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

[User] ELI5: How come in-house brands are almost always cheaper than non in-house brands?

[Assistant]
Marketing and reputation... Crest, Tylenol, or Oreos have spent millions in advertising to get you to buy their brand and think they are the best/highest quality/most effective. So the cost of the advertising is built into their costs that go into determining pricing. Also the intangible benefits of their reputation, ie. "well, 4 of 5 dentists recommend it..." will convince a number of consumers to justify paying more because it must be better.

On the flip side, if a store is selling its own brand, it can shop the manufacturing of said good to multiple plants to get the lowest price, and they cut out a middle man so they pay wholesalers/distributors their cut. Also, stores may use their brands as loss-leaders to lure you in the door so they can make their profits elsewhere. Get that generic, store-brand ibuprofen as their cost, and they make $$$ on the prescription you pick up.


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

[User]
ELI5: What exactly am I paying domain registrars for?

If they don't do hosting and there is no way they have rights to every domain before it's purchased, what service are they providing and is it one that somebody could do without them?

[Assistant]
There are some administrative that need to be paid for (staff, office costs, hosting their own website).

But mainly there needs to be some fee involved otherwise there's nothing stopping people from registering millions of domains, just for fun.


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

[User]
ELI5: What about GPU Architecture makes them superior for training neural networks over CPUs?

In ML/AI, GPUs are used to train neural networks of various sizes. They are vastly superior to training on CPUs. Why is this?

[Assistant]
Imagine you have 1 million math assignments to do, they are very simple assignments, but there are a lot that need to be done, they are not dependent on each other so they can be done on any order.

You have two options, distribute them to 10 thousand people to do it in parallel or give them to 10 math experts. The experts are very fast, but hey, there are only 10 of them, the 10 thousand are more suitable for the task because they have the "brute force" for this.

GPUs have thousands of cores, CPUs have tens.


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

[User] Eli5: Given the enormous difference in speed between sound and light, how is it possible that when watching a movie the audio and video are in sync? Shouldn't the light from the TV reach my eyes nearly 900,000 times faster than the sound reaches my ears?

[Assistant]
Yes, the light does reach your eyes faster than the sound does. However the difference in timing isn't something you can notice unless you are sitting a great distance away from the source; most people aren't viewing their screen from half a mile away.

To complicate matters your brain doesn't even process visual stimulus at the same speed as auditory stimulus. Vision is much more complex so it takes slightly longer to process than sound, meaning if you are anywhere near your television that likely overshadows any difference in travel time anyway.


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

[User] Does the moon revolve around the Earth in the same plane as the Earth revolves around the Sun? If so, does this apply to all moons?

[Assistant] The Moon's orbit is inclined about 5 degrees to the ecliptic, otherwise we'd have both a solar and a lunar eclipse every lunar orbit. Most moons orbit close to the inclination of their planet's equator.


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

[User]
ELI5 - How are airplane black boxes made crash proof

Pretty much title. Ive always wondered how those things can withstand massive crashes and explosions and still be reliable to retrieve recordings from.

[Assistant]
Metal box, fireproof, waterproof, installed in the tail of the plane. The tail does already survive the majority of impacts. You cant crash tail first AND going fast. The plane even if loses control entirely, flies like a dart, and crashes nose first. If it goes on flat spin it crashes flat, and that reduced the terminal velocity anyway, so its not fast enough to smash the box.

So its both construction and positioning.


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

[User]
ELI5:Why are there so many English words in Japan?

Watching a video of the New 3DS review recently, the guy had a Japanese model.  In the shortcut settings, there's a setting to turn Wireless and NFC on/off.

On his version the option was called /NFC (no idea if that Japanese is correct, but it'll do for an example).

My questions is why is it labelled <some Japanese text>/NFC (where NFC is in English)? Why not <Japanese word for wireless>/<Japanese word for NFC>?

And now I think about this, I've seen loads of other examples on TV, etc, over the years.

[Assistant]
Why do English speakers use the words schadenfreude (German), hors d'oeuvre (French), piata (Spanish), al fresco (Italian), in absentia (Latin) and karaoke (Japanese)? Because often different languages will have words that don't have direct translations, and in those cases it's common to just "borrow" the word as is.

In technology, it would be more common for other languages to "borrow" English words/phrases as the most commonly used international language in technology industries is English. **N**ear **F**ield **C**ommunication probably doesn't have an existing direct translation in Japanese, and people who would even know what it is can probably read some basic English, so they've kept it as an English acronym.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do mirrors/reflective surfaces "feel" grey/silver?

If they are supposed to be reflective, I guess a mirror is just the color of things around it. Nevertheless, mirrors and things like mercury are usually perceived to be sort of... Shiny grey. Why is that? Is it just a visual illusion or is there something about that color?

[Assistant]
A perfect mirror reflects 100% of all light. But nothing is a perfect mirror. Some seem green because the glass used in them absorbs the color the least, so more green comes back to you than the other colors. Silver, grey and white are both not actually colors as wavelengths of light. They are the perceived combination of all visible wavelengths. So in theory they are just different kinds of all colors being reflected equally. Specific names are then probably down to impurities. So some greys are warmer bc they have more red in them. Silver differs from grey and white not only in the specific impurities but also it refers to the object being shiny.
So tldr : a perfect mirror would have no color for itsself but everything absorbs at least a little bit of some wavelengths, giving it a light touch of colour.


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

[User]
Can I teach student courses using material taken from the internet?

I don't see anything against it... But I know that academia is "weird" about re-using material.

Basically, I've been asked to tutor a lab course about introduction to image processing in python. As you know, preparing all the course material from scratch is something which is super-long and tedious.

I've found two perfect courses, with a full set of exercises and data to run the exercises on, on github, from a very reputable source. The material has a MIT license so I can re-use it freely, as long as the author of the material is concerned.

What about my side? Am I (legally or "morally") required to write all the material by myself?

[Assistant] Yes, you are good to go. Just make sure if it requires permission, you get it. Otherwise just cite everything so it doesn't appear as though you are taking credit for producing it. More than likely 95% or more of any lecture material anyone every really uses comes from one source or another.


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

[User]
[DC/Marvel] How much crime do vigilantes like Batman, Punisher, and Spider Man actually stop?

How much crime do street vigilantes like Batman, Punisher, Spider Man etc actually stop?

In a day, a month, a year?

[Assistant]
Generally, those kind of vigilantes are working out of areas of higher-than-average criminal activity, so there's *something* for them to stop in a daily (or nightly) basis.

Out of the three you named, Batman probably stops the most crime.  Gotham has a high criminal population, with more than a few dedicated "professionals" causing problems.  Spiderman works a good sized section of New York, but NY is rather hero dense, so he's got a smaller slice of the street mugger/random break-in scene.

But you have to consider the crime they prevent indirectly, as well.  Batman and Punisher work through fear as well as direct shows of strength.  Gotham might have a high crime rate thanks to the various gangs and mob families, but with Batman's reputation of being anywhere, at any time, common criminals are less willing to go rob a joint at random.

A vigilante like Punisher moves around often, however, so he doesn't keep a particular area in fear of his attentions.  When he does strike, he doesn't leave survivors, and he's hitting hard targets, like drug cartels and gangs.  He's having an impact, but leaves a vacuum for more of the same types to move in.  An area he's hit will be quiet for a time, but as reports of his work elsewhere crop up, the criminal elements seeps back in.

To answer your question more directly:  Batman certainly stops several crimes a night, at least.  Spiderman probably stops as much over the course of several days to a week.  Punisher won't necessarily stop individual crimes-in-progress regularly.  He plots out his targets, takes his time, and wipes out as many as he can in one go.  Why shoot a mugger when you can toss a grenade into a room of mafioso?  In a month, he'll take out more than either Batman or Spiderman.  Permanently.


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

[User]
Is there and what is the evidence for QFT(QED eg) or string theory?

What does that evidence confirm? What are we certain about that is happening since there are also things theorized.

[Assistant] QED is the most precisely tested theory in all of physics. It describes electromagnetic interactions, so all known electrodynamic phenomena in nature (light, atomic binding, electron-electron scattering, etc.) are described by QED.


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

[User] What actually causes cracking joints? Is there any real biological benefit?

[Assistant]
Joints are two bones that are enclosed by a fibrous capsule.

The capsule itself is filled with a lubricant called synovial fluid. Synovial fluid contains gases that are dissolved in solution.

When we 'crack' our knuckles, for example, the joint capsule is stretched; but there's only a set volume of synovial fluid in the capsule. A putative mechanism for the 'cracking' sound is attributed to the sudden drop in pressure from the stretching of the capsule, leading to the dissolved gases to rapidly come out of solution.

Basically, it's a bubble popping in your joint space.

As for its whether its beneficial or detrimental, there's a lot of research out there and it's a topic of hot debate. IIRC it doesn't actually cause arthritis though.


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

[User]
If a flight takes longer than 12 hours, aren't they just flying the wrong way around the earth so the earth's rotation speeds it up?

Or does the entire atmosphere rotate with the earth?

[Assistant]
The atmosphere rotates with the Earth, otherwise it would be very windy indeed. At equator it would be something like 15 times hurricane speeds!

