that withstood time. It is not necessarily the kind of music listened to by the masses in older eras.

[Assistant] But why is it unfair to compare them? For example you can have a preference between apples and oranges. They are different fruit (hence the saying), buy you can also say "I think apples taste better than oranges" as well.


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

[User]
How are Ant/Bee Queen's born?

How are they born/chosen to be queens?

I heard that pnce the colony has established itself, the queen ant will continuously lay eggs. At the time of egg-laying, the queen may choose to fertilize eggs at will by using the sperm cells retained from the nuptial flight, which will create female worker ants instead of males. If the fertilized eggs and pupae are well-nurtured, they could potentially become queens as well.

**TL;DR** A ant queen can choose one ant to fertilize for it to become an ant, but still, if one is not born, how the chosen queens turn from tiny insects to giant "Patriarchs" that have their life span increased up to 30+ years?

[Assistant] In a bee colony a new queen is chosen when the current queen bee becomes sick or theres an over population issue in the hive. The queen gives off a pheromone to inform bees that everything is operating correctly. Is theres a problem such as one listed above the bees will sense this and begin "making" a new queen bee.When bees are born they are all fed royal jelly for the first few days of their lives. after that they start to eat honey. This allows them to build up enough strength to cocoon themselves and to turn from a larva into a full bee. Babies chosen to be a queen will be fed royal jelly to the point where they cocoon themselves, when they emerge they are a queen bee. In an over population problem, the old queen will leave with about half the working population to build a new hive leaving the current hive to be run by the new queen.


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

[User]
Realistic chance of an academic job?

I know very few people that have a successful academic career track, and everything that you find online indicates that it's damned near impossible to land a tenure track job. So, AskAcademia, can you provide an honest assessment or any pointers?

Background: Current postdoc, fairly recent PhD. PhD adviser was an assistant professor, who has since gotten tenure and is (AFAIK) well-regarded in the field. Current (postdoc) adviser is only a little further along the career track. I have a handful of publications so far - all first author, none in very top-tier (CNS) journals but rather upper/mid-tier chemistry journals. None from postdoc, yet - though at least one or two should be forthcoming this year (likely not first author for me). A few presentations (a couple of posters, one talk) at national conferences, several posters at local/regional events. There will definitely be more of these before I go on the job market.

Ultimately I'm more interested in a smaller research position or even liberal arts college - I enjoy teaching (have continued to do so as a postdoc) and would like that to be a major component of my job. I also sincerely doubt I have/will have the credentials for a major, top-tier TT job - though I'm trying. I know there's a lot that goes into the job search for academics - including luck and department fit with your research area/expertise and personality. But do I have a shot based on the intentionally vague credentials above?

[Assistant] I know people with worse credentials who got academic jobs, and people with better credentials who did not get academic jobs.  Whether you will be successful in getting an academic job is just something that can't really be predicted.


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

[User]
ELI5: How did STD's begin?

How did they very first originate?

[Assistant] Like most disease, it started with the constant contact of livestock and the vermin that surround them like birds, bats, rats, insects and the like. As time passed, certain bacteria and virus mutated to essentially jump species. They did not have sex with these animals (they actually may have) but most likely came into contact with excrement like feces, urine, saliva, sweat, ect allowing transmission.


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

[User] When to massive objects merge the gravitational waves created carry insane amounts of energy. Due the conservation of mass and energy does this mean that the black holes lost mass?

[Assistant]
Yes! In fact, they lose an enormous amount of mass.

The first black hole merger observed through gravitational waves (GW150914) was a merger of a black hole of ~35 solar masses and a black hole of ~30 solar masses (i.e. 35 and 30 times the mass of our Sun). The final black hole had a mass of ~62 solar masses.

So, you might notice the final black hole had less mass than the original two combined. The "missing" ~3 solar masses was almost all radiated out as gravitational waves, over the course of less than a second.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do we lose our appetite when we become extremely upset?

