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

[User]
[Star Trek] Why don't Star Fleet soldiers get body armor?

I know it isn't standard equipment for most as a sign of good faith with other species and civilizations, but when Star Fleet is at war with the Dominion, why are they as well armored a Napoleonic era soldier?  A metal cuirass looks like it would be better than nothing.

[Assistant]
Phasers (and to a lesser extent disruptors) are *ridiculously* powerful (even a hand phaser can sublimate a humanoid in a single shot when set to maximum power), so outside of exotic metal platings and reactive armor (which is really something you don't want strapped to your chest), very little will actually save  you from a blast that's meant to kill.  Phaser weapons especially are very flexible, with attack vectors ranging from nervous system trauma to a pencil-thin penetrating beam to simply burning chunks out of the target, which means that the current paradigm we use with *ballistic* armor (spread the energy out over a wider area) wouldn't really cut it.  The only possible utility of armor against energy weapons would be that it may force the enemy to up the power slightly, thereby reducing their shot capacity, but that doesn't really seem to be worth the encumberment that armor creates.

Body armor would really only do any good when it comes to (seemingly common) hand-to-hand combat, which is why the Klingons wear it.  But this again ties in with how the Federation, for better or for worse, *hates* appearing openly militaristic.

Although personal defense *forcefields*(as well as tactical explosives) apparently do exist as of Deep Space Nine, we just *never* see them for whatever reason.  ~~Blame it on the writers~~


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

[User]
Why are Neanderthals considered a different species from humans if we could interbreed and produce fertile offspring?

I've often heard the word species defined as the largest group of organisms that can interbreed and produce fertile offspring, if that is the case why do we consider Neanderthals a different species when many people today have Neanderthal ancestry?

[Assistant]
species are more about having a distinct gene pool with little or no outside interbreeding, and neanderthals had that for a long time and so developed a genetic distinction of their own, becoming a separate species.

basically they are a different species because they formed a isolated group that didn't interbreed extensively for a long time and therefor evolved differently from other humanoids. the fact we could still interbreed is irrelevant to them being a separate species or not.

the thing is, the term species isn't as clear cut as most people believe. what exactly the crossover point between being a separate species and not being one isn't based on clear easily identified criteria.


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

[User] If darker colors absorb more heat, why is our skin made to darken when exposed to the sun?

[Assistant]
Because the problem with sunlight is not the heat, but the exposure to UV radiation, which damages skin cells and their DNA, leading to sunburn in the short term, and to melanoma and other problems in the long term.
Melanin, the pigment responsible for the darkening of the skin, is placed above the DNA of skin cells, protecting it by converting the energy of UV rays - energy that would damage the DNA - into heat. So yes, a little more heat is produced, but that's easily dissipated and won't cause any problem.


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

[User] So, I just got some vaccines and now Im thinking about them. It seems like vaccines would be more effective if administered intravenously, so why are many vaccines given via the intramuscular route instead?

[Assistant]
There are multiple arguments for that. The reasons are historical, practical and scientific.

1/ Traditionally, vaccines were injected subcutaneously and we thought that the buttocks were an appropriate site for vaccination. Now, we are injecting other muscles like the deltoid.

2/ Some vaccines are meant to be injected to the whole population. It is much easier to perform an intramuscular or a subcutaneous injection, than an intravenous one.

3/ Intramuscular injections are effective as the muscle is highly vascularised.

4/ Intramuscular injections don't scarify the skin, don't cause abscesses and don't cause granulomas, like some subcutaneous injections.

5/ Intramuscular injections, contrary to intravenous injections sustain a "depot effect", during which the antigen is released slowly and progressively into the blood circulation, ensuring a continuing stimulus on the immune system.

6/ Intravenous injection of adjuvants contained in the vaccine could have a higher toxicity than if injected intramuscularly (LPS, aluminium).


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

[User] ELI5 but if garbage dumps fail to facilitate decomposition due to the lack of an oxygen rich environment, why wouldn't the waste managers bore columns to pump in oxygen and good bacteria to compensate ?

[Assistant] A lot of facilities have started doing this. But it is not as simple as just blowing air into the ground. There is a big risk of fire at these facilities, even the heat from the microbes can start fires and once a fire start it is very hard to extinguish under ground. Adding to this you would get a lot of smell from the decomposition if you do not have enough oxygen, which they almost never have. And they need to reduce the amount of smell and even toxic gasses that gets released. There is also a big problem in that a lot of trash do not allow air to flow through it. So if you blow air down in one part of the landfill it may not get to all areas. So it is a very technical and expensive operation to make sure you get a nice controllable amount of air into the landfill without any of the issues with this.


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

[User]
[General Fantasy] How come humans are the dominant species in just about every fantasy world despite the existence of other sapient species?

Not counting fantasy settings where only humans exist its something Ive always found weird that when humans share a world with other sapient species its somehow humans that dominant everything? How humans have numerous kingdoms and empires while everyone else is relegated to just a handful of cities or a single kingdom each? And with urban fantasy where supernatural beings are forced to hide from humans and where somehow driven into hiding by them.

How humans rose to become so powerful and prominent in a world with other, much more powerful species just doesnt make that much sense to me. Especially with humans traditionally being portrayed as just average, no special powers or abilities to speak of other then the adaptable and fast breeding thats often slapped onto them. And other fantasy races being portrayed as being superior to humans in most aspects, like elves and their superior magic and lifespan. Dwarves superior technology and strength. Orcs and goblins superior strength, aggression and even faster reproductive rate. Supernaturals like witchs, vampires and shapeshifters all having magical abilities and strength above that of any human.

Aside from the meta reason of the author and reader are human to explain all this human favoritism in fantasy? How humans somehow dont get conquered or destroyed by everyone else and somehow become the dominant species?

[Assistant]
Humans have a natural drive to explore, expand and dominate their surroundings. Basically while the elves are bound to their forest and the dwarfs to their montain the humans are willing to establish themselves everywere.

Basically humans have a very good fertility rate, the ability to produce tech and sometime magic, they can be just as violent and aggressive as any orks.


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

[User]
[Predator] What are the Predator/Yautja's relations to technologically advanced species that are too physically weak to provide an entertaining hunt?

Think like Brain in Jar sorts of aliens, who are spacefaring and possessing powerful technology, but have absolutely no autonomous means of defending themselves without being reliant on their tech.

Would Predators still hunt them? Would they have peaceful relations with them, or just ignore them entirely?

[Assistant]
The Predators are drawn by chaotic violence; they only show up on Earth in the most brutal warzones. If the Brainjarians are living in some kind of utopia, and violence is more or less unheard of, the Predators would probably ignore them entirely.

That doesn't mean the Brainjarians would ignore the Predators, though. The Predators are an uncivil, barbaric, dangerous race, and it's entirely possible that the Brainjarians would feel the need to rid the universe of them.

If attacked, the Predators would respond in kind, and their hunting ethics wouldn't hold them back. The Predators are very capable of carrying out a more traditional war, and they would be a serious threat to a lot of species. The winner of that fight would come down to "who has the more advanced tech?"

It's also possible that the Predators would try to acquire the Brainjarian technology for their own. That's basically how they got their cloaking shields, plasma casters, and so on. This again probably results in war, not a hunt, and again comes down to "who has the better tech?" and "who uses it better?"

Finally, we could see a lone tribe of Predators take the Brainjarian tech. The Predators as a whole might lose the war, but this small band would suddenly have even better hunting gear, which would be passed down for generations, just like their current plasma casters.


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

[User]
ELI5: Where does the air go afterwards that has entered our body during open surgery?

When open surgery has taken place on someone they are opened up and exposed to the 'air'. When they are stitched back up there must be some amount of air that remains inside the body. What happens to this air and/or how does our body get rid of it?

[Assistant]
It goes three places.
1. Some of it is absorbed into the surrounding tissues. The oxygen gets used, the nitrogen gets used (some of it), and the rest gets excreted as waste through your digestive system, just like any other foreign body.
2. When they stitch you up, it is standard procedure to squeeze you (don't worry it's just a tiny bit), or put pressure on the open wound so that the liquids in your body fill the space and force the air out, rather than leaving a big bubble in you. It's very like turning a syringe upward and pushing the plunger until all the little air bubbles come out and only liquid remains. You also don't generally stop bleeding just because they stitched you up. That's why we wrap you in gauze. Like a ziploc bag with a hole in one side and a tube pouring water in another, eventually, all the air will be pressed out through the hole and only water will remain. Or blood and plasma and such in you.
3. There a literally more capillaries running through your tissues than anyone can count. We know how many veins and arteries we have, but we can never put a number on capillaries, the teeny-tiny vessels that take blood to all your microscopic cells. These capillaries carry blood, and blood is filled with air, (sort of, your red blood cells carry "air"). So your capillaries can absorb some unwanted air in your body, carry it up to the lungs, and eject it that way.

End of the day? It's nothing to worry about at all. You always see on TV how injecting air into someone's arm will kill them, but that is nonsense. It takes HUGE amounts of air injected DIRECTLY into a vein or artery that passes DIRECTLY through your heart or brain to cause any damage.


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

[User]
[MCU] How do people travel between galaxies?

If the Kree homeworld is in the Andromeda galaxy, how did they get to Earth in the Milky Way?

