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

[User] ELI5: Why are complex passwords needed if you are locked out after three tries?

[Assistant]
Here's something else to consider:

You're only locked out if you're trying your password on the live application, but there's no concept of being "locked out" if someone manages to dump a copy of the database where your password resides.

If an attacker manages to do that, they can try as many times as they want, as fast as they want, to crack your password, and it's under this circumstance that a cryptographically complex password will help save you.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why does corporate technology seem to cost way more than the consumer equivalent?

I work in financial services for a large firm.  We work with a lot of data and it's only growing.  I requested to have a 1 TB hard drive added to our secure server.

I was quoted a price tag of $23,000 from technology services to do so.

You can buy a 1 TB hdd from newegg for less than $100.  I get that there's other costs involved such as mounting it, securing it, formatting it, etc.  But is that kind of price discrepancy normal in corporate land?

This is one extreme example (perhaps), but there are other examples I've come across over the years.  Does anyone else experience this frustration?

[Assistant]
If you kept your data on a single $75 SATA drive, don't be surprised if it just disappears one day due to a crash.

Enterprise level storage arrays are much more expensive.  That $23,000 is likely for solid state storage (aka flash) and not SATA.  It's in an array that is fault tolerant and probably has software to create things like snapshots, clones, and backups, and it generally needs to fit the needs of the rest of your company's data.  Having a special solution just for you that doesn't fit other applications' requirements is a nightmare to maintain if everyone does that.

If you look up storage arrays that are just disk and don't have all those bells and whistles (in the IT world, we call that JBOD - jaybod, or Just a Bunch Of Disk), and you will be paying much much less per TB. You could probably get well over 200 TB for that $23,000 price tag.  It will have fault tolerance, but probably no way to do snaps, clones, or replication.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] Are there such things as wizarding universities?

As in, if students would like to further their education, is there like a degree scheme for wizards or do they just have to get jobs/learn a trade etc?

[Assistant] It appears that on-the-job training and self-study are the rule for Hogwarts graduates seeking to advance.  The top students that we know of from Potter's circle of friends didn't ever speak of university training, they talked about going directly into their field of interest.


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

[User] ELI5: does the saying of "communism works in theory but not in practice" have any truth to it? Why or why not?

[Assistant]
The fundamental flaw in communism is that it requires everyone share the same interests and the same opinion on how to serve those interests.  This makes it a very tempting policy position since we like to believe that our own interests and opinions should be universally adopted.

In reality, this situation doesn't occur.  Even when people do share interests, they differ about how best to pursue those interests.  As a result, any attempt to create a 'communist' society inevitably leads to one where a powerful individual or group needs to impose its interests and opinions on the remainder.


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

[User]
[Gremlins] What happens if you drop a Mogwai into the middle of the ocean? All the water turns into furballs or does it stop at some point?

Could you use a mogwai as an environmental WMD to destroy all of an area's water and infest them with gremlins?

[Assistant]
This is the mogwai's intended purpose... Created by an evil wizard, they were meant to destroy the Earth by consuming the oceans and leaving behind nothing but a smouldering, putrid sludge... Miraculously the wizard was slain, and his unholy homonculus was passed down as an exotic pet for a hundred generations.

The reason Gizmo seems so prudent and friendly compared to his progeny is that he is nearly 2000 years old(!) and has come to enjoy the company of his human companions. The reptilian gremlins are actually just reverting to their original form. The cute and fuzzy look of Gizmo was acquired over time through his change in demeanor and the influence of will over magical forces. His offspring tend to want to revert to their basic, malevolent nature.


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

[User] Why are Plato's dialogues of Socrates much more famous than Xenophon's?

[Assistant]
Basically because they are a lot richer philosophically and as literary works. As well, Plato himself was more influential on the whole philosophical tradition that followed him, and so his importance just sort of snowballed in a way that Xenophons works couldnt keep up with.

But really, the richness of the works is what matters here. Nobody could read Platos *Phaedrus*, for example, and think Xenophon holds a candle to that.


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

[User]
[Ben 10] Ultimate / Evolved humans

Hi. In order to answer, I don't think you need to actually know about the show, I'll try to tell you enough.
So the show is about a device called the Omnitrix. What it does, is altering the user's DNA to transform them into different alien species. There is a copy of this thing, called the Ultimatrix. It's almost like the original expect it had something called the evolutionary function, which is what you need to know about. From Wikipedia:

The Ultimatrix had the ability to evolve aliens into their Ultimate Form, granting them new powers and new abilities that are more powerful. This was activated by pressing the Ultimatrix symbol as an alien, causing four gray spikes to grow.
The evolution feature worked by placing the selected species in a simulation, right down to the DNA, for an extended period of time, about a million years or so, in what is described as a "worst case scenario"; the actual DNA is then simply modified to match the new DNA. This survival of the fittest routine explains why the evolutions are more combat-centered than their normal forms.

If you want to have a better understanding of this, search "ultimate forms" in the Ben 10 wiki, and you will see the differences between the regular and ultimate aliens.

Let's get to the point. I wanted to know what would an evolved human be like if he was put into these stuff? (There are actually evolved humans in the show, but it simply says that they are slightly smarter than regular humans. Not satisfying. Also, sorry, my first time here.)

[Assistant] Iirc, it worked by simulating a long period of war to force the species to evolve traits that make them better fighters or more durable. For humans that might result in them being a bit more durable, perhaps even a little more resistant to radiation, but that would be about it.


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

[User]
[MCU] Red Skull and Dr. Zola successfully extracted energy from the Tesseract and weaponized it. Did they have the technology to transfer it into a human? Why did they never think of doing so, thus turning Red Skull into another "Captain Marvel" and dooming the Allies?

Red Skull had everything he needed to turn himself into the ultimate "Ubermensch" right in front of him. If he had successfully used the Tesseract on himself, he could wiped out America and its allies by himself, without any planes or bombs. Steve Rogers would have been toast.

[Assistant]
They had barely reached the point where they could harness the energy before Captain America began interfering with their operation.  If they had had more time, their research may have eventually moved in that direction.

As it was, however, the Red Skull was forced into a hasty doomsday scenario to end the war.


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

[User]
ELI5: how apes with a simillar muscle mass are so much stronger than humans.

hey there, been to the zoo a week ago, and was quite fascinated by the orangutangs, the males would hang and pull from one arm with seemingly no effort, and when a zoo employee noticed my awe, he went on and told me about how the males can tear those rhombus fences with their bare hands, and lift logs without help. well, thats amazing. and appearently, chimps are even stronger. i assume our anatomy is pretty simillar, so how is that possible?

[Assistant]
There's a few reasons but functionally most of them come down to finer muscle control. If you look, for example, at muscle bundle innervation we control much finer sets of muscles at a time. Great apes, on the other hand, fire larger bundles at once resulting in stronger but jerker motions. Mechanically speaking there are ask changes in insertion points to control leverage advantages vs mobility advantages as needed. Just watch a chimp doing things that require fine control and they look very clumsy compared to a human.

Also, keep in mind that there's learned flexibility in both systems and humans can be quite strong and some chimps have learned to be quite dextrous (I.e. The differences of the distributions are further exaggerated by the tendencies of the species). Basically though, you're seeing the result of 6 million years of evolution in support of shorter reproductive cycles & increased intelligence and took use, the musculature and nervous system changes were critical to support those advancements.


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

[User]
ELI5:The bitcoin crash going on right now.

Seeing a lot of threads pop up about the Bitcoin crash, and all I know is that it lost half it's value. I'm browsing through the subreddit and one of the post is a suicide hotline.. Can someone please explain to me why it's so bad? Thanks.

edit:Wow, the front page.. never expected it to get this popular. Still overwhelmed by the amount of replies I got. Thank you for taking the time to answer my question.

[Assistant]
The Bitcoin is only worth as much as people *think* it's worth. The Chinese shut down Bitcoin trade in their country, which makes the Bitcoin inherently less valuable (why would you use a currency that can't be traded everywhere?)

The crash happened because Bitcoin is a volatile currency. There isn't a lot of it out there, and people who have bought Bitcoin tend to follow the news very closely. When the bad news came out, lots of people started selling their Bitcoins, and the price consequently went down rapidly.

It's worth noting that the value of a Bitcoin is down to where it was last month - while this seems like a dramatic drop, it's par for the course. This is a good example of why Bitcoin is a risky investment.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Why did Jango Fett shoot the changeling with a traceable dart instead of a blaster?

Seems pretty careless to use a one-of-kind dart that's manufactured on the planet he's living on. A blaster would have been untraceable, and not considerably louder than the crack of the weapon he used to fire the dart.

[Assistant]
Who hired Jango? Count Dooku.

Who does Count Dooku work for? Palpatine

What does Palpatine want? War

It was planned for the Jedi to find the Clone Army from the beginning. How better to lead them to it than via the man the army was cloned from?


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

[User]
Does nuclear fusion occur in the accretion disc of a black hole?

I was having a discussion about this recently, and I haven't been able to find conclusively whether or not it does. The articles i've read elude to fusion not occuring, but don't seem to say concisely that this is the case for the entirety of the matter's descent into the black hole.