Even if there were no atmosphere, though, 12 hours would not be an upper bound on the time to travel somewhere. The plane, as the atmosphere, also rotates with the Earth when it takes off, and must spend time and fuel to change its velocity to make it go where it needs to go. If that weren't the case, you could presumably transport yourself westwards by jumping straight up.


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

[User]
Was the Higgs Boson disproved?

Apparently, by 8-year-old daughter's teacher told her that the Higgs Boson had been a miscalculation. I've searched for any sort of reference to this and can't find anything about a Higgs Boson miscalcuation. I want to make sure to give my daughter the right information, so...does anyone know what the heck this guy was talking about?

[Assistant] Maybe the teacher is confusing it with another recent result from CERN, about the neutrinos allegedly moving faster-than-light. _That_ result was incorrect (although an experimental error, not a miscalculation). But that result was unexpected and not generally thought to be correct in the first place, while the Higgs discovery amounted to finding a particle right around where it was expected to be found. (and there was no _single_ calculation predicting the Higgs, but actually a wide variety of them)


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

[User]
Can we bounce a signal off something in deep space and see Earth`s past?

I have no idea how science works, I'm in sixth grade, so don't get mad. But couldn't we bounce some kind of energy signal off something in deep space, have it pointed back at earth, decode it, and see what Earth looked like in the past?

[Assistant]
This is a great question, and it's actually exactly how science works. In science you ask questions that you don't know the answer to, and then you try to find out what the answer is.

When you look at yourself in a mirror, you're actually seeing what you looked like in the past. This is because it takes light a finite amount of time to travel the distance from your face to the mirror, and then back to your face. So, if there was a giant mirror one light year away from earth (one light year is the distance that light travels in one year, about 5.8 trillion miles), when we looked at the mirror we would see what the earth looked like two years ago. This is because the light leaves the earth, spends a year traveling through space until it hits the mirror, then bounces back towards earth and spends another year traveling back to earth where it hits your telescope.

If someone went and built a mirror 5.8 trillion miles from earth today, the light from a year ago would be the first light to hit the mirror. This light would turn around and spend a year traveling back to earth, so a year from now we would be able to see the earth as it was a year ago. So, on August 21st, 2015 we would be able to see what the earth looked like on August 21st, 2013.

Also note that this is a very simplified example, where we're assuming a perfectly reflective surface and a perfectly empty universe between the earth and the mirror.


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

[User]
If the four dimensions of space and time are intertwined, why can we not rotate an object into "time" the same way we can rotate an object in 3D space?

Forgive me for being naive, but this seems like an intuitive question.

[Assistant] You can rotate into time, just change your speed. Mathematically, changing between different reference frames looks like hyperbolic rotations that mix spatial and time coordinates. Using some identities from complex analysis, you can think of hyperbolic rotations as regular rotations, by imaginary angles.


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

[User]
If my breastfed baby catches a cold, then gets me sick, will the antibodies I produce cause her health to improve faster than if she were formula (or otherwise) fed?

....

[Assistant]
Yes, you transfer IgG via breast milk. IgG will be present in high concentrations in the sinus and lungs of your baby. The quote about 2 weeks is wrong, it is closer to 1-3 days depending if you have prior exposure, which you likely have.

I am a research scientist in infectious disease.


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

[User]
There is a question I don't understand

What statement is true according to Kant's transcendental idealism?

a) The external world exists independently of us and we can't gain knoweldge about it via perception

b) The external world only exists when it is percieved, "to be is to be percieved"

c)  The external world does exist independently of us but we can gain knowledge about it via our perceptions

d) There exists no external world

e) It's meaningless to discuss whether there exists an external world of us.

None of these seem to be correct. I think it's answer "a)"  but that one doesn't seem entirely correct either. If we are exist in the  external world, humans came out of and exists within the external world - can we then really say that we exist independently of it merely because don't have access to it via our senses or perceptions? Given the nautre of our experiences, there must be a mind-independent world beyond experience which gives rise to these experiences in the first place. After all, transcendental idealism does not reject the existence of a physical world.

[Assistant]
A is horse poopie, basically for some of the reasons you described. Unfortunately it is a common enough misinterpretation that your instructor may well think it's the correct answer, and among these it is probably closest. Without wanting to call them out, they may not be specialists in Kant and it can be quite hard to get Kant right when you don't spend a lot of your time thinking about him (or if, as many non-historians do, you already feel that transcendental idealism is a silly doctrine not worth spending time on!) Note also that historians and interpreters still seriously debate how to best understand transcendental idealism, and defend versions of various of these answers.

The problem is that it doesn't really make sense to map Kant's talk of appearances and things in themselves (the proper subject of transcendental idealism) onto talk of an 'internal' and external world. Kant is very adamant (in the 'Refutation of Idealism', for instance) that we can know that there are objects outside of us, and we know so from experience. Appearances are appearances *of* things, and so they really acquaint us with features of a world 'outside' us. What they don't do is give us direct knowledge of things as they are outside of our experience, or 'in-themselves.' Whether this means there really are mind-independent things in themselves fully separate from appearances, or whether it just means that we see the things but only see the features of them that are fit to appear to us, is a subject of serious debate. But you are totally right to point out that something needs to be grounding these appearances either way.

I don't know if the argument from birth has much to do with it - after all, 'birth' is also something that exists as appearance, etc. - but you are  justified in thinking something was wrong with this question.


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

[User] Eli5 Where does all the fluid come from in a runny nose? How is there so much?

[Assistant]
A runny nose is generally the product of the body making mucus in an effort to expel irritating substances or infectious agents. Think dust, pollen, germs, etc. This mucus or snot is composed of a small amount of protein and a large amount of water.

The water is sourced from your blood. This is one of the main reasons why you need to drink plenty of fluids when you are sick, as you are expelling fluids through mucus. 90-95% of snot is water so the amount of proteins your mucus glands need to supply is low compared to the total volume which is why it seems so endless.


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

[User]
Why can't we divide by zero?

So we've all seen the internet memes. But I was thinking, why can't we divide by zero?

[Assistant] Well sweetie, because to divide means that something is made up of smaller parts.  A 4 is made up by two twos (2+2=4) or four one's (1+1+1+1=4). If you divide 4 by 1, you're asking how many 1's make 4. 1+1+1+1=4 so four one's makes 4.  If you asked how many 0's make up 4 there wouldn't be an answer because 0's can't add up to 4.  0+0+0+0=0  Do you understand?


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

[User]
[Star Wars] How fast is hyperspace?

It's obviously faster than light, but how much faster?
There are different classes of hyperdrives too. Do they make hyperspace faster?
Han boasts that the Millennium Falcon is faster than on the ships, and Nico makes a similar boast in The Old Republic about his own ship. Are they referring to hyperspace or realspace?

[Assistant]
There was some Legendary material that put a standard Imperial-II Star Destroyer at something like 200,000 times the speed of light.  There's not really enough canon material citing distances and travel times to do that kind of math though.

Han's boasts are mostly about hyperspace speeds.  The Falcon is fast for its class in realspace, but between purpose built starfighters, racing ships, and what have you, she's clearly not the fastest from A-to-B in realspace.  Her real advantage is her very strong hyperdrive engines, and a very, very good navicomputer >!based on a very smart droid intelligence with a very unique map of hyperspace routes.!<


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

[User]
Do electrons/energy build up at the entrance to the resistor?

I know a resistor limits the amount of current that flows in a circuit, but does this cause a buildup of electrons, heat, or energy at the entrance of the resistor?

[Assistant]
Voltage builds up, current (actual electrons) does not. Think of it this way:

Just because there is a dam doesn't mean the steady-state flow of the river is different. If the damn tried to slow the flow of the river (too much), the river would crest the dam and it would catastrophically fail.

Voltage is the height of the water behind the dam relative to the water on the other side, current is the water flowing through from the high side of the dam to the low side.

It's not a *perfect* example, since there really is no 'buildup time' for a resistor like there is for a dam (say right after construction was completed, or after a drought), but it's a helpful visualization.


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

[User] Why are Saturns rings all on the same plane?

[Assistant]
You'll find that the answer to this question is similar to the answers you'll receive for questions like "Why do all the planets orbit in the same plane?" Planetary rings fundamentally follow the same principles and the consequence is that the chunks of the ring orbit the planet in a coplanar fashion, but let's get down to actually why:

Stars form as a consequence of the contraction of interstellar clouds of gas and dust that collapse under their own gravity and begin to heat at their centers as the pressure in the inner parts of the cloud begin to increase. The material within the plane of rotation (Basically the approximate net rotational direction of the entirety of the cloud, which cannot be zero just from a statistical perspective) will remain distributed around the protostar in the center with enough velocity to maintain stable orbits.

The cloud shrinks, angular momentum must be conserved, and so you end up with an increased angular velocity that allows them to stay in that plane of rotation, moving fast enough not to fall into the star. The remainder of this material, that above and below this plane, freely collapse inward as there's no force preventing them from continuing to fall into the center of the protostellar nebula.