[Assistant] Probably the same tech they use for interstellar travel. It seems to be little trouble for people in the galactic community to rapidly cross the galaxy with their jump gates or other fast travel tech, and the distance between the Milky Way and Andromeda is only about 25x the distance it takes to cross the Milky Way.


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

[User] [The Descent] What is the evolutionary history of the Crawlers?

[Assistant]
They're descended from the earliest human settlers in the area around 10,000 years ago.  These people quickly discovered the deep natural cave systems carved by meltwater from the retreating glaciers.  Originally they used them for religious purposes and shelter.  However, they soon found that the deeper portions contained plentiful food sources.

Nutrient rich stream runoff from the surface and filtration through the soil provided the basis for a trophic web of blind fish and arthropods.  The people set up a "mining" operation to harvest this bounty, bringing food to the tribes, free from danger of predators and inclement weather.

So plentiful was the harvest that eventually it became easier for the semi-migratory group to eschew other, less reliable, food sources and settle in the cave system.  The skills for tool use were slowly lost because they were unnecessary to survive.

Those children born with keener hearing thrived and passed their genes on, as did those with sharper teeth for tearing fish and crawdads.  They became obligate carnivores.  Each successive generation moved deeper into the caves as they became specialized to that environment.  Finally no member ever ventured out into the world above.

Severe in-breeding eventually led to deformities and developmental delays, particularly in their cognitive abilities.  The last member who could speak died thousands of years ago.  Since that time they have lived much the same, feeding on the blind cave life and stray animals who occasionally blunder into one of the many crevices leading to their subterranean home.


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

[User] What's the difference between antibiotic, antiseptic and anti-bacteria?

[Assistant]
'Antibiotic' refers to a class of drugs designed to kill and inhibit the growth of bacteria and/or other microorganisms within the body.

'Antiseptic' refers to any substance which is administered topically on *living* tissue to do same. Its mechanism of action is generally limited to the area upon which you apply it. Think hand sanitizer or iodine.

'Anti-bacteria' is anything designed to kill bacteria.


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

[User]
ELI5:How did the first white people happen?

When humans moved from Africa to Europe their skin didn't need to protect them from the sun as much any more.

But that's not how evolution works right? Your genes don't just change to suit your environment. Was there a mutation that lightened the skin?  If so how did we go from a full dark population to a full white one in those regions?  Is it similar to albinism at all?  If the mutation is random does it still happen in African populations?

[Assistant]
>Was there a mutation that lightened the skin?

Yes, but there are more than one that alter the complexion of skin tone.

>If so how did we go from a full dark population to a full white one in those regions?

People with these mutations bred with one another to create offspring, and eventually the phenotype reached equilibrium in the population. This process took thousands of years.

> Is it similar to albinism at all?

No

Albinism is a pathology. The mutations that gave rise to white people are not seen as pathological as they show selective benefits given they reside in colder regions. Albinism, on the other hand, has not shown to have any benefits for survival.

> If the mutation is random does it still happen in African populations?

Interesting question since there are populations in Sub Saharan Africa that have lighter phenotypes. The Igbos, for instance, have  segments of the population where people have fair skin although not having any European ancestry. These are mutations but not the ones that  non-Africans possess.


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

[User]
ELI5: Are mentally ill people aware of their current mental state?

Do mentally ill people know and understand that they are mentally ill but cannot help what they are doing? Eg. schizophrenia, bipolar, ~~autism~~

Also, can you be truly insane if you are self aware you are being insane?

Edit: Autism is not a mental illness but rather a mental disorder.

[Assistant]
It depends on what mental illness and how bad it is.

Minor forms of mental illness like Depression are different from Schizophrenia. Depressed individuals know that not everyone is depressed like they are. Same with people with OCD.

Severe mental illnesses like Schizophrenia have various subtypes so it depends what type they have, how long they have had it, as well as how bad it is affecting them, and if they are seeking medical treatment.

Normally someone with severe psychosis is unaware that their thoughts are abnormal in the later phases of the illness unless they are seeking treatment. Usually at first when they start experiencing symptoms they will attempt to rationalize it or be unaware it is a symptom at all.

Edit: To answer the thread question; "can you be truly insane if you are self aware you are being insane?" Yes you can depending on what sort of mental illness you have but if we are referring to severe psychosis the answer is usually they are not aware. Also it is worth noting that insanity is not a medical term but a created legal one.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Were the clone Troopers sterile?

And if not... they were stationed across the galaxy.  Is Fett's DNA the widest spread in human history?

[Assistant]
We don't know if they're sterile. There's probably a large stigma against being with a clone after they were forced out the military.

We only know of one Fett clone that had a family, a Twi'lek woman who had had two children from a previous relationship with a human, so we don't know if the clones are sterile or impotent or "fully functional." The Kaminoans never state whether they alter anything besides aging and making them more likely to follow orders, though.


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

[User]
[Firefly] Can the Reavers make more of themselves?

I was with a crew flying a "delivery" for some respectable businessmen on the outer ring when we came upon a dead ship that had obviously been attacked by reavers. We went in to do a bit of salvaging (we figured saving was unlikely) and we found what we think was a survivor. He had gone crazy what with cutting his own gorhram face up and then trying to do the same to us. So we put the poor bastard down, but it got me thinking. Can kind of crazy spread? After watching his crew mates die in the most horrible of ways was he now a reaver?

[Assistant]
Not exactly. We now know that the actual Reavers were created on Miranda by the Alliance. The specific experiment with the "Pax" is unlikely to be repeated (we hope), so we won't get any more ACTUAL Reavers - and thankfully, these ones are all likely to die off from radiation exposure in a decade or so, if not by other means first. A huge number of them were killed in the battle at what we now know was the holdout of the infamous Mr. Universe.

However, the human psyche can only take so much, and exposure to those kinds of horrors can certainly drive a man insane, even dangerous. But he won't actually be a "Reaver." Thank God.


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

[User] do planes travel "faster" when they fly against the earth's rotation? are the air and ground speed the same?

[Assistant]
No, because the air is moving with the earth. Jetstreams and winds are the reason it can be faster going one way on a flight than the return trip.

The Earth's rotation does, however, come into play when it comes to rockets. That's why they're launched East (in the direction of the Earth's rotation).


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

[User]
[Bourne films] Why was Jason Bourne so much better than the other agents?

He always came out on top in  the fight with the other agents, but why did he come out on top? He was always the better fighter, but was it because there was something different about him as an agent? Was it luck?

[Assistant]
He wasn't the best. He wasn't the best fighter, specifically. But he was really good.

What he did have is a lot of experience, and home territory in all his fights. Also, his only goal was to survive. The agents sent to kill him had an extra burden of needing to kill someone. So... they were forced to extend, while Bourne could pull back. A stalemate, for Bourne, would be a win. For the other agents, a stalemate is a loss.

Then, in close quarters combat where he had no special advantage - like the knife fight where he fought back with a towel - that was desperation and luck. And Jason, at the time, knew it and ran.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is it that bright colours in plants are an invitation, but bright colours in insects and animals can be a warning?

[Assistant] Bright colors in plants are to attract bees and insects for pollination. Bright colors in animals/insects make them easily spotted by predators, so these bright colored animals/insects die out - except for the very venomous/dangerous ones,  i.e poison dart frog or those with low selective pressures, i.e birds where camouflage doesn't matter as much.


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

[User]
[Star Wars Canon] Is Vader's movement still limited?

Like, does he still rely on the mighty glacier technique he had in the Old EU, or has it been established that he's capable of the acrobatics Anakin performed?

[Assistant]
Rebels and some other comics/novels have shown that he's not limited at all in his movements, and he's physically stronger than he used to be with his mechanical augmentations. He still moves in his trademark "vader" way when walking around and not engaged in combat, but it seems to be an intimidation tactic rather than a limitation of the suit. (or of the costume David Prowse had to wear)

The idea of his suit intentionally limiting him or keeping him in constant pain is just legends now. He's held back by his wounds and deep mental anguish.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why can't we use \ / : * ? " < > | in windows files names ?

Really, it's bothering me every day.

[Assistant]
Here is a simple example of why you can't use these characters.

This is a valid path to a file:

    C:\SomeFolder\SomeFile.txt

Now imagine the backslash "\" character was allowed in the file name, and your file was called:

    Some\File.txt

The operating system would now look for:

    C:\SomeFolder\Some\File.txt

It would look at "Some" as a folder, instead of part of the filename, and would have no way of knowing otherwise.

Certain characters are reserved by the operating system for exactly this reason. Each character has a different purpose in the operating system, but the reason is always the same: to avoid confusion about what the user or program means when it says something.


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

[User]
ELI5: Secular Humanism vs. Humanism vs. Atheism

I've been searching all throughout the Internet and I keep getting all the complex and confusing definitions when I really just want to know the main differences better all these. I consider myself an atheist (anti-religious, not non-religious) for sure, but I think I am also a humanist. However, it seems saying you're an atheistic humanist sounds redundant but then again so does the idea of secular humanism. I just want to find a clear and concise word without sounding redundant.

[Assistant]
Atheism is simply believing gods don't exist.  It makes no statement what you should do about it.

Humanism is the belief in the betterment of mankind, as opposed to attaining some spiritual goal.  Mother Theresa, for example, as not a humanist, as she was more concerned with getting people into heaven than helping them on earth.