From Wikipedia's "accretion disc" page:

 "The large luminosity of quasars is believed to be a result of (the frictional heating of) gas being accreted by supermassive black holes. This process can convert about 10 percent to over 40 percent of the mass of an object into energy as compared to around 0.7 percent for nuclear fusion processes."

If this amount of heat and pressure is present, why isn't the matter fusing?

[Assistant] I may be wrong but from your description it seems as though there is a higher conversion of mass to energy in an accretion disk than in fusion. This would suggest that perhaps fusion is occurring, but even it if is, the energy released from the fusion reaction is much less than some other process generating much higher levels of energy from the destruction of mass. It's a bit like trying to look for a match that's next to a fire from across a room.


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

[User]
Why do we get a feeling in our gut/chest when experiencing very strong emotions?

For instance, when experiencing embarrassment, nerves... Love. Is this just an accident, a biproduct of our physiology; or is there an evolutionary reason for it?

[Assistant] The gut has more nerve endings than the brain, and a much higher concentration of neurotransmitters which help to regulate gut function. A flood of neurotransmitters such as serotonin and norepinephrine, caused by strong emotions and resulting in a temporary increase in gut neuronal activity, is likely the cause of these sensations.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why most of the people hate to drink warm water?

And why I want to (actually) throw up when I drink it. Warm tea - OK. Warm water - the most disgusting thing in the universe!

[Assistant] It might be an intrinsic human reaction developed over our course of existence due to the fact still-water is generally warm and makes you sick. Spring water is also cold comparatively to our body temperature and most of the time extremely pure and clean.


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

[User] ELI5: Why can things like optical illusions trick our brain, even when you know for a fact what the reality is? Why is what your brain thinks not equal to what you know?

[Assistant]
Our brain is HEAVILY optimized for pattern recognition and prediction.  It happens without our even being aware of it.

So when something breaks set patterns that we're used to, that pattern has already been recognized and predicted by our brains well before we get to the point of conciously pondering the issue.

A lot of our thinking happens without us "thinking" about it at the level of a conscious internal monologue. It's the same place we get gut feelings we can't explain because they happen below that monologue level.


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

[User] [Avatar: Last Air Bender] Say Fire Lord Sozin was successful in wiping out the air nomads, including Aang. No survivors whatsoever. Would the avatar cycle have ended since it can't go to an Air Bender ?

[Assistant]
Nope. As we've seen in the past few years the universe, filled with it's glorious cosmic energy, literally began to bring balance back into the world by gifting many people with the power of airbending. It's obvious that the universe thinks airbending is necessary for the sake of balance.

Source: Some old texts by a dude named Guru Pathik and recent happenings. Drink your Onion and Banana juice, kids!


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

[User]
ELI5: What is the evolutionary purpose of laughter?

Why do we laugh?

[Assistant]
Not everything has a evolutionary purpose. Evolution works by a random mutation occurring and it not being detrimental enough to prevent that animal from reproducing. Evolution does not have a goal, and does not seek "the best" for something.

As for why do we laugh? We are social creatures and laughing helps to build/reinforce social bonds by expressing happiness to the group.


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

[User]
Why are people skeptical about metaphysics?

I saw few posts titled ".... save metaphysics?" "is metaphysics no longer valuable?"
Why are people skeptical about metaphysics? What's the problem?

[Assistant]
"If all we can have access to is the physical, the natural, how can we talk about the things beyond the physical?" has been an important question in philosophy. Some argued that they can finally get rid of metaphysics (some forms of empiricism); some argued that all philosophy is metaphysics (Kant's synthetic a priori); some argued that even arguing for physicalism/materialism is itself a metaphysical position (Wittgenstein); some held that metaphysics is an inevitable aspect of all linguistic usage, and that we should just accept it and move on (Quine), etc.

I'd say in the beginning of 20th century, the rise of empiricism in the Anglophone world and the rise of phenomenology in the Continent made people skeptical of the old metaphysical ways of doing philosophy. But in the later half of the 20th century, there were some philosophers who "saved" metaphysics.


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

[User] Why does water with 30C feel rather cold while air with 30C feels warm?

[Assistant]
Because you are generating heat yourself, and your body needs to get rid of heat. If you didn't transfer any heat to the environment, you would cook yourself and die. You don't feel temperature directly, you feel the change in temperature of your own body caused by touching something.

Heat flows from hot to cold, and flows much better through water than air. Water also stores much more heat than air.

Air at 30C is colder than body temperature, but it's such a poor heat conductor that it's not good enough to keep your body cool, so you feel warm. To cool you down faster, you need to either lower the temperature, or switch to a fluid that conducts hear better, like water. Water at 30C is much more efficient at pulling heat out of your body than air at 30C.


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

[User]
Several classes are going to be cancelled, and many people delayed in graduation because of me.

I work at a community college, where I am an academic advisor and I barely know what the fuck I'm doing. I started back in May. Several of our programs drastically changed over the summer, and I know very little about what to do when people come in to see me about these programs.

I have several department chairs breathing down my back, e-mailing and calling me constantly to put people into classes, as some major-specific classes that are required to graduate don't have enough people in them and will be cancelled. Classes start Wednesday. We have no infrastructure in place to see who's in what class, and we don't have time to look up each student, decide if they need another class, and make the necessary changes to their class schedule right now in peak registration. When people come in, I've just been putting people into whatever class seems to fit their schedule to get them out of my office and on to the next student to make the long line disappear.

I'm just so overwhelmed, as ALMOST EVERY student must come in to register as they cannot register themselves for whatever reason at our college. It's gotten to the point where I will have to intentionally ignore calls from department chairs, deans, and such as it's something I don't have the ability to do at that moment. I've left as late as 8 PM because there's just so many students to get registered who come as a walk-in, and I'm required to come in tomorrow (Saturday) to help with weekend walk-ins (which means--you guessed it--still no time to do what I need to do). I haven't been able to answer e-mails from online students for over a week, and classes start on Wednesday. Lots of angry parents calling and e-mailing me to figure out why things are taking forever. Our Students with Disabilities director is having to put on a show for some students while I aimlessly try to figure out what happened to some now-nonexistent classes on students' degree plans and what to do about it.

I don't know what to do, as it feels like a huge liability that I'm going to adversely affect so many people's lives because I just can't multitask for what this job seems to need. I really can't ask either of my directors for help, as one is out on FMLA, and the other is your typical office manager/administrator who's never in the office because she's in meetings all day. Is there a way to make this shine with what little time I have? I cannot work on registration from home this weekend, because we must document each registration using pen and paper--fill out paperwork that documents the student wanted those classes added to their schedule, print e-mails with their request, etc. Some people I need to pull up transcript records which can only be viewed in-office through our records database (for good reason). Without this information, I cannot process their registration.

[Assistant]
You need to be flagging these issues with your line managers. You can't organise the extra resources or tech you need yourself, and when or if things go tits up you want a paper trail showing that you were seeking help throughout the process.

It doesn't matter if they don't do anything; the point is that you were raising the issue. If you sit on it in the *belief* they won't do anything, that's on you.


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

[User]
CMV: I am a white person and interested in studying Buddhism, but I do not think Western Buddhism is the same religion as the more traditional Asian forms of Buddhism. I have no faith that Buddhism will ever succeed outside of Asia.

Western Buddhism is way too sanitized, removed of almost anything to do with spirituality or the supernatural. Western Buddhists shun the idea of karma and laugh at the thought of reincarnation. Many don't even really know how exactly karma works to begin with, they just think they do. Karma tends to influence your rebirth, whether you in your next life become an animal, a person, some sort of spirit, or a god-like being. Westerners tend to just think karma is a near imminent consequence of doing something bad.

There is also so much focus on meditation and not too much attention is given to the sutras of which there are hundreds.
There is also no respect for Buddha statues, in fact, they are sometimes just placed on the ground outside in gardens as decorations which is incredibly disrespectful to the Buddha. Western Buddhists seem to only have a vague understanding of the distinctions between different sects and rarely are able to recite the various precepts by heart.

I believe "Western Buddhists" see this religion just as something trendy. I am a Westerner and don't think I can call myself a Buddhist either.

[Assistant] I think that's just the pareto principle at work. 80% of people are going to look 20% of what buddhism has to offer and 20% of people are going to look at 80%. Given that buddhism is far less prevalent in the West to begin with, the frequency of meeting that 20% that are more deeply familiar will make it seem like that it's a problem with westerners when it's simply about a numbers game. It wouldn't be too hard to look at christianity and notice that most people don't know what's in their bible and christianity has the advantage of being an overwhelming majority.


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

[User] ELI5 How can advertisers assume they know what appeals to me if they have never shown me anything I've actually clicked on?

[Assistant] Did you recently browsed Amazon for printers? thats what they gonna show you in ads. Did you google how printer prints? you will see a lot of ads for printers. Did you google specs for Samsung Galaxy S7?.. and so on..


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

[User]
How much choice do you have in where your job is as a professor?

Hello everyone! I'm a current undergraduate student studying physics and math, but planning to continue into grad school by studying atmospheric science. I'm strongly considering a career in academia as I believe I would love the balance between performing research and teaching students. One of my main concerns though is that I wouldn't get much of a choice in where I would end up geographically. For example, I'm from the midwest USA and would love to remain in the area whenever I get a career (to be somewhat close to family, etc.).