When the planets began to form, they did pretty much the same thing, but on smaller, obviously planetary scales. Rocky material would accrete into bodies orbiting the star with the same direction, and the material would come to rotate in the same direction as the cloud was rotating, which makes sense because the material would always have that initial velocity in that direction and it would simply compound to induce a rotation in that same direction. As a result of this, the various moons that orbit Saturn would come to orbit it in the same rotational orientation.

There isn't a conclusive explanation to where exactly Saturn's rings came from, but the two prevailing theories are that they are either debris from a moon whose orbit decayed to below the Roche limit and was disintegrated by tidal forces, or they are simply leftover material from the formation of the planet billions of years ago. Either way, they still would ultimately orbit the planet in a single plane of rotation- Everything else fell into the center of gravity to ultimately make Saturn, material orbiting within the rotational plane moving quick enough maintained stable orbits and so we see that the moons and rings of Saturn exist in a roughly coplanar orientation.


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

[User] ELI5: How come the world is near enough 50/50 male and female. Is there a reason it isn't 70/30 in either way?

[Assistant] Imagine that two out of three births were female, and one out of three male. Then the average male would have twice as many descendents as the average female. Therefore, producing more male children would be advantageous. The equilibrium  where it is equally advantageous to have male or female children  is at 50-50. (Unless it requires more resources to produce children of one gender than the other, in which case see nvelex09's post.)


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

[User]
ELI5: How do people make money trading stocks?

How people decide where and when to buy or sell? Where the money they make comes from? Is it gambling? Why not?

[Assistant]
Owning a stock is owning part of a company, if you stripped all the complicated parts out it's like a local store saying "hey, you can buy 1% of the store to give us that money now, and in exchange we will give you 1% of the profit every year, and we will let you vote on what we do, but your vote only will count 1%"  so if you think that 1% profit will be worth 100 dollars you would love to buy that for 99 dollars and love it even more to buy it for 50 dollars.  If you bought it for 50 dollars someone else might want to buy it for 99 dollars and you'd like that too because it's a sure thing for you.  If the store poops in all it's food and the news does a story about that then you know the profit is going to be way down and you want to sell sell sell before too many people find out and no one wants to buy your thing. Likewise if you think they are gonna sell the hot new product you'd want to buy as much as possible before the price goes up too much.

In real life it's gotten very complicated beyond that, and some stocks don't even give dividends anymore and exist just to trade or sell. but the general concept is "I own a small part of this business and get a small part of their profit"


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

[User]
ELI5: How come movies that gross twice or more times their Production Budget are sometimes considered "Unprofitable"?

I have seen it a lot of times: movies whose Box Office grosses are several times higher than their Production Budgets are considered Flops, or in the best case they "barely broke even". Are there extra spendings outside of Production that can be even higher than the Production Budget itself?

[Assistant] Movies set up a dummy corporation that exists for the production and distribution of that movie. They "outsource" things like advertising to the studio who "charge" very high fees. Even if the movie takes in a lot of money, they have that very big advertising bill to pay off, so all the money goes up to the studio, and none stays with the company that actually made the movie, making it not profitable on paper.


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

[User]
CMV: Religion is Dangerous

I personally am a non believer. I went to church with my family when I was younger and even at a young age I thought it was complete bullshit. If you believe thats fine Im not saying you dont have a right and the following is just my opinion.

People believe so strongly in their religion that they will go to extreme lengths to serve their god or spread their beliefs on to others.

Isis for example tried to take over the world and institute an Islamic state where all people would live under the law of Islam. They killed hundreds of thousands directly or indirectly during there escapades. They did all this is Allahs name.

Jim Jones had such a large and strong following that he convinced people to drink poison laced koolaid leading to the deaths of over 900 people. Jones believed so strongly in his religion he destroyed his and 900 others lives. For what?

The Heavens Gate cult were convinced that killing them selves at just the right point in time would gain the access to heaven through some astroid or ufo passing by earth. (Dont remember which one it was but it was something crazy like that). 39 people killed themselves in one day because of their strong beliefs.

The isolated incidents like jones town and heavens gate are just a drop in the bucket but as history shows many large wars and conflicts were started over opposing beliefs in religion. Terrorist attacks continue to happen because of religious beliefs and I dont see these things ending any time soon.

Religion does have great morals to believe in and follow by I will give it that. I just think the bad out weighs the good.

[Assistant]
I think a better take would probably be that extremism is dangerous.

None of the behaviours you listed here are unique to religion. You have grifters and charismatic assholes of every stripe in politics, business and every other aspect of human interaction. Religion is just one angle among many.


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

[User]
[IASIP] How can Charlie stalk a woman for 15 years and not know her name?

He digs through her trash. It should be on receipts and shit. Identities get stolen all the time.

[Assistant] Charlie knows. He's known since high school. No one else bothers to remember. Presumably Charlie got tired of everyone asking *"who?"* every time he mentioned her and just started calling her "the waitress" too.


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

[User]
what are the economic effects of curbing Union power? (as Thatcher did)

In the late 70s UK, many had become scared about union powers dragging the economy down. Thatcher was elected in as a result of much of this fear, and proceeded to curb union powers via making closed shop agreements illegal, ensuring ballots had to be cast before strikes could be called and ensuring union leaders had to go through elections every 5 years. This has often been characterised as 'democratising unions' by her supporters and as destroying the empowerment of workers by her detractors. My question is, where these measures beneficial to the UK economy? If not then what was the best course of action at the time?

Any corrections on UK history is much appreciated as I'm certainly no expert.

[Assistant]
There are several problems in answering this question objectively:

* The labour law reforms were only one part of Thatcherism, other parts included bringing down inflation (economically costly in the short term), improving government finances (beneficial mainly in avoiding future fiscal crisises, which are terrible for the poorest, but it's hard to measure something that doesn't happen, particularly when numerous other countries are making similar reforms), privatising industries and reforming the tax system towards a broad-base, lower rate approach.

* Numerous other things are changing in economies all the time, e.g. changing demographics as the baby boomers move through the workforce, new technologies working their way through (once 95% of every factory has been electrified or you've gone from 20% of the population being to high school to 95%, the gains from that area are gone).  There's been a worldwide fall in productivity growth since the 1970s which may be just the result of the new inventions of the Second Industrial Revolution having played themselves out. Other countries' economies can also change.

* The whole topic was and is politically controversial.

I will say that one thing to bear in mind is that many of the poorest and most marginalised in society live in households where no one is earning a market income, often due to health problems or caretaking responsibilities. Therefore those households don't benefit directly from higher wages, the effects of unions matter to them through the effects on prices and goods/services availability. Any analysis of the distributional impact of reforms that focuses solely on workers is missing an important part of the story from both equity and distributional grounds.


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

[User] How do you test the immune response integrity of a cell without killing destroying it?

[Assistant] Immune response is typically a coordinated and regulated response of lots of different cells. You wouldn't be able to see the whole response in just one cell, nor would that be clinically useful information if you could.


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

[User]
eli5 What is a liminal space?

I've googled it and I'm left more and more confused. It seems like its just empty rooms. Why does this make people feel uncomfortable.
Do these images affect everyone?

[Assistant] Liminal means transitional. Its space that you pass through without noticing like an alley or a hallway. Because its something that you normally dont pay attention to, art that focuses on it can seem unsettling, taking something familiar and looking at it in a new way.


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

[User]
ELI5: Mute people.

Can they not talk? Do they choose to not talk? Is it a disease or can their brain simply not learn language?

[Assistant]
There are many different kinds of mutism.

One is called selective mutism.  This is a person who *can* speak but chooses not to.  He may speak in certain situations or to certain people, or he may not speak at all.

Some people are mute because of damage to their vocal folds.  This may have been due to injury or accident, such as swallowing a corrosive substance (ie lye), cancer, or external trauma.  These people would be able to speak if not for the damage.

Other people have neurological (nerve) damage that prevents their vocal folds from moving properly to form sound.  This is generally present at birth, but could result from an event such as a stroke or traumatic brain injury.

The first three types of people can have normal intelligence and although they don't speak, can learn language and can learn to communicate in other ways.

Finally, some people are cognitively impaired to the point that they cannot learn words or language.  These people have the mental capacity of infants and usually have a very, very limited ability to communicate.

Source:  Speech Pathologist, 20 years.


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

[User] If I pick up my coffee right after I stir it, so that it's still swirling around, will there be a gyroscopic effect making me less likely to spill it?

[Assistant] In theory yes, but in reality you'd probably be more likely to spill it. Once you tilted the cup at all you would lose the swirl as the liquid deformed against the cup wall and that creates imbalances. You can actually try this. Stir up a liquid in a cup where the liquid mass is as great as possible relative to the cup (paper cups work well) and then pick the cup up by your fingertips. Tilt the cup to one side to disturb the vortex and you should feel the cup trying to move around in various directions as the vortex collapses and sloshes against the cup unevenly.


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

[User]
[Wheel of Time] How do Aes Sedai avoid heatstroke in hot weather?

It's well understood by those who spend time around Aes Sedai that they are seemingly immune to extreme temperatures. They can even travel to the Aiel Waste and stand in the sun without breaking a sweat.

However, it's revealed that this trick has nothing to do with the One Power, and is actually a trick of concentration.