[Assistant]
It's adaptive. When an animal is in a stressful situation (danger which might require a "fight or flight" response) it makes sense to de-prioritize eating temporarily. When people override this natural inclination repeatedly (or do not experience it to begin with due to biological abnormalities), that can result in an eating disorder (stress eating) where stress actually triggers and increases hunger rather than the reverse, which often leads to dangerous levels of obesity. Particularly because the physical and emotional stress resulting from the obesity can then trigger hunger, an especially treacherous feedback loop.

If you are looking for scientific information on the hormones and other neurotransmitters which implement this mechanism, you should try Google.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is the American flag backwards on the uniforms of Military personnel?

[Assistant] The flag is to symbolize carrying the flag into battle. This was traditionally done by a single person carrying the flag on a pole, and while running toward the enemy the flag will trail behind. The flag is shown on military uniforms on the right arm, with the stars facing the enemy (indicating going towards, not running away), as if it were still on that flagpole from tradition.


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

[User]
How are radio stations able to broadcast silence and have it not sound like static?

For example, in MC Hammer's *Can't Touch This*, what is going on between the radio station and my car stereo that makes it so that there is a pause between "Stop" and ". . . Hammertime" rather than the random noise I'd hear if I tuned to an empty station?

Thanks.

[Assistant]
Let's back up a little bit and talk about how the radio station sends *Can't Touch This* over the air. If it's an AM radio station, the transmitter broadcasts a constant radio-frequency tone at (say) 1.000,000 MHz, but *modulates* that tone: it makes the broadcast slightly stronger or slightly weaker depending on where the speaker cone in your car radio should be.  Slightly stronger - the cone in your car radio pushes out a little.  Slightly weaker - the cone pulls in a little.  Do that a lot, really fast, and you hear stuff.

That style of modulation is called *amplitude modulation* and it's what AM stands for (my dad used to say AM stood for "awful music").  It's really easy to decode - you just run the radio signal through a diode, and then smooth it out a little - once you've done that you can just amplify it and send it to the speakers.  The problem is that, when you're close to the station, the signal is REALLY STRONG AND THE MUSIC IS NATURALLY VERY LOUD, but when you're far from the station ^^^the ^^^music ^^^is ^^^naturally ^^^very ^^^quiet ^^^because ^^^the ^^^signal ^^^is ^^^so ^^^weak. Your car radio gets over that with a special circuit called an "Automatic Gain Control" (AGC).  The AGC senses just how strong the incoming radio signal is, and adjusts a radio-frequency amplifier to higher or lower gain to keep the signal at constant strength.  The AGC circuit is constructed to adjust the gain slowly compared to the modulation -- it might take 1/10 of a second to go from quiet to loud -- so that it doesn't mess with the sound itself.

AGC works really, really well when you're tuned to a radio station.  But when you tune between stations there isn't any RF signal and it turns the gain all the way up!  It amplifies the incoming (non-)signal so much that thermal fluctuations in the receiver circuit components make a loud hissing noise come out of the speakers.

So - when the station is broadcasting silence, it is broadcasting a constant radiofrequency wave with no modulation.  That maintains the AGC circuit at whatever level it normally holds, and no sound comes out of the speakers.  When you tune between stations, there is no signal coming in the RF stage, and the AGC "turns up the volume" so high that the thermal excitation of individual electrons in the receiver circuit makes the familiar static.

FM has a different modulation scheme but the principle is the same: a radio carrier wave with zero modulation is different from no signal at all.


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

[User] Why was Kalium renamed to Potassium?

[Assistant]
It was not renamed to Potassium, Potassium is its original name, which derives from potash, which is the ash of burnt plants. Kalium on the other hand is the Neo-Latin derived from arabic *al-qalya*, which also describes the ash of burnt plants.
I don't know why they decided to use Kalium instead of Potassium for the periodic table.


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

[User] [DC] Are buildings in the city of Gotham just covered in scratches and holes from Batmans grappling gun and how much would it cost the city per year to repair them?

[Assistant]
They are and though we can't know for sure how much the repairs would cost it's safe to say that Batman Inc pays for them.