A secular humanists seek to better mankind to the exclusion of all spiritual and supernatural concerns.  Most humanists today are also secular humanist.


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

[User]
What is the most isolated animal taxonomically?

I've read that some species is the only species in its entire genus, or even entire family. What's the most extreme example of this?

[Assistant]
The microscopic (about 0.1 millimeters long) animal species *Limnognathia maerski*, which was discovered living in warm springs on an island off the coast of Greenland in 1994, is the only known member of Micrognathozoa, a clade which has been described variously as a class, subphylum, or phylum. The almost equally tiny sea-dwelling species *Trichoplax adhaerens* was previously thought to be the only member of the phylum Placozoa, but within the last couple years 2 related species have been discovered.

While it's a plant rather than an animal, the *Ginkgo biloba*, commonly known as the ginkgo or maidenhair tree, is the only remaining species in Ginkgophyta, a clade approximately at the level of a phylum. However, dozens of related plant species once existed, and are believed to have been quite widespread during the Mesozoic era (the time of the dinosaurs) before being driven to extinction with the emergence of flowering plants.


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

[User]
ELI5: What do the attacks on the Libya and Cairo embassies mean for global politics?

It may be too early to ask this and I understand there are probably many variables involved, but I'm curious as to what a more informed person's opinion is on the matter.

[Assistant]
First of all, there is more to this story than is currently known.  The timing is interesting on this series of events.

Secondly, Lybia and Egypt just recently ousted dictators and are still in varying states of turmoil (the dust has not settled yet).  The world will probably not turn their backs on them because of these events.


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

[User]
[Star Trek] Of all the nations in the Galaxy with access to replicator technology and abundant energy, why is it that only the Federation has developed a truly post-scarcity, free, and equal society?

The Ferengi have remained capitalist, dividing and hording wealth as if it were still scarce.

The Dominion, Klingons, Cardassians, and Romulans are warlike, hierarchical, fascist societies which still use slave labor.

[Assistant]
its all to a point of view, whats utopic for one is a disater for another

Ferengi capitalism is part religion, part culture. They roleplay a lifelong game of monopoly with their latinum

Klingon culture is based off a warrior society,

Imagine how horrified the Borg must be when they see the primitivism of the Federation, how separate everyone is.


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

[User] ELI5: How is it that water at the bottom of the oceans doesn't freeze, if it's colder at depth? Why is it that water freezes downwards in large bodies of water?

[Assistant] Assume that we're talking about a body of water where the air temperature is constantly below freezing. The important thing to know is that is that water is MOST dense at about 4 degrees C. The reason for this has to do with the shape of the water molecule, but that's not necessary to answer the question. As water gets colder, approaching this temperature, it tends to sink, so the water at the bottom of, say, a big lake, is going to be that temperature. Once the whole lake is 4 degrees, the top starts to go below 4 C where the density starts to decrease again because of crystallization and becomes less dense than liquid water at any temperature. Hence, it floats. But it also creates a thermal barrier, so it's harder for more ice to form. Hope this helps!


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

[User] Do gravitational waves exhibit constructive and destructive interference?

[Assistant]
Sort of. Any system which is linear, meaning that the sum of two solutions is, itself, a solution, will exhibit constructive and destructive interference. The field equations for gravity aren't exactly linear, so two waves that meet will interact non-trivially. However, we see gravitational waves specifically when studying small perturbations of the gravitational field, under which the field equations are very *close* to linear. This type of approximation is called "linearization".

In short, the behavior of gravitational waves is very close to that of electromagnetic waves, except for small non-trivial interactions.


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

[User] [Star Wars] How does the torture device used on Han Solo in ESB work?

[Assistant]
It wasn't a torture device, it was an ore analyser Vader decided to repurpose.

The analyser used small electrical charges to determine the makeup of mined samples. Since electrical shocks can be painfull, they just strapped him to the analyser and let it do it's thing with the samples substituted for his face.


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

[User]
[MCU] Are Captain America's bones unbreakable?

I understand the superhuman aspect, but a lot of what happens to him in the movies seems to indicate indestructible bones such as:

Winter Soldier:

* Drops feet first directly into the ocean, from a height at which impacting the water would be the same as landing on concrete

* Falls on his shield escaping SHIELD HQ following the elevator fight

* Is beaten by a fellow super soldier with a metal arm (granted, this does land him in the hospital, but his face is intact)

Avengers/AoU:

* Handles Thor directly hitting his hammer with Mjolnir

Civil War:

* Falls from dangerous heights on 3 occasions (opening fight off the balcony, falling in the elevator shaft after Bucky's escape, and falling down the shaft of an old Soviet missile silo)

* Survives repeated punches from Iron Man, which we later see draw blood on Thanos

Infinity War:

* Comes off with hardly a scratch after Thanos sucker punches him in the face after Cap holds back the gauntlet

Endgame:

* Again survives several direct punches from Thanos after having Avengers HQ dropped on him

* His left arm is only cut after Thanos breaks his previously thought to be indestructible shield

* Is punched directly in the chest by Thanos (an extremely pissed off Thanos at this point) while his back is on the ground.

Keep in mind Thanos handled Hulk like a child, broke the Tesseract, and ripped the Mind Stone from Vision's vibranium infused body with just his fingers. I know that in Infinity War, after he gets the Soul Stone he's not exactly on the "warpath", but in Endgame, specifically, he is there to personally kill the Avengers. I find it hard to believe that Thanos "held back" his strength in Endgame, so does that mean Cap's body is strong enough to withstand physical blows from Thanos?

[Assistant]
>so does that mean Cap's body is strong enough to withstand physical blows from Thanos?

Well, yeah. His body withstood physical blows from Thanos.

His insane durability and strength are self-evident -- what he doesn't have is strength feats that are *egregiously* strength feats the way Hulk bringing down a skyscraper is egregiously a strength feat. This makes it easier to overlook how insanely powerful he is.


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

[User]
ELI5: Donnie Darko

It must have been 10 years since I first watched it. Every time I watch it I spend the next week thinking about, then finally thinking I get it only to realize I don't.

What happens in Donnie Darko?

[Assistant]
I assume you don't really need a plot explanation, more of a meaning explanation, right?

There's a boy named Donnie who most people think has trouble telling the difference between what's real and what's pretend. He has an imaginary friend who wears a bunny suit, named Frank. Frank takes him for a walk. Frank tells him that the world is going to end. When Donnie goes home it turns out that going on a walk saved his life. By not dying, an alternate reality was made.
His doctor gives him medicine to help Donnie tell the difference between real and pretend but instead of getting better, Donnie sees more make believe things. Frank encourages Donnie to do some things that are bad but those bad things turn out to be good for many people. When Donnie did those bad things he only knew about the bad consequences. Frank takes the mask off his bunny suit and it looks like someone hurt his face really bad. Frank tells Donnie that time travel exists.
On Halloween, Donnie is walking with a friend and his friend gets hit by a car. The driver who gets out looks like Frank but he doesn't know Donnie and his face isn't hurt. Donnie is sad about his friend being hit by a car so he hurts Frank's face.
 Donnie knows that today is the day Frank said the world would end. Donnie is sad about all the bad things that happened since going on that walk with Frank, so Donnie sends an airplane back in time to when he went on his walk with Frank. The difference is that this time Donnie didn't go on a walk with Frank. Instead, Donnie dies. Because of this, the alternate reality with all the bad things is avoided.

Hope that clears it up.


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

[User] [Harry Potter] How did students get to Hogwarts before the invention of the steam engine?

[Assistant]
Prior to the Hogwarts Express, they'd all arrive individually by whatever means of conveyance they chose. Broomstick, Portkey, attempts at Apperation, or by cart or carriage were all common.

The issue was that as Britain faced drastic population growth and increased urbanization among both Muggle and Magical populations going into the 19th century, the movements of hundreds of students to and from rural Scotland multiple times a year was increasingly risking exposure.

However, people travelling to or from London is much less likely to attract notice, and they'd blend in with the movements of Muggle students travelling to their own boarding schools. From King's Cross, the Hogwarts Express could then travel along a prepared route that could be much more readily hidden or disguised as needed to their final destination.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do certain objects (let's say a rug) feel warmer than others (the floor) although they should have the same temperature being in the same room.

The rug I put on my floor feels much warmer on my bare feet than the floor. I wondered: Why is it that for example steel feels much colder than other objects in the same environment?

Why do certain objects (let's say a rug) feel warmer than others (the floor) although they should have the same temperature being in the same room.

[Assistant] Thermal conductivity. Rugs have poor conductivity  (the ability to transfer heat) compared to wood or metal. Since your body temp is around 37C and room temp ~25C anything conductive that you touch in that environment will immediately start transferring heat away from you in an "effort" to equalise the temperature betwee  the two. Rugs and Styrofoam are good insulators and so don't transfer heat as rapidly.


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

[User]
ELI5: How much of a performance hit do gaming PCs take to run Windows in the background?

I've been watching YouTube videos lately where people are testing new CPUs and GPUs and they always have a little status indicator program at the top of the gaming display showing, among other things, FPS count, CPU/GPU temperature, and RAM usage. Does having to run Windows in the background, behind the game, impact these metrics in any meaningful way? Would performance be improved if, hypothetically, games could be played without running the entire Windows OS in the background?