How much of a choice do you really get in where you ended up geographically? Is the job market competitive enough that you ultimately took the first opportunity that came up no matter the location? Or did you wait for an opportunity in your ideal location/region of the world/country? Or was it somewhere in the middle? I'm aware this is probably entirely different for everyone, but I'm curious what the range has been like for everyone.

 Being in the field of STEM I'd specifically love to hear from others in this field, but would greatly appreciate help from any areas of study. I'd love to hear about what your experience of getting into the career was like and if you have any suggestions! Any advice and comments would be greatly appreciated!

[Assistant] Little to none. Each application cycle you will be lucky to receive one job offer, let alone have a choice. And in the likely event that your job is not tenure-track, you can expect to move again at the end of each contract.


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

[User] Why are so many medicines incompatible with alcohol?

[Assistant]
The only thing that makes medicine different from poison is dosage. Most drugs become pretty harmful if the dose goes high enough. Getting the right dose inside your body is all about balancing how fast you absorb the drug with how fast your body can eliminate it. The liver is the primary organ responsible for processing most of these compounds (kidneys are the other main organ). This process requires a variety of enzymes in the liver, such as alcohol and aldehyde dehydrogenase, which are commonly used by the body for eliminating a lot of drugs, as well as for eliminating alcohol.

The issue with alcohol is that relative to many drugs, it takes a LOT of alcohol to have any effect. If you are feeling drunk, your alcohol and aldehyde dehydrogenase enzymes are well beyond saturated trying to keep up with metabolizing and eliminating the alcohol from your system. This will significantly reduce your body's ability to eliminate any drugs that require those enzymes to be eliminated. The drug will then begin to build up in your system, and in some cases can reach dangerous levels quite quickly. The result is typically either direct effects of the drug on the body causing dangerous side effects/overdose, or toxic effects of the drug causing damage to the liver.


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

[User] ELI5: There's such a wide variety of languages, alphabets and currencies around the world - how did we settle on a universal calendar ?

[Assistant] We didnt. But the economic and military dominance of European countries (and later US) in the 18-19-20th century got the Gregorian calendar accepted for commercial and administrative use. Many other traditional calendars are still used for day to day, and especially festive, ritual and religious purposes.


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

[User]
[Star Trek TNG] Are there any Lawyers on the Enterprise?

Picard is often able to resolve issues by finding loopholes in treaties, or citing precedents in cultural laws (eg The Devil's Due). It often appears that he comes up with them himself, despite not being a legal expert. Is he in fact just being fed information from a team of Federation Legal experts, hidden away somewhere on the Enterprise?

[Assistant]
Picard was an excellent diplomat and had a sharp legal mind, so it's entirely possible he could come up with loopholes or bring up obscure facts on the fly. It's been said that after he ended his Starfleet career, he became a Federation ambassador. He just went from one passion to another. Though, how much of that was HIS passion? He did mind meld with legendary ambassador Sarek, and that might have left something behind.

Although, when the Enterprise was ordered to head to a planet specifically to negotiate something, it's hard to imagine Starfleet not sending a team over to handle all the paperwork.


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

[User] [DCEU/Suicide Squad] If the whole point of the Suicide Squad is to send them on suicide missions instead of special forces/spies so the US government doesnt lose valuable assets, why do they have an armed military escort, many of whom suffered more casualties than the actual squad?

[Assistant]
Mostly because Amanda Waller is probably more than a little psychotic. Her idea was basically that the Suicide Squad are already self-taught or highly trained operators with a diverse array of skills and equipment, much of which is entirely unique to them. The government would love to have assets like the people that typically comprise these Suicide Squads, but the time and expense it would take to create individuals with such abilities make it a pipe dream. Think about how difficult it is to become a Marine Sniper, and now think about every bad ass, off the wall, crazy thing you've ever heard of a guy like Deadshot pull off. For the government to recreate that kind of raw drive and talent, that would take years and assloads of money, and for what? Five new Deadshots per training group?

But if you want to know why Amanda send in military back up, it's as simple as this: she didn't trust her own fail-safes beyond reasonable doubt, and even the most deadly and skilled combat units will always do better with a reasonable amount of fire support.


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

[User]
CMV: Always on daytime running lights should be mandatory equipment on all on road vehicles in the United States

Years of driving has shown me that there are a lot of people out there who have terrible judgement about when to turn on their lights.  Its seems like most of them prefer to drive small silver cars in the mist at twilight. They are basically invisible when looking at a mirrior with water droplets on it through a window with more water droplets on it.

I think all onroad vehicles should be equipped with daytime running lights that are on anytime the vehicle is turned on.

I am not generally in favor of nanny laws, but this effects other drivers just as much as effects the person who fails to use their lights appropriately.

I see absolutely no downside to requiring this other than having to pay for a couple of $10 light bulbs every couple of years.  I don't see why anyone would want to run with no lights, but I would even be open to allowing a kill switch for them that resets every time the car is started to appease people who for whatever reason think they have to run in dark mode. At least they would have to think about their lights.

The arguement that most vehicle have automatic headlights will not change my view as I have used vehicles with automatic headlights and they do not come on early enough in rainy conditions.

[Assistant]
The cost is small for any individual but you have to look at the cost of this over the whole country. With millions of cars on the road that $10 gets multiplied by millions. Instead you should look at the cost of this policy compared to the cost of accidents (in property and human life) caused because of a lack of daytime running lights.

Then you could look at substitute policies like a wipers on lights on paired with a big public awareness push. Or something a little more forceful like forcing manufacturers to include a feature that automatically turns on the lights if you turn on wipers.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do rivers flow continuously?

I understand the water cycle in that water is evaporated, condenses, and precipitates which puts water back into the ecosystem, but how does a river continuously flow millions of gallons of water when it eventually empties into an ocean? Where does all the water come from to keep it going nonstop?

[Assistant]
The water in a river comes from many different sources.  Let's try to think of a few.  There are springs, where the water bubbles out of the ground.  There is rain, where the water precipitates, or falls from the sky.  There is the melting of glaciers or snow cover.  The water also seeps out of wet ground, and the water we pump out of the ground for use in our homes and businesses probably gets treated and then put back into the ecosystem, where it flows into rivers.

The watershed, or area in which the water will flow to a particular body of water, is quite large for most rivers.  All of these sources combine over that large area, to form the river.  Rivers naturally rise and fall over time, as the amount of water flowing in changes with seasons and weather.


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

[User]
CMV: Jadas and Wills reaction was unacceptable.

Men have undergone bald jokes for decades. 99% of the time its due to make pattern baldness. A biological defect resulting in the inability to grow hair. Just like Jada. This is the most insane thing to be upset about Ive heard of in the past month.

The fact that her and will reacted this way is insane. If she was a man being made fun of for being bald nothing wouldve been said. How is it fair that its a big deal when its a women but its no problem when its a man?
To cmv:
Prove that some how her condition is worse than male pattern Baldness

Clarification: I  dont see the difference between this and a male baldness joke. And dont think that Wills reaction was warranted given the situation and that Chris apparently wasnt aware of the condition.

[Assistant]
Will resorting to violence - sure, that was unacceptable.

But Jada?  What did she do that was unacceptable?  She was offended by a joke at a very personal medical condition, told in front of an audience of millions of people (via broadcast).  People are allowed to be personally hurt or offended by jokes at their expense.

Yes, we have been making bald jokes about men for decades, but lets not pretent that society puts the same value on a mans' appearance as it does a woman's, so _maybe_ it makes sense that women get more offended at appearance-based jokes than men do.

Even if you don't agree with that, we each get to personally decide what offends us.  Even if every other person on the planet thinks the joke is funny, Jada is allowed to be personally hurt by a joke at her expense, and her being personally hurt is acceptable.


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

[User] [The Office] why does the CEO of Sabre (Jo and then Robert) spend so much time at the Scranton branch? Its a small branch of a small division of a company based in FLORIDA.

[Assistant]
Jo doesn't spend a ton of time at Scranton. She stops by a few times for about a day. Scranton was the most profitable branch of Dunder Mifflin at this time, and since they absorbed Stamford, likely had the most clients. Without an NYC headquarters, this is the biggest Dunder Mifflin office. On top of that, one of the times she's there is because of a news report/leak about faulty printers from Scranton, so it makes sense she'd go there to get it resolved. You also don't see if/when she goes to the other branches at all, so you've got some built-in bias for your question right from the get-go.

For Robert California, you need to remember that he originally applied for the Managers position in Scranton. He has a mansion in Scranton, he lived there full time until he was promoted to CEO. In Florida, he only has a small apartment (likely one of those furnished medium-term executive suites). He's at the Dunder Mifflin office as often as he is because it's the office near his real home.


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

[User]
Cloud Computing; Explain it like I'm Five!

I keep hearing this term come up, and I was wondering if someone could give me an understanding of what exactly it means.

[Assistant]
Say you're a baker and you bake cakes.  You have two ovens so you can bake two cakes at a time.  Sometimes you need to make 3 or 4 cakes at once, but can't do that because you only have 2 ovens.  So you just bake them one after the other.  This is traditional computing.