So what's actually happening to the excess heat if they aren't sweating it off or magicking it away?

[Assistant] It's like those monks that learn to make their bodies generate heat in cold climates.  Only the opposite.  They consciously suppress their body's basal metabolic rate through meditation and learn to tolerate a higher temperature by suppressing their sweating.  If they really exerted themselves fully, they would get heatstroke.


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

[User]
[Passengers] Questions about the speed of the Avalon.

We know a few things. At the time Jim wakes up, they've been in transit for 30 years.  You can send messages via laser array, and lasers travel at the speed of light.  Jim's message will arrive at Earth 19 years after he sends it.
Does anyone know how the math shakes out on that one?  How fast are they going?

[Assistant] That works out to an average speed of about 2/3 of the speed of light. The Avalon wasn't constantly accelerating, at least not significantly. It got its "gravity" from rotating the ship about its axis. If it was accelerating, it wouldn't need to rotate, it would simply use the acceleration to simulate gravity.


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

[User] Can someone please explain to me(like im five) what it is with an EMP that disables electronic devices?

[Assistant]
Do you understand how radio works? Electricity moving in a wire in the transmitter creates a wave in the electromagnetic field that surrounds us. This wave moves electricity in the receiver, creating a signal that the receiving radio uses.

Well an EMP is just a really short, extremely strong radio pulse. It creates lots of electricity in every single piece of metal, including long power lines and short ones within electronics. All that metal acts like a receiving antenna, and the electricity generated is enough to blow light bulbs and fuses, as well as destroying silicon chips and transistors in electronics.


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

[User]
[Marvel/DC/etc] Are there other planets out in the multiverse that have a Hero/Villain situation or a lot of attention similar to Earth?

Has this situation been explored? Has it been commented how much traffic Earth gets in terms of all the different systems of the universe appear on the planet? How it is the center of different universal and multiversal events?

Are there other planets and civilizations that has a wide array of super people with different origins and power systems? Like the planet has its regular people, and it has people that are just good with weapons like Hawkeye? Or people just really strong because of experiments like Captain America? Genetic freaks? Tony Stark like inventors? Does the planet have outside alien interference, whether that alien being the hero, or the alien is the origin for one of the people getting powers? Are there magic users? Talking animals? Time travel? Villains? Gods?

My question, being, is there a planet or civilization within the fictions that has a similar stated complexity as Earth, even if the details of which are not as much as Earths origin stories? Without it being a mirror Earth?

[Assistant]
Superman's run into quite a few heroes from other planets, such as Vartox or the Superwoman of Staryl. Green Lantern's made it clear that, just as there are the Green Lanterns across the cosmos, some of them have their own rogues to worry about.

You've also got the Legion of Super Heroes, an interstellar group of heroes, and their many foes. Other Legion-era teams include the  Uncanny Amazers of Xanthu, where Star Boy hails from, or the Legion of Substitute Heroes. The Amazers were limited to Xanthu, but the Legion and the Substitute Heroes fought crime on many planets. Many of them had powers due to scientific experiments or magic. Villain-wise, you've got the Fatal Five, various crime gangs, the Superman Revenge Squad, and the Legion of Super Villains.

Meanwhile, over in Marvel, you have the Super Skrulls, the Shi'ar Imperial Guard (which consists of superpowered beings drawn from many of their member planets), the Starjammers, the Nova Corps, the Fraternity of Raptors, the Star Lord, Beta Ray Bill, the Guardians of the Galaxy, the *future* Guardians of the Galaxy, the Space Knights of Galador, the Dire Wraiths, and more.

In both universes, space is populated by aliens, and among those aliens you have heroes and villains with all sorts of powers.


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

[User]
[Deadpool] Was Colossus going to condemn Wade to die a horrible slow painful death?

Deadpool gets put in a super jail that removes his powers and colossus seems to be totally okay with throwing him in there, but surely he must know that Deadpool has cancer and his regenerative powers are literally sustaining his life as Deadpool seems to be totally aware of while in jail. He was of course disappointed with how Deadpool acted as an X-man trainee but was the lawful good guy who wouldn't kill a fly just going to kill someone by taking them off life support?

[Assistant] Lawful is in there too, Wade had just shot a man in cold blood on television. He was genuinely trying to help make Wade a better person but actions have consequences and Colossus would have felt conflicted about letting Wade die but publicly saving a mutant willing to headshot an orderly would have been worse for more people. Would anyone trust or respect X-Men if they were expected to show up and cap someone?


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

[User]
Are companies legally required to provide a list and use of all open source software/projects they use?

I wonder if I can just email their public email address and request a list?

[Assistant]
No. There is software that requires that if you FORK it, you must keep it open source. GPL is famous for that. That's why you can't fork linux and make a closed OS out of it. But this is only enforced at a large scale.

I've seen a couple of people whine because a big corporation downloaded their library and didn't give them credit for using it, which would be a nice thing to do but not legally required.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why Canada remains a Commonwealth country of the British Empire?

As a Canadian, I understand the countries history.. But why in this day is it still linked at all to Britain in the way it is?

[Assistant]
We were British colonies that formed a country that was mostly autonomous from Britain in 1867. Over time we've gradually gained more and more independence to the point where our connection to Britain is entirely ceremonial. We happen to share a head of state.

Why do we still do things this way? It's a combination of tradition, people not really caring enough to want to go to the hassle of changing it, and the monumental (if not impossible) job of totally restructuring the constitution and the way our government is structured to change it.

Ultimately, why bother changing it?


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

[User] [General Superpowers] Whats the worst power to have, if you dont have all the supporting powers (for example, super strength but without the durability, or super speed without the friction resistance)?

[Assistant]
Immortality.

Because it *never ends*. You can be either a worn out husk feeling every bit for all of eternity, or you can be feeling nothing as an immobile pile of atoms but still conscious and incapable of moving.

But you're *still there*. At least with every other power, you can die and end it all.


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

[User]
ELI5: Anti-French sentiment in the United States.

I don't understand it.  What I'm referring to is the comments from conservative types like, "the french are a bunch of wussies!" or referencing how they would be speaking German if it wasn't for us in WWII.  What happened that would give some people these ideas?

(I hope you know what I'm referring to because I can't understand the sentiment and it seems to revolve around those two themes)

Edit: I don't mean the 'freedom fries' and other silly jokes, I mean actual disdain that I have encountered from conservatives mostly in my own family who think the French dropped the ball in WWII and took an apparently ungrateful stance towards the US for their assistance (which I don't know how true that is among the citizenry even if DeGaulle wasn't grateful but I think that may be for reasons to encourage his countrymen more than a slap to the face of America.) Or if the citizens of France were ungrateful, I do not know why.

[Assistant]
The name calling is used to silence and nullify their arguments.

In WW2 France made a lot of poor decisions when it came to defense. The Germans broke through and stormed Paris, which was given up without a fight.

The reality of the situation is more complex, but the obviously childish sentiment is fun to join in on, and any objection merely adds to the amusement.

The reality is that France didn't agree with America's illegal invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. Moreover they were vocal about it.  Unfortunately time has shown France's reticence to be entirely valid and America's taxpayers have paid dearly for their mistake.

This makes the namecalling even more satisfying.


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

[User]
ELI5: How will the upcoming Russia/US space station remain in lunar orbit without being captured by Earth's gravity?

It's all in the title.  How do you keep an object (like a space station) orbitting the moon without that object being captured, and pulled in, by Earth's gravity without using an unreasonable amount of fuel?  If Earth's gravity is strong enough to hold the moon in its orbit (less the small distance away from the Earth it moves each year) does it not stand to reason that the Earth's gravity will hold something much, much smaller?

[Assistant] The force of gravity is inversely proportional to the distance squared between the two things. By having something much closer to the moon than the Earth, the moon will have a greater pull in spite of being less massive. Much like why satellites can orbit the Earth in spite of the sun being significantly more massive.


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

[User]
ELI5: How is Xi Jinping becoming the leader of China's armed forces so different from the US President being the Commander in Chief of the American Armed Forces?

Is it just because he isn't elected democratically, or is there something more than that?

[Assistant]
There are two kinds of organization that control PLA: State government and Communist Party (the only political party in China). Nominally, Xi Jinping is the leader of state government, which in returns also act as Commander-in-Chief. In practice, PLA is controlled by special military commission which is a part of Communist Party. Xi Jinping is also a head of this military commission, to ensure that members of the military commitee (which is composed of military generals stays loyal.

But... The ones that CAN declare war is Politburo, which is ALSO led by Xi Jinping. Confused much? So do I.


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

[User]
ELi5: How do food manufacturers know how many calories are in the food?

For example, say I was a company who grew tomatoes. How would I find out how many calories are in the tomatoes? Thanks!

[Assistant]
They use Food Calorimetry, basically they burn a sample of the food and the energy released heats some water, the temperature change is a measure of the amount of calories.

This tells you how many calories are in the food, it doesn't necessarily tell you how many calories you'll actually absorb from the food when you consume it (which can be impacted by variables like gut microbe composition).


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

[User] [MCU] How Vision is worthy to lift the Mjonir?