I would think most of them are so high up and out of the way that they aren't even noticed.


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

[User]
Why does birth control fail?

If a woman takes it exactly as prescribed, or has an IUD, then how can they get pregnant? Why is it only 99% effective?

[Assistant]
A full answer to this would be extremely long and involve a lot of "we don't know."

There are a lot of mechanisms geared towards reproduction, and biological mechanisms aren't precisely engineered.  They have some tolerances built-in, and these vary from person to person (and from cycle to cycle!).

The combined oral contraceptive contains progestin and estrogen.  These work to inhibit ovulation.  When the pill was first released, the dose was four times higher than it is now, which wasn't safe, long-term.  The dose was decreased.  Estrogen is still a risk factor for clots -- but so is pregnancy.  So we have it at a tolerably safe dose with a significant reduction in risk of pregnancy.

Let's get more specific: the most effective form of birth control we have is Nexplanon.  When Merck was replacing their previous contraceptive implant, Implanon, with Nexplanon, they did a study on all the causes of failure in Implanon.

Again, this is the most effective contraceptive we have.  It is 99.9%+ effective.  It is more effective than tubal ligation.

Of the 127 causes that they found:

* 84 were a failure to insert implant -- one of the biggest changes between Implanon and Nexplanon was a package redesign to make it much harder to neglect to insert the device, plus changes to protocol to require the provider to check that the device is present in the needle prior to insertion and absent after insertion.

* 19: incorrect timing -- that means that the patient was either already or imminently pregnant at the time of insertion, or became pregnant in the first week after insertion.

* 8: interaction with hepatic-enzyme-inducing meds -- progestin is digested by a set of liver enzymes that some other medications up-regulate.

* 3: expulsion -- the device came out because it was poorly-inserted.

* 13: product/method failure: as in, unexplained.

There were some theories that those 13 unexplained cases may have been related to obesity, because fat tissue is hormonally active and increases the volume of distribution of the medication.

---

For IUDs, it's also the case that most failures are due to the IUD not actually being there, or placement being poorly-timed.


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

[User] ELI5: If I left on all the taps and water sources in my house on, how long would it take for water to stop coming out? What would cause this?

[Assistant]
If you have a water bill, when you don't pay it and your water gets shut off.

If you have well water, who knows, years after putting  all faucets on full blast. Your neighbors will probably kill you though.


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

[User]
[Terminator movies] In timeline 1, did Skynet send multiple terminators back at the same moment?

Take Sarah's perspective. A T800 comes back to kill her and fails. Presumably, Skynet realizes that since they aren't in a winning position after having sent the T800 back in time that it failed. So how long did they wait to send back the T1000? And the T/X? And why not send multiple terminators to the same time? Sarah perceives years in between each terminator's visit, but was that the case from Skynet's perspective?

[Assistant]
They're separate Skynets.

Skynet 1.0 was developed by Cyberdyne Systems. It went online in 1997 and brought about Judgement Day. In 2029, it sent a T-800 back to 1984 to kill Sarah. The Resistance captured the time machine, sent Kyle Reese back to stop the Terminator. Mission was a success, timeline was preserved.

Unfortunately, Cyberdyne reverse-engineered the Terminator's hand and gave Skynet a head start in technology. Judgement Day still happens in 1997. By the time 2029 rolls around, Skynet 2.0 developed the T-1000 prototype and sent it back to 1995 to kill John and Sarah Connor, while also sending a T-800 to 1984 to close the time loop. So if the T-1000 failed, the Skynet 2.0 will still be born. Why not send the T-1000 back to 1984? If it failed, there is no guarantee that the new Skynet will arise.

The T-1000 failed, Cyberdyne is blown up, John survives. Unfortunately, Skynet 3.0 was born due to the US Department of Defense taking Cyberdyne's contracts and giving them to Cyber Research Systems. Judgement Day was pushed back to 2004. In this new future, a T-850 managed to kill future John Connor in 2032. This time, Skynet sent back the T-800 to 1984 and the T-1000 to 1995 to close those time loops, and the T-X to 2004. Skynet is learning from its past failures and set up a few contingencies, targeting John Connor's future lieutenants, and infecting the present with a Skynet virus to ensure its survival.