There is a man in town with 50 ovens.  Whenever the bakers need to use ovens, they just use his, for a small fee.  This way, if we need to bake 4 or 5 cakes at a time, we can, but if we don't need as many we don't have to rent as many from the man.  Translating ovens to computers, this, in essence, is cloud computing.


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

[User]
[Pacific Rim] Why were the Jaegers constantly surrounded by a swarm of helicopters during a battle with the Kaiju?

It's shown time and again in the documentaries of the Kaiju War that whenever a battle between a Jaeger and Kaiju is going on there seems to be several large helicopters just kind of flying around shining spotlights on the fight. Are they the ones filming? Just watching? Running some kind of interference? It seems like a mighty dangerous place to be flying around without a good reason...

[Assistant]
There are a variety of tasks the helicopters could assist in.  For example, during the battle against Otachi, when the Kaiju was hiding among the skyscrapers, Gipsy's pilots called upon the helicopters to help search for the monster.

Other possibilities include rapid evacuation of the Jaeger pilots in the event that the Jaeger is disabled, aerial transport of the Jaeger over terrain that the Jaeger itself can't navigate, collection of video and other data from the battle for later analysis, etc.


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

[User] ELI5: Where do the air bubbles on the bottom come from when you boil water?

[Assistant]
Its not air, its actually water vapour. When water boils, it turns from liquid water to gas water, but still just water.
Some of the bubbles may be from dissolved gases coming out of solution as the water warms (warm water cant hold as much dissolved gas as cold water), but the big bubbles of boiling water is just water vapour.


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

[User]
ELI5:What does it means to be given an "Honorary Degree" and why do institutions do this?

Does an Honorary Degree really hold any merit, or is it just for show?

[Assistant] It depends.  Sometimes it's just given to link a university with a famous person.  Other times it's given to people who have done private work in that area but they don't hold an actual degree in it.  Think of some sort of "mad" scientist working in his garage but doesn't actually have a degree but ends up discovering or inventing something worthwhile.


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

[User] ELI5: How did people with celiacs disease survive in the 18th and 19th century? I feel like there weren't that many "gluten free" options..

[Assistant] True Celiacs make-up a very very small portion of the population. Were talking like 0.5-1% of the population. They wouldn't have even registered on the radar. Plus a true Celiac living back then would have probably died of something else way more prevalent and life threatening (e.g. nutritional deficiencies, infection) before their condition killed them.


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

[User] Why is the center of the Milky Way bright if it is a black hole?

[Assistant] The black hole at the center is a giant collection of mass. Even though the hole itself keeps light from escaping, the mass has still attracted stars around it. The orb gives no light, but the stars pulled to it have light of their own and it's very dense at the center.


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

[User] [Dc Comics] Is Wonder Woman Bulletproof ?

[Assistant]
Sort of.

She's more resistant to bullets then normal people, but she's less resistant to them then a superhuman of her level should be. The times she's been seriously hurt, it's usually bullets or swords- that is, dedicated weaponry.

Having the concept of War as your arch-nemesis has downsides.


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

[User]
[40k] What has killed an Eldar Solitaire in the lore?

And how did it kill them?

[Assistant]
There have been no 'Onscreen' deaths of an Eldar Solitaire in the Warhammer lore. We have been told what happens to them when they die, which presumably means that it happens, but we've never been shown one.

We have, however, been shown them effortlessly slaughtering a squad of Marines, gouging out the eyes of a Greater Daemon of Slaanesh, and (in an old 2nd edition piece) cartwheeling off a Krak-Missile mid-flight.


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

[User] Why didn't Dr Manhattan cure his ex-girlfriends cancer? [Watchmen]

[Assistant] For the same reason he didn't stop the Comedian from shooting that woman in Vietnam. The Comedian would say it's because he's "out of touch" with humanity and it doesn't even occur to him. Dr. Manhattan, given that he can see his own past and future, might say that he didn't do it because he doesn't do it -- time is self-consistent, and his motivations aren't really relevant.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do the fretboards of a guitar get thinner the further from the head?

[Assistant] The frets are spaced logarithmically, as a consequence of how our hearing and the physics of vibrating strings work. We hear a pitch as being an octave above another pitch if its frequency is doubled. And a string will vibrate twice as fast if you make it half as long. So the twelfth fret (one octave above the open string) is exactly half way up the length of the string, and the next octave is half way between *that* and the bridge, and so on. And all the other notes are logarithmically spaced within the octaves.


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

[User]
[Dune] is there any mention of what happened to Earth during our existence (Modern times-Events of Dune)?

Like that shaped up the way the world is now.

[Assistant]
I believe that in Dune there is mention of "long dead Earth" or something to that effect. God Emperor Leto II remarks in his diary regarding Earth as: "no longer existing".

Earth was the location of the Commission of Ecumenical Translators who composed the Orange Catholic Bible in the aftermath of the Butlerian Jihad.

According to Legends of Dune The Butlerian Jihad Earth was the site of the first revolt against the machines. The Earth is burned of all life; both human and robotic, by orbital bombardment with atomics. Thus beginning the Jihad.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Why does Sabine Wrens Mandalorian armor cover such a small amount of her body?

It only covers her head, chest, a small bit of her back, and some of her legs, unlike most Mandalorian armor Ive seen, including that of other females.

[Assistant] She says at one point that she modified it to fit her fighting style better, so it's because she values agility more than many other Mandalorians. She also spends a lot of her time on desert planets so the breathability was probably a factor too.  While most Mandalorians wear more armor, not all are as fully covered as Dinn.  Bobba Fett for example has a lot of gaps too.  Sabine is actually not wearing that much less beskar, she has her shoulders totally covered while Koska Reeves and the dude with her and BoKatan leave them more open.  She's leaving different parts (arguably more vulnerable parts) exposed but agian, that's likely just to fit her fighting style.


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

[User]
If I were to stand in the middle of a completely sealed, spherical mirror with a light bulb in the middle, would the light build up to blinding levels, or just remain as bright as the bulb?

Title basically says it all, but I imagine if you have a box full of bouncy balls, and you keep throwing them in there with infinite energy, adding more and more would increase the density of the balls in the box, so would the same thing happen with light?

[Assistant]
Short answer:  for perfectly reflecting walls, it's gonna get hecka bright.

Let's start with what determines the brightness of an incandescent bulb.  You've got some electrical power P being deposited in the resistive filament.  The filament heats up to the point where that input power is matched by all the power it loses to conduction and radiation.  The radiation it puts out is that of a rather imperfect blackbody... but let's just pretend it's a perfect little blackbody whose radiation is given by its surface area and temperature, T (maybe in the neighborhood of 4500F = 2500C).

As the hot filament fills the sphere with light, the energy density of that light grows, dE/dt = P, assuming you're not conducting any energy out of the sphere.  Some of the light traversing the sphere impinges on the little filament, and is absorbed.  That means the filament has to heat up so it can radiate more power (to balance the new input of absorbed light).   Indeed, if you managed to fill up the sphere to just the right energy density (that associated with the temperature of the filament) you could turn off the electrical power and the filament (and radiation) would remain forever at the temperature T.

But, if you keep pumping in electrical power, the filament will heat up, the radiation energy density will increase... until something gives.  For a practical filament, the material will fail when it gets too hot, opening the circuit... but then of course the whole system will remain at some high temperature, forever.


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

[User]
ELI5: Do dogs understand that puppies they have are actually THEIRS or just instinctively take care of young puppies?

Why or why not in regards to if they understand?

[Assistant]
* No, they don't understand that it is theirs. Not on a conscious level anyway. They are not thinking about their puppies.

* They may be able to distinguish their puppies from others based on prior familiarity or attributes like scent...but it is possible to trick them (and other species mothers) in this regard. This is about instinct, their nose smelling a chemical identifier that sends a signal to the brain that stimulates the dog to lick or pay attention to that puppy. No thoughts needed. Just stimuli and response. They may smell another puppy that is not their own and since there is no stimuli there is no response.

* You can trick human females too by accidentally mixing up the babies at the hospital. As long as the features are more or less plausible, a mother might never know its not her biological child.


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

[User]
[Dune] Arythmic spice harvesters

So, harvester attract sand worms due to the rythmic sound created by the process of harvesting and purification of spice. Can this problem be solved by creating arythmic cycle of spice harvesting so the sound could blend with the environment?

[Assistant] It wouldn't work, the vibrations would be too heavy, it would cancel out the need for them to track rhythm, and it isn't surefire anyway, Paul and Lady Jessica still nearly got caught by a worm even when trying to walk Arrhythmically.


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

[User] eli5: Why does a TV show have several producers, executive producers, and co-producers? What do all of these people do?

[Assistant]
One of them is always the show runner, and that is the singular creative visionary responsible for the entire show.

After that, tv producers diverge into several niches

Network/production company investment/money people in charge of keeping the show going (and profitable) for as long as possible.

On-set logistical people in charge of practical details like staffing, and ensuring that the production of the show goes smoothly.

And lastly, cast members and writers who have taken on producer roles in order to maintain some control over what happens to their show/character.

TV productions usually have more producer positions than films because of the way the production schedule works throughout a tv season. When youre filming an episode a week, every week, for months on end, thats a huge amount of never ending work, so having a ton of producers all working together can better divvy up the workload week to week.


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

[User]
Is it possible to figure out 2 unknowns from only their ratio and the sum of their squares??