[Assistant] Yea, games would run better if they didnt have the bloat of some background processes/programs of an OS. Unfortunately, this is kind of impossible because the OS is what causes the game to be able to run.


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

[User]
CMV: When someone wants their back scratched, the scratchee should be responsible for moving their back around the scratcher's stationary hand

People who find themselves with an itchy upper back require help to get the relief they desire. Traditionally, this is accomplished with a conversation like:

>Could you scratch my back?
>
>Higher. Left. Left. No, more towards the shoulder. Almost. No, a little bit back the other way.

This is frustrating for both parties, since it's hard to describe a specific part of one's back, and because the itch can move around once scratching begins.

Instead, the scratcher should hold their claw-hand stationary in front of them, and the scratchee should move their back around the hand as necessary to find the precise position needed. They can then say "right there!" to ask for vigorous scratches at that location.

Edit:  I should specify that for maximum efficiency and ergonomics, the scratch-dance should start with the scratcher's hand in the middle of the scratcher's back.

Change My View!

[Assistant] It's not always feasible for the scratchee to move to the scratcher's hand. Suppose, for instance, that the scratcher put their hand on your back somewhere between your shoulder blades, but your itch was actually much lower. You could stand on your tippie toes and still not be able to get your itch into position to be scratched because the hand is too high. In a situation like that, the scratchee would *have* to ask the scratcher to move their hand lower.


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

[User]
ELI5: If you're not supposed to ever button up the lowest button of a suit, why do they exist?

Fashion dictates that men never button the second button of a 2-button-suit or the third button of a 3-button-suit. Then why are they there? If it's just for "style", why not have the button, but no hole?

[Assistant]
It's a silly reason, really.

Originally, jackets were *supposed* to be done up all the way. But at some point, people decided it looked better if they 'flared out' around your waist (since this was typically the widest part of the body... at least if you're a wealthy over-indulgent Earl). Having the fabric pulled in around you could look silly, and so they stopped buttoning it up.

Since then, manufacturers have started tailoring jackets to intentionally take this into account, *but they never removed the button*. [EDIT] As some other commenters have remarked, it is like a vestigial remnant of times gone by.


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

[User]
What will happen to a galaxy towards the end of its existence?

Will the universe eventually just be comprised of a bunch of "dead" galaxies? I hear some galaxies will collide and interact. If a galaxy were to never collide or interact with another space entity, what would eventually happen to it?

[Assistant] The galaxies will just get dimmer and be full of dead bodies, as no more stars can form in them. Spacetime will still allow for gravity so it will still be bound. Eventually though the galaxies themselves will cease to be as they go through proton decay - this won't be until the black hole era - when only black holes will be able to keep themselves together. Then eventually they will also evaporate.


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

[User] [Physics] Do stars have a North pole and South pole like Earth?

[Assistant] If you mean magnetically, stars typically have irregular magnetic poles that change extremely frequently in their number, orientation, and strength. Plasma actually has a tendency to get trapped in the arcs formed by the irregular magnetic fields and is later released, creating solar flares.


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

[User] [Marvel] Did anything meaningful other than Deadpool and Wolverine ever come about due to the Weapon X project?

[Assistant]
that depends.

Are you talking about the American/NATO Supersoldier program, of which, Weapon X was the tenth successful product? If so, Captain America, some of the research into replicating Doctor Banner's hulk condition, Fantomex, "The World", and a number of other successful "weapons" have been developed as part of "Weapon Plus".

Are you talking about Weapon X (weapon 10)  - the particular research project into regeneration and cybernetic implants that produced Wolverine? IF so, yes - Sabretooth (his healing factor may have been enhanced, but he was working with the program and was next to receive the adamantium if Logan hadn't made that impossible) Cyber, and a number of other enhanciles (NOT including deadpool) were modified by the program, whose data and samples went on to be used in creating X-23, deadpool, Lady Deathstrike, the many X-23 clones, as well as giving Dakken his adamantium-coated claws.


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

[User]
[40k] Malcador once suggested to the Corpse God that he should've made sisters for the Primarchs in order to avoid rivalry, would anything have changed if some of the Primarchs were female or all of them sisters?

Here's the quote from Malcador "You brothers  such a nest of rivalries. I warned him to make you sisters, that it would make things more civilised. He thought I was joking. I wasnt."

[Assistant]
Events would likely stayed pretty much the same.

As sisters of battle and female inquisitors have shown, women can just be as fanatical, ambitious, and ruthless as men, and fall to Chaos just as easily. And Chaos gods, who have set the whole thing into motion since the beginning, would not care about gender.

Now if Emperor had openly warned them about Chaos since the start, things might have turned out differently.


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

[User] ELI5: Whats the difference between a 32 and 64 bit processor and why we cant just jump to a 128 but processor?

[Assistant]
Having more bits means that a processor can work on larger numbers and allocate larger amounts of memory.

32-bit processors are limited to about 4gb of RAM while 64-bit processors can theoretically address up to 16 exabytes of RAM.

32-bit means that a microprocessor can execute 4 bytes of data in one instruction cycle while 64-bit means that a microprocessor can execute 8 bytes of data in one instruction cycle.

The reason we haven't designed a 128-bit processor is because there is no practical reason for doubling the basic register size.  At this time we don't need that much more RAM or instruction size.

So we totally could go to 128 bits, but there's no point because would have no practical purpose for it. At least not yet.


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

[User]
Are Infrared lamps red to make us believe that they are working? Or is it just spillover to visible light?

I just want to know if the red colour of infrared is just there so we can tell it's working or because the light spectrum it produces spills over into the red visible part of the spectrum.

How about other lights? How controlled are their emission spectra?
Does the method of lighting create very varied results?

EDIT:
People seem to be playing a guessing game as to what kind of device I refer to.
I was asking after seeing the heat lamps people by for reptile terrariums.

[Assistant]
You're thinking of heat lamps, which produce EM radiation at wavelengths of 500nm to 3000nm.  Visible red light is about 650nm, so some of the radiation from heat lamps is visible as red light.  Yes, these are designed to be visible for convenience.

There are also "far infrared lamps" which do not produce visible light but these are more expensive to produce.  Usually they're used in a system with some sort of indicator that the lamp is on.


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

[User]
[War of the Worlds] Did the Martians wipe out all bacteria on their homeworld?

I know it was written in the 19th century but yeah just curious. Like do they have their own equivilant to gut bacteria? Was it all microbes they wiped out or just harmful ones?

[Assistant]
That's the prevailing theory, but no one on Earth knows for sure.

A quote from the book (emphasis added):

>"At any rate, in all the bodies of the Martians that were examined after the war, *no bacteria except those already known as terrestrial species were found*. That they did not bury any of their dead, and the reckless slaughter they perpetrated, point also to an entire ignorance of the putrefactive process. But probable as this seems, it is by no means a proven conclusion."


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

[User]
ELI5: Torque Vs Horsepower

I still struggle to easily define the difference between the two, any help appreciated!

EDIT: Thanks for all the answers!

[Assistant] Imagine you're roofing a house and you need to get 100 bundles of shingles up a ladder and on the roof. Torque is how many bundles you can carry at a time, while horsepower is how quickly you can get all the bundles on the roof. If one person can carry one bundle up in a minute and another person can carry two bundles at a time but it takes him two minutes, they have the same horsepower but the second guy has more torque. The first guy has to move twice as fast to accomplish the same thing.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do bugs like moths and flies love light sources so much?

[Assistant]
A lot of bugs navigate by keeping the sun at a constant angle.

You can simulate this by going outside and pointing at the sun, then walking while not moving your arm and keeping your arm pointed at the sun. You'll walk in a straight line (so long as the sun isn't directly overhead).

This works because the distance to the sun is so utterly massive it makes the distance you walk insignificant.

If you instead repeat this experiment with a nearby artificial light source, like a lamp, then you'll find that you walk in one of three paths:

* If you are pointing directly left or right then you'll walk in a circle.

* If you're pointing straight forward or backwards then you'll walk straight towards or away from the light.

* If you're pointing any other direction you'll walk in a spiral. Directions towards your front will be an inward spiral, while directions towards your rear will be an outward spiral.

When bugs navigate in this way they're not drawn towards the light per se. It's just that about half of all directions they could try to fly in result in spiraling in towards the light.


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

[User]
CMV:We should never see Master Chief's face.

The Halo franchise has provided exciting,deep, and fantastic games throughout the years.

The protagonist (or semi protagonist as Halo tells stories about humanity and other characters like the arbiter)

Is a man who is usually quiet and faceless.

But the characters actions say enough.

That being said I feel like revealing Master Chief's face to everyone should never be done.

It feels like no matter what they make it look like or however they do it,  that it won't be good enough or it will be too good.

As well as that if they did put a face to him it would really mess with his personal narrative tone and narrative setup of the series tones.

[Assistant]
>Is a man who is usually quiet and faceless.

Only the second part of this is true. Granted that the Chief never says anything during gameplay, during cutscenes he is as loquacious as any other character. He makes statements, expresses emotions, and even quips a joke from time to time. The character already has an established personality, just not a face to go along with it, and, personally, I've never really understood how having a face would mess this up, since the character is not simply a blank avatar for the player, but an expressive character with a unique personality.


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

[User] What is a VPN? Should I use one? Which one?