Once again, the Resistance captured the time machine, sent back Kyle to 1984, the T-800 to 1995, and the T-850 who killed adult John to 2004. Why not send all of them to stop the original Terminator in 1984? Because by now the Resistance realizes that everything they have done so far only succeeded in delaying Judgement Day. Even stopping the Terminators and destroying Cyberdyne only ensured that Skynet will be created by someone else. Messing about with those earlier time loops may erase their progress and bring about Judgement Day much earlier.


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

[User] [Marvel] What Earth-1610 characters are the most different from their Earth-616 counterparts?

[Assistant] For the most part, characters in the 1610 universe are jerkass versions of the 616 characters. 616 Hank Pym slapped his wife once during a mental breakdown and has had remorse over it ever since, where as 1610 Hank Pym is a serial and unrepentant wife beater. 616 Steve Rogers(Barring the bullshit HYDRA twist that will be dropped within a year) is a thoroughly good man, where as the 1610 one is a slightly bigoted and xenophobic one. 616 Magneto is a complex character with complex motivations, where as 1610 Magneto is a total mutant supremacist who thinks mutants should rule over normal humans and was implied to be a cannibal of non mutants. Also, 1610 Reed Richards is a flat out supervillain, 1610 Deadpool is some random anti-mutant nutcase, 1610 Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch are incestuous, and many other nasty things.


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

[User] Is there a period where tadpoles can breathe both in the water and on land or does the transition happen instantaneously?

[Assistant] Tadpoles (as well as some salamander larvae) develop lungs while still in the aquatic stage. At that point, they need to breathe air. Large tadpoles can easily pop their mouths above water to get a gulp of air. However, tadpoles at small body sizes cant actually breach the surface on their own. Instead, they have to utilize a mechanism called bubble sucking where they blow tiny bubbles at the surface. The bubble fills with oxygen and they then suck it into their lungs - all without ever breaching the surface.


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

[User] [MCU] Why didn't the Red Skull aim the Valkyrie at the more imminent threat of Russia?

[Assistant] Hydra isn't Germany; it just used the Nazis and the Axis powers as a host body. The Red Skull saw America as Hydra's true enemy of the future, while the incoming Russian soldiers were little more than a cleanup crew sweeping up the mess of a discarded political alliance.


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

[User] ELI5: If cancer is due to damages DNA, how do children, with newer DNA, get cancer so often?

[Assistant]
Children can be created with damaged DNA from their parents, as gametes (sperm and egg) pull their DNA from the parent, which may have mutated locally.

In fact, such mutations causing the fetus to be non-viable can trigger the female's body to spontaneously abort the pretnancy, commonly known a miscarriage.


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

[User]
If I take cheap 80 proof vodka and put it in the freezer, why doesn't part of it freeze so I can take that part out and make stronger vodka?

At what temperature does 80 proof vodka freeze? Is it:
0 - 80/200 * 110C = -44C? Why doesn't the water part freeze before the ethanol part, so I can take the ice cube out and make stronger vodka?

If I added a rough surface like a rock to the inside bottle, would that help the ice crystals get started?

[Assistant] Solutions don't work that way.  If you continued to cool the vodka, you would eventually reach a temperature where it did begin to freeze; however, the ice you ended up with would still contain both ethanol and water.  The concentration of the ethanol in the ice would be a little different than the concentration remaining in the liquid, but this would not be an efficient method to make stronger vodka.


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

[User]
ELI5: Knowing that IP Addresses generally aren't static, how does online activity get tracked over time?

Furthermore;

* If IP addresses change frequently, why do hackers use proxies?
* How far back in time can online activity be tracked?
* How can one protect himself more efficiently when making online transactions?
* Can/should a Mac Address be hidden/disguised?
* Is there a way to see, by number configurations(or otherwise), if an IP is fishy?

Cheers!