Hi, apologies if this is a stupid question - I haven't done maths proper since I left school a few years ago.

Is it possible to figure out two unknowns (x and y) if I know their ratio to each other and the sum of their squares?

What I have is as follows:

16:9 = x:y

1806336 = (x\^2 + y\^2)

I'm trying to figure out things related to my laptop's screen resolution. It is 14" diagonally and the resolution is stated as 1600x900, for which the pixels per inch should be around 131. But the command "wmic desktopmonitor get PixelsPerYLogicalInch" returns a value of 96.

Needless to say I am confused and appreciate anyones help.  Thank you.

[Assistant]
Sure. Divide both sides by the square of one of the variables.

1806336/y^(2) = (x^(2) + y^(2))/y^(2) = (x/y)^(2)+1

Since we know the ratio x/y we find

1806336/y^(2) = (16/9)^(2)+1=337/81

We then find y^(2)=1806336(81/337)

From this you solve for x^(2)=1806336(1 - 81/337)


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

[User]
ELI5: How do they make high definition versions of old tv shows and movies?

Is it all photoshopped or is there a way to extract more information from the recordings?

Thanks to everyone for the explanations...   I completely had the wrong end of the stick!

[Assistant] They used cameras that have film reels, which has a very large resolution. They take the strips of film, they put it into a scanning machine that scans the movie or tv show frame by frame at an hd resolution. This allows the film to be in a digital format, and can go through programs that can correct any imperfections in the film. This is how they make old movies into Blurays.


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

[User]
[BTTF Part 3] When Doc says your future hasnt been written yet, what does this mean?

Your future hasnt been written yet. No ones has. Your future is whatever you make it. So make it a good one

Like if I try to go to the future now will it just not exist? Is there no longer a future in the space time continuum because Doc made time linear? Is it physically impossible to now travel to the future because it does not exist? Or is this just more of a moral lesson now that Doc has realised theres no need to travel to the future to change it.

[Assistant]
Doc meant it as a moral lesson, mostly.

Marty learned that he can follow his own path by not getting involved in the race with Needles and wrecking his car, but he also changed the future because giving into his anger set off a chain of events that led to him getting fired in the 2015 timeline, so Doc's just reinforcing the idea to get Marty to keep making positive decisions going forwards.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do our faces pucker when we eat something sour?

[Assistant] It reduces surface area of sour substance on the receptors on your tongue, as well as concentrates saliva around the sour substance, diluting it.  Both of these responses "protect" your tongue from sour substances.


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

[User]
CMV: Preventing mass shootings in the US will be nearly impossible due to the massive numbers of privately held guns.

Given the recent tragedies in El Paso and Dayton, many people offer suggestions on how to prevent future mass shootings. As an American, I agree that there should be more attention and public awareness regarding mental health, gun safety, and best protocols in an active shooter situations.  I even agree with some gun control, specifically banning the use of military grade weapons modified for civilian use (e.g., semiautomatic weapons).

However, the U.S. has the highest rate of gun ownership on the planet.  Its too easy for any wacko to go to an arms show and buy an AK-47 and then shoot up a random event.  And even if we banned the sale of these types of weapons, thered be plenty semi-automatic weapons floating around on the black market (I can see an argument that the cost of a semiautomatic weapon would be prohibitive on the black market, but that wouldnt solve the problem completely).

Many gun control opponents point to the case of Switzerland, which doesnt suffer the same amount of mass shootings even though almost every household there owns at least one gun. I would counter that by mentioning the general mindset of Swiss society, which engrains the use of weapons for military purposes and hunting.  It seems like many people here in the US think shooting a real gun is like playing Call of Duty.

Edit: After reading through this thread, my argument is now as follows: we should start by banning semiautomatic weapons as in Australia after the Port Arthur massacre.  This won't stop the problem overnight, but it would make purchases of such weapons more expensive and thus mass shootings would be less common.

TL/DR:  I think the USA will never solve the gun problem with so many weapons floating around in private hands.  Even if we banned the sale outright, youd just have a thriving black market.

[Assistant]
The number of mass shootings in a country correlates with number of guns owned.

While its true it would take decades to bring gun ownership down to UK levels, for instance, that doesnt mean making guns more difficult to buy would not prevent deaths.

Look at cigarettes. No one has banned their sale, and high taxation has led, in some states, to a thriving black market. But states with higher taxes on cigarettes have lower rates of smoking, because the cigarettes are harder for people to access.


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

[User]
ELI5: How can ISP's get away with saying your download & upload speeds are extremely high during speedtests, but never actually meet these speeds?

I'm just curious how this practice of promising 40mb+ download speeds, only to have the actual figure closer to 4mb is an acceptable practice.

Edit: Thanks for the replies, I see the issue is Mb is different from MB. I still find getting 40Mb with fiber optic to be disgusting but do realise I am getting what I paid for.

[Assistant]
>promising 40mb+ download speeds, only to have the actual figure closer to 4mb

You need to pay **very** close attention to the capitalization of the units being used there.  "M**b**ps" and "M**B**ps" are totally different things.

When you see a lower-case 'b', that means "bits" (a value that can be either 1 or 0).  When you see an upper-case 'B', that means "Bytes", which is (almost always) a value composed of 8 bits.

So a 40 Mbps connection is exactly the same as a 5 MBps connection.


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

[User] [WH40K / The Man From Earth] Does John Oldman become the God Emperor of Mankind?

[Assistant]
John Oldman strikes me as more of a run of the mill Perpetual. He's far too focused on keeping a low profile, and seems to possess no other abilities outside longevity. It's possible he's Ollanius Pius.

The Emperor...his idea of subtle was cloaking himself with a psychic veil so that historians wouldn't notice him popping up again and again as this guy who made a hobby out of handcrafting empires and social movements.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] If a wizard or group of wizards were to decide that the Statute Of Secrecy is unneeded, how might they go about revealing the Wizarding World?

All right, I'm a wizard who thinks this whole "living in secret from Muggles" thing is more trouble than it's worth, for a bunch of reasons. Muggles and wizards have both accomplished things that would change the world if they shared them with each other (the internet and space travel for Muggles, instantaneous non-polluting transportation and highly advanced medicine for wizards).

Since the two groups could clearly learn so much from each other-- imagine the Ford production line mass-producing Mr. Weasley's flying car, or a magical cure for diseases like Ebola or COVID-19--  I feel it is not only practical but necessary to end the Statute of Secrecy and reveal the existence of the Wizarding World. The question is, how do I do that?

What would it take to convince billions of Muggles that magic is real?

[Assistant]
If this was an official action by the Wizarding World, the Ministry of Magic and the Magical Congress are both in contact with the muggle governments, and would probably coordinate with them.

There would probably be coordinated press conferences, with the President of the MCUSA, the Minister of Magic, the President of the United States, and the Prime Minister. And that press conference would be *buck wild*.


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

[User] [MCU] Is killing all but one of the dwarves in Nidavellir really keeping things balanced?

[Assistant] He didnt kill them all but one for balance, he killed all of them to prevent anyone else from acquiring a god-level weapon. He left giant Tyrion alive with his hands encased in metal to taunt and torment him. Thanos is a bit of a butthole like that.


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

[User]
ELI5: How exactly does Google's self-driving car know to stop for red lights, stop signs, other cars etc?

I have so many questions as to the technology behind this car. What if it runs out of petrol/battery? How does it know where to go?

[Assistant] Well, it knows to stop for lights and other cars because it has a sophisticated system of sensors that look for those things and then a software system that tells it to stop when it see them. The cars don't have the ability to refuel or plug themselves in. They do know, however, if their current path will take them beyond range of their gas tank and will alert the passenger.


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

[User]
I believe people should not be allowed to bring babies in a movie theater except if it's a special "everybody can bring their babies" showing/theater. CMV

People pay a lot of money ($30+ for two tickets and a pop to share for me and the wife) to have a bit of an escape from day-to-day life for a few hours. The experience is is enjoyable when someone so much as texts or talks during the movie...it is a downright miserable experience if someone brings their baby and it either starts making cooing noises or starts crying and the parent either does nothing or tries to get the baby to stop crying while still in the theater instead of taking it outside or thinking "hey I'm probably ruining everybody's experience, I'll just cut my losses and go home".

I think theater chains should refuse patrons with babies unless it's a rated G movie. Empire Theatres in Canada has a "Reel Babies" showing for certain movies so parents can take their babies and not worry about disturbing others.

I don't care if you really, really want to see the new Hobbit movie or whatever. I don't care if you can't find a baby sitter...those are the sacrifices you have to make when you have kids. Your wanting to see a movie does not entitle you to ruin everyone else's experience that they paid money for. Wait till the DVD/Blu-Ray comes out or see movies at special "everyone can bring their babies" showings.

[Assistant]
>if someone brings their baby and it either starts making cooing noises or starts crying *and the parent either does nothing or tries to get the baby to stop crying while still in the theater instead of taking it outside*

So this is the real problem. The part about babies is a red herring - if *anyone* is being disruptive, they should leave the theater. You don't need any sort of ban beyond that. Annoying people who talk through movies don't need a special ban. Slightly older kids that still throw tantrums don't need a ban. *Everyone* just needs to STFU in the theater, and leave (with parents if necessary) if they make noise.