[Assistant]
Think of data traffic like road traffic, with your data being freight on the back of pickup trucks. Think of your home network as an island, with a bridge connecting it to the mainland (built and maintained by your Internet provider). If you want to send stuff to someone, or get stuff sent to you, the stuff gets loaded onto the back of a pickup truck and driven from and to your island.

Now let's say your Internet provider is a bit nosy and installs cameras on the bridge, recording everything that's on your pickup trucks. Of course you don't really transport anything embarrassing or illegal, but you still don't really like the general feeling.

So, what do you do? The solution for most types of VPN is as easy as it is straightforward. On the way out, before your pickup trucks go over the bridge, they stop at a loading yard, where they are driven into large 18 wheelers (just like in "Knight Rider"). These drive over the bridge, to some other loading yard. This can be anywhere, from somewhere close by to being on the other side of the world. Here, the pickup trucks drive out of the 18 wheelers and get sent on their way.

Now all your Internet provider sees are 18 wheelers going between your loading yard and some loading yard somewhere in the world, with no idea what's loaded onto the pickup trucks inside. They also don't know where the pickup trucks are coming from and where they are driving. Also, neither does the final destination of the pickup trucks, they only see them driving from and to your second loading yard outside your island.

All you need to set this up is rent or buy a loading yard (a VPN tunnel endpoint) somewhere in the world -- and (if you only rent one) trust that the guy operating it is not stealing, recording, or tampering with what's on your pickup trucks.


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

[User] ELI5: What causes 'house noises', and when does it become dangerous?

[Assistant]
Homes heat and cool over the course of the day, and the structure of most wood frame houses will creak a bit because the heating and cooling tends to be uneven (it's typically warmer in the upper floors of a house).

It's only dangerous if the house is actually improperly built and is structurally unsound.


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

[User]
[Ready Player One movie] Why is Wade poor, despite being a skilled gamer

We know in the RPO world Oasis is THE thing in society, so skilled gamers are probably the hottest commodity even more so than doctors, engineers etc.

Wade doesn't want to sell out to IOI, but there are plenty of other ways utilizing his skills, like grinding credits in deathmatch, races or other tournaments and exchange them for real money. He can be a esports player, or a twitch streamer, or a trader, all of those things he could probably do with his knowledge and skill of the game, so why is he still living in a trailer park at the beginning of the movie?

 I get that he wants to find the easter egg, but why couldn't he provide for himself and his aunt in the mean time?

[Assistant]
He is a skilled gamer, but lacks the right equipment to actually compete.

The only thing that he has (and the only reason he has it) is a basic connection to the Oasis for school. The bare minimal hardware requirement. He's not able to compete actively in games because he is using the default wireless link to the Oasis, while all of the active pro gamers use a direct fiber connection to the Oasis circle. He does compete and collect some credits from smaller tournaments, and he does grind out some credits, but credits to real world currency isn't favorable enough to let him actually support a family, and is instead used to simply sustain a life in the Oasis, which has plenty of credit sinks.

If he had better equipment/connection, he would probably be in the same situation as his best friend, being a good gamer that lives okay using funds from competing. He was born too poor to have that luxury.


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

[User]
I believe we are living in the best era of humanity, thanks to fossil fuels, and it is all downhill from here. CMV

By "era" I mean roughly a few centuries. We are somewhere within this era, unclear if beginning, middle or end.

Fossil fuels are "stored sunlight energy", from the past few billion years, which we are now burning through in a few centuries.
Fossil fuels are great not just because of the energy the give us for free, but also the ability for very light and space efficient "energy storage". An airplane can carry lots of usable, light energy in the form of fuel, which it couldn't with batteries.

While many like to point to technology, democracies, modern health care and other such things to credit the huge increase in our standard of living the past few centuries, I think those all pale in comparison, or are caused by, the discovery of fossil fuels.

I think climate change is somewhat beside the point. In the really long term, I don't really care if you flood some cities, send some species to extinction, and reshape Earth's geography a bit. It's sad, but we can get over it. Just reshape humanity to its new world, and get used to it. It is still nowhere near as bad as losing all our free energy, which we use exactly so we can live in whatever conditions Earth throws at us (i.e. heaters/air conditioners).

I think all renewable/sustainable energy efforts, while nice, will never give us the quality of life we enjoy today.

"Live", sustainable, sunlight energy will always be no match for fossil fuels.

Batteries suck, and always will. The chemistry is quite clear, in that gasoline stores far more energy for its weight than any comparable "technological" solution. Though nuclear energy can certainly win, it is far less "usable" - fit a "nuclear engine" on an airplane. (I might be wrong here - what do "nuclear submarines" do?)

Uranium will deplete just as fossil fuels will.

My only real hope is nuclear fusion. From the little I've heard of it, hopes are not very high.

This might be more of a scientific question than a "view"...

(In case anyone is worried - I'm not really depressed or worried by any of this, just... "Oh well...")

[Assistant]
For perspective, you might look at the history of petroleum in the United States:

Before petroleum, people lit their lamps every night with whale oil.  Yes, oil from slaughtered whales.  When the whale population got very low, the price of whale oil shot up and everyone started worrying.

The price kept going up, up, up and before long people were looking for ways to get rich.  One person spent a lot of time researching petroleum as an alternative.  People had known about petroleum for a while, but there were not very many good uses for it, so it was actually a very bad thing to have it bubble up on land you owned.  It would foul the land and make raising crops on that land difficult or impossible.

Well, this person found a way to refine petroleum into kerosene.  Kerosene burned brighter than whale oil and with less smoke.  It was a better product, and was very cheap to make.  Before people knew it, even the poor could afford to have oil lamps in their homes because of this technological breakthrough.

Petroleum is not the end-all fuel.  When the price of petroleum goes up high enough, due to high demand and low supply, there will be new breakthroughs.  This cycle has occurred many times throughout human history.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Why not carry two lightsabers?

In the Star Wars universe we sometimes see people picking up a second lightsaber in duels, as for example at the end of episode 2 where anakin takes obi-wans lightsaber to fight against dooku or in some of the cinematics of the old republic. If you are a jedi or sith and feel like you are stronger in combat with a second lightsaber, why not carry two from the get-go?

Some people do wield two lightsabers, even a padawan such as Ahsoka. Also, some are lost or destroyed in battle and need to be replaced, so it can't be that out of reach to craft a second one, can it?

[Assistant]
Because not everything revolves around potential DPS.

Those who do feel more confident with two blades - carry two blades, or a saberstaff. Some carry two saberstaffs even. Most jedi feel confident enough with one. When you're skilled enough, amount of blades won't matter.


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

[User]
ELI5: How does Adderall (and other similar substances) make one focus so effectively?

When one takes adderall, they are able to focus quite intently on what they are doing - sometimes for hours on end. How does a substance allow one to do that, especially if they have such easily-distracted tendencies?

[Assistant]
Adderall and similar drugs belong to a class of drugs known as **amphetamines**. You may have heard this name as part of the slightly less beneficial **meth**amphetamine. Yes, crystal meth is chemically very similar to Adderall. The more you know.

Amphetamine is a stimulant. Stimulants range from caffeine to nicotine to methamphetamine, and they all work in slightly different ways. Your neurons talk to one another with chemicals, called neurotransmitters. To put it very, very, simply, your neurons need these chemicals so that they can talk to one another. When they are finished talking, they need a bit of a break to recover so they can fire again. This break usually runs about one millisecond, during which these neurons recoup some ions so they can accept transmissions again. What amphetamines do is trigger these cells to release some stored neurotransmitters (the talking chemicals) into the space surrounding them. The upshot of all this is that there's more neurotransmitters available to all the nearby cells, so if they want to talk a bit more frequently, they can run a bit faster (since they don't have to wait to re-synthesize the neurotransmitter themselves).

So now we know how an amphetamine works. Why, then, does Adderall help focus more so than caffeine, which is also a stimulant? Drugs like caffeine are *global* stimulants. This means that globally, throughout the brain, caffeine encourages increased neurotransmission. (Caffeine works through a different pathway than amphetamine, but it's roughly the same effect). The answer is that while caffeine is a global stimulant, Adderall as a stimulant seems to only stimulate the parts of the brain that do thinking. Scientists don't know why yet, but they know it does. And isn't that good enough for a drug?

I hope this helped.


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

[User]
Why is it called the "Democratic People's Republic of Korea" when it's not a democracy or a republic?

This also goes for any other countries who do this.

[Assistant] Your mum wants to get you to eat some food you don't like, so instead of just calling it cabbage, she calls it delicious super tasty munchy fun time. But the cabbage is severe famine and human rights violations.


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

[User]
Is there a way to "see" beyond the observable Universe?

I understand that the observable universe is simply light that has had time to reach us, and that without such we cannot really observe outside of it. I was wondering if there's any theoretical means by which we can extend our vision, so to speak?

[Assistant] No. That would require something to propagate faster than light, and nothing we know of does that. The closest thing we can do is see the effect of as-yet-unseen objects on what we can see, so it's a sort of "seeing by proxy" effect. Dark flow is an example of this.


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

[User]
If languages continue to borrow words from one another- is it foreseeable that humanity will every agree to or create a single language?

I know politically a universal language isn't really achievable. However if languages like English and Spanish and Japanese keep taking loan words from one another and general linguistic knowledge of the world's populations continues to diversify, what is the possibility of all languages becoming so similar, or words becoming so interchangeable, that a universal (at least on a 1st world scale) parlance can be created?