[Assistant]
There are two theories, because of course you can't ask the hammer about its judgement:

* Vision is an artificial organism not considered truly "alive" by Mjolnir's enchantment, essentially being able to pick it up the same way Mjolnir does not pull down at an elevator if you put it down on an elevator floor
* Vision is completely selfless, honorable, but at the same time commands respect and authority. Having a warrior's spirit and great personal power even without a weapon, he is as worthy as Thor himself.

In essence, it's hard to tell what Odin meant when he said "if he be worthy". What is "worth" according to Odin? Perhaps he could explain, if he wanted to - but he's not the type to explain himself, and he's dead.


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

[User] ELIF: How do TV captions work on live broadcast?

[Assistant]
A captioner sits at a keyboard and types, really fast, aiming to get enough of the dialogue transcribed to make sense.

It's quite a skilled job. You sometimes see it go wrong, too - when they just lose the plot and fail to follow what's happening.


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

[User]
ELI5:Why do members of an orchestra need to read music to perform a concert yet members of a band don't read music in concerts?

Does the length of the music make it difficult to remember the different nuances?  I can't imagine that they practice less than a band.  It seems more difficult as a band member because they would have to know many different songs.

*edit* Thank you all for your reply's. I've been teaching myself the guitar and wondered this while I was talking things over with my wife.  I had the feeling that the simplicity of rock songs versus a classical piece was the core issue here.  I appreciate all your input and time! :)

[Assistant]
Orchestras can be anything from 30-100 strong. The pieces they play, instead of 3-5 minutes of pretty repetitive music (not to be rude on pop/rock/etc in any way, but there's a structure, and it's easy to learn) are usually around half an hour to an hour long, although this varies hugely. Orchestras are tricky to coordinate and it's a risk to ask that many musicians to memorise a huge piece.

On top of this, there are a lot of directions the conductor would have given the orchestra in the rehearsals that depend on performance practice as well - different time periods had different styles. All the sections have to play exactly the same, and this has to blend with all the other sections of the orchestra.

Band members have probably also written their own materials, and it comes more naturally to memorise this than an hour long symphony.

If it's an opera, you also have the singers to consider - they will have their own nuances that will most likely change each night and it's much easier to anticipate these if you have your music in front of you.


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

[User] I saw on a Netflix documentary that it is possible to make mice bioluminescent by altering their genetic code. Is this possible with all species? How much energy would that cost them (would it affect their metabolism)? Could you make them bioluminescent with any color?

[Assistant]
Similar concept but not bioluminescent, fluorescing animals have been made as tests. Cats and rabbits have been made to express green fluorescing protein, so they glow green under blue lights.

An actual strain of fish have been made called Glofish, they have several different colors and are available commercially for purchase. They express the fluorescing proteins as well. It costs them energy they wouldn't otherwise expend, but not so much to affect their life.


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

[User] Why are harmonic oscillators so important?

[Assistant]
Because any physical system sufficiently close to a stable equilibrium can be approximated as a simple harmonic oscillator.

If you have some smooth potential energy function V(x) with a stable equilibrium point x*_0_*, it can be expanded in a Taylor series about x*_0_*.

V(x) = V(x*_0_*) + V(x*_0_*)(x - x*_0_*) + V(x*_0_*)(x - x*_0_*)^(2)/2 + ...

The constant term doesnt matter, because only differences in potential energy are physical. The linear term is zero, because x*_0_* is assumes to be an equilibrium point, so V is zero there. The quadratic term is positive, because the equilibrium is assumed to be stable. So if you can drop higher-order terms, this boils down to

V(x) = k(x - x*_0_*)^(2)/2, where is a constant. This is a harmonic oscillator potential.

Many quantum systems can be approximated as harmonic oscillators too. For example, harmonic oscillator wavefunctions are convenient to use as a nuclear mean-field basis. There are more reslistic mean field potentials based on the shape of the nuclear density, but they dont have analytic solutions like the QHO does. Additionally in QFT, when you quantize some field, for example the electromagnetic field, you can write the Hamiltonian in terms of creation and destruction operators, which looks exactly like a harmonic oscillator Hamiltonian in terms of oscillator raising and lowering operators.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does the battery on your laptop or phone degrade if you charge it too much or for too long?

[Assistant]
Lithium Ion batteries rely on very small molecular structures to store charge, and these slowly become damaged. The more energy in the battery (both keeping it fully charged and keeping it warm) causes the structures to break down quicker.

It's a completely different reaction, but it's a little like how iron rusts quicker if exposed to salt water.

We don't actually know exactly why the structures break down, but research as worked out that to save battery capacity you should avoid keeping a battery fully changed and keep it cool, so storing batteries at 50% charge in a cool place will make them to last much longer.


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

[User]
[TF2] When a character is claimed to have done something, does that apply to both teams' versions?

Example: In *Meet the Spy* we learn that the RED Spy slept with BLU Scout's mum. But later in the TF Comics, we learn that RED Spy is *RED* Scout's dad.

Does this mean that both Red and Blu Scout's mums are treated as the same character? Are there two Scout's mums?

The more you think about it, the less sense the TF2 timeline makes. Which is to be expected, it's TF2, but that doesn't give answers. When the administrator hired each Merc was it a separate phone call for Red and Blu? Are they separate people at all?

Head = blown.

[Assistant]
That was after the end of **The Gravel Wars** when there is no Blu and Red teams because there was no more Redmond and Blutarch

And IIRC the game is supposed to be an historical recreation of the events of **The Gravel Wars**, as far as we know there is only one of each class, there is no "Red spy is Blu scouts father" only "Spy is Scouts father"


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

[User]
CMV: Obedience is not a virtue; it is a flaw of character.

Obedience to authority figures solely on the grounds that they are authority figures is a moral failing that reduces a person to moral bankrupcy and animality.

If one is instructed to carry out an act, one must question the act upon its merits.  Delegation of moral responsibility to others is something that befits a cringing coward, not a person with moral agency.  Little Eichmanns who *do* delegate their moral responsibility to others are less than human and should be treated with the contempt they deserve.

The only right course of action for an individual is to strive to understand what is right and wrong, and to direct one's actions in a manner that is maximally conducive to the right.  Any less is a shameful failing.

Those incapable of this act are '*less than*', deprived of a fundamental moral faculty that moral agents must possess.  It is an overvalued concept that is embraced and cultivated by religions like Christianity, and preserved by those of a regressive and conservative persuation.  Obedience is only a virtue to fascists, cryptofascists, totalitarians and authoritarians and those lacking the ability or courage to proclaim their concept of right and wrong and act in accord with it.

[Assistant]
False dichotomy.  There are times when obedience is useful and times when it's not.

For the same reason, there are times when authority is good and others when it's not.

Many have a hard time determining when to apply each one, but that is another problem.


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

[User] ELI5: This may be a stupid question, but you know how the brain, or, rather, thought is powered by electrical impulses? Why aren't they scattered and destroyed like in a HDD when you take a magnet to it?

[Assistant]
HDDs work differently. Specifically, they use an actual magnetic disk to store their data, which is why they are so vulnerable to magnets.

The brain functions via electrical impulses that are too small and numerous to collectively disrupt using an electromagnetic effect, so that's out of the picture as well.


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

[User]
Why did you get into economics?

And why do you like it?

[Assistant]
its the perfect balance of quantitative and qualitative.... when i was 15, i went through something which made me realise how lucky i am in comparison to the rest of the world. i became moved by all the poverty and inequality there is. so, i developed a particular fascination in development economics, and economics in general, because its so, so, so important we understand the underlying mechanisms of how our human world works.

i love the subject because its a combination of everything. maths, psychology, sociology, history, politics, philosophy, etc. its so relevant and crucial and dynamic and relates so closely to our everyday life, because it is the study of our everyday life.


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

[User]
[Marvel] Could Magneto replicate Spiderman's wall climbing ability?

Spiderman's ability to stick to almost any surface is because of electrostatic forces, right? And Magneto is the master of (electro)magnetism. Could Magneto also cling to surfaces if he wanted to? I'm gonna be asking this about Comics Magneto because movie Magneto and animated series Magneto seem like they can only manipulate metal and Comics Magneto just has more feats.

[Assistant] Theoretically, yes, but any instance where hes powerful enough to do that, hes also powerful enough to levitate himself indefinitely. So theres not a whole lot of instances where hed need to cling to a surface.


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

[User] [Marvel] If Mjolnir is broken, is it possible to pick up the pieces?

[Assistant] It is possible, though the Worthiness enchantment still carries weight. Throg, the Frog of Thunder, is powered by a shard of Mjolnir. And after its recent destruction against the Mangog, one of the few surviving shards was described as still being very heavy by a still-worthy-ambiguous Odinson.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Is there anything innately special or different about R2-D2 by design compared to other Astromechs, or did he just get lucky?

I've looked through a couple of other threads that talk about R2-D2 in the context of the Clone Wars and through the Original Trilogy, where he has never had his memory wiped like other droids, resulting in a smarter, more capable droid tempered by experience.