As a parent, we usually get a babysitter but we brought our baby to the theater on a couple instances when we were pretty sure he would sleep through it. We sat by the aisle near the exit. If he woke up and started making even the smallest noise, one of us was instantly out of there with him. The two of us saw different halves of Hunger Games because we were trading off with the baby in the hall.

TL;DR: responsible parents don't need a ban in order to not bother other people, and inconsiderate assholes will always be inconsiderate regardless of what you ban.


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

[User] What area of economics is most lucrative for a prospective PhD student?

[Assistant] Probably econometrics and go into a tech firm as a data scientist with specialty in causal inference. There's also lucrative jobs as a quant but you are probably better off with a PhD in math/physics/CS for those. Could also do Industrial Organization and go into consulting if that's more to your taste.


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

[User] Why did physicians historically administer vaccines into patients buttocks as opposed to the Arms/thighs?

[Assistant]
Are you sure you mean vaccines and not antibiotics? Many vaccines are delivered to the arm/thigh, including mmr and smallpox.

More fat/muscle to hold the shot. Penicillin is administered to the buttocks, and it's a large injection. Add in the fact that it's often fresh from the cooler so it feels like peanut butter.  All together this means that you can't give someone a full dose in the arm, especially if they're skinny or a child/baby.


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

[User]
[Avengers, 2012] Was Thor really going to squish Captain America just for telling him to put the hammer down?

I mean, he knows enough about humans to have no reason to expect Cap to survive when he swung at him.

[Assistant] Where Thor is from leadership requires personal strength.  Odin is the strongest and he's the leader, Thor is the next strongest and he's next in line.  Laufey and Surtur as also personally very powerful.  Watch his fight with Tony, Thor slowly ramps up his attacks testing the Earthican's limits.  He starts at level one, simple hammer throw, goes up to level 2 Lightning bolt, Level 3 getting up close and personal. Tony is able to handle all of that.  Then Cap shows up and gives Tony orders and tells him to stop and Tony listens.  In Thor's mind Cap is more powerful then Tony so he can go to level 4 jumping hammer strike.


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

[User] When radio waves pass through objects, are they refracted like light through a glass of water?

[Assistant] Yes. Any electromagnetic wave of any frequency will refract passing through any medium. The refractive index (how much the wave is slowed down compared to vacuum, basically) of any material is going to depend on frequency, but it will be slowed down some amount at all frequencies. Passing between media with different refractive indices will cause the path of the wave to "bend", just like you see with light in water. It can also change gradually, causing a "curve," which can happen in air since the RI is affected by temperature and pressure.


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

[User] ELI5: How does allergy medicine work? Does it suppress the immune system in some way or does it use another mechanism?

[Assistant]
Antihistamines (Benadryl/diphenhydramine, Zyrtec/cetirizine) block the effect of a pretty specific part of the immune system, the histamine released by mast cells and basophils in response to allergens. Mast cell stabilizers like cromolyn prevent release of histamine to begin with. These are sort of technically suppressing a little bit of immune function, but it's a part of the immune system that mostly defends against parasitic worms, not bacteria or viruses. Leukotriene receptor blockers like montelukast stop some of the signals that make airways clamp down in asthma.

Corticosteroids definitely suppress immune function in a broad way, though how much they suppress depends on where they go. Nasal steroids like fluticasone are targeted narrowly and have few side effects, while a steroid like prednisone taken by mouth goes everywhere and can do pretty much anything.


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

[User] ELI5: What causes dandruff and what can cure it?

[Assistant]
If Im not mistaken dandruff is a fungal infection on your scalp that feeds on the oils your hair/scalp produces.

Head and shoulders has a medication that strips the oil out of your scalp effectively taking away their food supply.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why does reading a book often make people sleepy?

Whenever I read a book, I start feeling sleepy after a while no matter how interested I am in the topic. I have also heard others to have similar experience. Why does this happen?

[Assistant]
Youre lying still in one place, not moving anything except your eyes and an occasional hand. Your heartbeat slows to resting. Its quiet, nothing loud or disruptive going on around you, maybe for the first time all day. The only thing your brain is doing is following the story, not worrying about work or money or family or commercials or traffic or anything except whats going on on the page.

If youre already tired, which a lot of us are constantly, an hour or two of that could be enough to put you to sleep.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Why didn't Luke return to Yoda right after the Cloud City incident?

Couldn't Luke return to finish his training right away or at least bring Yoda back from Dagobah so Luke can train while helping the Rebellion?

[Assistant]
Well, *right away* he was probably more concerned with getting a replacement hand. And he could have gone back to Dagobah, but that would be a bit of a departure from his character. He left Dagobah in the first place because his friends were in danger. Until he felt reasonably confident that his friends were no longer in danger why would he have left them alone?

He couldn't have taken Yoda anywhere though. Despite his carry-on size, Yoda is pretty good at not doing things he doesn't want to do, and there's no way Luke could have overpowered him to take him off of the planet. He chose Dagobah to hide his strong force presence from Vader and the Emperor, so even if Luke were able to convince him to leave, the Sith would have found them almost immediately.


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

[User] ELI5: The Unexpected Hanging Paradox.

[Assistant]
In the Unexpected Hanging Paradox a judge sentences a man to die by hanging at dawn one of the days in the following weekMonday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, or Fridaybut specifies that the condemned will not know what day he will be hanged.

The prisoner looks at this information and determines that he cannot be hanged on Friday:  as soon as Thursday Dawn comes and goes he knows that Friday will be the day.  Thus, he eliminates that as a possibility.

However, since Friday is out he knows that Thursday cannot be the day either:  if Wednesday passes without the hanging then it can only be Thursday or Friday, but he already knows that it cannot be Friday so he would be expecting it on Thursday.

By similar logic he rules out Wednesday, then Tuesday, then Monday.  Having ruled out all possible days he declares that he cannot be hanged, so it is a complete surprise to him when the hangman shows up on Tuesday to take him to his execution.

The paradox is compelling because every logical step that the prisoner takes is sound.  This form of reasoning is completely valid in logic and none of the steps contains an error.  Furthermore, it appears that the Judge's requirements have both been met and were reasonable:  the prisoner was hanged at one of the possible times and was not expecting it.

Clearly something is wrong, though.  Starting from a premise of an imminent hanging the prisoner deduced that such a hanging would not occur, which is a contradiction.  With such a contradiction you could go on to prove whatever you want; this is the "principle of explosion."  For example:  "It is true that he will be executed" (the premise); "It is therefore true that *either* he will be executed or Santa Claus is real" (true OR anything is true); "It is false that he will be executed" (what he deduced); "Therefore, Santa Claus is real" (that's the only way to make the previous OR statement true).

The flaw in the setup comes from the Judge's claims.  The first part is simple enough:  he will be executed by hanging at dawn on M/Tu/W/Th/F.  It's the second part that turns out to be impossible to state formally without being recursive (which isn't allowed in formal logic, lest you get things like "the set of all sets that do not contain themselves" for which you get a paradox when asking if that set contains itself).   If you disallow recursion then the claim becomes "The prisoner will not be able to deduce the day of execution using just the fact that he will be executed at dawn on M/Tu/W/Th/F."  This claim is obvious and boring.

It's also worth pointing out that the judge's claim needn't even come true in the first place.  By the prisoner's logic he must be expecting the hanging 100% on Friday if he survives Thursday, must be expecting it 100% on Thursday if he survives Wednesday, and so on.  By that approach he expects the hanging each day and the judge is wrong.


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

[User]
[Avatar: The Last Airbender] Could Tophs blindness be cured with water healing?

Katara is one of the best water healers in the series iirc. If she wanted to, could she heal Tophs blindness?

[Assistant]
Probably not. Katara had a really difficult time working with scar tissue and nerve damage after Aang got hit in the back by a lightning bolt. It seems like it only uses chi to accelerate and stimulate the body's natural healing, it doesn't knit flesh back together. You almost certainly couldn't regrow a lost limb with it.

Of course, weird spirit or avatar stuff could be an exception to this kind of thing.


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

[User]
[Star Wars ROTJ] Why not simply destroy the shield generator on the forest moon with a Y-Wing bombing run? Why the commando raid?

From what we see in the movie, the shield generator appeared vulnerable to either a high orbit bombardment, or a low altitude air assault.  Wouldn't that have been better than a surface attack?

[Assistant]
It was meant to be a surprise attack. A fleet of bombers kind of ruins the surprise. While the Death Star wasn't believed to be fully operational, it was still likely to scramble fighters or have some kind of point defence.

The plan was to strike quickly and strongly as soon as the shields were down, before the Empire even knew what was happening. A bombing run would have given a chance for... What actually ended up happening.


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

[User]
ELI5 Hangovers

I ask this one today for obvious reasons.

I have heard a lot of reasons as to what causes them, but I don't know what is real and what are just wive's tales.

[Assistant]
Your body needs water to work properly. Not just that, it needs to move the water from one part of your body to another when needed, and it uses certain parts to process the water into a form it can use.

When you drink alcohol, it causes parts of your body which process and move water around to not work as well. Even though you might drink a lot of water (which you should, and it does help) your intoxicated body is slow to process it. In the meantime, it still needs to get that water from somewhere, and - here's the best part - so it takes water out of your brain. The headache you get is because your brain is shinking a little bit as the water is sucked out of it.