[Assistant] Convergence is a real phenomenon but it is far outpaced by the rate of language replacement. Not to mention that not all languages are converging - and sometimes we see loanwords replaced with words formed from native roots, i.e. divergence. In other words, it's more likely that the most populous languages will begin to displace medium- and small-sized languages rather than a mutual convergence.


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

[User]
[Death Note] How did Light expect to get around Ryuk killing him?

Let's assume Light won in the end and killed the task force and everyone just gives up on trying to catch him.

I imagine it wouldn't take much longer for Ryuk to off him as there is no longer a game to be entertained by Surely Ryuk wouldn't just wait and let him kill random criminals unopposed for his remaining natural life. Did he have some plan for this in order to enable him to live his natural remaining life?

[Assistant]
Ryuk has been "alive" forever for a long time. Light's entire life is a relatively short amount of time for him. It doesn't really cost him much to let Light stick around a little longer to see where it pans out.

Light was already one of the most entertaining humans for him by a long shot and Ryuk really lucked out with him. It's like you're watching a really good show that's close to ending, but you'd rather see that same show extended albeit less interesting, than risk watching the 99.9% of other shows that that you know will probably be crap. If Ryuk changes the channel, he won't be able to change it back, so he'll spend what amounts to a couple of days for him on the current show that he likes, before going back to a life of boredom.

However, as the concept of a lifespan exists in the Death Note world, it might just be that Light's time was up, that off of that was going to happen regardless.


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

[User] [Overwatch] What's the deal with Mcree? In this day and age why is he a relic of the old west?

[Assistant]
Cause he thinks it's cool. We're talking a dude with BAMF written on his belt, clearly he's not overly concerned with what people think of him.

Not to mention, cowboy hats and ponchos serve a practical purpose. And at that point, you might as well go all the way and get the spurs.


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

[User]
If ever you switched from a dynamically typed to a statically typed language for your work, how did it feel?

If you ever did the reverse that counts too. I've read suggestions that dynamically typed is more suitable for small programs. Personally I'm used to Python and have yet to have any issues with it *that I've noticed*.

[Assistant]
always feels like a breath of fresh air for me whenever i can get out of dynamic-land and back into static-land.

don't have to check types of everything in order to be safe. don't need to rely on reading documentation to understand what types of values a function takes as parameters or supports.


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

[User] eli5 - How/why do bubbles form in carbonated beverages and why do they only seem to come from the bottom of the bottle?

[Assistant]
So...  Carbonated beverages are an unstable solution kind of like a wagon stacked sky high with swaying boxes.  Even though this system is unstable though it does need something to trigger the instabilities to make the boxes fall.  In the case of the wagon its tiny bumps in the road or imperfections in the wagon's wheels and bearings that start things a swaying.  In a soda bottle it is tiny microscopic imperfections in the surface of the bottle.  This is why bubbles seem to form streams.  Tiny imperfections in the bottle provide points for CO2 to form up on and then make a bubble.

You know the mentos in coke trick?  That isn't a chemical reaction.  That happens because the mentos has a very rough surface texture and the CO2 just goes crazy for it.

To answer your next question - "what happens if we made an absolutely perfect bottle?" Happy googling, you're going to have some fun there.  Short answer - explosions.


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

[User]
I teach high school Econ, but its very basic and relies heavily on content from before the Great Depression. What are some current theories an Econ 101 should include?

I focus on the basics; being a business, taxes, government spending - but I know that economics has changed beyond basic supply and demand/ rational actor. I just dont have a sense of priority with more modern content.

[Assistant] I would just suggest a textbook? (Mankiw, Krugman-Wells, Goolsbee-Levitt-Syverson, etc.) Supply and demand is still very relevant, but most textbooks do have modern content (even if "modern" means "from ~10 years ago," that's still modern relative to "before the Great Depression")


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

[User] [Karate Kid] Why wasn't Daniel disqualified for using the crane kick if kicks to the head were illegal?

[Assistant]
The ref was too busy busy looking around going "What's with all these drums?" so he missed out on Daniel landing the illegal hit and simply saw that one of them was down, so he called the match.

Alternatively, Mr. Miyagi employed the ancient technique of bribing the guy.


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

[User]
Is it possible to have genetically identical children that aren't twins?

If half of a person's genes come from the mother and half from the father, couldn't the exact same genes be randomly selected the second time a couple conceives, resulting in a genetically identical child as the first?

[Assistant]
It's theoretically possible, but not exactly feasible.

The human genome is composed of 23 pairs chromosomes (each pair contains one copy of the chromosome from your mother, and one copy from your father).  Each gamete (sperm or egg) gets a random selection from each pair.  Thus, for one individual (and ignoring mutations) there are 2^23 , or 8,388,608 possible unique gametes that they can produce.  Combine those together, and you get 2^23 * 2^23 , or 70,368,744,177,664 (70 trillion) genetically-distinct possible zygotes from a single pair of parents.  As you can see the odds of the same combination happening twice during one couple's lifetimes is exceedingly slim.


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

[User] ELI5: Why are there countless numbers of animal subspecies, but no human subspecies?

[Assistant]
Well subspecies is a rather nebulous term. See when a two population of the same species become separated geographically, they won't exchange genetic material through breeding. If they are separated for long enough of put under enough pressure, they will genetically change enough that they will eventually become different species. But it's a long process so you have some population are that in between. Meaning they become different enough that they are clearly not the same species, but didn't change enough to be clearly two different species. But you probably don't talk about that, because there isn't that many subspecies. You probably talk about species that look similar, like how there is like 8 different species of bears.

Now it depend on what you consider human. Are human only homo sapiens or all Homo are humans? Because there was something like 16 different Homo Species. Some went extinct by their own, but other were assimilated or killed off by home sapiens. The difference between other animal and us is our intelligence. The intelligence that allowed us to spread to the whole globe very quickly. See usually animal don't spread as much and if they do, it take them a LOT of time. So by the time they reached another continent, they already became a new species. We spread so quickly, that by the time we covered all of the planet we were still the same species and competed with all the other Homo species for resources and we won all over the world.


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

[User] ELI5: What is the biological function of a coma?

[Assistant] A coma is the body's equivalent of the Blue Screen of Death on a computer, or the engine stalling in your car.  It doesn't have a purpose.  It's an error state that means something has gone very wrong.


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

[User]
ELI5:why does tv signal manage to have no buffer when you watch tv, while internet videos buffer a lot ?

As the title, how come when you watch tv there is no buffer on the shows while on the internet it can buffer a lot, i mean both are radio signals right ?

[Assistant]
TV, whether over the air or over cable TV, is "broadcasting" one thing to everyone who can possibly receive it.  If you've got an antenna and are tuned in, you will see whatever is going on right at that moment.  There's no buffering, because there's no before, no after: you can only receive what's being sent at that exact moment.   If you want to rewind or fast-forward, you need to have some recording device like a tape recorder or DVR -- or, if you're having trouble receiving the signal, you'll get either a degraded signal or none at all.  In a sense, this is *worse* than buffering, because if there's an interruption in the signal, what was missed is simply lost forever.  But, since the same thing goes out to everyone, it has an uninterrupted, constant stream of video that anyone with the right equipment can tap into, but only to see what's on right at that moment.

The internet, however, everyone has to have their own, private, separate 'path' for the video to get to them -- millions of TV channels trying to use the same internet at once.  Due to internet speeds and how internet hardware works, sometimes one of those private 'paths' has to stop and wait for someone else's data to use the same wire.  This is the nature of the internet; it's fast, but there's no guarantee anyone's data will get there when it is expected.

So, online video and audio use *buffering*, which essentially starts recording the streaming data off the internet -- which is stopping and starting and pausing slightly and suddenly is faster than regular video speed but then slows back down -- and then is playing it back at 'live' speed for you.     Even if you're watching the same thing on your computer as someone sitting next to you, you're not *really* watching the same thing -- you each have your own, dedicated broadcast station sending you your data, trying to share the same wire, which means two copies of the same video are on the same wire at the same time.  As more and more different video connections try to use the same wires, it slows down even more, causing buffering to try and save ahead even further than before.


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

[User] ELI5: Objectively speaking, why does depression make food taste worse?

[Assistant] *Anhedonia*, the absence of joy, is a symptom of depression. It's not that the food tastes worse, but the *sensation of joy from the taste of the food* is reduced. The mechanism is not well understood, but it is generally believed lack of serotonin, a neurotransmitter, plays a role.


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

[User]
ELI5: If water freezes at 0 degrees Celcius and ice melts at the same tempreature, what would happen if you took water and placed it in a place with exactly 0 degrees, no variations in temperature?

Would it turn into ice, then melt, then turn into ice again and so on?

[Assistant] If you add water to a zero degree environ, it will stay water. To freeze it you have to remove the latent heat of fusion. You have to continue to remove heat energy to get it to freeze into ice at zero degrees. Similar thing happens at the saturation point when water becomes steam, to it takes 1BTU/Lb of heat energy to change the temp one degree F, but 970 BTU to change that water at 100C into steam at 100C. This is why steam burns are so Mich more severe than water burns at the boiling point, the steam contains about 4x the thermal energy to burn you as the water.


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

[User] [Star Trek] How can it be that every Holo-room can create more emotionally convincing personalities than Data ever was?