EDIT: Hey thanks for the responses everyone! I learned a good bunch with this thread. You guys rock!

[Assistant]
* Because ISP:s log who's used what IP when
* Depends on how old logs you can find
* For bank transactions: Make sure you're on the right site, check it's using SSL. For mostly anything else: Using anonymization (Tor or proxies/VPN), NoScript to block Javascript, and other techniques. Also, by minimizing the info you share.
* MAC addresses are only visible inside a network.
* No.

Edit: To answer the title question: "Cookies". Sites ask your browser to store unique ID strings that the site can ask your browser about the next time your visit them. This include ad networks.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why Blu-ray Encryption can be cracked, but not AES-256 bit Encryption?

I don't understand how content companies trying to encrypt media on Blu-ray discs, and in the past trying to encrypt HD-DVD, have failed.  Why can't they just use AES- 256 bit encryption which websites use to protect your data.  That method has yet to be cracked and can't be impossible to implement on physical media.

All help is greatly appreciated.

[Assistant]
The problem isn't the quality of encryption, but that they have to distribute decryption keys to anyone that wants to actually watch the material. That means any blu-ray player or blu-ray program on your computer needs that key.

Since this key is all that's necessary to decrypt the video, managing to extract the key is all that's necessary to allow any other program to incorporate it. This is particularly easy if the people writing the programs/building the hardware haven't taken proper precautions to protect the decryption key, but there are also other ways and problems depending on context.

Of course, things are more complicated than this in reality, but the necessity of distributing the decryption information is the main problem.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Would a Jedi mind trick work on someone who can't understand the Jedi's language?

If a jedi approaches me and says "Urkp't mny p'poadeih," waving his hand in front of my face, do I find myself mindlessly doing his bidding because he has exerted his will upon me? Or just very confused because I have no demand to focus on?

[Assistant] Nope. The mind trick just weakens a mind, making it temporarily more susceptible to suggestion. Against a mind that's already pretty weak, this makes them practically putty - but they still have to be shaped. Without an understandable command, the best it could do is make someone more docile.


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

[User]
[Warhammer 40000] From greatest to least what is the strongest Tyranid Units?

Like a Carnifex can probably kill a genestealer and so on.

[Assistant]
The Leviathan Bioships are probably the biggest single Tyranid organism there are. They are at least the size of a battle cruiser, has lots of tentacles and being concentrated neural tissue they are the main nodes of the hive fleets' hive mind. They also have space ship scaled psyker-like abilities and also project a shadow in the warp that can block astropathic transmissions.

Most hive ships would crush any of the land based organisms, so we'll go to the land based ones.

Bio-titans like the Heirophant are probably the biggest land-based organisms that aren't spires. They are covered in gun-form organisms and heavy chitin plating. They also have void-shield equivalents. They can squish most organisms pretty easily.

Trygons and Mawlocs are big (they're pretty much on the scale of super-heavies) and surprising since they are burrowers. They can take on carnifexes easily usually by ambush.

Carnifexes can probably take on any of the equivalent sized organisms except hive tyrants. Hive tyrants generally have better weapon organisms and are considerably smarter. So both carnifexes and hive tyrants would easily take out medium-large organisms like Biovores (artillery), pyrovores (fire support), Lictors (scouting and infiltration) and warriors. Brood lords are pretty big and intelligent so they'll give carnifexes a good fight.

Zoanthropes are a bit weird. They are physically weak but extremely strong psychics, they could probably demolish most of the above up to carnifexes easily but will fold if anything looks at it funny, or gets close.

Biovores would blow up any of the fodder organisms. Same with Pyrovores and their flame/chemical spewing. Lictors will mostly win, but might be close against a genestealer. Warriors should win one on one against any of the fodder.

The fodder mainly have numbers on their side. Genestealers will probably be at the top with their speed and rending claws, although ranged Hormagaunts and Gargoyles might give them trouble if they fire first. Termagaunts are probably the bottom of the fodder.

Below the fodder would be the Scavengers like rippers and then below that would be the micro organisms that infect the flora and fauna to supercharge their growth.