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

[User] [DC] what does Batman's diet look like? Daily calories, protein, etc?

[Assistant]
In Matt Wagner's "Batman and The Monster Men" Julie Madison goes on a date with Bruce and notes to herself that he eats like an athlete, lots of protein and vegetables, orders dessert, but doesn't actually touch it.

When Alfred is shown to prepare meals for Bruce at mealtime or as snacks in the Cave, it's usually shown to be similar fare, although he does regularly give him soups and sandwiches to take on patrol as well.

Bruce has also shown to be a regular tea and coffee drinker.

Although Bruce's willpower when it comes to sweets has some limits as Alfred once made a tray of cranberry white chocolate cookies which Bruce instructed him to leave in the Batcave because they are his favorite.

Also while going undercover as Matches Malone, Bruce maintains his teetotaler lifestyle by telling people that he (Matches) is a recovering alcoholic, so whenever he has to go out into the criminal bars of Gotham he polishes off mugs of root beer rather than regular beer.


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

[User] What does "variance" mean in the sentence "Approximately 30% of the variance in PTSD is caused from genetics alone"?

[Assistant] Short (non statistical) answer, it means that 30% of the reason people have different levels of PTSD symptoms is due to their genetic makeup. At its heart, the question is why some people display more symptoms than others. This also means the authors don't understand/know the other 70% of what makes people different from each other in terms of their symptoms.


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

[User] [Marvel] Have any unpowered characters (like the Punisher) ever sought out and received powers?

[Assistant] Punisher's had powers several times, yes. He's been killed and resurrected as a Frankenstein-like creature, he's been host to a Ghost Rider (though technically that's a story set in the future, not the past), and most recently he's gotten his hands on an older War Machine suit.


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

[User]
Do shorter people have healthier hearts than taller people?

Does the actual length of how far a body has to pump blood and how much it has to work against gravity provide any positive health benefits?

[Assistant]
Your question is more complicated than you probably realize. The short answer (pun intended) is that short people do have higher rates of cardiovascular problems, but not due to any difference in heart pumping strength due to gravity. Relatively recently a paper found that this is not due to the height of the individual, rather due to the genes that cause that individual to be tall.

So it's not that being tall is good for your heart, it is that the genes that make you tall are good for your heart.


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

[User] ELI5: How does scaling to 1440p work?(upscaling/downscaling from 1080p/4K)

[Assistant]
If downscaling, you take every 4th pixel to get from 4k to 1080p. If upscaling you make up pixels to go between the existing pixels. This is done typically by averaging the nearby pixels.

Obviously 1440 isn't a perfect fraction of 4k, so the math is a little more complicated, but the process is the same.


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

[User] ELI5:How does wireless charging work?

[Assistant]
It uses the same principle as a Transformer. There is a coil in the charger and one in your mobile (or any other device). And those two coils are coupled by an  electromagnetic field.
The charger coil creates the field and the field is used to transfer energy to the second coil. It usually only works at close range because the field strength goes down fast with distance.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why are surgeons allowed to do 20+ hours of surgery in one sitting but truck drivers are strictly monitored as to how much they can drive at a time?

I thought of this after hearing about Sen. Charles Schumer comments in lieu of Tracy Morgan's recent accident. I'm pretty sure truck drivers aren't legally allowed to drive more than 12-15 hours at a time and only after a few days of rest beforehand.

[Assistant]
A 20 hour surgery will often involve a team of surgeons, with breaks in between.

Also, a 20 hour surgery is there because *there is no other choice*. Moving cargo, there's a choice -- the driver can pull over without his cargo dying.


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

[User]
[ Star Wars] Why didn't they give Luke to Organa along with Leia. Also why didn't Vader figure out sooner that Leia was his daughter?

Organa had more money and influence. It is apparent that Luke would have had a better life.

[Assistant]
The idea was to separate the Skywalker twins so that if either one of them were captured and killed, the other might still be safe and could later be trained as a Jedi.

Vader didn't realize Leia was his daughter because:

1. He didn't know he had a daughter. He didn't know he had a son either, until the Emperor told him.  He thought that he had accidentally killed Padme before she ever gave birth.  Plus, he was probably too busy being dismembered/nearly burning to death at the time to even think of the possibility that the babies may have lived.

2. Leia didn't know that she was his daughter.  His interaction with her was pretty much limited to her capture and interrogation on the Death Star, and since she didn't know anything about it, there was no emotional state in her for him to sense during the interrogation.  He only figured out that Leia was his daughter when he had Luke so stressed that his thoughts and feelings weren't guarded against Vader's probing.


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

[User]
What is so special about oxygen that almost all life requires it?

Is there another chemical that could replace oxygen?

[Assistant]
Oxygen is useful to life because it's the final electron acceptor in reactions.

That is... Oxygen is the key to unlocking energy stored in food.
There are other compounds that can do this for certain organisms.... Sulfur, which is under oxygen in the periodic table, can do this for certain organisms. :)


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

[User]
Eli5 why do people have Aphantasia?

I recently got told that people are actually able to visualise images in their head, something which I cannot do, which brought me to the condition of Aphantasia.

Why is this something that I cannot do?

[Assistant] First off, you have to narrow it down. There's actual aphantasia, and there's people who read a poor  overly-romanticized description of what visualization is and conclude they must have aphantasia. The former is extremely rare, the overwhelming majority describe normal visualization as what they're able to do and assume everyone else has some sort of superpower that they're missing.


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

[User] [General Sci-Fi] is there any science fiction universe where Earth is no longer the "capitol" world of the Space-Government where we also, did not by any means, destroy or render Earth itself uninhabitable? (I.e. Earth still exists, we live there, but it's not the main world any longer.)

[Assistant]
\[StarCraft 1\] While Earth is perhaps *a* capital of a human (Terran) space government, it isn't the only one. The Terran Dominion of the Korpulu sector is a human-based "space government" with Korhal IV as its capital.

\[Foundation\] The first Galatic Empire has Trantor as its capital. Earth while not strictly uninhabitable, it is highly radioactive and considered a dump and is under quarantine. Around 800 years into this first Galactic Empire, Earth has around 20 million people on it, but they've basically forgotten that it's Earth (the birthplace of man-kind).

\[Star Trek: First Contact\] In a temporary alternate future, the Borg assimilated Earth. The nature of the Borg would prevent them from having a "main" world.

\[EVE\] Similar to StarCraft, where the main human empires are non-Earth-based, having been cut off from Earth accidentally. Unlike StarCraft, where contact is reestablished, nothing is known about the current state of Earth.

EDIT: There are also a number of universes where Earth is a member of a non-human driven empire or coalition: Battlefield Earth (Earth is conquered and humans are slaves); "The Liberation of Earth" where Earth changes hands multiple times among different alien groups; The Tripods Trilogy, where a devastated earth is nursed back to health by aliens; he Exo series, where Earth is a subordinate state to a galactic commonwealth.


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

[User] [Ant Man] We saw Scott ditch his regulator in the quantum realm and replace it with an enlarging disc to return back. Yet moments later as the police storm into the room we see him ant-sized once again. How was this possible?

[Assistant] It was a regulator, not a controller. He can still shrink and grow as normals, but the enlarging Pym particles in the disk gave him the juice needed to escape the quantum realm. The jump from quantum to ant is much larger than from ant to human, and he needed a power boost in order to do it.


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

[User]
[Spiderman] Do the NYPD dislike Peter's vigilantism like the GCPD dislike Batman's?

Was watching Spectacular Spiderman and realized that they never really pursued him for what he was doing. Hell, they would occasionally help him up after getting the shit knocked out of him. Is it the same thing as the comics?

[Assistant] In the comics the people that have been directly involved with Spidey pretty much immediately see his intentions long-term. They generally accept super-powered folk need to deal with super-powered folk. Many will still follow orders to go against him when ordered though.


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

[User]
If helium-3 is so energy dense as fusion fuel, shouldn't we need very little of it?

And is enriched tritium decay enough to meet demand?

[Assistant]
A Deuterium/Helium-3 mixture produces approximately 384 TJ/kg. Compare that to Uranium which produces 80 TJ/kg. Yearly Uranium consumption is about 60 million kg, if you wanted to replace all of that with Helium-3 you'd still need thousands of tons each year.

From 1955 to 1996 only 225 kg of tritium were produced in the USA. 150kg of which have since decayed into Helium-3. So no, tritium decay would probably never be able to meet demand.


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

[User] ELI5:Why is it that my brain can spend hours focusing on learning the ins and outs of a video game (ie- League of Legends), but when it comes to calculus, I want to stop after only a few minutes?

[Assistant]
Video games are designed specifically to provide constant and immediate positive feedback to the player. All the flashing lights, cool abilities, fun sounds, are all very well received stimuli for your brain.

And on the other side you have calculus.


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

[User]
Why does a hydrogen bomb need deuterium (aka heavy hydrogen) yet the sun does just fine with regular hydrogen?

If the neutron in the deuterium atom is needed to sustain the chain reaction in a hydrogen bomb explosion, why isn't it needed in the sun?