[Assistant]
Those personalities were driven by conversational algorithms, tailored to present convincing facades within scripted scenarios. They were not inherently sentient, but non-self-aware bots puking out pre-drafted dialogue and pulling, when needed, from banks of text (and body language, and scenery) which looked statistically relevant. Given the leisure time and desire for recognition that drives the lives of most Federation citizens, many holodeck scenarios have been worked on for countless hours, to the point where the illusion of interaction with sentient beings is nearly flawless.

But at the end of the day, these aren't real people with real feelings, and the things they say aren't being motivated by anything but an instinctive reaction to stimuli provided by holodeck visitors. Data is something entirely different- and wonderful.


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

[User]
ELI5: (not USA) How is it still democratic when different political parties "team up" after the election to get the votes necessary to rule?

If I vote for party x, and after the election party x and y team up to get more majority of the votes. However personally I do not agree with party y and party x has to change their promises etc to team with party y. To me this does not seem like democracy as the party I voted for doesn't stand for what it did when I voted.

(Sorry for my bad english, this is not my native language.)
Edit: 1
I wrote a post that explains it better.
I understand that parties have to co-operate, but what I do not agree with is when a two parties that have many differences go together to get stronger and this makes the lesser party way more powerful than it should. Let's say we have Free Cars for All Party (FCAP) who gets 41% of the votes and a party called Everything for Nature (EN) gets 10%. EN wants to ban all cars in the city because of pollution etc. FCAP ideally doesn't want to do that, they love cars! But they compromises with eachother so that a party that gets 10% of the votes gets way more power than they should because FCAP depends on them to agreeing to get the majority of votes. In the end the FCAP might get cars to everyone but the voters of EN didn't want that. And EN might get some parts of the city car-free but FCAP voters doesn't want that. Therefore the majority doesnt want either free cars or a car free city but because the two parties compromises they both get what they want without the majority of the voters agreeing to these terms.

To me a party should work with what they got of the votes. Vote for all the things they agree with and vote against what they disagree with. Then the majority truly decides!

Edit: 2
Most of you seem to believe that what I mean is that a party that gets the most votes decides everything. What I actually mean is that there is no party/parties in power without over 50% of the votes. Parties can't compromise with eachother, so they will vote for bills they agree with. If over 50% of the parties votes goes in favor of a bill it get passed through. If only FCAP wants free cars, they don't get it because they only have 41% of the votes.

[Assistant] If the voters wanted x, they would have given x a majority. They voted for a balance between x and y. So x and y compromise and arrive at something that resembles the balance between x and y that voters asked for.


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

[User]
Why are most bulletproof vests vulnerable to knives?

I know that a lot of soft, Kevlar-based vests are vulnerable to stabbing, but I forget the exact reasons why. I know that they stop bullets by distributing the force across a relatively large area, and that a lot of it is dependent on the high tensile strength of aramids, but I don't know why this makes them vulnerable to low-velocity stab attacks. I was also wondering why, if they tend to be vulnerable to knives and the like, they are not vulnerable to high-velocity 'sharp' projectiles like shrapnel/fragmentation.

[Assistant]
Kevlar is a fabric, which spreads the impact of a bullet across a larger area. The blade of a knife can slip between the threads of the fabric.

A fragmenting bullet is still lead, which is soft, and warps before passing through the weave. A lead knife probably would be stopped by kevlar, but a steel knife wouldn't be.


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

[User] ELI5: does gargling mouth wash actually do anything? What's the best way to keep your teeth clean (beyond brushing)?

[Assistant] It does, it has antibacterial properties as well as forming a sort of protective coating on the tooth surface that prevets plaque buildup. It also reaches places where the toothbrush struggles. Other than that you  should also floss as that removes debris between the teeth that are otherwise hard to reach.


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

[User] ELI5: At the risk of seeming insensitive, if bombs are so powerful, how does one person hugging a suicide bomber save so many others?

[Assistant]
The bombs that suicide bombers use can have shrapnel (like nails), to maximize the casualties - it's not just the shockwaves, it's the high speed bits of metal that gets you.

If one person gets in close, they absorb that shrapnel that would otherwise have gone out in an ever-increasing radius of destruction. They get super-dead, but the benefit is the lives of others.

If you look through Medal of Honor winners, you'll find soldiers that have thrown themselves on grenades, sacrificing themselves for the good of others. Same basic idea.


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

[User] [MCU/Marvel] If Antman throws a blue Pym Particle Disc at a trarget and misses, what happens when it impacts the ground?

[Assistant]
I would guess that the discs have a mass threshold, and if they impact a sufficiently massive target, such as a building or the the ground the particles will simply disperse and be ineffective.

A more powerful source than a handheld disc would be needed to effect an entire structure, as we have seen.


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

[User]
ELI5 how can we only see objects a few kilometers in the horizon, but at the same time, see space objects hundreds of kilometers in the sky?

I got this thinking while on a car trip. I know the medium distance into the horizon are only a few kilometers (say between 10-20 kms), so how can when I look up, I can clearly see stars, the sun, the moon, airplanes and possibly even spaceships which are way more distant than the horizon limit?

[Assistant]
The horizon is because of the curvature of the Earth, not a limit of vision. You can't see past the horizon because the Earth is between you and whatever you want to look at.

Distant stars have nothing in the way so as long as they're bright enough you can see them with the naked eye.


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

[User] [Eyepatches] How do Nick Fury, Deathstroke, Big Boss, and other elite soldier types with eyepatches still retain their marksmanship skills without their depth-perception?

[Assistant]
You don't need depth perception to look down a scope or iron sights. It's often distracting, which is why many two eyed marksmen close one eye when aiming.

Depth perception would help for close ranges when you're shooting from the hip. But most people aren't Bullseye or Revolver Ocelot, so they just bring the gun behind their eye and try to line everything up, which doesn't need much depth perception.

As for Big Boss, who aims with his eyepath eye...who knows.


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

[User]
[The Princess Bride] Why does Westley choose to use his left hand when dueling Inigo?

He is pursuing his true love in an attempt to rescue her from kidnappers who plan to kill her. It seems time would be of the essence, so why does he choose to dual with his non-dominant hand?

[Assistant]
He was giving his right arm a break. He'd just climbed up a cliff. Inigo gave him a rest but Westley probably felt he could use more time.  Westley was also confident in his left-handed swordfighting.

As a master swordsman himself, it's also possible that Westley could tell that Inigo was right-handed. He guessed at Inigo's trick, and so kept his own right hand in reserve.

EDIT: It's also possible that Westley knew about trio, at least in the sense that each of them existed. Who builds up an immunity to iocane powder for no reason?


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

[User]
Eli5: why does the mint sell "$20" silver coins for such large sums?

Why bother putting a price on the coin at all? It's not like a $20 coin is even a thing out of this context and they always cost over $50.

[Assistant]
Non-circulating legal tender (NCLT) coins are never intended to circulate as cash money but they include a denomination as a fail-safe of sorts so that should the world economy collapse and silver becomes worth less than $5.00 per ounce (for example) then at least this item's value is backed by a treasury for $20.00.

Circulating coins used to be made of actual silver and gold but these were phased out because the value of the silver and gold outpaced their face value and it was easier to make more durable coins out of copper-nickel and steel cores. Canadian "junk silver" coins up to 1966/67/68 (depending on the denomination) are all currently worth 7 to 11 times their face value.

In reality, most of the NCLT $20 silver coins don't even include an ounce of silver and so they are essentially jewellery disks. If you like the art/design then buy it but don't expect to hand it off to your great grandkids to make a fortune. They won't. It is a crappy investment in almost all cases.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Is it true that Obi-Wan's "high ground" speech was more of a psychological mind-game rather than a tactical strategy?

In my opinion, Anakin did realize that he had other options other than foolishly jumping over Kenobi's head, and that he would have won the Mustafar duel if he had used them. However, by saying "I have the high ground" and "Don't try it", Obi-Wan was basically implying that Anakin wasn't powerful enough to make the jump.

Anakin, taking this as an insult to his ego, decided to ignore whatever strategy he had beforehand and make the foolish jump, for the sole immature purpose of proving Obi-Wan wrong. Had Obi-Wan just taken the high ground without saying anything, Anakin would still have his common sense relatively intact and would have done something else (such as jumping away from Obi-Wan and then running towards him instead of trying to jump over him).

TL;DR: The high ground wasn't effective as a tactical strategy, but IT WAS effective in playing to Anakin's ego. Anakin could have worked around Obi-Wan's high ground from a tactical/strategical standpoint, but because of his ego, he didn't "want" to. Anakin made the jump for the same reason someone would take a dare.

[Assistant]
Obi Wan didn't *want* Anakin to attempt the jump, he genuinely was trying to dissuade Anakin from continuing the duel. If anything, it was probably more of a bluff than anything - hoping despite all evidence to the contrary that Anakin would consider backing down.

But when Anakin jumped, obi didn't ignore the opening.


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

[User]
An average tennis ball floats in the centre of a hollow sphere made of extremely dense material, floating in space. Is the tennis ball "squeezed" by the sphere's "gravity well" toward the centre, or pulled outward by the gravity of the walls all around?

In other words, if you have a hollow sphere made of, say, neutron star material, does the entire sphere make a *single* impression in spacetime - ie, gravity is highest at the centre of the sphere?