But I'm looking at his debut scene in *The Phantom Menace*, where he gets his first moment to really shine in the entire saga by being the one droid to successfully repair the shields of Amidala's ship and save the lives of everyone on board. Even then, the other characters seem to react with surprise that he managed to pull it off, as if he's already outperforming expectations.

Could any of them have done that job if the turbolaser shots landed differently? Could any astromech have been the one to become as resourceful and effective at his job as R2 and eventually be the hero of the Saga? Or was he somehow a more advanced or experimental model than the others?

[Assistant]
At the beginning he was just another droid. Maybe a bit better tuned, maybe with a more creative personality, but nothing made him stand out before running the Naboo blockade. And really, nothing made him stand out for a long time afterward.

What separated R2 from other astromechs was that he went an amazingly long time without having a memory wipe, a common procedure for both droids and computers every so often. If you don't, they tend to develop quirks which get in the way of work, or even become rebellious. On the flip side, they then lose all the knowledge and experience they previously had and start from factory settings.

For whatever reason, R2 managed to go decades without a memory wipe and remain effective. This makes him *exceptional* in that he has years of prior experience to pull from and has become fiercely loyal to his companions, showing a level of ingenuity and bravery rarely seen with simple astromechs.


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

[User]
[The Simpsons] Who built Bart's treehouse?

If Homer built it for Bart, it may count as the best piece of parenting he ever did.
If Bart built it himself (before the start of the series) he would have been a small child and would have had to get pieces of wood as big as he was up a tree...

[Assistant]
Probably it was a team effort by Lenny, Carl, Moe, and Homer working together.  They are lifelong friends and Homer is not totally inept with tools, as long as he hasn't had too many beers.

Four guys working together could have knocked it out in two Saturday afternoons.


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

[User]
[Aladdin] Where did all of Prince Ali's retinue come from? Did the genie create actual humans and animals?

There were hundreds of soldiers, dancing girls, cooks, etc. plus lots of animals.

And where did they go afterwards?

[Assistant]
Genie's rules aren't hard and fast, meaning that he can kill people, make them fall in love and bring them back from the dead (likely not in that order), but are moral choices made by Genie. Since he's a moral character, he likely has other rules that he imposes but are such uncommon wishes that he doesn't need to say them immediately upon being released.

Now, let's explore the options available. He could've created the people. He could've brainwashed them and transported them to Agrabah. Or they weren't real and just constructs/illusions created to emulate people.

The first one, creation, means that either he kills them when they disappear, or he spreads these adult babies, which know little more than singing and dancing, to the far corners of the Earth. The former is against his rules, the latter has serious implications that a moral character wouldn't want to create.

The second option, brainwashing, also has serious implications. It seems to be an extension of the "fall in love" rule by making somebody create decisions against their will. It also ends up with these people having temporary amnesia (hopefully, otherwise they'll have serious mental issues), not remembering the previous [time period] and neglecting their duties.

This only leaves the idea that they are constructs that are not people, but simulacra that can only expound on the greatness of Prince Ali.


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

[User]
Since the CoronaVirus has a limited lifecycle outside of human body (up to 3 days on different surfaces) can the masks left unattended be reused?

If not, why? What are safe ways to disinfect face masks in household conditions?

Edit: Some have claimed that virus on the surfaces can stay infectious for longer than 3 days. I was unable to verify this claim, however. Please do your own research and don't believe what some guy on reddit said.

[Assistant] The newest CDC guidelines contain several reuse strategies, the easiest - if you still have supplies, that is - is to dispense 5 masks/respirators to staff. Have them number them and or the bags they go into, using one mask per day and then placing it into the paper bag (please be careful not to contaminate the inside of the mask). After the fifth day, you start over at mask #1. The research from UNMC suggests that after about 3 days they don't seal well and need to be tossed, but with the rotation that could get you several weeks of use.


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

[User]
Which of a nuclear explosion's effects are unique to it being nuclear?

Radiation and fallout are obviously due to the radioactive fuel source, but what about things like the flash or mushroom cloud? How many of, say, Little Boy's effects could be replicated with 12,000 tons of conventional explosives?

[Assistant]
Mushroom clouds are not unique to nuclear explosions, its just a result of fluid-dynamical instabilities (Rayleigh-Taylor, and subsequently Kelvin-Helmholtz). If you put a denser fluid above a less dense fluid (including fluids of the same composition, but with a downward temperature gradient) buoyancy drives any perturbation on the interface to grow. Thats Rayleigh-Taylor, which drives the stem of the mushroom cloud upward. Then if you have two fluids in contact moving with different velocities at the interface, that causes perturbations at their interface to grow. Thats Kelvin-Helmholtz, and it creates the swirl at the top of the stem, giving a mushroom shape. So this is just the behavior of air when you make it very hot, and a nuclear explosion is just one way to make a region of air very hot.

Like you said, ionizing radiation and residual radioactivity are due to the nuclear reactions that occur, or decays of radionuclides that were present in the nuclear weapon itself. So thats unique to some kind of nuclear device.

But also the thermal effects, including thermal radiation (not all of which is ionizing). The temperatures reached by a nuclear detonation are many orders of magnitude higher than what would be reached with conventional HE.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do things turn pale when you put stress on them, like when you bend mechanical pencils in half?

[Assistant]
Those pencils are made from a polymer. Polymers generally undergo a crazing process when under extreme stress. This process creates small inclusions in the material (if you zoom in you would see what looks like small cracks). The red/blue/yellow color of the pencil is only on the surface, so when these cracks appear the light that would originally hit the colored surface now hits the inner surfaces of the cracks, making it appear white.

Also, if you have a clear piece of thick plastic and you bend it, it turns white for the same reason. Light passes unobstructed through the homogenous, amorphous material, but once those cracks appear the light starts to reflect.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Do Force Sensitive people just have different psychologies than us?

Based on how quickly force sensitive people like Anakin and Ben Solo can flip so radically, and how cautious the Jedi are towards emotions, I get the impression their psyches are much more volatile than real life humans. Is the Force just a very caustic, uh, force? Or are the people in this universe naturally very mercurial?

Or as a third option, Doylian option, are they just poorly written mood swings that weren't intended to say anything about the universe itself? Or more charitably phrased, are these meant to be normal human psyches exaggerated by "artistic license."

[Assistant]
The Dark Side of the Force is *seductive*.  That's what makes it so dangerous. That's why the Jedi Order was an organization of *monks*, rather than knights, soldiers, warriors or even scholars.

Every Force Sensitive being is essentially walking around with their own little version of the One Ring in their heads, just waiting for them to put it on. Because once you start using the Dark Side it is very hard to stop; your anger makes you stronger and that power *feels good*, and that pushes you to get more angry, and more powerful, and so on and so on. The best Sith quickly discover that hatred works even better - it can fuel Dark Side powers just as easily, and doesn't make you quite as stupid or foolhardy as anger. The Dark Side is a bit like one of Voldemort's Horcruxes, in that it amplifies negativity (as well as being fueled by it).

So yes, I'd argue that Force Sensitive beings do have different psychologies than normal people. Their negative emotions have the potential to become addictive in a way ordinary people don't have to worry about. A Sith is, in many ways, just another junkie - only their fix lets them shoot lightning blasts. This is why Jedi can fall so quickly and so hard, and only very rarely come back.

But it also explains why Sith who 'come back' from the Dark Side start acting 'good' so quickly. Ben Solo is an interesting example, because he was never very Sith in the first place. He didn't have an affinity for the Dark Side, like Palpatine, Vader, or Rey; for example he never seemed to get the hang of Force Lightning, unlike Palpatine (who mastered it) and Rey (who could use it almost instinctively) or Vader (who only couldn't use it because it would have shorted out his life support systems).

So when Ben Solo turned towards the Light, don't think of it like an ordinary person doing a complete 180. Think of it like a junkie finding some magical way (the light side of the force) to cleanse themselves of addiction, all at once. Of course his immediately started acting differently - for the first time in years his perspective was no longer being tainted by an addictive cocktail of rage and hatred. For the first time of his life he was no longer itching for his next fix of power - he finally had a truly clear head.

TL:DR - The Dark Side of the Force is basically the One Ring, only it feels good even as it amplifies the negative emotions of anyone who uses it. This is what makes a lack of emotional control so dangerous to the Jedi and explains why Jedi can fall so quickly. But on the flip-side, moving away from the Dark Side of the Force is like finally taking the One Ring off and being free of its influence, explaining why 'redeemed' Sith start acting good again so quickly.


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

[User]
[Dc] Who is the fastest character in all of DC that doesn't get their speed from the Speed Force?

Like who doesn't get their speed from the Speed force but is still super fast and what is their greatest feat? (Also don't get smart with me by saying Eobard who has the "Reverse" Speed Force)

[Assistant]
That actually would go to Hunter Zolomon, though technically he's not so much fast as he is a time manipulator - rather than increasing his speed, he decreases the amount of time it takes for him to do something.

And he was fast enough that it took Wally borrowing speed from Jay, Max, and Bart to even *see* him at first.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why shouldn't we let our smartphones go to 0% battery and neither charge it to 100%?

My past smartphones with a lithium battery were always great in the beginning but with time they lost battery life so charging it twice a day became regular. With a new phone I would like to prolong the battery lifespan. I've read that the phone should not be fully discharged neither have the battery 100%. Why's that? How does that affect the battery lifespan?