[Assistant]
Fusion in the Sun is a multi-stage process. The initial step involves the fusion of 2 protons into a fusion product called helium-2 or a diproton. However, the diproton is very unstable and often decays back into 2 separate protons. In a small fraction of the cases, the diproton can undergo a process called beta-plus decay immediately after fusing, in which a positron and neutrino are emitted and a deuterium nucleus is left (one of the protons in the diproton decays to a neutron in this process). The deuterium is then used in further stages of the fusion process until helium-4 is created.

Since the rate of beta-plus decay of the diproton is so low, the average time needed for a proton to become part of a deuterium nucleus is very long, with estimates putting it at a billion years. During this time, the proton will undergo many unsuccessful fusion attempts that involve the creation and immediate breaking up of a diproton.

The rest of the fusion process is much faster. So when making bombs, where it's important to detonate as much of the payload as possible in the very brief time window where the temperature and pressure are high enough to achieve fusion, it would be infeasible to start with pure hydrogen. So in fusion bomb designs, this slow proton-proton fusion step is simply skipped by starting with deuterium or tritium.


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

[User]
ELI5 What in our heads goes off when we predict a note or word in a song and were right ?

Ive always loved singing along to a song and guessing the words that comes next. When I get the words right, a lightbulb goes off in my head, what is that?

[Assistant]
Human brains love seeking out patterns, it's a huge part of how we became the dominant species. To encourage this behaviour, our brain gives us a shot of dopamine when we successfully make a match. The dopamine gives us a feeling of reward.

Interestingly, the dopamine spike actually starts when we're anticipating the payoff, before we even get the reward, which is though to encourage looking for the pattern next time.

On the benign side of things, it's why kids watch the same movie over and over - they get a dopamine kick because they can predict what's coming. It's also why we like memes - they're all about pattern matching.

On the evil side, you've got the social media companies and gambling companies that tailor their experience to drive this behaviour. Scrolling through a bunch of boring posts before finding a gem is by design, as is opening 57 loot crates before you get that epic item.


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

[User]
Showing potential for external funding

I'm a postdoc going into the job market for assistant positions this year. I keep being told to show how my research program has potential for external funding in my application materials. My question is, how do I do this if I'm still a postdoc? For context, I have a couple small grants/awards from projects in grad school and I'm co-pi on my PI's grant, however I couldn't/can't get any other external funding going into my postdoc because I'm not a US resident and therefore don't qualify for virtually any NSF/NIH-type grant. Any suggestions?

[Assistant] Highlight the experience you have writing and talk about your strategy for applying for grants when you receive the position. They want to see that you have thought about how your work will be funded and who would be interested in funding it.


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

[User]
ELI5: How does the 'scene' community work? Where
is the motivation? Where does the money come from?

There's got to be more than just respect up for grabs here- how does the scene community propel itself? How is it that you can get TV shows moments after they're done airing, without paying a cent? Who is getting paid for all this hard work- it can't be all just for fun? How about games or movies? I realize that Movies have a certain black-market value in under-developed countries, but still...

[Assistant]
>  How is it that you can get TV shows moments after they're done airing, without paying a cent?

People recording TV through an input on their computer, encoding it in real-time with good CPUs, and immediately uploading it when the show's finished.

> Who is getting paid for all this hard work- it can't be all just for fun?

Fun and competition. They compete to see who can do it the fastest and upload the most, because they like it. They also get access to the stuff their competitors upload, but these days it's about fun, they'd get access to that stuff anyway.

> How about games or movies?

With games there's even more competition, because you have to crack the anti-piracy measure. People are motivated by the challenge, and compete to see who can crack the protection first.

> Where does the money come from?

What money? The money to pay for the FTP servers? They just put them together at home or pay a company for an ordinary dedicated server, the way people do for websites or videogame servers every day. None of the pirates are getting paid, if that's what you mean.

And because this is usually the question asked next...

> How can they release it before the release date?

Record labels send hundreds of albums out to reviewers in the months before release. Usually it's these that get leaked. Sometimes it's leaked by engineers or other studio employees, and sometimes it's even leaked by band members.

Movie studios send out 'screener' copies to reviewers too. During Oscar voting, studios send screener copies of all their best movies to every member the Academy (5,835 members). These people, or their friends and kids, leak copies online.

Videogames are often sent to stores weeks before the store is allowed to sell them. They're liked by an employee who has access to a copy. Other times the game is again, sent to reviewers.

Books are scanned and processed with optical character recognition software to become ebooks, and those are uploaded.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does the moon look so big in some pictures but look so small in personal. Is there a place on earth where the moon appears really bigger?

[Assistant]
A combination of zoom lenses, picture processing, and something called the Harvest Moon effect.

When you take a picture zoomed (and a lot of people do), it makes everything look bigger, including the moon. And some people photoshop pictures for dramatic effect.

But most people take pictures of the moon when it's close to the earth's horizon. Seeing the moon in this position makes it look much larger than seeing it when it's way up in the sky as a very well known optical illusion, because you have a lot of features to compare it to. And because photographs are most often taken when the moon's at the sky's edge, you'll see the larger moon more in them than in your "real life".

To see this in person though, check your weather network or web-source for the next time you have a clear evening moonrise, which will be during a full moon. Assuming the weather's clear, make a note in your calendar to watch it come up or set and you'll see how it'll look quite large.  If you look at it two hours later and it's a lot smaller by comparison. But if you measure the size of both with a ruler, they're the same!


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

[User]
Eli5 how did early primates/hominids successfully migrate to anywhere America?

After some brief research, it appears the most common consensus is; primitive monkeys floated across the ocean on naturally constructed rafts made of vegetation and earth

this is somewhat hard for me to believe considering the substantial intellect it would require to make a working raft and most vegetation would probably sink/ begin to rot after such prolonged submersion
Even modern-day humans had some trouble crossing the entire ocean on a gargantuan 300 ton vessel.
So, how is it archaic primates reached an entirely new continent well over a thousand miles away? How could they have gone so far without starving, dying of thirst, or the succumbing to the elements?

If the raft theory is consensually believed to be true, is there any physical evidence/artifacts still remaining to support the theory?

[Assistant]
No other hominid primates have ever migrated to North or South America; not Neanderthal, not Homo Erectus, only Homo Sapiens.
"New World" primates are only distantly related to humans, unlike chimps and the other great apes which share a common ancestor with us about 5 million years ago.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do strange things happen even in pressurised environments, like in airplanes and submarines, for example the coke can underwater on the front page recently?

Surely if these were pressurised everything would act the same as it would at 1 atmosphere?

[Assistant]
I don't know the video you're talking about. (A link would be useful!)

But it may be relevant that aircraft are not pressurised to 1 atmosphere. They are normally pressurised to the equivalent of 8,000' altitude (rather than the 35,000' altitude they actually fly at).

I have no idea if the same is true for submarines...


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

[User] ELI5: What happens when you yawn?

[Assistant] When we are bored ortired, we don't breathe as deeply as we usually do. As such, our bodies take in less oxygen. Yawninghelps correct this by bringing more oxygen into the blood and moving more carbon dioxide out.


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

[User]
I believe that women's only hours at gyms are sexist and shouldn't exist CMV

In specific I attend a university where all students pay athletic fees in exchange for the use of school gym facilities. While I already think that this should be changed to an opt in/out system I am more interested in hearing reasons why women's only hours are defensible. This renders particular pieces of equiptment totally unavailable to male students (as they are only present in specific gyms) for hours during prime times throughout he day. So if one is  paying equal fees to all other students why is one not allowed equal access and how is this a good thing? Doesn't it simply perpetuate sexism?

EDIT: I appologize for the sentence where I use the term I. I am female and have taken advantage of these hours in the past I merely meant it to be sort of illustrative but it ended up being very unclear.

EDIT2: Hey all this post generated a ton of great discussion and showed me a lot of ways that my view lacked nuance. My view has definitely undergone some substantial change and I'll work on awarding delta's to those arguments. Thanks all!

[Assistant]
Well, of course. Ideally, women's only hours shouldn't need to exist; women should be free to go at any hours, without worrying about being ogled or harassed.

But we don't live in that ideal world. Women *do* get ogled and harassed at the gym. So we have to provide them with a way to avoid that. We can't somehow get to the ideal world by ignoring the problem.


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

[User]
Why is it the positioning of my body affects a wireless FM transmitter signal? (also, how can I boost this signal?)

I have a mp3 player wireless FM transmitter, and I've noticed several times that when I touch it or hover my hand above the transmitter the signal is boosted or clarified. That is, the static disappears from the audio. What causes this?

Also, is there something I can do to have this effect without hovering my hand above my mp3 player?

[Assistant]
Capacitive coupling + shitty antenna in the transmitter and/or poor ground on the transmitter.

A good performing antenna will not benefit from hand action, you're making up for a source of loss.

Two five foot wires, one to the ground of the transmitter (or to vehicle frame) and the other replacing the existing antenna on it would improve things.. (Dipole).


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

[User] ELI5: Why does higher development in countries cause an increase in cost of living?

[Assistant] There are two factors here. Generally speaking, high development means a higher standard of living, which means that the average person consumes more goods and services. Also, higher wages also mean that certain labor-intensive services like education, healthcare, childcare, etc will also have to be more expensive.