Or, does spacetime mirror where the mass is, meaning gravity is highest the closer you are to the walls, and lowest in the middle of the sphere?

[Assistant] The tennis ball floats as if it was in space without any other mass around. The gravitational attraction from each side of the shell exactly cancels the attraction from the other side - this is called Newton's shell theorem.


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

[User]
CMV: Claiming Blizzard is deleting dislikes on their youtube video is an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory.

So, Blizzcon happened. I, among many others, are entirely unhappy with the Diablo Mobile announcement.

It's a well-known fact that YouTubers have the ability to remove comments they don't like from their videos, or disable the like/dislike feature entirely

**But I am seeing people claiming that Blizzard is somehow deleting dislikes on their announcement trailers**

Not comments, but the dislikes on the video. Not disabling the feature, but manipulating the amount of likes/dislike

Personally, I am finding it far more likely that this is youtube's algorithm removing bot dislikes for the following reasons

* It makes little sense to delete 100K dislikes, thus bringing the like/dislike ratio from 2% to 3% while still being a very noticeable drop in dislike count.
* It is a much easier sell for me to believe that youtube has an anti-bot/brigading algorithm in place than Blizzard somehow having access to the ability to delete dislikes without ***any*** word having been leaked about this feature from ***any*** source. As the saying goes: "Three people can keep a secret if two of them are dead."
   * This algorithm wouldn't even have to be that complex. "Has this viewer watched 10% of the video? If no, mark as brigading for deletion."
* If Blizzard is paying Google for the removal of dislikes, would they really be satisfied with the current result?

So unless you change my mind, I will continue to use Occam's razor and disregard any comment saying that Blizzard is somehow deleting dislikes.

Edit: So.. it's been nearly three hours. If no one comments, how to satisfy Rule E?

[Assistant]
If YouTube had an anti-bot algorithm, wouldn't it make more sense for it to keep some dislikes from being counted in the first place rather than deleting them later? Also, is it known that YouTube uses or has been planning to use such an algorithm? If not, how would it be easier to keep secret than a few people's ability to manipulate dislike counts?

As for the results not being very satisfactory for Blizzard, it could be that they just deleted as many dislikes as they thought they could get away with, or that they had agreed on a certain amount or ratio of dislikes being removed before they knew how badly the announcement would be received, or that the decision was made by the same foresightless people who planned the Diablo Immortal announcement.


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

[User]
[My Hero Academia] I'm a minor villain who wants to turn my life around and become a hero, what are my options?

Recently, I was in a fight with this UA student who mentioned that  Hero work would pay better and more more reliably than just snatching purses. I've never killed anyone, just minor theft because that's how I was raised- my parents were also minor villains and they taught me how to survive in the back alleys. I'm tired of living like this and want to change for the better as well. Also, I'm in my twenties and so can't really go into a high school like UA. What can I do?

[Assistant] Honestly, if you have a criminal record, getting certified to professionally use your powers in emergency situations might not be feasible. You might want to consider going to school for some other type of heroism, like being a doctor or tax accountant.


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

[User] [Marvel] If Galactus possessed the Infinity Gauntlet with all the stones, could he create a source of sustenance that would allow him to stop eating worlds?

[Assistant]
In theory, yes. But on the galactic timeline, that would likely doom the entire universe and he's not a malicious actor, he's a force of nature clearing through for the rebirth of the universe.

Now as to how necessary that rebirth is, or if the universe could be augmented to last without a cycle using the infinity gauntlet, that's a whole other kettle of fish.


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

[User]
ELI5: How does grocery shopping work in New York City?

Here is what I mean:

1) Are there really large grocery stores in such a dense city?  Square footage costs in NYC would seem to make a large grocery store not possible.

2) If there are large grocery stores, where are they usually located?  Is there one whole floor of a large building, for example? (e.g. the Safeway take up all of the fifth floor of the building at 2323 4th St.

3) How do people living in NYC transport their groceries home?  My understanding is that most people living in NYC, or at least Manhattan, do not own cars.  How would one person purchase groceries for a family of five without a car?  I know they could just go to the grocery store more often and hand-carry what they purchase, but it seems like this would get very old (e.g. going to the grocery store every other day for eternity).

Thanks!

[Assistant]
There are "large" grocery stores in the city, but not as large. None the size of malls. Maybe the size of a "large store". Or a basement, in the case of a Whole Foods.

You either buy groceries more frequently so that you carry less each time... Or get one of those infamous granny carts so you can haul your load onto the street or subway.

Or, typical of New Yorkers, don't go food shopping at all. New Yorkers love eating out since there are so many options here.


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

[User]
I believe that prisons should be work camps where you must work if you want to eat. CMV.

I believe that convicted criminals should be locked in a place where they are not allowed to leave, but also if they expect to be given food, they should be expected to work.

They would be paid minimum wage, and the cost of food, heat, housing, prison guards would be subtracted from their earnings. Whatever money was left over after these subtractions would go into an account so they could get back on their feet after they are released.

If they are in for life, then they have no reason to work any longer than they need to in order to pay for their living expenses.

If a prisoner refuses to work, then he/she should be kept in a separate part of the prison and not given food until he/she either cooperates or dies from starvation.

It is absolutely ridiculous that I have to pay for prisoners to sit around on their asses and do nothing all day.

[Assistant]
The problem is that this system has been used in the past as a workaround for the emancipation of slavery.

Slavery abolished? No problem! Make a bunch of pointless laws, and either target them at black people or enforce them in a racialized manner, and suddenly you still basically have slavery.

The Prison-Industrial complex is already strong enough without letting them get slavery back, too.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why are embarrassing moments SO hard to forget compared to other negative emotions?

I can remember times when I felt afraid, angry, upset, any other negative emotion. And when I remember those, I usually just dont care and move on.

But when I think of embarrassing moments, it sticks to my head like crazy. I cringe and blush about it for a VERY long time, even if its been YEARS since it happened. Am I the only one who feels this way, and why?

[Assistant]
Positive pathways and negative pathways are different in your head.   Your brain prioritises negative pathways when it comes to laying down memories.  That is why your single moment of embarrassment at your fifth birthday party overwhelms the memory of your four hours of fun.

The reason your brain prioritises negative experiences is because your brain is trying to keep you alive.   We are very much still wired up to be in a prehistoric setting, and we dont suit our modern situation very well.  Your brain is constantly scanning for danger and burning those memories deep into your mind.

Humans are social creatures.  We literally *need* other humans to survive.  Embarrassment is a survival mechanism.   Its a way of keeping ourselves in check, stopping us from straying from the group.   Our monkey brain tells us: without the group, we die.  Dont upset the group.   Be embarrassed when you do something weird, so that you dont get so weird that you are ousted from the group.  Thats what embarrassment is for.

You remember embarrassment keenly because your brain is training you to stay within your social group and therefore survive.


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

[User]
ELI5:Why does music sound random when you listen to it at a very low volume?

When you listen to music at a very low volume, you can clearly hear the lyrics, but the melody sounds really weird, as if the notes were random, even though you know the right melody in your head.

PS: I flaired as biology because it may have to do with the brain, but maybe it has to do with physics and the airwaves, sorry for not knowing.

[Assistant] At low volumes, many of the frequencies don't reach your ear at an audible level. The speaker may not reproduce everything perfectly, or some frequencies do not carry enough energy to make it all the way to your ear. So, the music sounds weird because it's incomplete.


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

[User]
[Avatar - Legend of Aang, Legend of Korra] Is the Avatar able to master all sub-bending?

We know that Avatar is capable of mastering magma, metal and redirecting lightning, but can he use any sub-bending he wants? My biggest question is about Combustion, Blood and that strange astral thing that Jinora has.

[Assistant]
Yes, the Avatar can learn all forms of sub-bending as those are just different expressions of the same power.

I think that Jinora's astral projection has more to do with her connection to the spirit world than her bending; like how Iroh was able to see spirits in the astral plane.


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

[User] ELI5- Why is milk measured in gallons, but soda measured in liters?

[Assistant] The two and three liter bottles of soda just happened to be introduced at a time when the US was taking some steps into metricating. While metrication never really took hold, the bottles stayed because people were used to them.


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

[User]
Why do streams seem to originate from mountain tops?

At least here in Japan, most streams emerge from the ground quite near the tops of mountains.  Even relatively small mountain tops (area-wise) will have a continuous stream emerging some 30 meters down from the peak.  This, of course, joins with other streams emerging farther down or from other mountain tops and that is the source of almost all of the rivers I have seen here.  So, my question is, is all that water emerging near the peaks from rain which actually fell on those peaks?  (And is then just percolating down, following gravity, and happening to find a crack for an outlet?).  Or, is there some other mechanism in which the water is actually forced up toward the tops of the mountains, *against* gravity, before it finds an outlet?
I spent more than an hour searching google for this but wasn't satisfied by the answers I found.  TIA.

[Assistant]
Higher elevations are generally colder than lower elevations.  On the windward side of the mountain, wind (caused by air pressure differentials) pushes air up the side of the mountain until it reaches the point at which the air can no longer hold the moisture.  Cold air can hold less moisture than warm air.  So, when the air cools, it has to release some of the moisture.  The more it cools the more moisture has to be released.

Stream form from water following the path of least resistance (mainly).