A lot of organisms will obviously do better if they're in their niche or the conditions are right for them and most of the weaker ones (fodder) are designed to be deployed in large numbers to overwhelm enemies.


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

[User]
What is the LC in a LCD?

Every article I literally just refers to it as "Liquid Crystal," but what type of crystal, how is it made into a liquid?

[Assistant]
Liquid crystals are neither fully liquid nor fully crystalline. It's an in-between state, and the liquid crystals can often (depending on what kind of liquid crystal it is) flow like a liquid, while the molecules still tend to line up in a crystal structure.

The liquid crystals in industrial applications tend to be based on rod-shaped organic molecules that exhibit mutual attraction. So they line up next to each other in a crystal-like manner while still being able to flow.

Biphenyls and triphenyls are commonly used compounds, but there are endless examples. Cell membranes in biology are also liquid crystals.


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

[User]
What ecological effect will planting 20 million trees actually have?

20 million trees does seem like a lot, but is it enough to even make a dent in the amount of CO2 humans are producing?

Is it money well spent to spend $20 million of planting 20 million trees?

[Assistant]
Not until those trees grow significantly, but over 40 years each tree captures around 1ton CO2 or 20 millions ton combined under best conditions.

Unfortunately we release that much CO2 in around 15 seconds.

At the end, collectively humans spent much more than that for big corporations products in a short time, at least once we will be making a difference, whether small or not.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is it that you need a permission slip to watch R-rated movies in high school, but can be assigned to read books like A Thousand Acres in English class without anyone batting an eye?

I noticed back when I was in high school that parents and the administration were much more hesitant to show movies or play music that contained swear words or sexuality, but endorsed literature with the exact same themes.

We were once required to read *V for Vendetta * and *1984* for a 21^st century lit class [don't ask me why *1984* was "21^st century," I couldn't tell you] and then write an essay comparing Orwell's and Moore's dystopias. That essay was the final assignment for seniors before they left, and after that we didn't have much else to do other that watch the movies, both of which required permission slips unless you wanted to do an extra assignment while everyone else watched the movie.

I don't get it. Why does literature get a pass from censorship? Not that I'm for censorship of anything at all, but what makes books less scandalous to adults?

[Assistant]
Because an official ratings systems for movies exists but it doesn't for books. This makes it easier for adults to get their panties in a twist over 16 year-olds seeing R-rated movies than it does when the same kids are reading books.

See also: literature vs. pop culture.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Why was the Jedi Council So unconcerned about the state of the Clone Army?

In the Clone Wars series, not sure which episode, the Jedi Council finds out that Dooku had a direct hand in the creation of the Clone Army, this on top of the fact a rogue Jedi gone behind the Orders back to commission the Kaminos.

Why were they so blas about the fact that their entire army was supplied to them by their mortal enemy? I get that if they revealed that knowledge to the public it would collapse support for the war, but they seemed just fine with the knowledge that the head of the Seperatists had a hand in the creation of the army they relied on.

Shouldnt they have been a bit suspicious and concerned that Dooku had sabotaged the army? That theyd die en masse if he activated a kill switch, or were secretly loyal to the Seperatists? At the very least investigate the situation further?

[Assistant] They knew the clone army was commissioned by someone named Tyranus but they didnt know that that was actually Dooku until late into the war. Iirc as far as they knew Tyranus was just a pseudonym for Sifo-Dyas.


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

[User]
CMV: I think that society wrongfully makes too big a deal of female nipples.

I don't think that people should make such a big deal of them though this does seem to be controversial.

In school, I don't think that girls should be required to wear a bra nor should they be shamed for not wearing one. From what I've heard, they can be uncomfortable and distracting for some girls and I don't think that they should be shamed for not wanting to wear one.

I also don't think that a female nipple is somehow more inappropriate than an ultra violent scene in a movie or cartoon. For example, just the sight of a nipple (or its imprint) can make a movie jump from PG to R, while vulgar horror scenes, dark humor, etc can appear in PG-PG14 movies or shows. Though I understand why it may be deemed mature content since its associated with sex, I don't think it's immoral or vulgar.