[Assistant]
First, the percentages your phone shows you are not the absolute percentages for the battery.  There's a safety margin on both ends to keep it in the happier zone.

Lithium Ion batteries suffer at ultra low charge levels.  It relies on a reversible chemical reaction that builds up material on the ends when its discharging and puts it back into the liquid when its charging.  Every charge cycle some of the material builds up on the ends permanently and doesn't return to solution which cuts into your battery life, if you bring the battery charge too low it builds up more.  If you bring it too low it can drop below a critical voltage where it can never be recharged again, this is why your phone doesn't let your battery get to within 10% of its *real* charge level, the reported 0% charge isn't 0% real charge.

Overcharging is another risk because the battery will begin to heat up because there's no chemicals left to store the power in so it just turns it into heat.  Battery powered devices have charge controllers on board that will cut off the charging so you don't have to worry about this.

For the most part, people with wayyyy better information about the specific quirks of your battery have already designed a good battery management system for it so you don't need to worry as much.  Your phone is actually happiest when the battery is at 100% and on the charger because it cuts power to the battery and just runs off the charger power so hours spent like this are hours that aren't going up and down using up charge cycles.


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

[User]
[DC/Batman] Why does Gotham PD use dirigibles?

You don't see GPD blimps in every imagining of Batman, but they are in a significant portion. AFAIK helicopters are less expensive to buy, less expensive to operate, and better at tracking bad guys on the run.

[Assistant]
Gotham is notoriously corrupt from the top down. Buying blimps and other inefficient, costly and sometimes ugly aircraft lines the pockets of the manufacturers and ensures they remain working in Gotham when so many other businesses have left. With those major manufacturing firms and companies working, they in turn line the pockets of politicians and business owners who have a stake in keeping them around. They may or may not also work as fronts for illegal activities.

The city tries to pass these shady deals off as a tourism benefit. Gotham has a unique skyline thanks to the dirigibles. And unique skylines bring interested tourists.


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

[User] [Battlestar Galactica] Why does every piece of paper have 4 corners cut off?

[Assistant] I dont think there ever was an in-universe reason mentioned, but in real life it was a gag by the production crew. During the mini-series, SyFy was micromanaging the budget, so the crew cut the corners of the papers as an inside joke. And it stuck.


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

[User]
[Looper] How did some people develop telekinesis?

The movie says that a small part of the population developed telekinesis through a mutation or something. Is there any further explanation for this? Also, how is Cid much more powerful than everyone else with this mutation?

[Assistant] Both of his parents were tk users, and his mother was exceptionally powerful, several times stronger than any other tk she had met. So he had good genes going for him. A real world analog would be tetrachromatism, the same mutation that makes men colorblind can make some women see color exceptionally well, to the tune of thousands of times more colors than normal humans.


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

[User]
Would the night sky have appeared much brighter in the time of the dinosaurs?

Given that the universe is expanding, and that apparent brightness of celestial bodies is governed by the inverse square law, would there have been a noticeable difference in the brightness of the night sky during, say, the early Jurassic Period?

[Assistant] The universe is expanding, but gravity keeps small-scale (relatively speaking!) structures like galaxies - and even groups of galaxies - together. The volume of space containing all the stars we can see is a vanishingly small part of our galaxy! So the number of stars visible doesn't really change as the Universe expands. It might fluctuate a bit as the solar system makes its long orbit around the galactic center.


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

[User]
How do astronomers know the "red shift" is coming from the Doppler effect and not from static stars producing light at a red wavelength?

Would scientists not need a benchmark to know what wavelength the star is emitting and then what it is received at? If so, how do they determine the emitted wavelength?

[Assistant] They measure the full spectrum of light. Each element creates a distinct absorption line on the spectrograph. When you look at a red-shifted Star,  all the elements are there in the right relationship to each other, its just that the entire spectrum is shifted towards the red.


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

[User]
Is there a theoretical limit to how much detail we can get from satelital images?

The resolution you can get out of Google maps is pretty good, and we can make our individual persons most of the time. Will the technology ever get so good that we will be able to make out, say, an ant?
If not, does the limit come from our technological capacity or is the limit a theoretical one, where it's physically impossible to get more resolution/detail?

[Assistant]
Diffraction puts a (quite) hard limit on the size you can resolve. To distinguish two things (like an ant from the ant next to it) with a separation x from a distance d using wavelength lambda your telescope should have a diameter of d\*lambda/x. Let's take 5 mm for the ants, 400 km for the orbit, and 500 nm for the wavelength, then your telescope needs a diameter of 40 meters. That's the size of the largest optical telescope under construction on Earth (ELT), and much larger than any space telescope under development. You don't need a full mirror that size, an interferometer that has a few smaller mirrors spread out that much can work as well, but this is not easy to build either.

Atmospheric distortions are another thing to worry about - currently more relevant for space telescopes looking outwards, but on the level of watching ants this might become relevant for the opposite direction, too.

Google maps uses satellite images for large-scale views and images from airplanes for the higher zoom levels. If you can see people then the image is most likely from an aircraft.


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

[User]
[WH40K] Has any aspect of the Imperium improved since 30K?

Like for instance, the Custodes have been holding back a hellmouth for 10,000 years right? Does that mean they're extra hardcore now? Is there anything the 40K Imperium does better than the 30K iteration?

[Assistant]
Standardization, in 30k each capital ship for example was a unique piece of engineering that required its own unique components and training for its crew, and if it where from a different system it would sometimes be built with entirely different technologies that would be as different to other Imperial ships as those of another faction.

In 40k more STCs have been rediscovered and they are uniformly spread throughout the galaxy, a Lunar-class Cruiser built in the Ultima Segmentum will be very similar to a Lunar-class Cruiser built Segmentum Pacificus. This means crew is interchangeable, modules can be attached and changed without ship specific expertise and a ship can easily operate and get repairs in any part of the galaxy.


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

[User]
ELI5: Is there a limit to the amount of flavor a person can process?

Is that pepper actually hotter than a person can taste, or is sugar sweeter but a person is limited by their taste buds or brain receptors?

[Assistant]
Yes, there is a point where your sensory receptors become 100% satiated and no longer accept additional imput.

You can test this yourself.  Close your eyes, and have a friend hold something fragrant under your nose for between 5 and 10 seconds, an try to guess when they take it away.  Chances are you will guess too early, because your scent receptors filled up, and no longer registered the smell.


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

[User] ELI5: How do contact lenses stay perfectly centered on your eye and slide/rotate back into place after you move them aside?

[Assistant] Your eye isn't just a perfect sphere. The lens is actually a bump out from the surface and the contact is curved. Staying on the lens then is preferred because sliding off would require pulling away or deforming the contact.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] What a hunk of junk, and other comments on the Falcon.

Nearly everyone comments on the extreme unsuitability of the Falcon upon first seeing it.  "You came in that? You're braver than I thought."  "The garbage will do."
I know Han intends for the Falcon not to look flashy, but my question is this:  Are the YT-1300 line considered to be particularly junky ships to begin with, or is there something about the appearance of the Millennium Falcon specifically that elicits this particular response?

[Assistant]
The YT-1300 has a rep in universe as being heavily modifiable, having enough internal space and power to handle anything you could reasonably drop into a vessel that size.

But the Millennium Falcon took it a bit too far; the engines have been tricked out virtually to the maximum, and the internal spaces have been extensively rearranged to make room for gizmos like concealed weapons, high powered point defense guns, and smuggling compartments with shielding and built-in emergency auto-ejectors. If all these mods were done in a professional shop or shipyard, this would be ok, but they weren't; Han and Chewie (and Lando when he held the pink slip) did their mods on the fly, without professional assistance and in settings that make "rough" look nice, often under significant time pressure and using components never meant for the purposes they intended.

By the time Luke claps eyes on it, they've layered mods on top of mods, jury rigged repairs to fix their previous repairs, and generally made a pretty severe mess of things.

End result? One of the slickest rides in the galaxy, when it works, and a rough looking scrapheap 24/7.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Why can a Jedi wield other Jedi's lightsaber without issue?

If Lightsabers are built specifically tailor for the user alone since he/she is the one who built it; how come Jedi's usually don't have a problem being given a spare lightsaber and still use it proficiently?

 Like for instance when Obi-Wan and Anakin lost both their lightsaber in Geonosis and were given a random lightsaber yet they wield if as if they had built it themselves. Even for example Barriss was able to use Ventress's light-saber and still duel Anakin even getting the upper hand in many cases.

[Assistant]
Where did you get the idea that each lightsaber is only usable to one Jedi? That's like saying that a gun can only be used by the person who put it together.

No, a lightsaber is just like any other weapon, anyone, Jedi or not, can pick one up and use it. The difference is only a Jedi could use one to its full potential.  That said, when a Jedi does build their own lightsaber they do so to fit their personal style of fighting as well as their own dimensions, but for the most part that wouldn't hinder another Jedi from using it.


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

[User]
ELI5: When people eat whole honeycomb, are they eating bee larvae also?