[Assistant] Do you think touching a man's vs a woman's chest in a social situation should be seen similarly?  I.e. a woman might put her hand on a man's chest in a flirty way and that's generally accepted, but the opposite would be seen as wrong.  Do you think that should change?


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

[User] ELI5: Does Mars have a geographic North/South or coordinate system? How is the location of the Mars rover labeled?

[Assistant] Yes, Mars has a generally accepted latitude and longitude system just like Earth does. It is scaled of course to Mars' smaller size so the distance between any two sets of coordinates on Earth and Mars would be different in absolute length.


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

[User]
ELI5: What's "closed" in closed captioning?

Why isn't it "TV captioning" or just "captioning"?

[Assistant] It apparently just means that you have to opt in to seeing them (by turning them on) compared to captions which are "open" and automatically visible to everyone (perhaps on a foreign film, or something like that).


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

[User] ELI5: Why can't I use a telescope to look at really small things? Why can't I use a microscope to look at things that are far away?

[Assistant]
Focal length.

Microscopes use shorter focal length to view small objects, while telescopes use longer focal length to view far-away objects.

Focal length is basically where the image is located relative to the lens. A shorter focal length means that you can resolve images that are very close to the lens, while a longer focal length means that you can resolve images that are very far from the lens.

It's sort of like trying to design a laser vs a flashlight. Lasers must be very focused to be useful for the tasks they're designed for, but flashlights should be dispersed to illuminate more area and not blind people. A laser makes a bad flashlight, and a flashlight makes a bad laser.


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

[User] [Star Wars] Can regular people learn how to control the force, even on a lesser degree? Or do you need to be born with the affinity?

[Assistant] With extreme concentration, years of dedicated practice, and fully devout belief a person born without force abilities can feel a slight tugging pull of the force on their destiny. It's nowhere near the weakest and most untrained of force sensitives but it is possible. It'll require a lifetime of dedication and perseverance for a very miniscule return that isn't guaranteed. Learning magiks and other lesser extensions of the force are easier to learn but being born with the affinity will always be superior to learning it without the prerequisite genetics.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is it a really bad idea to put dead or mostly dead batteries in a device with fully charged batteries?

[Assistant]
As battery charge is used up, resistance increases. Fresh batteries with low resistance, pushing voltage through dead batteries with high resistance may cause it to heat up and leak. It could also cause a short in the battery, which would rapidly discharge the battery and possibly damage the device. The best outcome is just reduced power.

Additionally:

You shouldn't mix battery types, such as LiPo and Alkaline. The chemistry and voltage differ and may cause problems.

You shouldn't mix brands. The overall chemistry and voltage may differ enough to be a problem.


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

[User]
When the end of a garden hose is oscillated, the water will make curves in the air. If a laser pointer oscillated fast enough and you had a camera quick enough, would the resulting image show the light behaving similar to the water?

The velocity of an individual water molecule is the sum of its flow rate out of the hose and the translational velocity of the end of the hose. The velocity of the light from the laser cannot surpass C, but (assuming light as a particle?) will the direction of the protruding light follow the direction of the sum of the velocity of light and the translational velocity of the laser pointer? This is similar to the 'Turn your headlights on while driving near light-speed' question, but I think different because the velocity added is perpendicular rather than in the same direction.

[Assistant]
The water flying through the air isn't actually curving.  You're just looking at a bunch of individual bits of water moving at their own trajectory which creates the shape of a curve.  If you track one section of water you will see it fly out in a line straight from where the hose ejected it while falling to the ground.

Your laser pointer would act the same way.  You would get the same appearance of a curvy wave of light (assuming there are particles along the way for the light to bounce off of and reflect back to you,) but if you looked at the path of an single section you would see it moving out (at c) in a straight line from where the pointer emitted it.


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

[User] ELI5: How did they develop games for the NES/SNES?