-

[Assistant] Generally, hives separate comb by use: some is for storing pollen, some is for storing nectar, some is for storing honey, and some are for laying eggs and raising brood. It's not 100%, and stuff does get mixed up a bit. It's very possible that you could bite into a larva, but if you know what you're doing, you know what you're looking for and are going to know when there is brood rather than honey.


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

[User]
Why can't you absorb mercury (metal) with a sponge?

If sponges absorb liquids, and mercury is a liquid metal, why can't mercury be absorbed by a sponge?

[Assistant]
When you pick up water with a sponge, some of the water forms very weak chemical connections with the material of the sponge.  We say that the sponge is 'wettable' with water.

Mercury doesn't have the same chemical properties as water, and won't make the same connections.  If you had a sponge made of say, gold, it would pick up the mercury, but the mercury would also form an amalgam with the gold.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do so many games now not have local LAN? Is it hard to implement?

[Assistant]
At least a few games have removed LAN functionality as a means of DRM - when the publisher controls the servers they control what clients are allowed to play multiplayer.

Also you may be perceiving a general shift towards MMO-style games which your average consumer could not hope to host themselves.


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

[User] (Marvel) Why does Spider-Man have web shooters? Can he not shoot webs from his arms?

[Assistant] Before being bitten by the radioactive spider, Peter already had genius level intellect. The spider bite gave him the reflexes and strength of a spider, but since spider web is manufactured in the abdomen of a spider, that ability wasn't passed on to him. Using his ingenuity, he invented the web shooters to further his capabilities of "Spider-Man"


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

[User] ELI5: How come when something really hurts our feelings we can feel it in the pit of our stomach and chest?

[Assistant]
Your body and brain and part of the same system. Your emotions impact your body, just like your body impact your emotions.

A section of your nervous system lines your digestive tract: the enteric nervous system. It is full of motor neurons that contract and relax muscles all the way from the esophagus to the anus to get your food into your stomach, digested, and eliminated (among other functions). Normally you wouldn't notice it working away, but if things go into overdrive, your stomach can feel weird.

[There is quite a bit of overlap between nervous system and the gastrointestinal system. Neurogastroenterology is the focus of a lot of research right now because there is a lot we simply don't know.]

Anxiety or stress causes muscle tightness all over the body--it readies the body for fight, flight, or freezing. There are muscles all over your chest, so you feel it as tension or tightness. This response also increases blood pressure, heart rate, breathing, and other functions. The result is that you can feel like your chest is heavy, feel your heart racing, feel your heart pounding, feel shortness of breath, etc.


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

[User] ELI5: "It's the amps which kill you not volts." But, wouldn't amps be always constant for given volt, as R=V/I. (Where R of human body is same)

[Assistant]
It depends on the power source. Some power sources limit the amount of current that can be drawn independently of the supplied voltage.

For example, many AC-DC adapters will limit the current output to a certain amperage like 1.0 A independent of what the voltage output is. Similarly, some circuit breakers are designed to trip after 15 amps whereas others will permit up to 30 amps of electrical flow. Another example is tasers which supply very high voltages (thousands of volts) but limit the current flow to a very low amperage so the electric shock is non-lethal.


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

[User]
ELI5:What is the difference between Indy Car and Formula One racing?

Ever since the Indy 500, Ive started catching some racing on the weekends and to me, the cars look pretty much the same.

Thank you!

[Assistant]
I would say that there are a couple of main differences.  First, F1 teams build their own car from scratch, every single year.  They manufacture the bodywork and many of the components in-house by themselves.  Therefore, while they look similar, different teams have radically different cars and approaches.  Indy car, on the other hand, features cars that are built to pretty much the same spec, with the engines being different, along with setup changes.

In addition, while Indy cars have a higher top speed due to their engines, F1 cars are able to take a corner at a much higher speed due to the emphasis that F1 places on aerodynamics and downforce.  If an Indy car and an F1 car were to race at a road course, the F1 car would likely beat the Indy car by quite a large margin due to its cornering ability.  However, since F1 cars are not designed to race on ovals, while Indy cars are, an oval track would show the advantage that Indy cars have in power.


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

[User]
[Dracula] Why can't Dracula control dogs?

In the book he's said he can control bats, wolves, rats, foxes and moths. At one point he summons a horde of rats to attack the heroes and one of the heroes let's his three dogs loose to take care of the rats.

Why couldn't Dracula just take control of the dogs? What would makes a dog different from a wolf to be immune to his power?

[Assistant]
The difference is probably a thousand generations of domestication.

He has probably more control over 'wild' animals than those like dogs who have been intentionally bred to follow a human's orders blindly.

Which now makes me wonder why he didn't control cats.


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

[User]
ELI5: How are standardized tests so expensive?

For example, the SAT is about $50 ($70 for late registration), subjects tests are about $20, and AP tests are $95. What goes into these for such a high price?

[Assistant]
The price of a good or service isn't wholly dictated by how much it costs to produce or provide, but how much can be charged to achieve maximum profitability for the seller. It's mostly about how much people are willing to pay.

With that said, the production cost of the product is probably a bit higher than you realize. Some portion must go to supporting test centers (for some tests, anyway), which must have a proctor, security measures, and generally a fixed physical location. You have to employ people to generate the content, and refresh that content periodically. You have to design multiple test forms and then find a way to norm them (often, there will be entirely different questions on different forms, not just the same questions in different orders).

I'll also state that the SAT and AP tests are cheap. Try seeing how much taking the MCAT, GRE, a GRE subject test, or the LSAT will cost you. It's much worse. I'd imagine this is partly because it's easier to demand a higher price for these tests, as people are willing to pay it. I'd imagine a small part of the additional cost is getting people to produce the actual test questions (of course, there have been controversies about how similar tests are from form to form, and year to year... so this probably isn't a huge part of it).


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

[User] Are lost memories gone forever? Or are they somehow stored somewhere in the brain?

[Assistant]
It depends on whether or not the memories are consolidated into longterm memory.  It takes several hours for recent memories to be consolidated into long term memory. This is the reason why individuals who suffer traumatic brain injuries tend to not remember what happened immediately prior to the injury.  Alternatively, if when an individual has consolidated a fact or event into memory and later is unable to recall it, this is most likely due to the retrieval pathway being lost. Sometimes, pathways can be retrieved.  An instance of this is struggling and eventually remembering someone's name. The memory (person's name) is there, it just took a while to retrieve it.

Dementia patients are often unable to consolidate new memories but are still able to recall events from their past.


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

[User] ELI5: How does storage on phones and computers actually work, and why is there a limit?

[Assistant]
Modern phones and computers use "Solid State" storage. It works basically by charging super tiny parts (called floating gate transistors) in the solid state drive. These parts hold a charge, and the drive scans to see if the parts are charged (0) or not charged (1). This is binary storage, since all computers run on binary, which is just a very fast input of 1s and 0s.

You run out of storage because these transistors, small as they may be, still take up physical space. You can cram terabytes into a very small space, but this is incredibly expensive and most people don't use enough storage to make this worth it.

Some computers still use a "hard drive", which is a series of disks with small magnetic particles in them. When writing to a hard drive, a magnet sends specially timed charges to the disk, which then change the magnetic orientation of the particles, and when reading, it detects which ones are magnetized one way (1) or another way (0). Again, it's binary. A hard drive requires spinning discs so it takes a while. SSDs do not require anything moving so they are much faster.

So the even more boiled down answer: A small piece of physical space is either electrically or magnetically designated 1 or 0, which the computer can read and turn into an image on your screen. You run out of space because these small pieces are expensive to make and take up room.


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

[User] ELI5: The difference between Laws, Statutes, and Ordinances in the USA?

[Assistant]
Statutes and ordinances are laws. Statutes are promulgated by the federal and state government. Ordinances are promulgated by counties and cities.

Statutes will apply in the whole state or country (if federal). Ordinances will only apply in the particular city or county where they are passed.


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

[User]
ELI5: Physics Question. Plane falling, jump at the last second, land fine?

Okay so, I know this has probably been answered somewhere before, but I couldn't find it on google. If you were on a plane that was falling from the sky (1000 feet fall, for example) and just before the plane hit the ground, you jumped (IF you were able to jump even though all the force coming down on you, etc). I know that you would still splat dead regardless of IF YOU COULD jump, but could somebody please explain to me, like I'm five, why you wouldn't survive the jump. Thanks very much in advance!

[Assistant] If you are falling at 300 mph, and you manage to jump upwards at a speed of 10 mph (relative to the plane), you are still falling at 290mph relative to the ground. You may marginally lessen the impact, but it's still going to go splat.


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

[User]
ELI5: How can teachers (legally) deny you the right to go to the bathroom (in the US)

Excuse any errors if there are any, English isn't my first language. After I moved to the US, I was shocked in school when a teacher denied a student the right to go to the bathroom.

In the US, doesn't this violate your human rights of some sort? You don't make a dog ask for permission but you make a child do? Doesn't this violate the OSHA regulations?

[Assistant]
Generally teachers do not refuse students a trip to the bathroom.

You are really only made to ask to demonstrate that you can't exit the classroom without the teacher's permission. Its an authority lesson more than anything else.