[Assistant] In the corresponding assembly language. Back then there weren't really C compilers for for 8 or 16 bit micros. Not to mention these devices had very little memory and CPU performance available, so you had to squeeze out every bit you could. This involved a lot of cheap hacks to manipulate the hardware that wouldn't be possible using a higher level language.


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

[User]
[Stargate]Asgard in 2 galaxies

Why didn't the Asgard in the ancients home galaxy succumb to the gene degradation like those in our galaxy?

[Assistant] They were performing illegal genetic experiments on the people of the Pegasus galaxy. This, combined with some technological implants helped delay the degradation affecting the main faction of the Asgard.


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

[User]
ELI5: How can Google give away Google Analytics to so many companies for free and not lose massive amounts of money?

I get that Google owns the data and that is valuable. But, having been in the analytics industry for many years, I also know what Google is doing with GA is very expensive. How the heck do they do it?

[Assistant] Google gives it away mainly because it is an extremely good tool to track your google ads efficiency. By being free, GA is used by almost 100% of website owners, who can then easily track google ads results and ROI. That way, they are a little more inclined to invest in Google Ads, which generates around 10 billion dollars revenue a month for Google.


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

[User]
Is there a metric for adhesive strength?

And what is the level of difference between a band aid and duct tape?

[Assistant]
Yes. This is generally correct. N/m^2 or lb/in^2 (psi) and other derivatives.

It can be hard to find. As its a) not quite that simple- the backing provides a certain strength so adhesive is strength usually measures just pulling directly away from the plane of the backing. And b) temperature dependence. (See below)

I rarely see this value for tapes you get in the store. Its frequently given for industrial grade tapes. 3M website is a good place to look because many products do have it. And they make a lot of tape. But not all of them have the value.

Its also complicated by the fact that adhesive strength for most tapes varies with temperature. When quite cold the adhesive is hard and not sticky. When warm its very sticky and can get runny. So they usually give 2 or 3 values (for industrial tapes) @ 0C 30C 60C

Also relevant for your bandaids example. Youd want good adhesive properties around 60C, but you need it to be less than the sheer strength of skin- which can be quite low in the elderly or edematous.  Its a tough trade off. Because that regular bandaid you stick on your finger has no chance of staying, but those athletic ones will stick until you rip it off- generally leaving adhesive behind.


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

[User]
[Marvel] In Age of Ultron Captain America complains that he can't afford to buy a flat in Brooklyn. How much money does an Avenger make?

Side question: Is Captain America poor?

[Assistant]
He probably could afford one.  But the price of an apartment in Brooklyn would be astronomical compared to what he knows.  Even taking inflation into account, Brooklyn has gotten super expensive as it's become "trendy."

It's like coming out of a coma and finding out that going to a casual restaurant costs you $400 now.  Sure you *could* afford it, but that's super pricy compared to what you've known.  Your first thought would be that you can't afford it.


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

[User] [Star Wars] What's the best chance of survival against Darth Vader for a regular citizen?

[Assistant] Not getting noticed.  He's not really a threat to the average citizen.  We only see him attacking Jedi, military personnel, and his own officers.  Even Rebel soldiers who surrender are taken prisoner.  He can even work out deals, like with Lando or Boba Fett.  The average person will never get in his way, it'll never be a problem.  If you're high ranking, try not to fuck up.


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

[User] If water is clear/translucent, how come things get darker when they're wet?

[Assistant] What we see with our eyes is the light reflecting off what we are looking at. When light hits the dry ground it scatters rather nicely. When its coated with water some of that light is absorbed and not reflected at all, some is reflected back at the surface the water is on, and this gives an overall darker appearance to the surface.


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

[User] [Star Trek] Why aren't people immortal via transporters? If you die why can't they just rematerialize you from last week's transporter scan? A week of lost memories but still you?

[Assistant] Its shown multiple times the material memory is only saved for moments after use. Even then it starts to degrade pretty quickly. In the Voyager episode Counterpoint Janeway hides refugees using this method and it is mentioned to be extremely dangerous and limited.